Hearing that Zhang Hongyang was going to give her money and tickets, Jiang Baige nodded, "Okay, I'll give it to you when we get back!"
When Ji Ran and his family were about to pay, Jiang Baige counted the money and tickets they had on them.
The educated youth were all city dwellers and had money, so she prepared a little more than two kilograms of meat.
Two kilograms of meat is really a lot nowadays, when a person can only buy three ounces of meat.
To give them some idea of the price, I pretended to be helpless and said, "I only bought a little over two kilograms of meat. With so many of us, I'm afraid we won't be able to eat it for two meals."
After hearing her words, the other three people didn't think about how she could buy so much meat, but were thinking about how to eat the meat.
Wu Lili looked at Jiang Baige greedily and asked, "Where's the meat? Take it out and let me see."
Jiang Baige thought to herself, "What's so good about meat? Wu Lili has a really weird personality."
Wu Juan pulled Wu Lili's sleeve and said, "Okay, this is still on the street, it would be bad if others saw us.
He said, "Look, they are back."
The four of them looked towards the entrance of the supply and marketing cooperative, which diverted Wu Lili's attention.
Li Yan and her friends gathered together. They came to the town today to buy daily necessities.
Imagination is very rich, but reality is very skinny.
I didn't buy any oil, salt, sauce or vinegar, and when I came back, everyone looked a little disappointed.
When I heard that only Jiang Baige bought the meat, the disappointment in my heart instantly disappeared!
Seeing that it was almost noon, they decided to return to the village. This time, when they passed by the door of the state-owned restaurant, they didn't even look up and hurried back to the village with empty stomachs.
They all have meat, so who would spend a lot of money to buy food outside?
On the way back, they met many villagers, but these villagers just came to watch the fun and few of them actually spent money to buy anything.
I didn't go to work today. The aunties and young wives in the village came to visit and chat. The way back to the educated youth compound goes through the entire village.
The women chatting in the village saw a group of people coming towards the village from afar. They were obviously the young people from the educated youth compound.
Those who loved to gossip stopped talking when they saw them coming, and their eyes fell on them, and they kept looking these young people up and down.
Jiang Baige and her friends had been there for several days, and most of these women knew them. They greeted them as they walked back.
When passing by a yard, Jiang Baige heard someone inside coughing violently, as if he was going to cough out his lungs. He couldn't help but take a look inside.
This is Grandma Meng’s house. The courtyard wall is very low. She can see the whole courtyard by standing on tiptoe.
There were three low thatched houses, looking shabby. The yard was dead silent, with only a path in the middle showing that someone lived there.
There was some firewood piled up in the corner of the courtyard wall. Grandma Meng was coughing. She was holding a bundle of firewood and slowly walking into the house. It seemed that she was preparing to cook lunch.
Zhang Hongyang saw Jiang Baige looking towards Grandma Meng's yard. He introduced, "This is Grandma Meng's home. She's been sick these days and hasn't been to work. You might not recognize her."
Jiang Baige asked, "Is she the only one in her family?"
Zhang Hongyang nodded. "Yeah, it seems she's the only one here. She's quite pitiful. She's blind and so old, but she didn't even go to the doctor when she was sick."
"But she has a bit of a strange personality and doesn't interact with others very much."
Jiang Baige thought that it was normal for people to have eccentric personalities as they got older, but she didn't want to ask too much.
The group returned to the educated youth compound. Zhang Hongyang took the initiative to collect the money and tickets that Jiang Baige had used to buy meat today, and handed them all to Jiang Baige, asking her to count them and see if they were correct.
Jiang Baige didn't really know how to count, so she said, "You've already counted them all, I believe you."
As she said this, she put the money and tickets into her pocket and gave him a grateful smile.
In the kitchen, Li Yan washed the large piece of fat and started cutting the meat with a kitchen knife.
Sisters Wu Juan and Wu Lili watched from the side and kept asking her to cut it thinner.
If the meat is cut thinner, they can eat two more pieces. They are happy to eat meat with a smile on their face.
In the kitchen, several people were laughing and talking, and soon the aroma of meat wafted from the yard. The aroma of meat, mixed with the aroma of oil, tempted everyone's taste buds.
Wen Lili couldn't help but swallowed her saliva and sighed, "I haven't eaten meat for more than a month."
Wu Juan looked up at her cousin and thought to herself, "You haven't eaten for just over a month. I can't even remember how long it's been since I last ate."
On the stove, Li Yan was still busy. She scooped out the oil residue and put it in a large bowl, then poured the oil into the oil tank.
Two pounds of fat meat actually produced half a can of lard.
The people outside had nothing to do, so when they smelled the fragrance, they all came to watch Li Yan cook.
Li Yan worked very efficiently. She grabbed a handful of lard residue, chopped it up on the chopping board, and stir-fried it with the washed pickles.
The pan for frying lard is very oily and we can’t waste it, so we wash a lot of pickles. After the pickles are fried, there is a big bowl of them.
Anyway, the weather is not hot now, so if you can’t finish it in one meal, you can eat two more meals.
Today's pickles are greasy and look particularly appetizing.
I finally cooked some dry rice for lunch today. I only dare to eat like this once or twice a month. The rest of the time I have to plan carefully. In case I eat too much at the beginning and don’t have enough to borrow later, I will have to ask other people to lend it to me.
These days everyone lives a tight life. Some villagers don’t even have enough to eat, and others may not lend them money.
If they couldn't borrow money, they would dig wild vegetables. During this lean period, there were no wild vegetables. Relatives and friends who had been asked to borrow money were unwilling to visit again. Some people had nothing to eat, so they even ate the peelings from tree branches.
During lunch, Li Yanpan said, "When it rains, we'll have to go to town again. There's not much salt left in the jar."
After hearing what she said, Zhang Hongyang agreed, "The weather is getting warmer day by day, so let's save some money these days and wait until we don't have to work before going."
"Everyone should buy whatever they want by then. We will be busy soon. Unless there are special circumstances, we can only go once a month."
After hearing what he said, several people nodded and agreed.
This lunch naturally satisfied everyone's appetite. The dishes that usually taste bitter were particularly delicious today.
There is both oil and meat, and days like this sometimes don’t come around for months.
We all went to town today and are a little tired.
Since we were full after lunch, we decided to skip dinner and save every meal.
After lunch, no one left the educated youth compound, and it was still cold outside, so it was a good time to sleep.
The four lesbians were lying on the bed, chatting about family matters when they had nothing to do.
After we were all too sleepy from chatting, we all went to sleep.
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