With his wife speaking so confidently, Shu Jiandang felt relieved.
Before the two brothers got married, their relationship was pretty good. But after they got married, they gradually developed a rift in order to protect their own interests. When he built his house, he occupied Shu Aiguo's homestead without feeling guilty. His wife was right. Shu Aiguo was so poor that he probably couldn't afford to build a house in his lifetime. What was the point of having such a large homestead?
What's wrong with me, the older brother, occupying his little plot of land?
However, given how things have turned out, there is no possibility of reconciliation. Naturally, Shu Jiandang does not want Shu Aiguo to live well; it would be best if he were always suppressed by him.
The next morning, without an alarm clock or a watch, relying entirely on the village chickens for help, Chu Yu woke up at 4:30.
It was still dark, the night was hazy, and the air was sticky.
Rongtai County is a two-hour drive from Deyang City. Shanguan Village is located west of Rongtai County, and it is actually closer to Deyang City, but it takes more than an hour by bus.
The journey should have taken more than an hour, at least fifty miles, right? But when it came to actually walking, the straight-line distance wasn't that far. It was just that the gravel road was bumpy, and the cars always had to wait for passengers and take detours, which left the villagers with the impression that it was not easy to get to the city.
By the time they reached the city, it was already daylight. Chu Yu asked someone for directions and found that the Chinese medicine purchasing station was in the old city, but he had heard that it was going to move to the northern suburbs, and passersby were not sure if it had actually moved.
Deyang City is far superior to Rongtai County. In 1983, the city's urban planning was already taking shape, and Deyang City had just been divided into north and south suburbs.
The southern suburbs are remote and have been designated as a heavy industrial zone. The city's machinery factories, parts factories, and blower factories are all located in the southern suburbs.
The northern suburbs are a light industrial zone, with pharmaceutical factories, enamelware factories, rubber shoe factories, and daily chemical factories all located in the north.
The Chinese medicine purchasing station was also supposed to move there this year, but there had been no news since the news came out. Chu Yu thought that relocation was a thankless task, and it would take a year or two from the promulgation of the policy to its implementation. The purchasing station would most likely still be in the old place.
Sure enough, by then, it was only a little past eight o'clock, and there was already a long queue.
Chu Yu pushed her bicycle and stood at the back of the line. As soon as she stopped, an aunt came over with a bamboo pole.
Sun hats, hair ties, scarves, sunglasses, and other items were hanging on bamboo poles. The styles weren't particularly novel, but this form of sales opened Chu Yu's eyes. He never expected that Deyang City would have this kind of hawking in the early 1980s. Indeed, the wisdom of the people is boundless.
"Young lady, want to buy a sun hat? Don't let your youth and good skin fool you, you'll look old in a few years if you don't wear a hat!"
The auntie is a marketing genius; she knows how to make money by exploiting customers' anxieties. Chu Yu smiled and asked, "How much is one?"
"This is a sun hat from the south, it's only two yuan a hat, the latest style, it's very fashionable to wear! If you like it, Auntie will give you one to try on."
Two yuan is really not cheap. Few people in the county town would spend money to buy this, but Deyang City has a high per capita income level, and the city's pharmaceutical factory and rubber shoe factory are known for their good performance.
Ninety percent of the rubber shoes worn by young people across the country came from rubber shoe factories. Pharmaceutical factories were even more remarkable, with dormitories divided into south and north factories. The dormitory area alone had more than fifty buildings, not to mention the production area, living area, and departments. In addition, there were nurseries, kindergartens, technical schools, and everything else. After graduation, job placement was guaranteed, and after death, there was a mortuary at the factory's staff hospital waiting to take in the deceased.
There's a joke circulating in Deyang that says the pharmaceutical factory is a closed, independent kingdom, where you can't leave from birth to death.
Jokes aside, this also reflects the situation of several large factories in Deyang City. The workers and their children in well-paid factories and mines have no worries about food or clothing, so spending two yuan to buy a sun hat is really nothing.
Sun hats don't cost much, at most a few cents each, but since there aren't any sun hats available locally, the auntie's skill lies in bringing them back from other places and profiting from the information gap.
Chu Yu pondered the possibility of selling small commodities, her tone sincere:
"Auntie, it's too expensive, I don't have money to buy a sun hat."
"It's okay if you don't have money," the auntie encouraged her with a smile. "Work hard and you'll be able to afford a sun hat from my shop someday!"
Chu Yu was just smiling after being given a mouthful of heartwarming words of encouragement when she heard an old man's shouting from ahead:
"I clearly weigh 80 jin, so how come it's counted as 75 jin?"
The old man was selling dried tangerine peel. The price of dried tangerine peel wasn't expensive, but good quality dried tangerine peel wasn't cheap either. Eighty catties was counted as seventy-five catties. According to the purchase price on the blackboard, there was at least a difference of two yuan, which was not a small amount of money, so of course the old man was going to haggle over it.
"My dried tangerine peel is quite old, it should sell for at least four or five cents, why are you only asking for three cents?"
The purchasing station worker yawned, "Don't the sacks weigh? Don't the moisture weigh? There's nothing wrong with our operation. It's just seventy or fifty pounds, three cents a pound. If you don't want to sell, go to the side and let the people downstairs weigh it."
The old man's face darkened, but the people who came to sell their goods were in dire need of money. The prices at the city's recycling stations were a bit low, but if you didn't sell, would you have to take it to another recycling station? The recycling stations in the county couldn't afford the price, and going to other cities was not only too far, but he was also afraid of encountering the same thing again.
When you get to a place like this, you have to keep your head down and sell, whether you want to or not.
Chu Yu started to worry about her Night-Shining Sand. Although the Night-Shining Sand had dried, she had dragged along a full three hundred jin (150 kg). If someone really wanted to trap her, this trip wouldn't have been worth it.
When it was her turn, the same checks, weighing, and prescriptions were performed.
"Whose luminous sand?"
“Mine,” Chu Yu stepped forward.
The staff member looked up and met a beautiful woman with flawless skin. He blushed and felt a little awkward. "Night-shining sand, right? Two hundred and eighty catties, purchase price is three cents."
Twenty pounds less, but the purchase price was still high, which was already considered lenient. Chu Yu knew that this was because of her appearance, so she quickly struck up a conversation with the staff, hoping to become familiar with them.
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