Considering that my second sister officially starts work on Wednesday, she might have to come over on Tuesday to complete the formalities.
So Xiao Jiu simply took a day off, skipped evening self-study on Monday night, took the lock to the Weng family in Liuxiang to change it, and left a spare one for the old lady.
Afterwards, he took off the large and small bags he had been carrying from the bicycle and declined the old lady's help.
"It's alright, Grandma, I can manage on my own. You go and take care of my Grandpa Weng!"
As soon as the old lady left, Xiao Jiu changed into her tattered clothes and started cleaning, inside and out, until the cleaning was completely finished.
The place is so small, it was all cleaned up in an hour or two.
That night, I stayed in this single room, which was actually the warehouse staff dormitory.
The staff dormitory had several bunk beds, and she set one up, complete with her own mattress.
The other side of the table was just big enough to fit the bunk bed, so she used the storage room to take away the two cabinets first.
After the bunk beds are in place, place two sets of wardrobes next to the beds on both sides, one on each side.
Then I hung up the curtains, both the front and back windows. And you know what? The curtains that I took down actually looked pretty good when I hung them up.
She even took down the bed curtains in the staff dormitory, washed them, and put them back on.
The upper bunk can be used to store some miscellaneous items, and she lives on the lower bunk.
The remaining items in the staff dormitory included shoe cabinets, shelves, two chairs, four small plastic stools, a folding table, a trash can, an electrical outlet, two red plastic buckets, and four plastic basins of different sizes.
It's astonishing that there's an electric kettle that only became popular two thousand years ago, used for boiling water. Of course, the one in her hand can boil everything.
For example, you can put it in a bucket or a pot to prevent electric shock, making it much safer and more reliable.
But there's only one light switch in the room, not even a socket. I'll have to find someone who knows about electricity to install some sockets. It's so inconvenient right now.
Besides these, she also set out pots and pans, and even pasted old newspapers and cardboard boxes behind the door and on the wall as cover. She unloaded about a hundred yuan worth of coal. There weren't many coal briquettes, but they were enough for her second sister to use temporarily. When she gets her coal ration book later, she can buy coal every month.
These items in her online space were bought in the county town before. She didn't have many, so giving her 100 yuan was already quite generous.
She wasn't worried that the old folks or the people in the yard would suspect how she managed to transport all these things by herself.
If she said she had someone bring it over in the middle of the night or early in the morning, no one would really investigate.
I'll get it done before my second sister does, so she won't have to rack her brains for a solution.
Next are the water buckets; two red plastic buckets will suffice.
There's a water pipe here, and the water in this bucket is enough for temporary use.
After a night's rest, I started tidying up the things on the storage shelves early the next morning, including oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and various seasonings.
We need rice, flour, oil, various beans and grains, but we also need to buy a few more mixing bowls, plates and bowls for eating.
The staff dormitories can be used for entertaining guests, but they should buy new ones for themselves.
After figuring out what was missing, Xiao Jiu locked the door and rode his bicycle to various supply and marketing cooperatives to buy goods.
Soap, hand soap, laundry detergent, matches, an aluminum kettle for boiling water, and since a cast iron wok alone wasn't enough, I also bought a large earthenware pot for cooking porridge that wouldn't chip, a ceramic pot for stewing meat, a strainer for placing in the cast iron pot, towels, an enamel basin, a kettle, a cup, sewing needles, sewing thread, scissors, a kitchen knife for cutting vegetables, a metal thermos, a bamboo thermos, an umbrella, and so on.
Fortunately, most of these items don't require coupons and can be purchased with money. However, by the end of this year, once industrial vouchers are fully implemented, these items will require coupons to purchase.
When regular employees receive their monthly salary, they get one coupon for every 20 yuan of their salary. If she buys in such large quantities, it would take her at least a year to save up.
So regardless of whether it's useful now or not, she bought it first, just in case she might need it in the future.
She didn't dare buy too much from one supply and marketing cooperative, for fear of attracting attention, so she bought from multiple cooperatives.
Once you've bought something and can't carry it anymore, quickly move it to another location and transfer it to your online space to continue buying.
After a morning, Xiao Jiu was surprised by her own purchasing power; she had spent 100 yuan and only had 18 yuan left.
But looking at the mountain of loot piled up in the space, I immediately felt it was all worth it!
Then he packed some spoils that he didn't care about getting hurt into a sack and put them on his bicycle before heading home before noon.
Fortunately, my sister hadn't come over yet, so she put the things she bought back in their proper places.
After the whole house was tidied up, they realized they hadn't bought any cotton, so they had to go to a cotton-fluffing shop to fluff a quilt for her.
Before she could even leave, her second sister returned after finishing her business. Judging from her cheerful appearance, everything had gone smoothly.
Upon entering, she was stunned: "My God, did you do all of this by yourself? How did you manage that?"
“I didn’t do all of this by myself. I asked someone to help me bring it back. They worked on it until midnight last night, and then they got some more this morning. I just got back from the supply and marketing cooperative. I bought a lot of things. Don’t stand there. Hurry up and put your bedding down. You’re carrying too much.”
