Chapter 116
Baby Wu Yuzhuo suddenly started talking, surprising and delighting his unprepared parents.
"Did she call me mom just now?" Ye Manzhi asked, hugging the quilt.
"Hmm," Wu Zhengrong stroked the hair of both the big and small child, unmistakable joy in his eyes. "Not only did she call me mom, she also asked you to get up and go to work. Hurry up and get up!"
Ye Manzhi got up and washed up like a sleepwalker. After being completely awakened by the cold water, he excitedly hugged his daughter in his arms.
"Baby, how come you can talk all of a sudden? You're so amazing! You can even call me Mommy!" She kissed her daughter's soft little face several times, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. "I told you, we have words and can talk, we're not dumb!"
Youyan held the stuffed tiger in his arms, nodded earnestly, and said in his tender little voice, "Not hoarse."
Ye Manzhi glanced at the military representative who was left alone and asked with a smile, "Our daughter speaking is such a big deal, why are you so calm and not excited at all?"
"She didn't call me dad, why should I be so excited?"
Ye Manzhi nudged her daughter, "Call me daddy! Your dad's jealous!"
Hearing this, little Wu Yuzhuo stood on tiptoe and opened her arms towards her father.
Comrade Wu Zhengrong - a level 10 scholar in children's facial expressions and body language - easily understood what his daughter meant.
But this time he didn't move, just waiting for his daughter to call him before responding.
Wu Yuzhuo stood on tiptoe for a long time, but her father didn't come to pick her up. Finally, she said, "Ride on my neck!"
Ye Manzhi and Wu Zhengrong: "::::::"
"Hahaha," Ye Manzhi comforted the depressed man, "Maybe it's because I always say I want to ride on her neck, and she remembers it."
Wu Zhengrong tapped his daughter on the forehead and said, "I've been riding on your back all day, and you haven't even called me once."
Ye Manzhi handed the child to her and let the father and daughter communicate privately. She sat down at the table and quickly ate breakfast.
"The steamed bread in the cafeteria is really hard on the throat. We still have a few bags of wheat at home. Let's grind it into flour sometime and make some steamed buns for ourselves, shall we?"
Eating dry steamed bread early in the morning made Ye Manzhi lose his appetite.
Wu Zhengrong turned around and said, "That steamed bread is not for you. If you feel it's sore on your throat, try something else. There's a piece of bread in the oil-paper bag next to it."
Ye Manzhi opened the oil paper package and saw a round bread inside.
"Are you crazy? You'd better buy some white flour buns instead of bread!"
The city implements a high-price policy for foods such as pastries and bread that are high in oil, sugar, and require refined grains.
Two years ago, it only cost 15 cents and 2 taels of grain coupons to buy a round loaf of bread.
Since last year, the price of bread has increased to one yuan.
Ye Manzhi would occasionally crave bread, but she had stockpiled a lot of biscuits and canned fruits before. She set a standard for herself to eat a bag of biscuits and a can of canned fruit a month, and she could also rely on these sweets to satisfy her cravings.
"Didn't you say yesterday that you wanted to eat bread? It's okay to eat it occasionally. We can afford it." Wu Zhengrong himself is not picky about food. He eats whatever is cooked in the cafeteria.
The canteen of Factory 656 can guarantee to provide three meals a day, which is already very good.
But the cafeteria posted this week's menu yesterday, and the staple food every morning is steamed cornbread.
A delicate comrade like Ye Lai Ya might be fine eating steamed bread for two or three days, but she would definitely not be happy if she was asked to eat it for a week straight.
So, Wu Zhengrong simply bought her a loaf of bread to improve her diet.
Now that he has bought it, Ye Manzhi must enjoy it.
She made herself a bowl of milk powder, added a spoonful of sugar, and ate it with bread.
The last time she ate such luxury goods, it seemed that she was taking advantage of her daughter and ate the bread and pastries that Grandpa Wu bought for his great-granddaughter.
Grandpa Wu is never stingy with his money. He feels that at his age, he should eat whatever he wants.
I often go to the supply and marketing cooperatives and grocery stores with my husband and great-granddaughter.
Wu Youyan can't speak, but she is good at body language and points to the counter whenever she sees something she likes.
Thanks to her daughter, Ye Manzhi had eaten the fruits bought by Grandpa Wu, which cost five yuan per pound, glutinous rice noodles, which cost three yuan per pound, and cakes, which cost two and a half yuan per pound.
The so-called five-yuan furnace fruit used to be sold for only fifty-five cents per pound. If she were asked to buy it with her own money, she would definitely not be willing to be so extravagant.
Thinking of this, Ye Manzhi glanced at the father and daughter who were still riding on each other's necks.
He generously shared this expensive round bread with two comrades named Wu.
*
Little Wu Yuzhuo finally spoke, which was a big deal for the elderly on both sides.
When Ye Manzhi went to school, she told the Wu family's elders the good news and asked them to accompany the child to practice speaking as much as possible.
After school, he took his daughter back to his grandmother's house and informed the Ye family.
However, when the mother and daughter walked in hand in hand, the atmosphere in the Ye family was not very good.
She asked her daughter to go inside to play with her two brothers, then sat down next to Chang Yue'e and asked, "Mom, what happened at home? Why is my dad so angry?"
Chang Yue'e whispered, "The third and fourth brothers want to sell their bicycles!"
"Isn't that bicycle my third brother and his wife's? Why is my dad so angry?"
After my third brother became an engineer, the factory rewarded him with a bicycle ticket.
Bicycles are almost the most popular product among the three revolutions and one ring. How many people dream of owning a bicycle!
With this bicycle ticket, the third brother and his wife spent 167 yuan to buy a big item for their home.
When the bicycle was first bought, the third brother treated it like a treasure. He polished the body of the bicycle until it was shiny, and if he saw a puddle from a distance, he would get off the bike in advance and carry the bicycle over.
Chang Yue'e covered her mouth and said, "Although the bike belongs to the third brother and his wife, your father contributed 50 yuan when we bought it. He thought that since we all lived under the same roof, it would be inevitable that others would borrow it after the bike was bought, and this would easily lead to conflicts, so he contributed 50 yuan. The bike still belongs to the third brother and his wife, and he contributed 50 yuan, so it would be easier for other family members to ask to borrow it in the future."
Ye Manzhi nodded in understanding. What Old Ye did could indeed resolve some conflicts in advance.
"Then why did my third brother sell his bicycle? He treasured it so much, why would he sell it suddenly?"
"Your fourth brother came back and said," Chang Yue'e never stopped shocking people, "someone is willing to pay 600 yuan to buy a bicycle!"
"How many?"
“600 yuan!”
Ye Manzhi was dumbfounded: "Oh my god, is that person crazy or stupid?"
After hearing her sigh, the fourth brother crossed his legs and said, "I'm not crazy or stupid. This is the market price of a bicycle!"
"The black market is already selling bicycles for 600 yuan?" Ye Manzhi's first reaction was, "Then the Industrial and Commercial Bureau should intervene, right?"
"Haha, that's not the black market price. This is the regular price in the store, clearly marked. A Shanghai Forever is 520 yuan, and a local Binjiang Peacock brand is 550 yuan. Third Brother's bike is a Peacock brand, retailing for 550 yuan, plus the bicycle ticket, so they're paying 600 yuan. This is the current market price!"
"You must be mistaken. Didn't Third Brother buy the bike for just over 160? It's only been two years, how could it have changed so much?"
Ye Manzhi still didn't believe it.
Under the planned economy, commodity prices rarely fluctuated so drastically. The prices of rice, flour, grain and oil have hardly changed in seven or eight years.
How come the price of this bicycle suddenly increased to 550 yuan?
However, she thought about the glutinous rice cakes that cost five yuan per pound and the round bread that cost one yuan each.
A six-hundred-yuan bicycle doesn't seem out of the question.
The fourth brother continued to shake his foot and said, "How could this be wrong? If you don't believe me, go to the store and see for yourself! I say you should sell this bicycle, third brother. You can make over 400 yuan from it. What a bargain!"
"What a bargain!" Ye Shouxin slammed the table. "If you sell your bicycle for 600 now, can you still buy a new one for 600? Do you have bicycle tickets? Do you have industrial coupons? Buying a bicycle isn't just a matter of money; it's mainly about how to get the coupons."
When the third child buys a bicycle, he only needs money and a bicycle ticket.
But this year the city introduced industrial coupons, and many daily necessities, including bicycles, must be purchased with industrial coupons.
The number of industrial vouchers is linked to wages: the more you work, the more you earn, and the less you work, the less you earn.
Lao Ye is a level seven welder with a salary of nearly ninety yuan, but he can only get four industrial coupons every month.
A bicycle requires 50 industrial coupons, which even he has to save for a year. As for the young people with low wages, they may have to save for two or three years to buy a bicycle.
