“Let’s talk over there. The alley is open on both sides. If anything happens, we’ll split up and run.”
The middle-aged woman nodded. “Deal!”
After the middle-aged woman left, Gu Chunmiao didn’t immediately go to the alley to meet her as agreed. Instead, she circled around to the other end of the alley, squatted in a corner, and observed for a while. She confirmed that the woman hadn’t found any helpers to block her in the alley before she picked up two empty baskets and walked over unhurriedly.
The woman was dressed very old-fashioned, looking like a woman in her fifties or sixties, but her voice sounded younger than Mother-in-law Li Xiufen. Gu Chunmiao secretly chuckled and didn’t expose her.
In this day and age, who hasn’t faced hardships that would make them risk being sent down to a farm for reform, just to make a living in the black market? Especially women, who doesn’t have something they can’t get past?
When doing business in the black market, no one reveals their real name. The woman called herself “Sister Xia,” so Gu Chunmiao also casually gave herself a pseudonym, “Chunni.”
The name Chunni, while not necessarily common in the four provinces of Shanhe, would at least get three people to turn their heads if you shouted it in a crowd.
Sister Xia didn’t expose Gu Chunmiao’s “pseudonym” either. The two of them inverted their baskets on the ground, pretending to chat.
“Chunni, tell me honestly, do you have any other goods besides apples and bananas?”
“Let me tell you something, Sister. I have connections in our Hongwan Commune!”
“If you have any good merchandise, just bring it out. I won’t shortchange you on the price.”
Gu Chunmiao actually wanted to see this “Sister Xia’s” capabilities, so she deliberately gave her a moderately difficult challenge—
“Sister, I do have a batch of good merchandise, but the quantity is quite large. I’m afraid you can’t handle it all by yourself…”
“Who told you I’m alone…” Sister Xia got anxious. “No, what I mean is, tell me what goods you have and how much. I’m not bragging, but as long as the goods are good, money is not a problem!”
Gu Chunmiao shook her head. “Money isn’t the problem. The problem is, I need to get a tractor to transport the goods from somewhere else to our commune.”
Sister Xia lowered her head and thought for a moment, then slapped her thigh hard. “Isn’t it just a tractor? First, tell me what goods you have. If they’re good, I guarantee I’ll get you a tractor. But you’ll have to pay for the fuel, and for two packs of cigarettes for the tractor driver. Are you okay with that?”
Gu Chunmiao nodded, took out a small notebook sewn with straw paper from her schoolbag, and a broken pencil lead, and wrote a list of goods for Sister Xia.
Two thousand jin of refined rice, three thousand jin of flour, ten large barrels of soybean oil, totaling one thousand jin.
Twenty bags of milk powder, fifty jin per bag. Five hundred jin of brown sugar.
Ten large rolls of labor cloth, and ten large rolls each of black, white, and blue plain cloth.
Five hundred bottles each of canned yellow peaches, oranges, and bayberries. About a hundred bottles of honey, two jin per bottle.
Sister Xia’s eyes widened as she read.
“Good heavens~ Chunni, is your family a food factory? Or do you have powerful relatives in high positions?”
“Sister Xia, it’s the rule in our line of work not to pry into things that shouldn’t be asked about. In short, I have plenty of good merchandise, and it’s definitely good quality, no worse than what the supply and marketing cooperative has. And I don’t need coupons for mine.”
“If you’re sincere, give me the total amount, and help me get a tractor. The day after tomorrow evening, I’ll unload the goods under the large poplar tree east of the commune. Then, cash on delivery, deal?”
Gu Chunmiao wasn’t afraid of her playing dirty or trying to rob her. If they dared to double-cross her, she’d just find their hideout and use her space to move their entire warehouse, hehe~
After agreeing on a specific time with Sister Xia for the meeting the day after tomorrow, Gu Chunmiao, with the money she earned from selling at the black market, made a pretense of visiting the food store and the supply and marketing cooperative. By the time she was close to the production team, her previously light baskets were already stuffed full.
“Mom! I’m back!”
From a distance, she could see three people still digging for loaches on the riverbank. Gu Chunmiao stood on the slope and shouted loudly to her mother-in-law.
When she lived in the military compound, she never dared to speak loudly at home because her adoptive mother suffered from migraines and preferred quiet. Any little noise would cause her to lose sleep all night.
But now, standing on the dirt slope, she tried shouting loudly like her mother-in-law and the others, and felt an indescribable sense of exhilaration.
It was as if she was meant to grow up this way.
Her mother-in-law heard her voice, stood up, and waved at her.
“Miaomiao, are the things heavy? You stay there and don’t move. Mom will bring a shoulder pole to pick you up!”
Gu Chunmiao had only prepared one basket of goods to put on a show, but when she heard her mother-in-law say she was bringing a shoulder pole, and saw Second Great Aunt also coming over, she quickly took out another basket from her space, filled it with things, and placed it by her feet.
Li Xiufen was stunned when she saw the two large baskets.
“Miaomiao, with so much stuff, how did you manage to bring it back by yourself?”
Gu Chunmiao smiled. “I got lucky today. I met an ox cart going to our village at the commune. I gave the driver a single cent, and he brought me here.”
Li Xiulan shouted angrily, “One cent? We usually pay five cents when we go to the commune! He must have seen you were from out of town and deliberately ripped you off.”
Gu Chunmiao saw her sleeves were already rolled up, ready to go settle accounts with the cart driver, so she quickly broke off a banana from the basket and stuffed it into Li Xiulan’s hand.
“Second Great Aunt, forget it. He said that because my two baskets of stuff were too heavy, he had to charge for two people. One person is five cents, so two people make it one cent~ He didn’t cheat me, so let it go, let it go.”
“Oh, right, I also bought something for Jianjun. Let’s go, let’s go home and look.”
Upon hearing He Jianjun’s name, Li Xiulan’s eyes crinkled into a smile.
“Okay, okay, let’s go home, let’s go home!”
On the way home, Li Xiufen casually used her sickle to cut two bundles of pig feed grass from the roadside and piled them on top of the baskets. With the three of them barefoot and covered in mud, they looked like they had just returned from field work.
As for Gu Chunmiao, who was neatly dressed beside them?
She was a girl from the city, so it was only natural for her to be clean.
Back home, Li Xiufen closed the main door and removed the pig feed grass. Gu Chunmiao began to unload the items one by one.
Two large pieces of pork, one pork knuckle, a leg of mutton, a bag of apples, two bunches of bananas, a bag of preserved eggs, several canned oranges, two bottles of honey…
Gu Chunmiao took two canned oranges, a bottle of honey, a bunch of bananas, a few large apples, and a piece of pork, and handed them to her mother-in-law.
“Mom, for the past few days, our meals have been melons and vegetables from Second Great Aunt’s private plot. I was thinking, shouldn’t relatives also exchange gifts? Could you please take these things to Second Great Aunt for me?”
Li Xiufen happily took the items and walked to the neighbor’s house, winking at her old sister.
“What did I tell you? My Miaomiao, when it comes to how she treats people, she’s absolutely the best!”
Saying that, she gave Li Xiulan a thumbs-up.
Li Xiulan was also delighted. She and Li Xiufen had never been polite with each other their whole lives. She readily accepted the items, then turned around and grabbed a small wooden bucket, scooped up several yellow eels as thick as a thumb, picked out the fattest loaches, about twenty to thirty of them, and put them in, handing it to Li Xiufen.
“Here! Take this back for Miaomiao to try something new.”
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