Using Qin Man as the excuse once again, everything sounded perfectly reasonable, and Tian Dan didn’t suspect a thing.
“Xiao Dan, let me make you a bowl of hot noodle soup. It’ll warm you up.”
Rolling up his sleeves, Zhou Huaimin busied himself in the kitchen.
Tian Dan sat quietly in the living room, watching him skillfully cook a bowl of hanging noodles and crack two eggs into the broth.
He added a spoonful of lard and sprinkled chopped scallions on top, releasing a rich, mouthwatering aroma.
For the past two days, Tian Dan had been arguing with her family and had barely eaten anything.
The steaming bowl of noodle soup made her stomach rumble even louder.
After finishing every last bite and seeing the clean, empty bowl, she said shyly,
“Huaimin… I was just too hungry.”
Both eggs had ended up in her stomach.
She hadn’t left a single bite for him.
Zhou Huaimin didn’t seem to mind at all.
“I already had two big steamed buns at the army cafeteria. I’m not hungry at all. I’ve got plenty of energy.”
Just then, the overhead light suddenly flickered with a sharp buzz and went out.
Zhou Huaimin felt his way into the living room and tried the light switch again.
Nothing.
Everything remained pitch black.
More familiar with these situations, Tian Dan smiled.
“The power’s out.”
Strong winter winds often damaged the electrical lines, and blackouts happened from time to time.
Almost instinctively, she grabbed Zhou Huaimin’s arm.
“It’s so dark…”
The old wall clock ticked steadily through the darkness.
Outside, the winter wind howled.
Inside the room, it was so quiet that they could hear each other’s breathing gradually quicken.
Zhou Huaimin swallowed.
Feeling his way through the darkness, he gently took Tian Dan’s icy hand.
“Don’t be afraid. We have a kerosene lamp.”
Just as his fingers touched the matchbox, Tian Dan grabbed the corner of his jacket instead.
“Stay with me… I’m afraid of the dark.”
Neither of them knew who leaned closer first.
Soon, their breaths mingled together.
The faint scent of soap lingered in the air.
Tentatively, Zhou Huaimin wrapped an arm around Tian Dan’s trembling shoulders.
His chin brushed lightly across the top of her silky hair as he whispered hoarsely into her ear,
“Are you cold?”
Tian Dan answered with silence.
Instead, she hugged him even tighter.
The curtains shut out everything beyond the window.
Tian Dan fell backward onto the cotton mattress, the old spring bed creaking softly beneath her.
Hidden in the darkness, Zhou Huaimin’s eyes grew deep and unreadable.
“Xiao Dan… will you regret this? If you do, I…”
Tian Dan’s heart pounded so hard it felt ready to burst from her chest.
Her fists clenched nervously.
Yet she quietly nestled even closer into his embrace.
The timing, the place, and the circumstances were all perfect.
The uncooked rice was finally about to become cooked rice.
Completely unaware of the romance unfolding between the two of them, Qin Man slept peacefully through the night.
Before dawn had even broken, she was already awake.
She changed into another outfit, wrapped both a scarf and a headscarf around her face, and disguised herself as a young country wife carrying a basket.
Inside the basket were more than a dozen eggs, hidden beneath a layer of cloth.
It was still very early.
The state-owned restaurant hadn’t opened yet.
But people were already lurking around the nearby alleyways.
The moment a short, shifty-looking man noticed Qin Man hiding her face, he eagerly approached her.
“Little sister, what are you selling? It’s freezing out and there aren’t many people around yet. You can sell everything to me.”
Seeing Qin Man stop walking, the man patted his chest confidently.
“Don’t worry. I’m Zhang San. I do honest business. I won’t cheat you.”
Recently, inspections had become much stricter.
The Revolutionary Committee had been cracking down hard on illegal private trading.
Fortunately, Zhang San’s group had insiders within the committee.
Whenever the pressure increased, they simply lay low for a while.
Safety came first.
Qin Man immediately understood.
Zhang San was a middleman—a black-market reseller.
“How much are eggs?”
She had far too many goods.
Selling them one customer at a time carried too much risk.
Taking an egg from her basket, she handed it over.
