Year 1979: Eating meat with my wife and children

"Hou San, do you want a wife? Ugh, do you want some fried dough twists?"

As Hou San was putting on his pants, his expression changed from excitement to boredom as Li Xiangdong spoke.

In just a few seconds, he acted like a middle-aged man who had just finished his business, with an attitude of "I'm fine with whatever you do."

Standing before him, Li Xiangdong was momentarily dazed; this "whatever" aura seemed so familiar...

He shook his head and urged, "Say something! Do you want to bring some fried dough twists and mackerel home?"

Hou San blinked. "Of course I want to, but Brother Dong, grain coupons are easy to get, but fish coupons are hard to come by. This is my first time in Tianjin, and I don't know how to get any coupons. How about we go to the pigeon market?"

Li Xiangdong waved his hand and said, "No need, I found a place where you can buy them without tickets. Fried dough twists and mackerel are all 3 cents a pound."

Hou San exclaimed in surprise, "So cheap? Putting aside the mackerel, wheat flour is already 18 cents, and this doesn't even require a coupon. Is it possible that half of it is made up of cornmeal?"

"No, don't worry."

Li Xiangdong shook his head. He believed that even if Zhao Si didn't care about Yang Dabao's reputation, he would still consider his own.

Sometimes, the more shady the business, the more attention is paid to these things.

Li Xiangdong pulled Hou San, who was already dressed, and planned to go find A Zhe again.

Just then, Ah Zhe came out of the house looking for the two of them, and the three of them met in the corridor.

Upon seeing A Zhe, Hou San instantly jumped around like a grasshopper, pointing at his nose and cursing.

"Ah Zhe, you bastard! You tricked me into thinking there was a surprise, and now I've been sprayed with water all over my butt! I'll fight you to the death!"

Upon hearing the words "bad seed," Ah Zhe was immediately reminded of events from a few years ago, when many people had used those same words to insult him.

However, he knew that Hou San did not mean it. The main reason was that he had lied to Hou San first, so he was in the wrong and could only stand there and talk back.

"Who told you to be curious? If you weren't curious, you wouldn't have fallen for it. Why are you yelling at me like that? Do you think you're something special?"

Li Xiangdong stood between the two, focusing most of his attention on Hou San, who was now like a moth fluttering about, desperately trying to pounce on A Zhe.

"Ah Zhe, quickly apologize to Hou San."

"Hou San, how could you call A Zhe a bad seed? You should apologize to him too."

Li Xiangdong tried to force the oxen to drink water, but they refused and kept their mouths shut. He couldn't do anything about it.

Hou San grabbed Li Xiangdong's arm, "Brother Dong, let's go. Didn't you say you were going to buy fried dough twists and mackerel? Let's take A Zhe with us."

"Why aren't you taking me with you? I'm going to come along anyway!"

Ah Zhe followed closely behind the two, arguing with Hou San from the corridor to Zhao Si's room.

"You two can do whatever you want when there are no outsiders around, but now shut up."

After Li Xiangdong finished speaking, he knocked on the door.

Zhao Si opened the door and invited the three people in with a smile. "Dongzi, are these your two friends? What do they want, and how much?"

"This is Zhao Si from the Tianjin Canteen, Brother Si."

After giving Hou San and A Zhe a brief introduction, Li Xiangdong looked at Hou San and asked, "I ordered five yuan worth of fried dough twists and mackerel. How much do you plan to buy?"

"I'll buy the same thing as you, Dong Ge."

After Hou San finished speaking, he gave A Zhe a provocative snort.

Li Xiangdong looked at A Zhe, "And you?"

Ah Zhe thought for a moment, "I don't want the mackerel, neither my dad nor I know how to cook it. I'll just buy some fried dough twists instead."

The fourth brother looked at A Zhe and laughed, "Five yuan for a twisted dough stick, right? Okay, I'll write it down..."

"Fourth Brother, we don't need that much."

Li Xiangdong interrupted Zhao Si, "Ah Zhe, Fourth Brother doesn't need coupons here. Fried dough twists are only 3 cents a pound. It's just the two of you at home, so just buy some..."

As he was talking, he suddenly thought of his other childhood friends. "Zhe, let's do as you said. Let's bring more back and give some to Xiaolinzi and his family."

Ah Zhe scratched his head and laughed, "We're thinking the same thing."

Li Xiangdong nodded, then took out another dollar from his pocket. "Fourth Brother, I don't want the mackerel anymore. Replace it all with fried dough twists. I'll give you another dollar. Give me 20 jin."

Ah Zhe then said, "Fourth Brother, I also want 20 jin of fried dough twists."

"Then I don't want the mackerel anymore, I want 20 jin of fried dough twists instead."

Hou San saw A Zhe looking at him and said, "What are you looking at! It's my own money, I can buy whatever I want!"

He turned to Li Xiangdong with a smile and explained, "I have several nephews and nieces, and I was afraid that if I bought too little, it wouldn't be enough to go around."

After paying the money and leaving Zhao Si's room, Hou San saw that A Zhe was still following behind him like a little shadow.

"Why have you been following us?"

"You idiot, you go eat breakfast, but I can't go eat breakfast?"

Seeing that the two were about to argue again, Li Xiangdong quickened his pace, too lazy to pay attention to them anymore. They were both so embarrassing, with so many people in the yard watching them, and they didn't even care about their own reputation.

After breakfast, we returned to the guesthouse.

Li Xiangdong is leisurely enjoying the life of a retired senior cadre.

Lying on the bed, smoking and drinking tea that Hou San had somehow gotten his hands on, he held an expired old newspaper in his hand.

Beautiful, so beautiful!

Leisurely time always passes quickly.

After finishing his lunch, Li Xiangdong returned the deposit for the lunchbox he had paid the night before, and then took Hou San and A Zhe to the cafeteria's kitchen.

Zhao Si was packing the fried dough twists, wrapping each two jin (1 kg) in an oil paper and tying it with a rope.

To make it easier to carry by hand, the ten oil paper packages are tied together.

Zhao Si greeted them without stopping, "Dongzi, you're here. Wait a moment, it'll be ready soon."

Li Xiangdong casually picked up a small twisted dough stick and tasted it. It tasted pretty good. If he brought it home, Li Xiaotao and the others would be overjoyed.

But the more he chewed, the more he felt something was wrong. It was pure white flour. Was Zhao Si really that honest?

At this moment, Ah Zhe sneakily pulled Li Xiangdong to a corner and pointed to the flour sacks under the wall.

"Dongzi, doesn't the cafeteria only store ingredients for the day? I ate the steamed buns this morning, which were leftovers from yesterday. The only staple food for lunch is rice. So where did this bag of flour go?"

Hou San stared wide-eyed, completely bewildered and not understanding what A Zhe was saying at all. "What else can you do with flour? Steam buns and make noodles, of course."

Ah Zhe rolled his eyes at him and whispered, "Which eye of yours saw the steamed buns and noodles? These are clearly what Zhao Si used to make fried dough twists for us."

"Ah~!"

After what happened last night, Hou San has learned his lesson. He looked at Li Xiangdong and asked, "Brother Dong, will buying these fried dough twists cause us trouble?"

"It's alright. If Zhao Si dares to do it, what can't we eat?"

Although Li Xiangdong said that, his back molars were numb.

He knew it! How could Zhao Si, that scoundrel, be so honest? It turns out Yang Dabao was right. He even dared to blatantly misappropriate the flour from the cafeteria for his own use.

No wonder it's only 3 cents a pound; he's treating the collective like his own home, making his personal business operate at zero cost.

If businessmen of later generations saw this, they would be so envious they'd want to bang their heads against the wall!