“Ah! Brother Zhao, this is so delicious!” Inside the Gu family’s main hall, Ergouzi gnawed on a big piece of chicken, his mouth glistening with grease.
“Xiao Kai, Yaoyao, you eat the drumsticks. You take the wings.” Ergouzi picked up a drumstick and a chicken wing from his bowl and placed them into Gu Kai and Gu Yao’s bowls.
The two children were six years old this year—twins, both dark and skinny.
When Ergouzi gave them the food, neither of them dared to move. They all looked at Gu Zhao. Only after he nodded did they slowly start eating.
However, even though the chicken soup was rich and fragrant, when it reached their mouths, it felt like eating coarse husks and wild greens. Their little faces twisted in discomfort.
The grandmothers firmly refused to eat at their house.
Gu Zhao could only serve each of them a portion to take away.
“Brother Zhao, did you see the way sister-in-law looked at you just now? Full of admiration!” Ergouzi asked while eating.
Gu Zhao suddenly smacked the back of his head. “What ‘sister-in-law’? Have some manners, will you? Can you stop taking advantage of people like that?”
Ergouzi was stunned.
Who was the one who wanted to get engaged in the first place?
The chicken was still here!
“Alright, alright. When you say we can call her sister-in-law, we will.” Ergouzi decided to go along with Gu Zhao. Right now, eating chicken was the most important thing.
“That’s more like it!” Gu Zhao responded with full confidence.
Shu Ning’s delicate, fair face suddenly appeared in his mind. She had said, then let’s just get married—or else let me kiss you back.
Her smile had been bright, without the slightest hint of reluctance.
Gu Zhao licked his thin lips, his mood instantly improving. He put down his chopsticks and said, “Ergouzi, go—pour your brother a cup of rice wine. Let’s have a few drinks!”
An hour later.
Two loud, sky-splitting voices rang out on the commune road.
“The East is red, the sun rises…”
“China has produced a great man; he seeks happiness for the people; hey—ho!”
“Hey—ho! Brother Zhao, your pitch isn’t high enough. Why don’t you sing something like, ‘Little sister, come quickly, your brother’s waited till his hair turns white…’”
“You damned dog, do you think I’m that vulgar?” Gu Zhao cursed loudly, then continued singing, “Hey—ho…”
“Gu Zhao and Ergouzi are going crazy again! Singing and making noise in the middle of the night!”
“Keep it down! Singing nonsense! You don’t want to sleep, but what about others?”
“With no parents, they’ve become lawless!”
“Let them fool around outside—freezing to death at night would serve them right! Who knows which haystack they’ll turn up in tomorrow!”
“With all that time, they should fix up their thatched house instead!”
“Exactly! Ergouzi’s parents can’t even control their own son, letting him run wild with Gu Zhao!”
The households on both sides of the road cursed one after another as they listened to the two of them singing nonsense.
Gu Zhao and Ergouzi looked at each other and grinned before quickly disappearing down the road.
“Dad, Mom, is the tofu ready tonight? Brother Zhao and I are back.”
Half an hour later, the two entered a small courtyard with low mud walls.
Ergouzi’s home.
The courtyard wasn’t large, but behind the house was a spacious open yard.
Further back, there was a row of inner rooms.
The kitchen was on the right side of the inner rooms.
In the room on the left stood a stone mill. Beneath it, a bucket was already filled with freshly ground, milky-white, thick soybean milk. Beside it was another bucket of soaked soybeans that had swelled after a day.
In the kitchen on the right, Ergouzi’s mother was tending a small fire under the stove.
In the pot above, the soybean milk had already begun to boil.
“Auntie, you’ve already boiled one pot and even ground another bucket? Didn’t we agree this morning that Ergouzi and I would come back and do this together?” Gu Zhao frowned as he asked.
Chen Fengzhi looked at him with a kind expression. “Your uncle and I aren’t that old yet. If we can do the work, of course we’ll do it first! How can we wait for you two to do everything?”
“There’s a market tomorrow. We need to make three batches of tofu. Our place is remote—no one comes by. It’s safe to get things done early.”
“I’ll grind the remaining soybeans.”
Gu Zhao quickly walked to the stone mill and began grinding.
“Take it slow.”
“Got it.”
“After you finish grinding, go back and rest early. You have to get up early tomorrow to sell at the black market. You mustn’t be discovered—it’s dangerous and tiring.”
At this time, only supply and marketing cooperatives were allowed to conduct business. Private trading was not permitted.
You could sell a small amount of your own goods, but the total was strictly controlled.
They had made three batches of tofu today—already exceeding what was allowed.
So they could only sell at the black market, and even then, they had to quietly sell to regular black-market vendors before others arrived.
Otherwise, at best, they would be punished and have everything confiscated; at worst, they could be arrested for disrupting the economic system.
It was hard work.
It was dangerous.
They had to be extremely careful.
“It’s fine, Auntie. We’re young—we can handle it!” Gu Zhao grabbed a handful of soybeans, poured them into the mill, added some water, and soon milky-white tofu flowed out, carrying a faint soybean fragrance.
As he worked, Gu Zhao began calculating tomorrow’s earnings.
One jin of soybeans cost two mao.
One jin of tofu sold for two mao.
One jin of soybeans could produce about four jin of tofu, earning a net profit of six mao.
They had soaked three buckets today, each holding ten jin.
Thirty jin of soybeans could produce about 120 jin of tofu, with a net income of around twenty yuan.
From the tofu business, he usually only took one-quarter of the profit.
But Uncle Pan and Aunt Pan insisted he take half, saying he bore the risks.
If customers had no money, they could exchange soybeans for tofu—one jin for one jin.
If nothing unexpected happened, their net income tomorrow would be around fifteen yuan, and they could also exchange for twenty-five jin of soybeans.
That meant they would have enough soybeans for the next day immediately.
By this calculation, he would earn at least 7.5 yuan.
Adding the chili sauce and rice wine he had Old Li make, his daily net income reached twenty yuan—the equivalent of three months of work in the commune.
With this calculation, Gu Zhao worked with even more energy.
Ergouzi’s parents were equally motivated. In the commune, even working to exhaustion for full work points only earned two or three mao a day.
Working one night like this could bring in about ten yuan—far better than most people’s lives.
Though it was exhausting.
But what wasn’t?
Some people worked endlessly and still couldn’t earn money. Being able to earn at all already put them ahead of many.
“Brother Zhao, the soybean milk is ready. We should go catch some loaches.”
Ergouzi, usually carefree, became especially serious and cautious when it came to making money.
After the autumn harvest, before the fields were plowed, everyone went to catch loaches—some sold them for money, others kept them to eat.
They needed to put on a show—catch a few loaches and pretend to sell them, to divert attention so others would think they were going to town just for that.
“Alright.”
After informing Ergouzi’s parents, the two took small buckets and headed toward the fields.
When they were near Gu Zhao’s house, they suddenly saw a figure rushing over from the roadside, hair flying, moving like the wind.
“Brother Zhao… who is that so late at night?” Ergouzi asked nervously.
Gu Zhao became alert, frowning. “Let’s… go take a look!”