Go back to the prosperous days and become a layman

Chapter 501 Chapter 500 Transaction
"Director Ding, I was busy drinking last night and forgot to tell you something. The price of two cents does not include shipping costs. Our forest farm has to coordinate people to transport them back." There were a lot of goods this time, and although Tang Zhitong could use the space, he couldn't just pull them out openly.

"Okay, that's no problem. I'll organize the manpower and the sled." The price was only 20 cents per pound, so what else did he need than a bicycle? Manager Ding agreed readily on the spot.

As for spending more money to have someone deliver it directly, Director Ding didn't even mention it. Money is only one aspect, he also has to consider Xiao Tang and whether this matter is convenient to operate.

"Okay. If it's fast, there will be news this afternoon. Please leave me your phone number and I'll call you if I get any news. We'll arrange the transportation in the evening." This was the first time that Tang Zhitong had ever handled such a large-volume transaction. In order to conceal his tracks, he certainly couldn't let the forest farm pick up the goods in the city, and he certainly couldn't trade in broad daylight. The goods could only be dropped on the way to the forest farm at night.

This involves a manpower issue. After throwing the fish away, we have to find a way to tell the forest farm, and it would be best if there is someone guarding the scene.

But Tang Zhitong was alone and could only think of some tricks.

"Okay. This is my office phone number. From now on, I will not go out. I will stay in the office waiting for good news from Comrade Xiao Tang. I will wait till my death!" Director Ding handed the note with the phone number to Tang Zhitong and said solemnly.

"Don't worry, I'll do my best. The fish will definitely be weighed before being given to you, but to be on the safe side, it's better for our forest farm to check it again." Tang Zhitong took the note, took a look at it, and put it in his pocket.

"No problem! Brother Tang, please take the responsibility of weighing, okay?" Manager Ding immediately assigned the task to Tang Wenbang.

"Okay." Tang Wenbang agreed readily.

Tang Zhitong secretly praised Director Ding for his ability to use people well, and said that it was most appropriate to assign the weighing task to Tang Wenbang.

In terms of position, he is a member of the forest farm and cannot be partial to outsiders, but in terms of blood relationship, he is his own uncle and naturally he cannot lie to himself.

"Uncle, Director Ding, I'll go then." Tang Zhitong tightened the scarf that classmate Xiao Wang gave him, pulled it up to cover his mouth and nose, then put on gloves and prepared to go out.

"Comrade Xiao Tang, I will arrange a carriage for you. You can stop wherever you want, is that okay?" Director Ding said.

"No need. Everyone is very busy. I can just take a ride with the wood delivery guy." Tang Zhitong waved his hand and opened the office door.

"Comrade Xiao Tang, on behalf of more than 200 employees and more than 1,000 family members of the forest farm, thank you! Next year we will definitely open up more land and grow more crops, and you will definitely be given a share in the fall!" Director Ding did not insist. In addition to expressing his gratitude, he also bowed to Tang Zhitong.

Tang Zhitong held the door handle, smiled, and accepted the gift. It was what the forest farm should give him, and it was also what he deserved.

After going out, carrying his bag and pulling the sled he had nailed, Tang Zhitong hitchhiked and headed towards the city.

Director Ding is a sensible man. Arranging a car is a good idea, but it will easily give people the impression that they are being monitored.

This time, Tang Zhitong carefully observed the terrain on the road and planned to find a place with many tire tracks and wide terrain outside the city to store fish.

The snow has stopped, and the places with more tire tracks on the ground can conceal the origin of this batch of fish to the greatest extent.

Hard work pays off. Along the way, