I make a living solving crimes.

Normally, the Chang family shouldn't be living like this.

Yan Bugui, who lived opposite the front yard, could support a family of six, including three boys. Later, his family was also the first in the yard to buy a bicycle. It made no sense that a poor child from the family of a section-level cadre at the administrative level 16 could not even have a decent piece of clothing.

After entering the city in 49, my father Chang Kun - what a funny name - transferred from the army to the public security department and became an instructor at the police station. Later, during the process of clearing out the remaining enemy spies, six of his comrades fell one after another, and he carried all of them on his shoulders.

Chang Wei did not admire his father's righteousness and comradeship, but he admired his mother. He sent him several hundred yuan every year, and his mother never said a word.

After my father died in 56, the neighborhood office and the police station arranged for my mother to work in a textile factory. The 41-year-old woman learned how to work on a textile machine from scratch. Fortunately, she caught up with the wage grading in 56 and was directly assigned to a second-level worker.

With such a small salary, I still sent out nearly four hundred yuan in the past two years.

Chang Wei admires the simplicity and friendship of his parents' generation very much.

(This is a paragraph added later because many people have sent me private messages about this. I was born in 79. When I was young, there was a widow living next door to me. Her husband died in Vietnam. She would receive a lot of remittances every year. The money was not much, but came from all over the world. I don’t want to sing praises of the great and glorious, nor do I want to be a saint, but now when I occasionally recall it, I still admire it very much.)

It just makes life hard for the four siblings of the Chang family.

The eldest sister Chang Da was also a miserable person. She got married at the age of 18 and became a widow at the age of 22. Last year, her brother-in-law drove his car into a ditch, leaving behind an orphan and a widow. Because she gave birth to a daughter, her in-laws did not like her.

I am 16 years old now, and I have a 10-year-old brother Chang Tian, ​​a 7-year-old sister Chang Long, and a three-year-old niece Bai Xiaoman who was brought here by my mother. Each of them is at the age when they can eat the most when they are growing up.

The food rations at home are really not enough.

Every month when the grain station came to exchange grain coupons, Yang Min secretly exchanged 30% of the family's fine grain coupons for coarse grain coupons, exchanging one pound of grain for three pounds, which was enough to barely eat 70% full.

Now Chang Wei doesn’t want anything else but to make sure his family members have enough food.

All he could do was catch more fish and then sell them for some food or meat so that his family could live a better life.

After lunch, the little girl felt a little sleepy, so Yang Min took her to the south room to coax her to sleep. Chang Wei found the ancestral bamboo fishing rod from under the bed and cleaned the dirt on it.

Chang Tian came over and whispered, "Brother, are you going fishing this afternoon?"

Chang Wei nodded and said, "Go ahead. When you make money, I'll buy you new shoes. Go get me the rag."

Chang Tian immediately ran to find a rag happily, scooped some water from the water tank, rubbed the rag carefully, and then handed it over and said, "Brother, I'll go with you. I've gained strength from eating meat today. I'll help you carry the fish."

Chang Wei disagreed. He pointed to the south room and said, "I'm not at home. Mom can't handle it alone. You have to help mom look after Xiao Man at home."

Chang Tian was a little frustrated, but he still nodded obediently and said in a muffled voice: "Okay, I'll listen to you, brother."

He is also an uncle and cannot be willful.

Chang Wei couldn't bear it, but he really didn't want to bring a burden, so he comforted her, "I'll bring you white flour buns and meat tonight."

Chang Tian couldn't believe it and asked again and again: "Really? Brother, are we having fish again tonight?"

Chang Wei sighed, patted Chang Tian's head and said, "Eat meat tonight, pork."

Chang Tian was spinning around in circles with joy. He didn't dare make any noise as his mother was sleeping, so he could only be excited by himself.

What a poor child!

Being precocious is not something to be praised.

Chang Wei walked quietly to the cupboard, took the flour bag, opened the cupboard and filled it with about five pounds of corn flour. Turning around, he saw Chang Tian and Chang Long looking at him in amazement.

He quickly said "hush", picked up the fishing rod, threw the flour bag into the bamboo basket, put it on his back and ran out the door.

Only three fish were caught in the morning. Apart from Chang Wei's lack of familiarity with the use of space, the most critical problem was that he didn't make a nest.

There is a poem to prove it: If you don’t bait a fishing bait, you won’t catch much.

Chang Wei walked along the wall, avoiding the sun, towards Beihai Park. There were few people there at noon, so he kneaded the corn flour in his hand into a ball with water, dug a hole in a random place, and threw the fishing rod out, creating ripples on the water.

Using the power of space to perceive carefully, it is different after making a nest. The fish come in groups. The first to come are some whitebait, which surround the dough and take small sips. The big fish rush over and then flee in all directions.

Probably no one has made a nest in the North Sea for many years, and these fish don’t know whether to live or die, and rush here in groups.

Without Yan Bugui and the third brother, Chang Wei didn't even need to put a fish on the hook when he went fishing, and he wouldn't disturb the nest because of the fish struggling. Every now and then, a fish would be picked up by Chang Wei and sent to the Liang Yi space.

He doesn’t want anything less than two kilograms.

He closed his stall when the sun was setting, carrying forty or fifty kilograms in the backpack, and still had over a hundred kilograms left in the space. He left Beihai Park, took a walk outside the city, and hurried home.

He finally had a vague understanding of the power of space.

Chang Tian, ​​Chang Long and the little girl were standing on the stone drum at the bright gate of the courtyard, stretching their necks and standing on tiptoe. When they saw Chang Wei from afar, they cheered and came towards them.

My eldest brother promised to have meat in the evening.

Chang Wei squatted down, held the little girl in his arms, threw the backpack to Chang Tian, ​​stood up, carried the little girl and walked home.

"Uncle, seven pieces of meat."

The little girl kicked her legs around in Chang Wei's arms, and Chang Tian and Chang Long watched her eagerly.

Chang Wei said nothing, and took the three little ones home. After entering the house, he took out twenty white flour buns and three pounds of pork from the flour bag in his backpack.

"Wow!" The little girl was the first to react. She pointed with her little finger and muttered, "It's Rourou, Qi Rourou."

Yang Min quickly covered the little girl's mouth, signaled Chang Tian to close the door, and said harshly: "Where did the meat come from?"

Chang Wei found a porcelain jar and drank half a cup of water. He wiped the corners of his mouth and said, "On the river bank outside Deshengmen, five catties of fish were exchanged for one catty of meat. I only got three catties and that was it."

Yang Min breathed a sigh of relief. The riverside outside Deshengmen was a famous underground free market in the north of Beijing. It was almost semi-public and everyone in Beijing knew about it.

The authorities just turned a blind eye.

After all, there are 35 legal free markets in the suburban counties surrounding the capital, so this one won’t make a difference.

This was also the last glory of the individual economy before the reform and opening up.

After calculating the bill, Yang Min felt a little distressed. "Five catties of fish cost more than one yuan, and one catty of meat only costs 78 cents."

Chang Wei was speechless and said, "Mom, where are the meat tickets at home?"

Yang Min ignored this and asked again, "Did you really change it?"

Chang Wei laughed and said, "Actually, I lied to you. I ran to someone's village secretly and saw someone slaughtering a pig. I rushed over to grab a piece and ran away. I was chased for two miles."

Yang Min patted his arm and scolded him with a smile: "If they really robbed you, you won't be able to escape even ten miles away."

Chang Tian listened nearby and nodded repeatedly. If someone tried to steal his meat, he would chase them as long as they could run away.

Yang Min put the meat down, looked at the oil on her hands, and wiped them off on her apron with great reluctance. She reminded him, "You are old enough now. You will be working next year. You should know how to behave properly."

"I know what's good for me."

Yang Min didn't say anything more. She knew that her son had always been sensible in his actions. He had been beaten many times since he was a child, but that was only because he was too naughty.

Chang Wei did not say that he sold the fish outside Deshengmen, where it was 40 cents a pound, and then he bought the pork at 2.5 yuan a pound. In fact, it took more than six pounds of fish to exchange for one pound of pork. He did not mind the price, but it was a pity that there were only three pounds.

Two dollars and fifty cents per pound of meat. If he tells my mother, he won’t be able to eat this meal.

The weather was too hot to keep pork, so Yang Min made a big bowl of pork ribs and poured the oil back into the jar. She ate half of the pork ribs in the evening and kept the other half with water until the next day.

Firstly, people are reluctant to eat it all at once, and secondly, everyone’s stomach is dry and eating too much meat will cause diarrhea.

Seeing the three little ones eating the steamed buns with their mouths full of oil, Chang Wei put a piece of meat into Yang Min's bowl. Without waiting for her to speak, he took out a handful of money and said, "Mom, this is the remaining money."

Yang Min took the money and counted it. Feeling something was wrong, he counted it again and asked in surprise, "How much did you catch this afternoon?"

Chang Wei said casually, "I used five kilograms of cornmeal to bait the fish, and I caught about fifty or sixty kilograms this afternoon."

But he couldn’t suppress the twitching of the corners of his mouth.

A few little ones raised their heads and said "wow" a few times to show their respect.

The little girl has no idea how much fifty or sixty kilograms weighs.

The setting sun fell on the skyline, and the fiery clouds spread out red clouds, reflecting the earth in a fiery red.