Chapter 90 Coal

The two argued for a long time, and finally Wang Lizhen was annoyed and took out a dime from her pocket: "Okay, okay, I'm too lazy to tell you, it's my bad luck!"

The old lady disagreed: "What can you do with one dime?"

"It's up to you to take it or not. If not, I'll keep it for myself. How much can a wild fruit from the mountain be worth?"

The old lady saw that this guy was not someone who could be easily fooled, so she had no choice but to take the dime and said, "That's it for this time. I'm not saying anything bad about you, but you're a grown woman, and you still want to argue with a child..."

Without waiting for her to finish, Wang Lizhen turned around and went back to the house. She angrily grabbed a handful of blueberries and squatted under the eaves to eat them. If she ate, the four of them would eat together. If she was scolded, she would take it alone!

After Han Youran and Jiang Xiurong finished cleaning up, it was completely dark. Han Youran wiped her hair with a towel and asked Jiang Xiurong: "Xiurong, do you think my hair is too long?"

It's past the waist, so it's not short. There's no hair dryer at the moment, so the hair is too long. It's okay in the summer, but it's hard to dry after washing in the winter. Jiang Xiurong nodded: "A little bit."

"I want to cut my hair here. Do you think it's okay?" Han Youran stretched out his hand and pointed to the position in front of his chest.

"Okay, then I'll go ask Zhizhi for a flashlight?" The length of the braid is not too long or too short in front of the chest, making it convenient for tying a braid.

When Wang Lizhen returned to the room, Jiang Xiurong was cutting Han Youran's hair, Xia Zhizhi was shining flashlights for them, and the three beautiful girls were talking and laughing, giving off a sense of the good old days.

Wang Lizhen rolled her eyes. What a peaceful and quiet time! It was all brought about by her being scolded.

As the autumn harvest was approaching, Xia Zhizhi thought about building a shed next to the wall of her house to be used for storing coal.

It wasn't a lot of work. I just built a frame with wood and a sloping roof on top of the wall to block the snow when it snowed, so I didn't have to dig coal out of the snow when I needed it.

We have to hurry and finish it in these two days. Once the autumn harvest starts, we won't have time to prepare it for her.

Xia Zhizhi was just gesturing to show how big a shed should be built when the great villain Cui Zijin walked in from outside.

She licked her face and immediately said, "Cui Zhiqing, I want to build a shed here to store coal. If you can help me finish it, I will buy a pork leg as a reward for everyone's meal."

Cui Zijin didn't even look at him, pretended not to hear, and planned to go into the house.

Xia Zhizhi said slowly, "If I don't see this shed in two days, I will tell Sister Youran about you falling into the dung pit."

Cui Zijin paused and said, "We still have to peel the bark and cut the straw. It will take three days."

She was always considerate: "Okay, three days is three days, hurry up."

In the afternoon, she received several letters, all of which were acceptance letters and payment slips for her manuscripts.

One of the letters read: Comrade Xia Zhizhi: Hello, today our newspaper published the article "The Big Secret of Small Coal Briquettes" on page three. Thank you for your concern and support for the newspaper... I will give you a copy of "Basic Chinese Knowledge" and a notebook as a reward.

Xia Zhizhi casually placed the book on the table on the kang. This was just the beginning. Gradually, all remuneration would be cancelled and replaced with souvenirs or gifted books. Fortunately, she didn't care much about this little money, and her original intention of submitting the article was not to get that little bit of royalties.

The next morning, she took a taxi to the city with her bag and went straight to the coal mine.

This time the boss let her in directly.

Before I even got to the office, Zhang Ming came up to me warmly: "Oh, Comrade Xia, you came at the right time."

Zhang Ming took her into the office and made her a cup of tea in a kettle, which was very affectionate.

She glanced at the two newspapers on the table and it seemed that the two she brought with her would not be needed.

She rummaged through her bag and pulled out a few photos of Zhang Ming and handed them to him: "Chief Zhang, I took a few photos for you last time to submit. The photos have been developed, but I just haven't had time to come over. This time I happened to come to do something, so I brought them to you."

Zhang Ming took the photo, looked at it for a while, and praised with a thumbs up: "Good, good, Comrade Xia is not only a good writer, but also a great photographer!"

"Hey, I'm just reporting the truth." She waved her hand modestly.

Zhang Ming had no idea whether the story was true or not, but he didn't care about it. Because of these two newspapers, the union decided to publicly commend him, and he would have to give a speech on stage.

You need a manuscript to give a speech on stage. After all, not everyone is as talkative as Xia Zhizhi. There are people in the factory who can write, but compared with Xia Zhiqing, they seem to be a little lacking. After all, it is a big matter that concerns his promotion, so he has to be cautious.

He was just worrying about the speech script when Xia Zhizhi came to him.

Zhang Ming said, "I have something to ask Comrade Xia. It is thanks to Comrade Xia's article that the city leaders have seen the efforts of all of us at the coal yard. So, let me represent the coal yard and give a speech at the city's model worker commendation conference in a while."

"I am a rough man, and I have devoted myself to production, so I am not very good at writing. I think Comrade Xia has a good writing style, so I would like to ask you to polish my speech."

"Section Chief Zhang has already asked for this, so it's my responsibility to help." Xia Zhizhi looked a little embarrassed: "It's just that I've been a little busy lately."

"It's going to be cold after the autumn harvest, and I haven't started to get the coal for the winter. I just finished this busy period and finally got some time to work. Chief Zhang, you know I came from the south. I'm not in good health and have been afraid of the cold since I was a child. I have some free time these two days, so I plan to find someone to see if I can get some coal tickets, otherwise I'm afraid it will be hard to survive the winter."

Mudanjiang's coal quota this year is 500 kilograms per household, and the quota in rural areas is not as high as that in urban areas.

When winter comes, the production team's vehicles come to the coal yard to pull coal, and then distribute the coal to each household. The amount of coal for a stove is fixed, and coupled with the headcount quota, it is impossible to rely on this amount to survive the winter. People will freeze to death if they don't go up the mountain to collect firewood.

The main fuel is still firewood and straw.

After the crops were harvested, the straw was distributed to each household, such as wheat straw, corn straw, cotton straw, etc., and there were piles of them in the yard of every household.

With all these, plus some firewood collected from all over the mountains, we can get through the winter.

"Well, what am I talking about?" Zhang Ming waved his hand. "Comrade Xia, tell me how much you need and I'll have someone deliver it to you in the evening."

"Oh, no, no." Xia Zhizhi waved her hands repeatedly and said righteously, "This factory has its own rules. I can't make things difficult for Section Chief Zhang just for my own selfish reasons!"

"It's not difficult." Zhang Ming leaned in and whispered to her, "How about this? I'll give you a certificate for the collective coal quota for educated youth. That way, if someone asks about it, you'll have something to say."