Chapter 11: Private Stash

Jiang Liyun strolled through the morning market from end to end, then reversed her path.

The grain store was still closed, but the butcher shop was open. The man selling pork at the state-owned butcher shop had a bad attitude. Jiang Liyun stood aside, noticing that he didn’t allow customers to choose, and if someone wanted a small piece of meat, he would cut a large one.

Fortunately, besides the state-owned butcher shop, there were now private sellers of pork, and their attitude was much better, attracting a large crowd.

While chatting with people, Jiang Liyun learned about the prices of flour, pork, and soybean oil. Using her past life experience, she calculated the cost of making pan-fried dumplings.

The reason she thought of making pan-fried dumplings was that she knew how to make them.

In her previous life after her divorce, she sold noodle soup, five-spice dried tofu, deep-fried stinky tofu, and radish cake at the school gate.

These were traditional local foods, and there were already sellers in today’s morning market.

Selling these items didn’t earn much money—just a modest income. She pondered about selling some fresh snacks.

Coincidentally, Jiang Liping told her that northerners eat dumplings for the New Year, and she saw someone selling pan-fried buns. That’s when she started selling pan-fried buns and pan-fried dumplings.

Her pan-fried dumplings were unique in the town and sold very well.

Initially, she would wake up early every day to roll out dumpling skins and make dumplings.

Later, business boomed, and she couldn’t keep up. At that time, she was also paralyzed, so she began buying a machine to make dumpling skins and wrap dumplings.

Now, there were no machine-made dumpling skins on the market. She had to roll the skins herself, but these dumplings were more popular with today’s customers.

Machine-made dumpling skins were too thin and not filling, and despite being favoured by people twenty years later, current customers wouldn’t appreciate them.

Setting up a stall requires capital, and Jiang Liyun knows that the money she currently has is not enough. Fortunately, she can borrow some from others.

Jiang Qianzi has around one to two thousand yuan.

In recent years, the three of them have been working, contributing over a hundred yuan to Jiang Qianzi every month. Despite significant household expenses, they manage to save some money.

Jiang Qianzi and Wu Xiaochun have been working hard to save money to help Jiang Lihai get married.

But in their area, getting married requires building at least two brick houses, buying furniture, and costing several thousand yuan. The bride’s family usually demands the groom buy a bicycle, sewing machine, and radio.

The money Jiang Qianzi has is not even enough to buy building materials like bricks and tiles. Hesitating, he hasn’t been able to build a house. By the end of this year, Jiang Lihai’s relationship with his first partner, Huang, will have soured.

Jiang Liyun spends fifty cents to buy two buns with pickled vegetables and tofu filling for breakfast.

While eating the warm buns, she walks towards the sofa factory. When she arrives, it’s working hours for the factory.

The sofa factory starts at 7:30 in the morning, finishes at 11:30, resumes at 1:00 in the afternoon, and ends at 5:00 in the evening, working four hours each in the morning and afternoon, totalling eight hours.

The factory has a decent size but consists of mostly single-story buildings, making the overall factory space not very large.

As soon as Jiang Liyun enters, she smells an unpleasant odor. Most likely, it’s the smell of formaldehyde.

The factory floor is covered with thick plastic sheets, piled with various materials for making sofas. Some men and women sit around the materials, chatting.

The factory manager is still smoking!

No wonder; a few years later, the sofa factory couldn’t continue.

In these collective factories at that time, there were many workers who were just passing the time, resulting in extremely low productivity, and then private enterprises took away all the business.

Jiang Liyun hasn’t made sofas for many years, thinking she might not be able to do it anymore. However, upon closer inspection, she realizes she still can.

In these small factories in the village, workers don’t need highly specialized skills.

After voluntarily helping out for a while in the past, she was able to secure a job in the factory.

At 7:30, the alarm clock rings on time.

The factory manager throws his cigarette on the ground, steps on it with his shoe, turns off the alarm clock, and signals everyone to start working.

The sofas they make have wooden frames.

