Chapter 216 Let's have a good meal

“Grandpa, I’ve cooked mandarin fish at home quite a lot, why are you still so hungry for it…” He Caiwei smiled as she came over to help her grandfather.

She does indeed often cook fish at home because her grandfather likes to eat mandarin fish, and the fishpond in her online space is full of mandarin fish.

About once a week, she would bring out a mandarin fish and ask her mother to cook it.

The old man disliked his daughter's cooking, so He Caiwei often cooked for him in her spare time. It's just a mystery why the old man liked mandarin fish so much; she even had to bring him a mandarin fish when they ate out.

"The old man has no other hobbies, he just wants to eat that old rascal Chen's mandarin fish one more time, but he doesn't know where that old rascal has gone, he hasn't shown up for so many years..." Actually, the old man didn't want to eat mandarin fish, he missed his old friend.

After Fuyunlou became a joint public-private enterprise, the chef surnamed Chen left and never appeared again. Zhang the tailor, who used to be able to talk to the old man, also left.

Now that the old man is getting old, he misses his old friends.

"Then there's nothing we can do. I don't have Grandpa Chen's cooking skills. If we want to eat out, it's probably impossible within two weeks. After all, we took such a long leave before, and we need to catch up on the work we didn't finish in the last two weeks, so we'll definitely be quite busy, especially my brother."

"The next holiday should be after payday, so Grandpa, how about I treat you to a meal at Guangyuanlou after you get paid?" He Caiwei counted her upcoming holidays. Don't worry, she probably won't have any holidays until payday.

Her brother might have to work overtime, since he has two jobs and can't be as carefree as she is.

"Hurry up, wash your hands and eat. After you eat, go and rest for a bit. You still have to work this afternoon..."

He Yuping waited and waited, but none of the workers returned from work. She could already hear the bicycle bells, so she had to go out and call them herself.

"You're here, Mom. What's for lunch?"

"There's so little food out there now, what's there to eat? What do you want to eat? I didn't find anything good at the market today. I went there early this morning and couldn't even buy a single seafood." Everyone in her family loves seafood. She went out at 4 a.m. this morning to the small black market where people secretly catch and sell seafood, but there wasn't much to buy. She was a little disappointed.

The fishermen said that their catch has been decreasing in the past two years, so they go out to fish secretly, not in a hurry, for fear of being discovered and reported.

Life is getting harder and harder; now we have to exchange grain for fish if we want to buy some catch.

She had rice and flour at home, but she didn't dare to trade them for anything, fearing that her valuables would be stolen.

You know, the rice and flour in her house were all taken out by her daughter from her precious space. Even the best rice and flour you can buy outside are not as good as the ones in her daughter's space. How could she dare to take out such good things and exchange them?

The family of seven all have Shenzhen residency. Each month, they are all given a fixed amount of money: 36 jin for adult men, 30 jin for adult women, 22 jin for children under 18 and over 10 years old, and 16 jin for elderly people over 60 years old.

He Yuping took all the grain she received in the ration exchange to the black market to exchange for other things.

Actually, she didn't have to exchange them. Her daughter already had everything. But several of the older women in the neighborhood would ask her to go with them when they wanted to exchange things. At first, she just wanted to join in the fun, but it got out of control. Every time she had something, she would want to exchange it.

Changing things now seems like it makes me poor, like I've lost a small hobby.

Every morning, I would go to the small black market with a few elderly women from the neighborhood to exchange seafood. People living by the sea mostly like to eat seafood.

The only problem is that the seafood available for exchange has been decreasing lately, and even if you go in the dark, sometimes you still can't get anything.

They couldn't get anything out of it like today, so they could only slink back with the grain.

To avoid his family being selected for the Down to the Countryside Movement, after marrying Caiwei, he transferred his household registration to Lu Qingfeng's address, which was in the neighboring courtyard.

Grandpa, he had his own household registration booklet, and the address on the booklet was the shop that was listed at the end of the year. The remaining courtyard belonged to his mother, He Yuping. When Zhang the tailor passed away, she arranged for his older brother, Lu Qinglang, to have a separate household registration, which was placed in the courtyard where he used to run the tailor shop.

The youngest son of the Lu family became the head of a household at the age of six or seven. In fact, if his father hadn't been the Minister of Transport, they wouldn't have been able to occupy so many houses.

Under the current policy, even if the house is purchased by the individual, each person with one household registration can only own one house. If someone owns more than one house, they will be forced to rent it out to the local government free of charge to accommodate other people.

In some streets with a poor social atmosphere, they even make people donate their spare houses and change the homeowner's name.

They live in these two courtyards; the other two courtyards have been rented out to workers from nearby textile factories.

After enduring two long weeks, I finally got paid.

The most excited people these past two days have been the twins. They had heard that their older sister would treat them to a meal when she got paid, and finally, the day came. After school today, they went home early, did their homework, took a shower, and changed their clothes just as their older sister and brother got off work.

He Yuping was initially puzzled as to why the two boys were so well-behaved after school today, doing everything perfectly without her having to ask them to.

It wasn't until her eldest daughter came back that she remembered why the two little devils had been so well-behaved today.

No wonder those two little brats kept stopping her from cooking; they were waiting for this.

More than half a month has passed, and she has completely forgotten about it, except for these two little brats.

When He Caiwei returned, she already had her brother's two salaries in her hands, and she directly counted out 100 yuan and gave it to their mother as living expenses.

He Yuping put the money back. Her husband was capable of supporting the family, and besides, her daughter provided all the rice, flour, and cooking oil. Why would she need to go out and buy anything? Why would she need living expenses?

"What are you doing? I'm already married. Do you expect my dad to support us? Mom, do you know that's called sponging off your parents? I don't want to sponge off my parents..." He Caiwei's words stunned everyone around her.

The term "leeching off one's parents" was still new at this time, so it sounded quite novel to everyone, but you could tell what it meant just by looking at the literal meaning.

“What do you mean by sponging off my parents? I’m not even 40 yet, how am I old, um…” He Yuping’s back teeth were grinding loudly as she spoke, and she deliberately glared at her daughter with a fierce look, as if she would beat her up if she dared to say that she was old.