Traveling through 70's wine

Wen Qing said goodbye and returned to the carriage. She took out the meat buns she bought at the snack shop at the train station, poured some boiled water, finished her dinner, stood for a while, and climbed onto the upper bunk to continue sleeping.

Half an hour later, the broadcast arrived at Jiuqu Station, and it was estimated that Deng Yun and other two people in carriage No. 7 had already got off the train.

Wen Qing was not sleepy. She lay on the upper bunk, probed her mental power into the space, and continued transplanting the seedlings.

There were many people in the carriage, so she couldn't enter the space and could only use her mental power to work. Unconsciously, the noise in the car gradually became louder. Wen Qing looked out and it was already dawn.

She got down from the upper bunk, washed up, took out two buns, and ate breakfast with boiled water. Someone came over to chat with her, but Wen Qing didn't say anything, just nodded and smiled.

The train was already travelling across the vast plains, and soon an announcement was heard on the radio that it would soon arrive at Yuzhou Station.

Wen Qing got out of bed and waited for the train to arrive. She got off the train and bought a bowl of noodles. It was steaming hot and looked delicious. She ate it with the soup, and her stomach finally felt better.

Wen Qing spent fifteen days going back and forth to Dongyue. She wondered how Zhuang Xien was doing in Jizhong. Was the factory business done? She could ask him about the situation after she returned.

When the train slowly pulled into Pingjing Station, it was already evening. Wen Qing walked out of the train station carrying a backpack.

As usual, there were many scalpers and touts standing at the exit. Some even reached out to pull her, but she dodged them. She walked out of the station quickly, took two buses and returned to Erxia Village.

The winery was quiet; Liu Quan and Wang Jianguo had already finished get off work.

Wen Qing went to the winery and found that everything was neatly organized, the floor was clean, the ground vats and mud cellars were full, and the fermentation temperature was appropriate. She turned off the lights and returned to the front yard.

First, she went to light the fire in the back kitchen to heat the kang in the room. By the time she finished her work, the room would probably be warm.

He went to the kitchen to boil some water, then swept the floor of the room and the yard, fetched more water, wiped the table, removed the white cloth covering the bed, and put on clean sheets and quilt covers.

This time she changed into a newly bought duck down quilt. After cleaning, the water in the kitchen was boiled. She simply cooked some noodles and continued to boil water on the stove. After the water was heated, she went to the bathroom to take a hot bath, put the clothes, sheets and quilt covers she had changed into the washing machine to wash, and then went back to her kang to rest.

In the morning, I woke up when I heard the sound of Liuquan and others going to work. After breakfast, I came to the winery.

During the half month she was away, Wang Jianguo held Liu Quan back and did not let her run away. The two of them led the workers to make wine together. Wang Jianguo reported to Wen Qing: "Sister Wen, we added grain to the mash in the mud cellar and steamed it again. This time we steamed 5 to 6 kilograms of wine and put it all in the wine cellar. I also made a new kind of wine yeast. Can you go and see if it can be used to make wine?"

Liuquan also said: "The expansion of the winery has been completed. When can it be put into use?"

Wen Qing asked, "Has the new wine shop been cleaned up?"

Liu Quan said: "We have already done the cleaning, dug the wine cellar, cleaned the floor jars and put them down, but we haven't found the mud for the wine cellar yet, so we haven't started to apply the mud on the bottom and walls of the cellar."

Wen Qing nodded, then turned to Wang Jianguo and said, "Jianguo, let's go to Qufang and take a look."

The three of them went to the koji room to see Wang Jianguo's new koji. Wen Qing picked up a piece of koji, which was flat and solid. She smelled it and found it had a faint fragrance. It was indeed good. She said, "It looks pretty good. We can use this to make wine next time. Let's make a cellar first and try it out."

He added, "The Spring Festival is coming soon. We will have a holiday starting tomorrow and go back to work on the sixth day."

Both of them were very happy and hurried to inform the workers. After a while, laughter was heard from the yard.

When Wen Qing fell asleep in bed, she remembered that she had not called Zhuang Xien yet, and she thought to herself that she must remind herself tomorrow.

The next day, Wen Qing got up early and ran a long circle along the dirt road outside the village. The temperature in the morning had dropped to minus ten degrees Celsius. The breath he exhaled while running turned into white mist in the air, and the white mist was pulled into a white line by the wind.

Wen Qing returned home, washed off the sweat on her body, used her inner strength to dry her hair, had breakfast, and rode her bike to the Schindler store.

Zhuang Xien was still in Jizhong City and had not returned yet, but Fang Yuan and Lin Qingyuan were there and told Wen Qing about the progress of contracting the Jizhong City Bicycle Factory.