The bedding was placed in a large sack, and he carried a long backpack on his back, which was full of changes of clothes.
After helping Tang Cuiju unload the goods, I spread them directly on the bed. "My older sister had already taken them apart, washed them, and dried them for me at home."
The mattress and quilt are the size of a single bed. The mattress is 1.2 meters wide and 2 meters long, and the quilt is 1.5 meters wide and 2 meters long. After it is laid out, there is still a gap inside.
"It's fine, I'm sleeping alone anyway, it's fine like this. You're really capable, you must have spent a lot of money, even getting a bunk bed?"
As she spoke, she looked at her own bed and then at the bunk bed, and Xiao Jiu immediately guessed what she was thinking.
"Sis, I'll sleep on the top bunk and you can sleep on the bottom bunk. I won't be coming over often. As for this bed, I'll find a place to move it first, and we'll bring it back when we're no longer living here."
Tang Cuiju was speechless with shock. "You know quite a few people, don't you?"
"Hehe, I have a lot of classmates. As long as I pay, what can't I do? Once this bed is moved out, our room will be a bit bigger."
Tang Cuiju also thought it was a good idea, mainly because her bedding was not big enough to fit on her 1.5-meter bed.
"I need to go to the post office this afternoon to pick up some purchase permits."
The so-called purchase certificate was mainly used to buy things like matches, kerosene, and salt. With this purchase certificate, you could reserve a certain quantity of the things you wanted to buy.
Of course, the regulations vary from place to place. You can use match tickets or similar coupons issued by the county government, but in L city, you need a purchase certificate.
Tang Cuiju wandered around the room as if it were a novelty, looking at it again and again. When she saw the coal briquettes, her feelings became increasingly complicated.
He couldn't help but think of his fourth sister at home, who would occasionally conjure up fish and meat, and a vague guess began to form in his mind.
Actually, when they were at home, the girls had already guessed what was going on, but their eldest sister forbade them to say anything or ask, so they kept quiet.
I never expected that even my youngest sister would be so capable after we came to the city.
Everything was prepared almost overnight.
This feeling was strange and touching, but it also meant she had less room to use her talents.
She could only continue to pretend she didn't know. No wonder her older sister told her to discuss everything with her younger sister...
Well, she'll just have to listen to me!
That way, she won't have to worry about it, right?
Knowing that my younger sister took a day off today to help her tidy up her house, it would be a lie to say I wasn't touched.
I brought some dry food with me when I came in the morning, and I'm not hungry even after eating two meals.
"Alright, let's start cooking again tonight."
Around two or three o'clock in the afternoon, Tang Cuiju went out again.
After she left, Xiao Jiu put the entire large wooden bed into her space.
After thinking it over, they moved out another bunk bed, so both sisters could sleep on the lower bunk.
She also found a bed curtain for Tang Cuiju, but it needed to be washed before being hung up.
After putting away the wooden bed, I cleaned the space under it and mopped it before placing the iron bed there.
In this way, the two wardrobes are positioned with their backs facing the bed, thus blocking prying eyes from outside.
If we weren't short of fabric, we could just pull over a curtain to completely isolate ourselves from the outside.
But such a long and wide piece of cloth would have to be bought at a high price on the black market, which is not cost-effective.
It would be better to ask Sister Zhen when you have some free time if she knows any textile factories. If she could get a batch of defective fabric, it could be used to make curtains.
In the afternoon, I went outside and found some dry branches and leaves. I managed to light a piece of coal, but it went out as soon as I put it in the stove.
Fortunately, she was just pretending, and eventually she did manage to retrieve a half-burnt piece of coal from her spatial storage.
The coal briquettes, when stationary in space, can be easily removed at any time.
So whenever she cooks a meal outside, she always saves one or two pieces for later.
When my second sister came, she brought a steamer full of mixed grain cornbread, and Xiao Jiu simply cooked a pot of sweet potato and corn porridge.
These past two days, while she was working, there were quite a few prying eyes outside, but Xiao Jiu shut them out by closing the door.
She won't go to them unless they come to her on their own initiative.
Judging from how these people work from dawn till dusk, they must all have jobs. As for where they work, she didn't bother to find out.
Most importantly, none of the people in this courtyard have children; they are all single.
From this perspective, the elderly couple in the Weng family are very wise!
Once families move in, it's hard to get rid of them; it's a different story for single people.
Being able to live here alone or with friends is considered quite a privilege.
In those days, it was perfectly normal for several generations of a family to squeeze into a small room of just over ten square meters.
People with financial means rarely try to embezzle other people's houses, let alone worry about them staying and refusing to leave in the future.
She didn't cook any dishes for dinner, but took out a lunchbox of pickled vegetables from her spatial storage, enough to last her a week.
Just as things were settled here, my second sister came back carrying her work clothes. She immediately spotted the stove, steaming and emitting a sweet aroma.
"Oh, when did you get this stove? I didn't even notice it."
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