Chapter 231 Buying Coal with a Little Wine

Everyone wants a good life, but the saying "possessing a treasure invites trouble" is something not only she thought of, but her fourth and fifth sisters probably also considered.

The food they already had at home was enough to easily get them through the next three years, and with her additional reserves, it was like icing on the cake.

Why bother using these advantages to do something attention-grabbing?

If we quietly get through these three years and things get better, then we can think of other ways to make money later.

In a time when even a single grain of rice can kill a person, and with the situation so tense, who wouldn't secretly eat their food and drink behind closed doors?

When everyone is thin and even speaks weakly, if you speak with a strong voice and are plump and healthy, aren't you just telling everyone that you have plenty of food and are eating very well? What consequences will that have, and who can bear those consequences?

No matter how much you guard against it, you can't guard against the scheming of villains. Rather than living in misery every day, it's better to calm down from the beginning.

Life may be tough, but at least we can eat our fill, even if the food is a bit mediocre. In these days, when even eating our fill is a dream, this is already considered extremely good.

However, eating these nutritionally deficient foods for a long time will ruin your health, so Xiaojiu will occasionally arrange for eggs, duck eggs, and a small amount of meat to supplement everyone's nutrition.

As the end of the semester approached and the intense review began, both roommates and classmates frequently fainted due to lack of food. Even the teachers who taught them spoke so softly that they needed to lean against the wall or even sit down to complete a lesson. Just by looking at their sallow and emaciated faces, you could tell how hungry they were.

At this point, it's most obvious which students come from well-off families. Xiao Jiu didn't help the teacher because she knew that even if she gave them food or grain, it wouldn't reach them. Each of them had a large family to support, and she couldn't help them all.

My classmates are different. They don't go home. The food and money their families gave them when they came here won't last until the weekend.

This time, she specially used bran from home, chopped dried wild vegetables, and a small amount of coarse grains to barely form balls and steamed several large pots of vegetable dumplings.

These vegetable dumplings have a bitter and astringent taste because of the natural flavor of wild vegetables, combined with coarse grains and bran. If you have a sore throat, eating them might make you feel so dry that you question your existence. But it is precisely this kind of thing that can relieve the acid in your stomach. It's better than eating grass roots and tree bark, right?

Xiao Jiu wasn't foolish enough to give to everyone. She would observe and see who was truly hungry before lending a helping hand. As a result, she discovered that, apart from herself, everyone in the dormitory seemed to only eat one meal a day. The black cornbread or vegetable dumplings that she brought over were not as good as what they had eaten a few days ago!

This indicates that these children's families are facing increasing difficulties as winter approaches.

Although everyone needed help, she didn't dare to gather them together to help, as that would make them think she had an endless supply of food.

So she secretly slipped each of them a vegetable dumpling every day.

If you encounter someone in class who has trouble walking due to hunger, secretly slip them a vegetable dumpling.

In this way, she sent out a dozen or twenty vegetable dumplings a day, and within two days, all the vegetable dumplings she had brought were gone.

There was nothing she could do but continue making and steaming in the space.

Fortunately, her space warehouse has its own electricity, and the staff rest area has an induction cooker for cooking, as well as pots, pans and other utensils.

She had just discovered this, which saved her firewood, since she wasn't a full-time employee and couldn't get her own coal briquettes.

Coal requires a coal ration certificate, which my parents and sister all have. It was issued by the Y County Bureau of Commerce and is printed with "J City Coal, Charcoal and Firewood Purchase Certificate".

Of course, there are also "Residential Coal and Firewood Purchase Certificates" issued by fuel companies; the issuing authority varies depending on the company.

Due to the scarcity of supplies, daily necessities for urban residents were rationed and could only be purchased with vouchers.

Generally, residents bring their old coal purchase permits, household registration books, and grain certificates to apply for a new coal purchase permit for the following year in the fourth quarter of each year. When purchasing coal, residents must bring their permits to designated coal shops to queue up for delivery.

Because it is supplied within the jurisdiction, there are coal shops near residential areas.

It's not as cold here as in Northeast China. They supply two tons a year from there, at ten yuan per ton.

Each person here carries 70 kilograms of coal per year, all in bulk, which they have to find their own trucks to haul home.

The three of them—father, mother, and third sister—weighed a total of 210 kilograms, so they found a cart and took turns pulling it home.

After bringing them home, they are mixed with loess and water, and then pressed into honeycomb briquettes using a special iron tool for pressing coal.

There's only so much coal available each year, so naturally we have to use it sparingly.

After returning home, I weighed the 70 kilograms and gave them to my older sister and the others. My older sister, who was already quite familiar with the process, started pressing the honeycomb briquettes.

The 210 kilograms of coal didn't cost much, because the neighboring county produces coal, so it only cost one cent per kilogram, totaling two yuan and ten cents.

It's much more expensive on the black market, five cents a pound, a five-fold increase. When the weather gets unbearably cold, it can even sell for ten cents a pound.

When Xiao Jiu went to the black market, she didn't know that the space had electricity, so she found the black market after selling her vegetables, following the directions of an old lady in the residential building.

The black market was located in an alleyway with a row of dilapidated houses and a grove of trees behind it. Several alley entrances were guarded, and anyone who entered had to pay a fee: five cents for the buyer and one cent for the seller.

This was her first time in the black market, and she was a little nervous. Of course, she had disguised herself before coming: she wore a headscarf like an old lady, a cotton-padded jacket, trousers, and shoes like an old lady, walked with a stooped back like an old lady, and deliberately lowered her voice when she spoke.

There weren't many people on the black market; just a handful of stalls, mostly selling grain. I searched for a long time but couldn't find any coal.

Perhaps she had asked about prices at many places, because a chubby, short man came over and asked, "What are you buying?"

Xiao Jiu looked up and glanced at him quickly: "Coal, do you have any?"

The man looked her up and down. "Finished honeycomb briquettes, one dollar and fifty cents, want some?"

Xiao Jiu frowned. "How much is one ton?"

Upon hearing "one ton," the man realized this was a big customer and immediately said, "How about 1700 or 1800? What do you think, want it or not?"

Xiao Jiu quickly did the math in his head: in Northeast China, a ton only costs ten yuan. Good heavens, you're charging five cents per ton. Even if we calculate it at 1,800 yuan, that's still 90 yuan. That's a nine-fold increase! That's outrageous!

She immediately refused: "It's too expensive, I can't afford it."

The short, stout man hadn't expected the old lady to refuse so decisively.

"No, if you don't have enough money, you can buy less! I've already dried all of this, and I can even deliver it to your door. One piece of coal can burn for three or four hours. I guarantee it's genuine. Once you use it, you'll know how good my coal is."

Yellow mud is free and can be found anywhere, and water doesn't take much either. Even with labor costs, she thought fifty yuan would be the maximum. But this person asked for ninety yuan right off the bat. That's outrageous! Even if she had money, she wouldn't be a sucker!