They have already signed the contract and are negotiating with the steel mill regarding the unpaid wages of their employees, as the other party demands that the wages be paid before the Spring Festival.

Fang Yuan and Lin Qingyuan were also very worried because they did not have enough funds.

To contract a bicycle factory, I first needed to pay the employees' salaries, and also needed to purchase raw materials, pay for the factory's water, electricity, coal, and daily office expenses. Originally, each person was supposed to contribute 5 yuan, but now I know that there are so many expensive places to run a factory, and 20 yuan is definitely not enough.

They only received more than 5 yuan in dividends at the end of the year, and they had to borrow money from others to even take out 10 yuan. Now each person has to pay at least yuan. It seems that they need to find another way.

After calculation, it turned out that the bicycle factory owed its employees six months' salary, about 6 yuan.

Wen Qing also agreed to solve the problem of unpaid employee wages before the Spring Festival. After all, employees have to support their families. The Spring Festival is coming soon. How can they celebrate the New Year without money?

The three of them discussed and decided to first collect 3 yuan to pay Zhuang Xien’s salary, otherwise the employees would not cooperate and it would be difficult to do their future work.

Wen Qing called Zhuang Xien and told him what the three of them had discussed, and Zhuang Xien breathed a sigh of relief.

He was also short of money, so he had to choose between taking out a loan for his share of the investment. He planned to first renovate the courtyard in Balizhuang and then use it as a mortgage loan, but the renovation would not be completed until early March.

Wen Qing readily took out 1 yuan and gave it to Fang Yuan and Lin Qingyuan. The two went to the bank and transferred the money to Zhuang Xien. Zhuang Xien told her that he would be back around New Year's Eve, and Wen Qing told him not to worry about home.

After leaving Schindler's store, Wen Qing went to the post office. She wanted to install a telephone at home.

But the results of the consultation made her very unhappy.

To install a telephone, she needed a letter of introduction from her work unit, which was not difficult to do, but the cost was as high as 1 yuan, and the staff at the Post and Telecommunications Bureau told her arrogantly that now an appointment was needed to install a telephone, which would take at least three months. If their village did not have a telephone line, then they would have to wait until the telephone line was connected. In short, it was a long way off.

Wen Qing could only give up the idea of ​​installing a phone and wait.

Zhuang Xien paid the employees of the bicycle factory the overdue wages, but the situation was still not resolved.

First, a small number of employees made trouble and refused to obey the management team. The Light Industry Bureau also made things difficult for them by refusing to approve their raw material plans, making operations even more difficult.

Zhuang Xien couldn't handle the whole thing alone, so Lin Qingyuan rushed over to help Zhuang Xien find a way to purchase raw materials. The two of them worked out rules and regulations together, and gradually focused the employees' attention on production, and the factory's operations gradually returned to normal.

Zhuang Xien finally had the energy to discuss with the production department and technicians how to produce new bicycles. Another week passed and the bicycle factory was closed for holiday.

On New Year's Eve, Zhuang Xien and Lin Qingyuan returned to Pingjing. They planned to leave on the fourth day of the new year as the bicycle factory would resume work on the fifth day.

Wen Qing prepared the New Year's Eve dinner in Erxia Village and waited for the two to come over to eat. Fang Yuan went home. Zhuang Xien and Lin Qingyuan were not from Pingjing, so they did not go back to their hometowns. They celebrated the New Year together with Wen Qing.

The New Year's Eve dinner was very sumptuous, with chicken stewed with mushrooms, steamed pork with rice flour, bacon fried with garlic sprouts, braised carp, beef with green onions, fried meatballs, sauerkraut cabbage, lotus root and pork ribs soup, rice and dumplings. It was already evening when Zhuang Xien and Lin Qingyuan got home, and the sound of firecrackers could be heard everywhere.

Wen Qing took out a bottle of Changxia Special Brew, poured it into three cups, raised his cup and said, "Happy New Year! All the best to you!"

"Happy New Year! All the best to you!"

The three of them had a very happy meal and drank until late at night. Listening to the sound of firecrackers coming from the village, Zhuang Xien also took out firecrackers and lit them in the yard. The firecrackers exploded all over the ground with crackling sounds. The three of them had a lively New Year's Eve.

After dinner, Zhuang Xien and Lin Qingyuan went home. Wen Qing closed the gate and lay down on the warm kang with a soft and fluffy duvet. She fell into a deep sleep soon.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, Wen Qing didn't want to stay at home, so she made an appointment with Zhuang Xien to go to the temple fair.