Chapter 11

After receiving the money, Yan Mingli quickly left the alley where the blood station was located and headed towards the Guanyin Temple that had been smashed and damaged during the “Four Olds” campaign.

The Guanyin Temple located on the bank of Xiushui River has been in ruins after the massive movement and nine years of baptism. It is surrounded by weed-covered roads that extend in all directions. From a distance, it looks dilapidated and ruined.

But it is precisely this kind of environment that creates the black market. In the old market of Guanyin Temple, you can often see people walking around buying or selling, which is quite strangely lively.

But once they receive the retreat signal, they will flee in all directions very quickly. It is true that “when they gather together, they are a ball of fire; when they disperse, they are like stars in the sky.”

When he reached the entrance of the alley in front of the Guanyin Temple, Yan Mingli did not go forward, but stood under the ginkgo tree at the entrance of the alley and looked inside.

After a while, a short man in a sweatshirt came out. He was holding a cigarette butt in his mouth and walked towards Yan Mingli at a leisurely pace.

“What do you want?” the man asked, raising his eyebrows.

To Yang Feng, Yan Mingli is a very small customer, but no matter how small a mosquito leg is, it is still meat!

He was fine with three or five pounds, and he wouldn’t mind one or two pounds either. He wasn’t as picky as others, who kept thinking that a pie would fall from the sky and hit them, and never thought that what fell from the sky could be a pie, but could only be hail.

Those customers who ask for more are naturally at greater risk. What if it turns out that the public security comrades come in plain clothes to lure them out, and they will definitely be caught.

Moreover, the cautious Yang Feng has a principle in doing business. He only trades with people he knows. It is impossible for a stranger to take even a little bit from him. He would rather make less money than take risks.

“Ten pounds of coarse rice, five pounds of rice, twenty pounds of corn grits, two pounds of eggs, and half a pound of brown sugar.” Yan Mingli originally wanted to buy some cotton cloth to make autumn clothes for his younger brothers and sisters, but after pressing the deflated cloth bag under his belt, he had to give up the idea helplessly.

I’ve already bought a lot today, so I should keep some cash aside for backup.

“Wow! We’re rich!” They can buy so much food before the dividends are even distributed. If that’s not rich, then what is? Yang Feng smoked the last puff of his cigarette, threw it to the ground reluctantly, crushed it with his Liberation shoes, and asked, “Can you move this back?”

“I’ll take the small road and no one will know.” Yan Mingli knew that he was afraid of being discovered by the villagers and implicated in the black market, so he quickly promised.

After all, Yang Feng is a well-known middleman in the black market. He makes a little money by delivering goods to those who dare not go to the black market. The prices he offers are very fair and he never asks for exorbitant prices. Naturally, Yan Mingli does not want anything to happen to him.

“Okay.” Since he said no one would know, Yang Feng naturally believed him and said, “Rice is 40 cents, coarse rice is 20 cents, corn grits is 15 cents, eggs and brown sugar are 80 cents each, no bargaining.”

The prices he offered were all free of charge. The farmers who worked in the fields were neither workers nor cadres, so they had no channels to get votes.

“A total of nine dollars, here you go.” While Yang Feng was still racking his brains and counting on his fingers until he felt dizzy, Yan Mingli had already calculated it quickly and accurately, and took out a big unity banknote from the cloth bag and handed it to him.

“You have a bright brain. If you continue studying, you will definitely be the first high school student in our village. Alas!” Yang Feng felt very sorry, but there was nothing he could do. In this world… he believed that things would get better.

“I’ll go in and get the goods for you, you wait here.” Yang Feng patted his shoulder as a comfort.

“Thank you.” Yan Mingli was stunned for two seconds and quickly returned to his usual self.

Studying is the deepest pain in his heart. He loves reading. The happiest thing when he was young was to carry the imitation military backpack prepared by his mother and go to the primary school in the commune with his father, who was the principal of the primary school.

At that time, he had good grades and always got the first place in the grade in every exam. When he returned to the village, he was greeted with praise from his uncles and aunts. Unfortunately, all the good things came to an abrupt end nine years ago.

That summer, just after dawn, a group of people wearing red armbands rushed into the house, smashed things, and forcibly took my father to the communication room at the school gate. Then they paraded him through the streets with a sign hanging on his head and a dunce cap on his head.

That winter, my father, who had been paraded many times, finally passed away in the final emotional outburst of those people.

Then the nightmare continued. He and his mother were driven out of the brick house and moved to their current mud house. They were labeled as “five categories of elements”. His mother could no longer work in the school cafeteria, and he could no longer go to school. They began to get up early and go to bed late just to survive.

Later, my mother was pressed into a haystack and not long after, she was found to be pregnant. At that moment, my mother became a slut who was bullied by everyone in the village. Even my grandparents wanted to eat her flesh and drink her blood.

In order to protect his only relative, he had to learn to be violent and aggressive, and had to work harder to grow up. However, he failed to protect his mother after all, and his mother passed away three months after giving birth to his younger brother and sister.

From then on, he had no parents or elders, only two hungry babies who needed to be fed, and he was only thirteen years old at that time.

In order to feed his younger siblings, he knocked on every door. Amidst all the rejections, only his second aunt gave him a bowl of rice soup. He used the bowl of rice soup to feed his younger siblings, and from then on began his life as both a father and an elder brother.

If you don’t cultivate the land, your granary will be empty; if you don’t read books, your children will be ignorant. A sword’s sharpness comes from sharpening, and the fragrance of plum blossoms comes from the bitter cold.

How wonderful it would be if I could have the chance to continue studying! Yan Mingli looked at the Guanyin Temple hidden in the shade of trees and chuckled to himself: he should be content to be alive with his background. Studying would only be a distant place that he would never be able to reach in this lifetime.

“Here, take it. Go back quickly after counting, otherwise you will run into people getting off work early.” Yang Feng handed him an open sack.

Yan Mingli was not pretentious. He pinched the mouth of the sack and looked inside, then weighed it with his hand. After making sure there was no problem, he tied the mouth of the sack tightly with the hemp rope he had wrapped around his waist earlier.

“Then I’ll be leaving first. Goodbye!” Yan Mingli greeted Yang Feng, then carried the sack and walked quickly out of the city.

In order to avoid the group of people getting off work early, Yan Mingli had to run home without stopping. However, his body was a little weak and dizzy after having just sold a can of blood.

He held onto a pine tree, gasping for breath. His young face was covered in hot sweat from the sun, and his old homespun vest had long been stuck to his tight muscles, outlining smooth and graceful lines.

If Mo Yutong saw this, he would have rushed up to touch her all over, but unfortunately, Mo Yutong was dizzy from being swayed in the car and was destined to have neither the good fortune to see nor the good fortune to touch her.