Zhou Han took several buses, but Brother Leopard had already arranged for someone to take care of him so that he could board without having to check his documents. After that, he took an oxcart and a tractor, and finally arrived at Bian Island.
"See that? That's the port."
They glanced at the car briefly and continued on their way. Once they entered the island, someone led him to a small stone house.
"Did Brother Leopard send you?"
Zhou Han nodded, and the man patted him on the back with a somewhat ambiguous expression, ordering someone to take him away.
They were now in a small fishing village on the island. Even at night, there were still lights and sounds coming from the harbor. There were five or six people in the small stone house. They glanced at the harbor not far away, using the stone doorway as cover.
"Hey kid, can you row a boat? If the ship's horn sounds later, you follow behind me. Don't chicken out when you hear the whistle, you have to get the stuff back."
As night fell, the noise in the harbor subsided considerably, with only a few ships occasionally making noise. Zhou Han changed into his fishing clothes and boarded the ship with them.
Searchlights were shining from the high points of the harbor, observing the sea. Under the cover of darkness, they carefully approached the harbor along the side. The night was as dark as ink, and everything around them almost blended into the darkness. Their small boat darted across the sea and finally got close to the ship.
"Damn, how are we going to get all this stuff back in such a small boat?"
The people on the big ship were cursing and swearing, but he had no choice. After all, everyone had come over, so he could only carefully direct people to carry the boxes off the boat, one by one the wooden boxes were moved onto the small boat.
"That's all?" Zhou Han and his companions carried a lot of boxes onto the boat. Each wooden box was about a meter long and heavy. They carried quite a few with great effort.
"That's all? Why don't you look behind you? I do business with so many people, and you guys are the most timid, you can't even hold your pee for half a day."
They secretly smuggled a lot of things into the ship, which they needed to sell on the black market. If the goods hadn't been soaked in water, they wouldn't have gotten a chance.
The people here weren't angry at being scolded, and they moved a lot more. Suddenly, a box twice the size of the previous one appeared.
"What is this?"
"TV set!"
Zhou Han and the others gasped in shock. A television?!
A television set costs nearly a thousand yuan on the black market. The key is that a city can only supply a few of these things, and only high-ranking officials can afford them.
Before, they might have dealt in bicycles and radios, which cost a little over a hundred or two hundred yuan. A television set was too expensive; no one could afford it.
Those who can afford it are all high-ranking leaders; they definitely have ways to get tickets, so there's no need to bother buying from them.
"This can actually be sold?" This is terrifying. If this thing were to appear on the black market, it would definitely shock a lot of people. It's different from their previous small-scale operations. Moreover, this thing is too conspicuous; one report would be enough to make it go unreported.
Everyone sells bicycles and radios on the black market, and even if the police are watching you, they might not be targeting you.
No one dared to lift that big box for a while. Putting aside what would happen if it were carried out, if someone accidentally slipped and bumped into it, it would cost more than 1,000 yuan.
They couldn't save that much money even in 10 years.
"If you don't dare to do it, then get the hell out of here. I'm telling you, these two TVs are with that batch of radios. If you're going to take them, you're taking them with you."
"How can you people be so cowardly? Lots of people have money in their pockets but can't get tickets; they just need a TV set. Once these are shipped out, they'll sell like hotcakes."
The people on the ship were seething with anger. These timid and hesitant men were unlikely to achieve anything great. The problem was that this shipment had gone wrong, and they had no choice but to give it to them; they couldn't let it become a burden on their own.
They had already moved most of the radios off the boat, but the man insisted that they take both televisions with them, or he would unload the radios back.
After a long standoff, Zhou Han finally relented. He had gone through all that trouble to come all this way; he couldn't just leave empty-handed.
"Our boat is too small; there's no room to put a television."
Nowadays, televisions are all 12-inch black and white, padded with a lot of stuff and wrapped in a thick wooden box, taking up a lot of space.
Then we can only make two trips, leaving one person here to wait for the others to go back first.
There were no lights on the dark sea, and they could only rely on the faint lights from the fishing village to slowly row back. Everything was normal until suddenly a ship's horn sounded behind them, which startled them so much that they quickened their pace.
"What the hell is going on? We've been discovered?"
They didn't dare look back at all, and paddled forward with their heads down. Zhou Han paddled with both hands frantically, his movements so fast that sparks almost flew. The ship's horn kept blaring, and it seemed they were getting closer and closer.
"Depend on!"
They were almost at the shore when everyone on the boat jumped off and dragged the boat to the shore.
"Quickly carry the things inside, and make sure they don't get wet."
The water was only knee-deep on the shore, so they carried the boxes on their shoulders and walked ashore, one step at a time, into the deep water.
In the dead of night, with no lights on, the rocks on the shore were hidden in the darkness. As Zhou Han was about to step ashore with his suitcase, he was scratched by an oyster shell on the rock. A sharp pain shot through his foot, and he staggered, almost falling into the sea.
"What's going on? Let's get going."
They could only grit their teeth and keep walking towards the shore. They made several trips back and forth until they finally emptied the ship's cargo. The ship's horn wasn't coming towards them; it was still calling from a distance.
The small stone house was almost completely filled with boxes. After what had just happened, they dared not go out anymore and could only hide inside.
Zhou Han sat on the stone chair and carefully took off his shoes, his feet were pierced and bleeding.
There were no conditions to treat the wound in this environment, so the only option was to wrap the soles of the feet with strips of cloth.
"Will we still be able to leave later?"
"able"
They sat in the stone house and waited until there was no more noise outside before daring to go out.
Having learned from their previous experience, they acted swiftly and quickly loaded the items onto the boat.
This time, nothing unexpected happened, except that when Zhou Han went into the water, the seawater irritated the wound on the sole of his foot, causing him to lose his balance and cut his calf.
"My God, I never thought I'd see a TV one day."
"Slap!" The leader slapped away the hand that was trying to open the box. "You can't open it yet."
They still have to deliver the goods, and if they get bumped or scratched on the way out, they'll have nowhere to turn and cry.
"Everyone, get some rest. We need to ship another batch tomorrow."
----
"It seems the management here isn't as strict as in Xin'an." An'an went to sleep with her aunt again. Song Qing was sitting on the edge of the kang drying her hair, telling Lu Yang about what Chen Yuehong had said today.
"When I went to the city that day, I also found several smuggled bicycles, which were almost identical to those from state-owned factories."
Lu Yang frowned. This smuggling was damaging national interests. The higher-ups could tolerate the existence of the black market and provide some trading venues for the people, but they absolutely could not tolerate this kind of smuggling.
"Xiao Hui told me something interesting today. Zhou Han secretly went out at night before, and it turns out he's sick today and has to stay in the hospital for a few days."
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