Workers first assemble the wooden frames, then secure springs inside, add filling, and finally wrap it all with leather adhered to thick foam on the back.

Jiang Liyun is responsible for the final step.

She needs to wrap the entire sofa in leather and then use patterned round tacks to nail the leather onto the wooden frame.

It requires a bit of attention to detail but is not very difficult.

She works slowly, while someone besides her is doing a different task.

One of her female colleagues has a handful of small nails in her mouth, occasionally spitting one onto her hand, then nailing it onto the sofa.

Jiang Liyun remembers doing the same thing in her past life. At that time, she didn’t think it was a problem and even believed that holding nails in the mouth saved time and freed up both hands.

The workshop at this moment is truly hard to describe.

However, despite being handmade, the quality of these sofas is not bad. Jiang Liyun bought one when she got married, and it has been serving her well.

“Liyun, what do you think of Xie Zugen?” The woman who brought Jiang Liyun to Xie Zugen during a movie outing asks.

Seeing this woman, Jiang Liyun feels a bit dazed.

This was a colleague she got along with well at the sofa factory. When she was going through a divorce with Xie Zugen, this person supported her.

But, like her, this woman also had an unsuccessful marriage. Her husband divorced her after becoming wealthy in business.

However, she’s doing fine. When she divorced, she didn’t take her daughter with her. Later, her daughter took over her ex-husband’s company and bought her a big house.

With free time on her hands, she became a volunteer.

“Zhang Jie, I don’t want to get married for now,” Jiang Liyun says. This colleague’s surname is Zhang, and she is called Zhang Xiaoxing.

The night before, Jiang Liyun had a lively conversation with Xie Zugen. It didn’t seem like she was in a hurry to get married. Zhang Xiaoxing knows that Jiang Liyun probably thought it over and found Xie Zugen unsuitable.

But Zhang Xiaoxing thinks highly of Xie Zugen: “Liyun, the Xie family is well-off. They have everything from radios and TVs to electric fans, and they can afford to eat meat every day. Marrying into their family means a life of comfort. Didn’t you get along well with him that day?”

In her past life, Jiang Liyun also thought highly of the Xie family, but now… Jiang Liyun whispers, “Zhang Jie, I actually think he’s a bit short. Looks don’t matter to me, but that day after the movie, when he stood up, I realized he’s shorter than me. I want someone taller.”

As far as Jiang Liyun knows, Xie Zugen had been rejected by several people before her.

Xie Zugen resented this and, after marrying Jiang Liyun, frequently complained that those women lacked taste.

However, he didn’t go looking for trouble with those women.

Those women seem quite fortunate; unlike her, even after divorce, she faces constant harassment. She was even hit and paralyzed.

In this lifetime, she just wants to be an ex-blind date candidate for Xie Zugen, not marry him.

Jiang Liyun actually contemplates reporting Xie Zugen’s father, considering he embezzled a significant amount from the brick factory. However, such incidents are common in this era, and people often cover for each other. Reporting anonymously might not be effective, and reporting with her real name is too risky. She needs to prioritise her own safety.

After learning that Jiang Liyun doesn’t want to marry Xie Zugen because he’s too short, Zhang Xiaoxing has no other suggestions. She continues to chatter, saying that if Jiang Liyun agrees, she can demand a higher betrothal gift, use it to build a house for Jiang Lihai, and handle the marriage arrangements.

Jiang Liyun finds it amusing: “My parents won’t take my betrothal gift.”

When Jiang Liping got married to the town, she didn’t ask for a betrothal gift. Even in her past life, when Jiang Liyun got married, her parents didn’t ask for one either.

Xie’s mother once thought Jiang Liyun was offering herself generously and took pride in it, using it as a reason to boast about Xie Zugen’s charm.

Upon learning this, Jiang Liyun insisted that Xie’s family compensate for the betrothal gift. Otherwise, she threatened to return to her parents’ home immediately. After that, Xie’s mother dared not speak recklessly.

Working in the sofa factory is tedious.

