The rapeseed flowers in the fields bloom rapidly during this period, turning into a lush green that looks stunning.

Wen Jiajia sat at the door, looking through the yard gate at the rapeseed swaying in the wind in the fields, thinking that she might not be able to catch up with the rapeseed flowering season.

Wei Dai wrote to her last time, saying that the house had been prepared and the application would be approved soon.

She turned over her clothes and counted on her fingers.

A month has passed since Wei Dai’s last letter.

Now, it’s time to come.

The clothes emit a smell of burning hair during the baking process, which Wen Jiajia finds unpleasant. In addition, she has to turn the clothes over from time to time to prevent them from being burned, so baking clothes is really a tedious job.

At this moment, the familiar sound of bicycle bells came from not far away.

Wen Jiajia immediately stuck her head out, and it turned out to be the postman Xiao Tang.

“Wen Jia, there’s a letter for you!” Xiao Tang parked the bicycle at the door and shouted inside, “It’s from your lover again.”

“Okay.”

Wen Jiajia walked out with excitement, took the letter, and returned to the main room to open it while taking out the clothes from the drying rack.

[Jia Jia, I’m glad to hear your letter. I have good news for you. Please pack your luggage as soon as possible. Your application to join the army has been approved. I plan to be home on the 14th. After the Lantern Festival, I will take you back to the army…]

Seeing this, Wen Jiajia couldn’t help but exclaim “Yeah”.

Although the countryside is also good, that is only during the slack season. It is only good at the end of the year when supplies are sufficient.

The rest of the time, it’s as tiring as it can be! Wen Jiajia was so happy that she could fly away before work started.

She began to count on her fingers again. There were still four days until the Lantern Festival, which meant that Wei Dai would be home in three days.

Wen Jiajia scratched her head. She must pack her luggage before he came back.

But she was in a dilemma… there were too many pieces of luggage, how should she organize them?

For example, rice.

There were still several bags of unhusked rice in the granary at home. It was impossible to take them away, so she had to find a way to exchange them for food coupons.

Who to change?

Wen Jiajia thought about it and decided to find Lao Bai. Lao Bai was from a state-owned restaurant, so he must have some channels.

Just do it.

The next day, the rain stopped.

Wen Jiajia borrowed a car from the village party secretary and followed the muddy road to the county town.

Lao Bai was a little surprised to see Wen Jiajia and couldn’t help but look behind her: “Wei Dai is back again?”

“I’ll be back in two days.” Wen Jiajia parked the car and looked around, “Brother Bai, I want to ask you for help with something.”

Lao Bai understood immediately that this matter had to be discussed in private.

It was not yet mealtime, so there were not many people in the state-owned restaurant. There were only the waiter and two middle-aged ladies chatting.

Lao Bai brought Wen Jiajia to the corner and asked her, “What’s the matter?”

Wen Jiajia whispered, “Wei Dai came back this time to take me to the army. My family received a lot of food last year. It’s not easy to carry this food. I want to ask you if you can help me exchange this food for food coupons.”

This matter made Lao Bai’s eyes light up.

“What do you mean by help or not? Sister-in-law, you don’t know. The city is nothing like your countryside. We rely on the food on our food allowances every month. It’s OK if everyone in the family is not a farmer, but if one or two are not, it will be difficult to provide food.”

This is the case for many families in the county town now.

Like his neighbor, he married a woman from a nearby commune, and he still hasn’t found a job, but he has two children.

The child’s household registration follows the mother. If the mother has no quota, the child will also have no quota, and the burden on the family will be heavy.

His neighbors all said that they would not dare to have any more children until they found a job for their wife.

Wen Jiajia said, “I know. But I…”

She looked embarrassed: “It’s just that I don’t have any channels, and I’m afraid I’ll be caught if I act rashly.”

Wen Jiajia actually thought about asking the original owner’s classmates and friends for help, but those classmates and friends were not particularly close, so Wen Jiajia didn’t dare to take the risk.

As for transporting it to the Grain Bureau to exchange it… she had no such plan.

The grain coupons issued by the Grain Bureau are mostly local coupons, not national coupons. If you want to exchange for national coupons, you need to exchange for more grain.

Lao Bai said without hesitation: “Okay, then you prepare the food, and I will take a leave in the afternoon to go to your house to transport the food.”

Wen Jiajia pondered: “I can probably sell 600 kilograms of unhusked rice, 50 kilograms of dried corn kernels, and 80 kilograms of dried sweet potatoes. If there are green vegetables…”

Lao Bai: “We want vegetables, too.” It’s not easy to get vegetables in the city; they cost money.

Wen Jiajia: “Okay, thank you, Brother Bai.”

“Well, why are you being so polite to me? I’ll be there around 6 pm today, just get your things ready.”

Wen Jiajia: “Be careful then. If you meet someone on patrol, just tell them you’re here to see me.”

There are still militiamen patrolling the village from time to time, and it is said that the ancient tomb has not been fully excavated yet.

After saying that, Wen Jiajia left.

These things are not all the food reserves in her family; Wen Jiajia will take some away.

For example, soybeans and mung beans are hard to buy, so Wen Jiajia would take them away no matter how much they cost.

But Wen Jiajia still underestimated their weight.

After returning home and returning the car, Wen Jiajia went to the granary on the second floor and started sorting the food.

Thanks to the frequent traps recently, almost all the mice on the second floor were caught by Wen Jiajia.

It took only three days for her to change from covering her eyes and running away when she saw a dead mouse to picking up a mouse with pliers without changing her expression when she saw it.

You have to catch it; otherwise, the rat will stink.

These rats died in batches, from two or three every day, to one a day, and then to one every few days. Until now, the rats probably knew that there were traps everywhere here, and they no longer dared to show up.

Wen Jiajia spent nearly an hour dragging bags of food from the second floor to the first floor. After deducting the food that needed to be exchanged for food coupons, she still had 380 kilograms of food to take away.

Among them, there were 16 kilograms of soybeans, 8 kilograms of mung beans, 12 kilograms of red beans, and 36 kilograms of glutinous rice.

The rest were all rice grains, unhusked rice grains. If she worked hard to remove the husks in the next two days, she would still have more than 200 kilograms of rice.

She wanted to take it away, but that was obviously impossible, as she still had bedding and clothes to take with her.

Supplies were in short supply now. It was easier to buy one or two kilograms of cotton, but it was difficult to buy a bed quilt.

Wen Jiajia planned to take two quilts from home with her. The winters in the army would definitely be colder, and she would need them sooner or later.

After much thought, she decided to send it.

After Wen Jiajia thought it over, she stopped hesitating and used a cart to transport the two bags of grain to the husking shop next to the brigade headquarters in two trips. There was a place in the village that specialized in helping villagers husk rice.

Were there rice hullers in those days? Yes, at least in the relatively wealthy progressive communes.

Later, the Fuyang Brigade tightened its belt and bought a semi-automatic rice hulling machine. From then on, the villagers no longer needed to grind rice manually.

However, if you ask the brigade’s hulling shop to hull the rice, the remaining broken rice will have to belong to the brigade, which leads to some people still preferring to grind it themselves.

Wen Jiajia didn’t care about all that now. She spent more than an hour peeling off the husks and brought 240 kilograms of rice back home.

After returning home, she started packing without stopping.

By the time she had packed all her things, it was already dark and evening.

“Is it six o’clock?” Wen Jiajia muttered as she looked at the sky.

She waited at the door, and a few minutes later saw Lao Bai driving a donkey cart appear at her door.

“Jia Jia, this comrade said he is here to see you?” the militiaman asked. Fearing that Lao Bai was a bad guy, he followed Lao Bai to the Wen family.

Wen Jiajia said: “Uncle Zheng, he is Wei Dai’s comrade-in-arms. He helped me transport the things to the county town and mail them to Wei Dai.”

Uncle Zheng said hurriedly: “That’s fine.”

He asked again: “Are you leaving?”

Wen Jiajia nodded.

Uncle Zheng rolled up his sleeves and said, “Then I’ll help you move. I heard that even a vegetable leaf costs money in the city, and I don’t know what the situation is in the army. My broken house is worth a fortune, so take as much as you can.”

With his help, several large bags of grain were quickly loaded onto the truck.

Uncle Zheng had no doubts. Food was a necessity. In his opinion, who would be willing to sell food? If he wanted to exchange food coupons, he could just take them to the Food Bureau.

Uncle Zheng didn’t stay long. He loaded the car and left.

After he left, Lao Bai lifted the oilcloth and Wen Jiajia started moving vegetables in again.

She had a lot of vegetables at home, most of which were grown in winter, and they hadn’t been eaten up yet.

Especially the cabbage, two large baskets were full. There were also peppers, garlic sprouts, and other things, and the donkey cart could hardly hold them all.

Finally, when Lao Bai drove away, the wheel tracks were deep, and Wen Jiajia said sorry to the donkey three times in her heart.

After sending away some supplies, Wen Jiajia received a large stack of banknotes.

All the tickets were national tickets, and the food tickets were still far from expiring.

In addition, there were oil coupons, non-staple food coupons, and even four industrial coupons.

After moving to a new home, many things need to be purchased, and industrial tickets are also indispensable.

As for the money, there was a full 28 yuan, at least enough for the train tickets for her and her two children.

After solving some of the problems, Wen Jiajia went to cook while humming a little tune.

Wen Chun and Wen Xuan came back from playing all sweaty. Fortunately, the two girls knew their limits and didn’t get covered in dirt, otherwise, Wen Jiajia would have definitely beaten them up to teach them a lesson.

Several large packages were placed in the main room. Wen Chun saw them and ran over to ask Wen Jiajia, “Aunt, are we leaving?”

Wen Jiajia was surprised: “How did you know to leave?”

Wen Chun: “Aunt Yanyan said that we will be moving to the city to live soon.”

Wen Jiajia patted her head and said, “You’re dreaming. It’s in the city, maybe even more remote than where we are.”

Then she asked her, “Do you want to live in the city?”

Wen Chun bit her lip, struggling for quite some time.

When she served the meal to the two girls, Wen Chun hugged her legs and said, “I just want to follow my aunt. Wherever my aunt goes, I will go.”