50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 108 Punishing Brother Long
At this time, a staff member came out from the back and greeted Sun Zhiwei enthusiastically after seeing him: "Zhiwei, your family is here to buy a fixed quantity. I'll do it."

As he said that, he took over the work of the staff member just now.

Sun Zhiwei felt that he looked familiar and soon recognized that he was one of the two staff members who came to verify the quantity for the first time.

But he couldn't remember the person's name. He only remembered that the surname seemed to be Ji, but he was not sure. It was so embarrassing.

So, he could only smile and nod politely: "Yes, it's the weekend, so I bought it early so I don't have to worry about it. You must be very busy today, so I have to trouble you."

"It's okay. We're serving the people. Have you bought everything? It's a bit much. Can you take it all away?"

"I can take it with me. I'm quite strong. I even got a certificate for helping out at a construction site a few years ago."

"As long as you can take it away, it's fine. Let me calculate. 6% fine grains and 4% coarse grains, plus an additional 6 kilograms of fine grains as subsidy. Do you want rice or flour for the fine grains?"

"Noodles, what kind of coarse grains are available now?"

"Today's supply includes sweet potatoes, millet, and sorghum."

"As for the whole grains, we need half sweet potato and half millet."

"Okay, 51 jin of white flour, 22 jin 7 liang 5 qian of sweet potatoes and millet each. They'll be ready soon."

Tong Jiajia, who was standing next to him, heard the number and went to the counter with the grain book, grain coupons and money to get the invoice. Comrade Ji had already started weighing the flour. He knew Sun Zhiwei, so there was no need to wait for the invoice to arrive before weighing the grain.

"It doesn't have to be that precise, just roughly."

"Comrade Sun, you're really easy to talk to. Last time, someone bought a sweet potato and insisted on paying a penny, not a penny less. He even insisted on us cutting off the tip of the potato for him. He almost made one of us little girls cry."

He was talking to Sun Zhiwei while weighing the grains. His movements were very skillful. He didn't weigh the weight by a handful, but it was almost there. A slight adjustment would make it accurate.

"What happened next?"

"What can I do? I'll just come over and give him a spoonful of millet."

"Catch this, Luo, 51 jins of white flour."

Sun Zhiwei covered the circular outlet at the bottom with a cloth bag, tightened the gap, poured flour from above, and the flour dust expanded upward, filling the bag.

Comrade Ji patted the iron dustpan at the entrance to ensure there was no flour stuck in it. Then he went to weigh the sweet potatoes.

"Later, there was an unwritten rule that if there was an error in the sweet potato quantity, millet would be used to make up for it."

"If you want both sweet potatoes and millet, weigh the sweet potatoes first so it's easier to measure."

"Here come the sweet potatoes. 90 jin 4 liang of sweet potatoes (already revised, 20220414024421815 jin of sweet potatoes counts as 22 jin of coarse grains, thanks to book friend 9 for providing the information), and jin liang of millet."

It took only 5 minutes after both items were weighed and received, and the tickets had not yet been issued at the counter, so the two of them moved to the side and talked while waiting for the tickets.

Fireworks are strictly prohibited here, so he didn't offer the other person a cigarette. Instead, he grabbed a handful of fruit candies from his pocket and stuffed them into the other person's pocket.

"Come, try it. I got it from Lingdao's family. It's a treat when we meet."

"Oh, this is great. My kid at home is clamoring for candy, but these things have started to require tickets lately, and it's hard to buy them even if you have tickets."

"Then take it back home to the kid."

"Thank you. Things haven't been going well down there lately. If you have any tickets, exchange them quickly and don't keep them." Comrade Ji suddenly lowered his voice and said this. Sun Zhiwei understood and said gratefully, "Oh, I wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't mentioned it. Thank goodness you reminded me."

As he was speaking, Tong Jiajia came back with the invoice and handed the document to Ji.