The factory provides lunch, cooked by the factory manager’s mother, but Jiang Liyun has never eaten at the factory.

She goes home for lunch, where they have steamed soybeans and steamed winter melon.

“Dad, steam four eggs for dinner, one for each of us,” Jiang Liyun says as he looks at Jiang Qianzi. “Steam some pickled vegetables too, and stir-fry some pumpkin seeds.”

They raise five chickens, and having a few eggs every day is not a problem. However, in the past, Jiang Qianzi used to save and sell the eggs for some extra money.

But looking back a few years later… What could they do with the money earned from selling eggs at this time? Having eggs at home is more cost-effective for their own consumption and health.

In their village, most men don’t do household chores, just like most women don’t engage in heavy agricultural work.

However, with Jiang Qianzi having a lame leg, his farming speed is even slower than Jiang Liyun’s. Wu Xiaochun is not in good health either. In recent years, Jiang Qianzi has done a lot of household chores.

Hearing Jiang Liyun’s request, he agrees.

They have enough pickled vegetables at home, and as for pumpkin seeds… Rural people grow pumpkins, sometimes using them as vegetables and other times as a staple food. While consuming the pumpkins, they dry the seeds for snacks. The dried pumpkin seeds can be easily fried. Although the seeds from pumpkins grown by rural families are small, they still make a convenient snack.

After finishing lunch, Jiang Liyun leaves home to enquire about the prices of coal stoves and honeycomb coal.

Not only does she need to enquire about the prices, but she also needs to find out which supplier’s honeycomb coal is of good quality.

The production of honeycomb coal is quite simple. Since the country allowed private business, some private workshops in their area have started selling honeycomb coal. Honeycomb coal is made by adding a certain proportion of clay to coal. If too little clay is added, the honeycomb coal ignites easily and burns vigorously, but it may burn faster, leading to higher costs. If too much clay is added, it’s hard to ignite, and the burning quality is not ideal. Buying honeycomb coal requires some knowledge.

After asking around, Jiang Liyun discovers that the family she used to buy honeycomb coal from in her past life is now selling it. She decides to buy from them.

In the afternoon, Jiang Liyun checks in at the sofa factory, but the factory manager doesn’t say much. After all, in the factory, she is considered one of the more efficient workers.

After finishing work at 5:00, Jiang Liyun returns home for a simple dinner. After eating, she fills an enamel cup with steamed pickled vegetables, puts a bag of roasted pumpkin seeds into a small cloth bag, and tucks the remaining egg she didn’t eat into her pocket. Then, she goes to the snail bay to find Feng Yi.

The working hours at the brick factory are the same as at the sofa factory. When Jiang Liyun arrives, Feng Yi is already there.

“Have you had dinner? Eaten any vegetables?” Jiang Liyun asks.

“I’ve eaten; I had some vegetables too,” Feng Yi replies.

Yesterday, Jiang Liyun reminded him not to save money and to buy some vegetables before coming out to work. Today, he did come out after having dinner, but he didn’t buy any vegetables, just eating some pickled vegetables given by a colleague.

In recent years, he has been secretly saving money. Everyone knows that he only gets ten yuan in hand each month. He claims to want to earn money to buy clothes and helps others wash clothes or polish shoes, making a few pennies. Additionally, there’s overtime pay at the brick factory, and whenever there’s a chance, he takes overtime to earn some extra money.

Though he looks thin, he works efficiently, doing odd jobs, and manages to save more than a hundred yuan over these years.

In her past life, Feng Yi always enjoyed eating pumpkin seeds. He rarely indulged in snacks, but from time to time, he would buy some pumpkin seeds.

Feng Yi is pleasantly surprised.

Jiang Liyun, just like in their childhood, is showing concern for him again!

He hands over the small cloth bag containing all his savings to Jiang Liyun. “Sister Liyun, if you’re starting a business, use this as your capital.”

Jiang Liyun is slightly stunned. She opens the cloth bag and finds various denominations of money inside.

It’s mainly in paper bills, not too heavy, but holding it, Jiang Liyun feels its weight.