Although the family car belongs to the third brother and his wife, he also paid for it. He tells others that he has a share in the car, which makes him very prestigious in the workshop.
At this moment, the third and fourth brothers were dazzled by the price of 600 yuan. Why didn’t they think about how to buy the car back after selling it?
"Mangui, why are you pushing my third brother to sell the car? Look how angry Dad is!" Shen Liangmei firmly stood on her father-in-law's side. "Dad paid for it, too. If he doesn't agree, we can't sell the car!"
She thought her man was a little stupid. The bicycle was bought by her third brother and Lao Ye together.
The couple didn't spend a penny.
Even if the car was sold for 600 yuan, they would not be given a share of the money.
It would be better not to sell the car.
The car was kept at home. Old Ye had paid for it, and she and Mangui could use it occasionally.
How great is that!
Ye Manzhi looked at her fourth brother and then glanced at her fourth sister-in-law.
It seems that the couple haven't reached an agreement yet.
Fourth brother persuaded third brother to sell the car, probably so that he could get some benefits from the buyer, otherwise why would he work so hard?
He can also ride the bike for free if he leaves it at home.
Fourth brother is just lazy, not a fool.
"Third brother, have you discussed with my third sister-in-law about selling your car?"
Wong Tai Sin had not yet finished get off work, so Ye Manzhi could only ask Wong Tai Sin for his opinion indirectly.
As her sister-in-law, she never suffers any loss in terms of money.
The third brother nodded and said, "I know. She agreed to sell it. She also said that after the sale, she and our father would split the money equally, 300 each."
If both parties split it equally, Old Ye would still make a profit.
According to the previous investment ratio, he would be lucky to get 200 yuan.
"I don't care about the 300 yuan!" Ye Shouxin said the same thing. "I'll give you 600 yuan. Can you get me a bicycle back in its original condition?"
The fourth brother complained: "Where do you get 600?"
Old Ye raised his hand and patted him on the head. "Who's to blame for me not having 600? Raising you bastards, who wouldn't spend 200 or 300 on a wedding? Raising six children cost 1,000 or 2,000! And I have to provide for your food and drink. If you had a proper job, wouldn't I be able to save 600?"
Seeing that Old Ye was about to punish his son, Mai Duo and his three younger siblings in the room leaned against the door frame to watch the fun.
Ye Manzhi didn't want her daughter to witness her fourth uncle being beaten, so she said goodbye to Chang Yue'e, picked up her daughter and went home.
*
The next day was the weekend, and it was a rare opportunity for the family of three to stay home together to study.
Wu Zhengrong was studying his work that needed to be kept confidential in the study.
Ye Manzhi was revising her graduation thesis in her bedroom.
Little Wu Yuzhuo leaned on Lihua and counted her literacy cards.
The sunlight poured in through the glass windows, warming the quiet room.
"Mom!" The little girl completed the task and started calling her mother again.
"Yeah." Ye Manzhi tightened the pen cap, picked up a stack of flash cards from the bed and counted them. "Sure enough, each stack has ten cards. You're amazing, baby!"
She carried the child and knocked on the study door. "Dr. Wu, are you done with your work? Our daughter can talk, it's such a big deal. Shouldn't we celebrate it?"
Wu Zhengrong glanced at the wall clock and saw that it was lunch time. He knew that she was looking for an excuse to go out for a meal.
"What do you want to eat? Let's go out and eat something nice today."
Ye Manzhi hesitated for a moment and said, "How about we go to Yong'an Restaurant and eat mutton hotpot?"
When they eat out, they usually choose a small state-owned restaurant near their home.
But Yong'an Hotel is a relatively famous Muslim restaurant in the city. It is similar to Futailou, Jiangnanchun and Sanba Hotel. They are all large restaurants and the food prices are not cheap.
She wanted to go to Yong'an Restaurant, mainly because she wanted to eat some mutton.
They can buy pork on the market, but rarely eat beef or mutton.
Only Hui Muslim families like the Su Gong family next door could buy the specially supplied mutton with tickets.
If ordinary citizens want to eat mutton, they have to pay a high price to eat at a Muslim restaurant.
Wu Zhengrong touched his daughter's hair and asked, "Youyan, do you want to eat mutton?"
The little brat had never eaten mutton since he was born and had no idea what mutton was, but he nodded vigorously anyway: "Yes!"
