Chu Tian walked into the alley and squatted down at a random spot near the inside. After a while, a man with shifty eyes squatted down beside Chu Tian. He approached Chu Tian and said.
"Brother, what are you selling?"
Chu Tian glanced at him and asked calmly, "What about you? What are you selling again?"
The man lifted the cloth covering the basket slightly, revealing the contents: unthreshed corn cobs. "Corn cobs, brother, would you like some? They're cheap, one dollar and twenty cents for a kilogram."
Chu Tian sneered, "Brother, are you kidding me? The cornmeal that the supply and marketing cooperative threshes and grinds is only 60 cents per kilogram."
The man knew that his prices were too high, so he smiled awkwardly. "It's not cheap, but you can't buy anything you want at the supply and marketing cooperatives right now. As far as I know, the supply and marketing cooperatives haven't had any supply of coarse grains for half a month, let alone fine grains. The price of white flour on the black market has risen to four yuan a kilogram, and rice has risen to four and a half yuan a kilogram..."
Chu Tian was surprised, "So high?"
The man shook his head and sighed, "Isn't it expensive? My mom was sick a few days ago, so I wanted to eat some noodles. I asked someone to buy me half a kilogram of white flour, and it was the lowest quality white flour. They charged me 1.8 yuan, and this is someone I know..."
"If it's premium white flour, it's said it can be sold for five or six yuan in the city, or even more!"
"The bottom line is, food on the black market is selling for double the price these days! Mine is only doubled, so it's not expensive at all!"
Chu Tian touched his chin upon hearing this, thinking, how much cheaper is this price than modern food? At least in modern times, wages are there, so even if a kilogram of rice and flour sells for a dozen or twenty yuan, people can afford it. But in this era when the average worker's salary is only thirty or forty, if you want to eat fine grains that cost four or five yuan per kilogram, it really is not something that ordinary people can afford...
Just as he was about to ask something else, he saw someone wanting to buy his corn cobs. After some haggling, he settled on one yuan and one kilogram. He had five kilograms in total, so he sold them for five yuan and fifty cents...
The man counted the money and put it in his arms. Seeing Chu Tian staring at him, he asked in confusion, "Brother? What's wrong? You want corn cobs too? But today's corn cobs are sold out. I still have some soybeans. Do you want them? There's half a kilogram. If you want them, I'll sell them to you for two yuan..."
“····”
Chu Tian pulled the corner of his mouth, "Thank you, but no thanks!"
The man was not angry when he saw this. He carried his basket and moved to another place.
Chu Tian squatted for a long time but no one came to ask him. After thinking about it, he felt that it was not good to squat like this all the time. He had to take the initiative. He looked at everyone who came in empty-handed, and finally locked his eyes on a middle-aged man. Although he looked malnourished, his clothes were not patched at all. He knew that his family conditions were not bad. Not to mention that he had two working families, he must be a employed person.
"Brother, do you need food? Fine grain..."
The man immediately stopped, looked at the people squatting around him, and motioned Chu Tian to follow him to a deserted place inside.
After making sure that no one was following them, the two of them came to a corner.
"Fine grain? What kind of fine grain is it? How much is it?"
Chu Tian put the backpack on his chest and opened a corner of the two cloth bags to show him, "They are all top-grade white flour and rice, all 5.5 yuan per kilogram, no bargaining..."
Chu Tian remembered that on the way to the production team, the team leader and Accountant Xu said that the people in their production team could not save up a few tickets in a year. If they wanted to buy cloth or other things, they could not afford them even if they had money, so he quickly changed his words.
"Well, if you have food coupons, industrial coupons, or cloth coupons, it's five yuan a kilogram."
"Brother, do you want it?"
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