Sun Zhiwei carried a bag of noodles and a bag of sweet potatoes, Tong Jiajia carried a bag of millet, and Sun Ailai was responsible for holding the backpack. The three of them said goodbye to Comrade Ji and left the grain station.

On the way home, Sun Zhiwei told Tong Jiajia what Comrade Ji had just mentioned. Tong Jiajia looked worried and couldn't help but quicken her pace.

After lunch, Tong Jiajia had sorted out all the bills that needed to be cashed. In the afternoon, the three of them set out again to buy things at various places.

The three of them bought all the cloth coupons, sugar coupons, and other clothing and food coupons before going home.

In the following six months, the Sun family kept the habit of using up all the tickets they had. He also took the time to go to Old Zhang's house, Daxiang's house, Aunt Liang's house, and his godmother's house to order tickets, but didn't say much.

Fortunately, the four companies were smart and knew that Sun Zhiwei would not say anything nonsense, so they obediently used all the tickets they could use.

In the past six months, more and more people from other places have come to Beijing to live with their relatives and friends, and bad news keeps coming. Sun Zhiwei has no choice but to work harder.

In May, there was a rare piece of exciting good news.

At 5:25 a.m. on May 4, three mountaineers from the Chinese mountaineering team - Wang Fuzhou, Gongbu and Qu Yinhua - planted the five-star red flag on Mount Everest, completing the feat of climbing Mount Everest from the north slope for the first time in human history.

Newspapers and radio broadcasts reported the good news repeatedly, and everyone applauded the three people for winning world-class honor for their motherland.

In June, a new order came down: starting in July, everyone's ration would be reduced by 6 jin. When the rations were reviewed on the 7th, the rations for the three members of the Sun family were reduced to 2 jin, 20 jin, and 33 jin, respectively.

Their family is fine. Sun Zhiwei and his daughter's monthly allowance has not been reduced. The extra 6 kilograms of fine grain can help them with a lot of things.

Daxiang and his uncle's family are fine, as they have a way to get extra food. Aunt Liang's family and godmother's family have many children, so it's not so easy for them, but they can still make ends meet.

The worst off was Mr. Zhang. The rations for all five members of his family had been reduced, and now his parents had no rations left. Now they were in trouble.

Lao Zhang found Daxiang overnight and asked him to bring some food from Pigeon Market. Daxiang went to Pigeon Market that night. The prices of rice and flour there had already risen, 3% higher than usual.

Perhaps it was a sudden inspiration that Daxiang bought 200 kilograms on the spot without hesitation. He sent 100 kilograms to Lao Zhang's house and split the other 100 kilograms in half between himself and his uncle's family.

Daxiang’s mother was originally a little complaining that Daxiang had bought it at a high price, but she didn’t expect the price to increase by another 1% the next day.

After Sun Zhiwei learned about the situation, he went to the ghost market that night. He found that there were a lot of people at the ghost market that day, and there was very little food on the market, and it was very expensive.

He turned to Brother Long's courtyard and saw that the east and west wing rooms were already filled with grain, but they didn't take any of it out, and it was obvious that they were hoarding it.

He thought about it and came up with a solution. Before that, he first loaded a batch of rice and flour, and then loaded another batch of millet and cornmeal and put them back into the basement of his home.

On the last trip, he directly robbed Brother Long of all the cash, bills and yellow croakers hidden in the side room of the main house.

In the early hours of the morning, Brother Long went to the ear room to get the account book to settle the accounts, but he saw the door of the ear room wide open.

Then, Long Ge's wailing could be heard from the side room of the main house: "Who is it? Who is it? My money~!"

When the market opened the next day, the Imperial City Ghost Market where Brother Long was located unexpectedly began to release a large amount of food, which attracted the attention of the heads of other ghost markets.

The news spread that night, and people kept rushing to the imperial city at high speed during the night, and then bags of food were carried back home by people.

(End of this chapter)