"Alright then, let's go to the Yong'an Hotel for a meal to celebrate Comrade Wu Yuzhuo's successful speech!"
A family of three rode their bicycles to Yong'an Hotel.
Wu Zhengrong was in charge of driving, Ye Manzhi was in the back seat chatting with the driver to relieve his boredom, and Wu Yuzhuo was sitting in a bamboo chair mounted on the beam, staring at the fun.
Ye Manzhi was originally in a relaxed mood, but after sitting in the restaurant and seeing the prices on the menu, she could no longer feel relaxed.
A portion of half a pound of mutton, plus the soup base and seasoning, costs 3.5 yuan per portion!
That’s equivalent to seven yuan per pound!
But Mr. Su and his friends only paid one dollar and forty-six cents for a pound of mutton!
Isn’t the gross profit margin of this restaurant too high?
Ye Manzhi covered her mouth with the menu and whispered, "It was Director Xu from our provincial university's economics department who suggested opening high-priced restaurants in the city to quickly recycle money and stabilize the market. I wonder how he felt when he saw such high prices at the restaurant himself."
Wu Zhengrong comforted her: "Since you're already here, don't worry about the price. We haven't eaten mutton for over a year, and this is a perfect way to satisfy our craving."
Having said that, Ye Manzhi was still very restrained and only ordered one portion of mutton, half a pound for two adults and one snack, just to try it out.
While waiting for the copper hot pot to boil, Ye Manzhi shared with him the new things that happened at her mother's house yesterday.
"My third and fourth brothers wanted to sell their bicycles, but my father disagreed. He was just vain. When he first bought them, he showed them off in the workshop for a long time!"
In fact, considering the situation of the Ye family, everyone in the family works on Guangming Street. How could they have so many opportunities to travel long distances by bicycle?
Selling the bicycle for 600 yuan is a good deal.
Unfortunately, Old Ye was too vain and was afraid that after selling the bicycle, he would never be able to buy it back.
Ye Manzhi was giving her daughter some water when she suddenly asked, "Old Ye doesn't want to sell the bike. What do you think about selling our bike?"
“…”
"The one we have is a Shanghai Forever, right? Fourth brother said the Forever brand is 520 yuan in the store, and they're out of stock." Ye Manzhi asked, "How much did you pay for the car?"
Even though it happened five or six years ago, Wu Zhengrong still accurately quoted the price: "165 yuan."
"Our car isn't as new as Third Brother's, so I guess the price isn't that high. But, if we can get it down to 550 yuan, will you sell it?"
"Sell."
"So happy? You didn't even hesitate?"
Wu Zhengrong smiled. "Why hesitate? Bicycle tickets are precious, but you can get them if you find a way. I bought mine for twenty yuan through connections. 50 industrial coupons are nothing. With our combined salaries, we can save up eight industrial coupons a month. That's enough for a bicycle in half a year."
As for the price of bicycles, he felt that it was impossible for them to remain so inflated forever.
Although they both cost three turns and one ring, the prices of watches and radios have not changed much, but the price of bicycles has nearly doubled.
Perhaps the biggest reason is that bicycles require so much steel.
Wu Zhengrong himself works in the factory and is very familiar with the situation of steel.
Upon hearing this, Ye Manzhi said thoughtfully, "Good steel should be used where it's needed most. Given resource scarcity, priority must be given to heavy industry production. Light industrial products like bicycles don't have much impact on national defense or people's lives, so reducing production is inevitable. However, once the market situation improves, and bicycle production increases, prices should fall, right?"
Wong Tai Sin's agreement to sell the bicycle indirectly proved their speculation.
"So I really want to sell the bike? We don't have to show up, let my fourth brother help me contact the buyer!"
"Sell it." Wu Zhengrong nodded casually and pointed at the boiling hot pot. "We're about to make over 500 yuan. Can we order another portion of mutton? This little bit is barely enough to fill our stomachs."
Ye Manzhi knew that he had a big appetite, and if he ate as much as he wanted, two pounds of mutton would not be enough for him.
Thinking about the more than 500 yuan she was about to get, she waved her hand cheerfully and asked the waiter to add two more plates of mutton for their table!
*
A family of three ate two and a half kilograms of mutton at Yong'an Restaurant.
Baby Wu Yuzhuo still has a small stomach, and plays the role of a troublemaker and a border at the dinner table.
Ye Manzhi had big eyes and a small belly, and did not display the fighting power she had imagined.