“How much would one this size sell for?”
During the winter, hens laid fewer eggs, driving prices higher in the city.
Yang Xiaoyun had complained that eggs at the state-run market had risen from five cents to seven cents each.
These were genuine free-range eggs.
They weren’t particularly large.
After one glance, Zhang San named his price without hesitation.
“One mao each, little sister. I’ll take however many you’ve got.”
“Twelve cents.”
After making a quick calculation, Qin Man calmly raised the price.
A strange expression crossed Zhang San’s face.
“So I misjudged you. I thought you were new around here, but you’ve clearly got experience.”
Small eggs like these were usually purchased for a maximum of twelve cents each.
He would then resell them in the nearby residential compounds for fifteen cents apiece.
If he sold them near the provincial hospital, where visitors constantly needed fresh food for patients, he could charge as much as twenty cents each.
Three cents might not sound like much.
But multiplied by large quantities, the profits quickly became substantial.
For this first transaction, Qin Man quietly added another dozen eggs from her space.
Thirty eggs in total earned her three yuan and sixty cents.
Clutching the money tightly in her hand, Qin Man felt a surge of excitement.
Zhang San whistled.
Immediately, a teenage boy ran out from the corner, counted the eggs, and returned the basket to Qin Man.
Money changed hands.
Goods changed hands.
A clean transaction.
Zhang San didn’t leave.
Wrapped in a tattered military overcoat, he looked around cautiously while continuing their conversation.
“Little sister, I buy just about anything—grain, cotton, meat, anything people need. As long as it’s in short supply in the city, I’ll pay top dollar.”
“Big Brother, do you stay here all the time?”
Qin Man naturally adopted Zhang San’s familiar way of speaking.
She was adjusting remarkably well.
Nowadays, she no longer assumed overly friendly people had bad intentions.
That was simply how ordinary people survived in this era.
As long as they could keep themselves fed and warm, life still held hope.
“No way.”
Zhang San tucked both hands into his sleeves.
“See that iron gate beside the red brick wall? If you’ve got goods, just knock. Three long knocks and one short knock—that’s the password.”
Within Harbin’s black market, Zhang San might not have been number one.
But he was definitely among the top three.
“There’s nothing I can’t get.”
The freezing weather seemed to fuel his boasting.
Qin Man eyed him skeptically.
“You really can get anything?”
“You bet.”
Wherever there was demand, there was a market.
Before Zhang San could continue boasting, someone suddenly shouted,
“Run! The Revolutionary Committee is here!”
“Damn it! Why didn’t someone warn me sooner?”
Zhang San shrank his neck in panic and bolted down the alley at full speed, disappearing in the blink of an eye.
To avoid trouble, Qin Man immediately fled with the crowd.
People shoved and cursed as they ran.
Amid the chaos, Qin Man quietly picked up two hens that had escaped during the commotion.
When no one was looking, she slipped them into her space.
Mission accomplished.
Her first black-market transaction had been a success.
She’d earned three yuan and sixty cents…
…and acquired two hens along the way.
There hadn’t been time to gather any more insider information.
Standing outside the state-owned restaurant, Qin Man looked into the distance and saw members of the Revolutionary Committee looking fierce as they rounded up more than a dozen illegal traders.
Every so often, a whip cracked through the air.
Agonized cries followed immediately afterward.
The surrounding onlookers only dared whisper among themselves.
“The inspections have been really strict lately.”
“These people were asking for trouble.”
“I heard someone was caught selling just one fish he’d caught in the river and ended up being sent to a labor reform camp.”
After eating a simple breakfast at the state-owned restaurant, Qin Man crossed the street to the post office.
“Hello, Comrade. Do you happen to have any The Whole Country Is Red stamps?”
While researching in her space, Qin Man had discovered that a particular stamp issued in the 1970s would become astonishingly valuable decades later.
Among them, The Whole Country Is Red stamp stood above all the others.
A single mint-condition large-format stamp had once sold at auction for over 13 million yuan.
Even the smaller version had fetched 3 million yuan each.
She had come to the post office hoping to try her luck…
…and maybe find an incredible bargain.