Newspapers of this era were very distinctive, red and brick-like.
Bai Shuhua did not want to become an expert in this area, so naturally she skimmed over a lot of the content and picked out only reports about factories and the countryside.
After flipping through more than twenty papers, she actually found three that seemed workable.
Paper mills, shoe factories, or machinery factories and the like definitely would not do.
She picked pig raising, duck raising, and making tofu.
She folded these three newspapers up and planned to casually bring it up with White Dad and the others later.
Before long, it was after lunch, and White Dad was sprawled on the heated brick bed, grimacing.
“Eldest daughter, hurry up and give Dad a massage, my waist is really sore.”
Bai Shuhua crooked a finger at Little Brother Bai. “Little Brother, you go up and step on it.”
White Mother still felt sorry for her man, and warned, “Step lightly, no jumping allowed.”
White Dad hurriedly waved his hands. “No need to step anymore, no need to step anymore.”
Bai Xiaojun did not listen at all. With a hey-ha, he had already jumped up there.
This time it was White Dad’s turn to cry out in pain.
“Dad, Mom, I looked at a lot of newspapers today. There was one production team in Liaoning Province where more than three hundred people raised more than three hundred pigs, really amazing. There was also a production team that raised ducks, several thousand of them. Why doesn’t our production team raise any?” Bai Shuhua asked in confusion.
“People can’t even eat enough. What would they use to raise them?” That was White Mother’s answer.
White Dad, however, said, “There’s an old saying, ‘A family may have a fortune of ten thousand strings of cash, but the hairy ones don’t count.’ If a disease comes along, then everything is gone. And there’s also the reason your mother said, the production team simply doesn’t dare to raise them.”
Bai Shuhua nodded. So that was how it was. “Then what about making tofu?”
This one should not be afraid of getting sick, right.
Unexpectedly, White Dad’s answer was, “There’s one right in Houhu Production Brigade next to the tofu shop.”
White Mother added, “Before New Year, our brigade all had to go to other people’s place to exchange for tofu, using soybeans to trade.”
“There is? Then can we open one?” Bai Shuhua still would not give up.
“That I don’t know.” White Dad reached down and pushed his son aside. “Good son, hurry up and get down. Enough, that feels good, no need to step anymore. If you keep stepping, it’ll break.”
Bai Shuhua felt a bit discouraged. It seemed that no matter what era it was, making money was not easy.
The remaining newspapers still had to be read.
Originally, she had wanted to go pick mushrooms with Big Cousin Sister and the others in the afternoon, but now it seemed she could not make it.
“Dad, Mom, what does our production team grow?”
“Everything. Rice, corn, soybeans, red beans, mung beans, sorghum, potatoes, sweet potatoes. We have black soil here, whatever you plant will grow.” White Dad’s words carried undisguised pride.
Bai Shuhua suddenly thought of a video, the one about traditional brown sugar, and she had even bought two pieces of brown sugar, so she asked, “Then can sugar cane also be planted?”
Probably not. Sugar cane seemed to be from the south.
“What’s sugar cane?” White Mother did not know at all.
“I saw it in the newspaper, it can be boiled into brown sugar.” Bai Shuhua made it up casually.
“It can be boiled into brown sugar, that’s a good thing!” White Mother pushed White Dad. “Children’s father, what do you think, can we grow it here?”
White Dad stood up right away. “Eldest daughter, which newspaper had it, let me see.”
Bai Shuhua felt bitter inside. The newspapers about pig raising and duck raising existed, but there really was none about growing sugar cane.
Sure enough, one lie needed countless lies to cover it up.
“I don’t know where I put it.”
Bai Shuhua simply started searching right away. “I’ll look for it now.”
Her efforts were not in vain, cough, it should be said her luck was not bad, she really found one about growing sugar beets.
She knew sugar beets could also be boiled into sugar.
“Dad, Mom, come take a look.”
Just look at this one, forget about sugar cane.
“This can be grown here too, and it can also be boiled into soup.”
“Can it also be boiled into brown sugar?” White Mother asked.
Bai Shuhua was stunned for a moment. She really did not know. “I’ll read it carefully and see whether the newspaper wrote that… um… it seems not.”
White Mother was very disappointed. “So it can’t.”
“White sugar is sweet too.” White Dad pointed at the words with his finger, reading very slowly and very seriously, but sometimes he paused for too long. Bai Shuhua guessed… he probably did not know those characters.
“Sugar! Sweet!”
Bai Xiaojun, entertaining himself, also gave his opinion, and even smacked his lips a few times. He was probably savoring the fruit candy he had eaten in the morning.
“Go, go, go, go play by yourself.”
Bai Xiaojun was once again ruthlessly chased away.
White Dad looked through the newspaper twice, and when he was about to look a third time, the work gong sounded.
“Eldest daughter, this newspaper you… forget it, I’ll put it away myself.”
White Dad carefully folded the newspaper and tucked it into his pocket.
Dad and Mom went off to earn work points, and Bai Xiaojun took the opportunity to run off too, to look for his little friends.
Bai Shuhua was happy to have peace and quiet, and carefully flipped through the newspapers.
After quite a while, her neck was a little sore, and only then did she stand up, stretch, and twist her neck.
Honestly, she was a little disappointed.
So even after living two lifetimes, even with the knowledge of later generations, it was still not easy to do something.
Blindly copying and applying it was even more impossible. Every place had its own unique circumstances.
She sighed, then kept on looking.
She would not give up so easily.
“Hahaha…”
Sure enough… after the dark clouds comes a clear sky.
She had not found a suitable side business for the production team, but she did find a news report about an anti-Japanese storytelling performance, which meant that storytelling was allowed in this era, only the content had to be a little more “red,” and that was not a problem at all.
She put this newspaper aside separately and thought in her mind about how to talk to White Mother.
Bai Shuhua had not expected White Dad, who had always been lazy, to actually have such a decisive side. After dinner, he took the newspaper and went to the brigade captain’s home.
By the time he came back, the sky was already pitch black.
That night she eavesdropped on the couple’s “late-night chat” and learned a few things.
White Mother did not quite understand. “What are you fussing over this for? What good can you get out of it?”
Bai Shuhua: That was also what she wanted to know.
White Dad chuckled, “How is there no good? If there were no good, I wouldn’t do it.”
Bai Shuhua: Her father really had not changed at all.
White Dad was very smug. “If the production team leader is moved and wants to plant it, doesn’t he have to find seeds, have people go learn how to grow it? I was the one who brought this up, so of course I should go. Then I won’t have to work in the fields.”
White Mother felt a little sour. “That can dodge for a few days, at most a month. When you should go to the fields, you still have to go.”
White Dad, however, said, “Being able to dodge one day is one day.”
Bai Shuhua: That was all the ambition he had.
“Then I’ll go learn with you then.” White Mother was making a good plan.
White Dad groaned, “Probably not, the brigade captain won’t let you.”
White Mother snorted very unhappily.
“Wife, don’t be angry, let me kiss you.”
“Get lost!”
Bai Shuhua quietly turned over and rolled her eyes. Could they not talk properly, always going off-topic, and it was still an off-topic that was not fit for children.
Her father really had no ambition. She had thought he had finally come around, but in the end he only wanted to slack off.
Still, it counted as a good thing. As long as he got out, he would always be able to broaden his horizons.
Her mother’s storytelling matter still had not been mentioned. She had not found the chance.
Sigh! She really was worrying her heart out for this family.