Fortunately, she was having dinner with Wu Zhengrong. She ordered several different dishes, ate a few bites of each, and Wu Zhengrong took care of the rest, so there was no possibility of waste.
Although he was satisfied with the meal, Ye Manzhi still felt heartbroken after he realized that the meal cost him nearly twenty yuan.
He quickly asked his fourth brother to help contact the buyer and sold the Forever brand bicycle that Wu Zhengrong had ridden for six years for 540 yuan.
In case the other party regrets the purchase in a few years, Wu Zhengrong was kind enough to thoroughly overhaul the bicycle and gave it a spare tire, a bicycle lock worth two dollars and seventy cents, and a bamboo child seat as a gift.
Without his own dedicated seat, Wu Yuzhuo could only ride on Neckbone from now on.
But losing her bicycle had little impact on Ye Manzhi, as she took the bus to and from school every day anyway.
When we arrived at the department factory that day, the class monitor notified all students to go to the school auditorium for a meeting.
The students were able to leave the factory for some fresh air, and they all responded particularly well to the call.
Someone asked about the content of today's meeting.
The class monitor said, "This is a meeting for all graduates in the school. Vice President Sun is going to give a mobilization report for graduation assignments!"
When we heard that it was related to graduation assignments, everyone immediately put down their work and rushed to the auditorium for a meeting.
When Ye Manzhi and others rushed to the auditorium from the factory, it was already packed with people.
In his report, Vice President Sun first asked everyone to recognize the current situation, work hard, despise difficulties, promote the spirit of hard work, and overcome difficulties in the process of moving forward.
When mentioning the urgent need for high-quality construction talents in various regions, he encouraged all graduates: "You are a class of graduates who are embracing the Second Five-Year Plan and entering university in the midst of great progress. This year's graduation assignments will continue to follow our usual principles, obeying the national plan and allocating a fixed amount of positions to employers. There may be some conflicts between national needs and personal wishes, such as family, marriage, climate, and living standards. Some students from the south may not be accustomed to the northern climate, and some students from big cities may not adapt to life in small cities."
"But I hope everyone can liberate their minds and prioritize their careers! Proceed from the needs of 650 million people and obey the national plan! Strive to work in places where the country and the people need them most, and where the environment is most difficult..."
Vice Principal Sun’s mobilization report lasted for an hour.
After Ye Manzhi and Bian Queqiao wrote a letter of determination to accept the assignment on behalf of the graduates of the Industrial Economics Department, they hurried to the Wu family's old house.
She wanted to discuss graduation assignments with a university insider like Grandpa Wu.
The main reason was that she had not yet rejected Teacher Ouyang's proposal to let her stay in school.
Of course Grandpa Wu wanted her to stay in school so that his great-granddaughter could come to play with him every day.
He paused for a moment before saying, "The year you took the Gaokao, universities nationwide expanded their enrollment. Last year, they transferred graduates from provincial universities to work in Beijing because demand outstripped supply. But your class of graduates is twice as large as the previous two years, and the local supply of students is plentiful. Why transfer people all the way from Binjiang? If you don't want to stay on campus, don't worry about it. Just reject the department's offer and wait for the government's assignment."
If an ordinary student heard that he could stay on to teach at the school, he would probably be overjoyed and agree on the spot.
His granddaughter-in-law was hesitant about staying in school. She was obviously not interested in being a teacher, but was afraid of missing the opportunity and being assigned to another place.
After listening to Grandpa Wu's advice, Ye Manzhi went home and had a serious discussion with her parents and Wu Zhengrong, and finally rejected Teacher Ouyang's suggestion to stay in school.
Then every day I wait anxiously for the school to announce the final graduation assignment results.
After the graduation defense, graduates from various departments began to receive notifications one after another.
There are not many graduates from the Class of 1958 in the Department of Industrial Economics, with only about 60 people in the two classes combined. Since they were not transferred by central government ministries and commissions, their graduation destinations this year were among the first to be determined.
Graduates who stayed in the province and were assigned to provincial and municipal units were the first to receive the notice.
Ye Manzhi was sitting in the office, feeling restless and anxiously waiting for news, when she was told to report to the Student Affairs Office.
A dozen students crowded into the student affairs office, and the teacher called the roll one by one.
When it was the Industrial Economics Department's turn, a female teacher asked, "Is Ye Manzhi from your department here?"
Ye Manzhi quickly raised his hand and shouted.
The teacher pulled out a manila envelope and said with a smile, "Student Ye Manzhi, Provincial Department of Industry!"
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