“What brands are these watches?” Li Ruolan didn’t like wearing watches, so she didn’t recognize any of the brands.
Deng Minghao had bought watches before, but apart from some of the really big-name ones, he didn’t recognize the others either.
“The markings on this watch look very familiar—it seems to be a Rolex.” Deng Minghao picked up a watch and turned it over carefully, saying with some uncertainty.
It was a men’s watch, and there was a matching women’s one. Li Ruolan took it in her hands and examined it too: ”They’re a couple’s set—perfect, one for you and one for me.”
Besides these items, the wooden box also contained pearls, diamonds, jadeite, and other such things. Now they all belonged to them.
“With all this, we’ll have enough to live in the countryside for seven or eight years. Once the reforms open up, we can leave the countryside and go into business,” Li Ruolan said.
It was August of 1970 now—still seven or eight years until the college entrance exams were restored and the reforms began.
Deng Minghao nodded. “Mm, put these away carefully. I need to sneak out now and see if there’s anything else good. That man wanted to prey on other thieves—he deserves a lesson from me.”
After leaving the Dimensional Space, Deng Minghao waited a long while, making sure the black market boss was fast asleep, before slowly slipping out.
He looked around the other rooms and, sure enough, found plenty more good things. Two rooms were filled with antiques, and Deng Minghao swept them all into the Dimensional Space.
Besides those, he also found quite a lot of medicinal herbs. In short, he plucked feathers from every goose he passed, sending everything he saw into the space.
For a black market boss to have such a fortune, he must have done plenty of robbery and murder. Deng Minghao secretly left the courtyard house under cover of night, then wrote an anonymous letter reporting the black market boss’s address.
Deng Minghao made a point of writing in the letter that the black market could only have operated this long if it had colluded with the armband-wearing officials.
The black market helped many people fill their stomachs, and Deng Minghao had no intention of shutting it down—he simply felt this black market boss was far too greedy.
The goods in his hands alone would have been enough to give the man murderous intent. One could only imagine how much blood was on the black market boss’s hands.
Bringing the man down would count as doing a good deed.
Only after going out and finding a safe spot did Deng Minghao return to the Dimensional Space.
Li Ruolan was busy inside the space, finding places to store the antiques and jadeite Deng Minghao had brought in.
The black market boss certainly had a keen eye. The antiques and jewelry Deng Minghao had brought into the space would all be extremely valuable in the future—the jadeite especially.
There were imperial green bead strands and jade plaques, two pairs of imperial green bangles, plus a pair of red jadeite bangles and a pair of violet bangles, all of imperial-grade quality.
Thirty or forty years from now, these things would easily sell for hundreds of millions.
“With all this, we could lie back and live comfortably for the rest of our lives,” Li Ruolan said, gazing at the treasures, touching this one and that one, unable to put them down.
Deng Minghao came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Then you just lie back and relax from now on. I’ll do the moving.” A wicked smile curled at the corner of his mouth.
Li Ruolan: “I suspect you’re flirting with me—and I have evidence.”
After the couple played around for a while, they started counting their money.
There was a total of six thousand yuan in the wooden chest, plus another seven or eight hundred scraped together from other places, and quite a lot of ration coupons as well.
The two checked the dates and picked out all the Beijing coupons, planning to use them all up—otherwise, once they left Beijing, the coupons would be useless.
They had plenty of coupons: grain coupons, cloth coupons, meat coupons, and surprisingly, even overseas remittance vouchers.
“Once things calm down in a couple of days, we’ll go use up all these coupons. I’ll take you to the department store for a proper shopping spree,” Deng Minghao said.
Li Ruolan shook her head. “All those promises you used to make are finally going to be fulfilled. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t easy at all!” Then she shot a look at Deng Minghao.
“I wronged you before. Now you can buy whatever you want, and I’ll carry your bags without a single word of complaint,” Deng Minghao said at once, with an ingratiating smile.
After two or three days of calm, the atmosphere suddenly turned tense for some reason, and everyone on the streets was hurrying along with anxious looks.
Deng Minghao and Li Ruolan took the bus to the department store downtown, and seeing this scene, neither of them said a word.
“We’re not short of coupons for the ‘three rounds and a sound’—today we’ll buy all of it. Whatever other people have, you’ll have too,” Deng Minghao said, grinning widely at Li Ruolan.
Li Ruolan said, “We already have a watch. As for the radio and the bicycle, let’s wait until after we go to the countryside to buy those.”
Deng Minghao asked, puzzled, “Why? Wouldn’t it be easier to just buy everything now? We can just put it all straight into the Dimensional Space—it doesn’t take up any room, and we can take it with us.”
“Bicycles in this era need license plates too. You have to provide proof of purchase, then go to the local vehicle administration office to get a steel stamp put on the bicycle—that’s basically registering it. Only then can you ride it on the road. Otherwise it’s an unregistered bike, and if it gets discovered, it’ll be a real hassle,” Li Ruolan explained to Deng Minghao.
This was also knowledge Li Ruolan had picked up from reading novels.
“I see. Whatever you say, dear. We’ll do it however you say,” Deng Minghao said.
The Beijing department store was extremely well stocked. Li Ruolan dragged Deng Minghao along, and each of them first bought several sets of clothes—spring, summer, autumn, and winter—plus sweaters, woolen trousers, overcoats, and leather shoes.
Then they browsed around properly, buying whatever they didn’t have. After all, they had plenty of money and plenty of coupons.
When they came across someone selling Maotai, Deng Minghao used up all their liquor coupons, buying twelve bottles of Maotai at five yuan a bottle.
Later, when they saw pastries for sale, the two used up all their pastry and sugar coupons, buying mung bean cakes, chestnut cakes, peach shortbread, egg cakes, and the like—over twenty jin in total.
They used their sugar coupons to buy ten jin each of brown sugar and white sugar, and also bought some White Rabbit creamy candies and fruit candies.
Having bought so much, the two made a trip outside to store everything in the Dimensional Space, then came back in to buy other things.
Both of them were dressed in black trousers and white shirts that day, looking like a newlywed couple. When others saw them buying so much, they assumed the two were shopping for their wedding, and aside from taking an extra glance or two, no one paid much attention.
After browsing for most of the day, they had finally used up nearly all their daily-living coupons, so the two went to a state-run restaurant and had a hearty meal.
“Starting tomorrow, the two of us are going to make the rounds of all the state-run restaurants around here. We’ll aim to buy 20 meat buns, 20 baked flatbreads, and 20 steamed buns from each restaurant.
Once we’ve bought all that, we’ll store everything in the Dimensional Space. Then when we’re sent down to the countryside, if we don’t feel like cooking, we can just eat these,” Li Ruolan said to Deng Minghao.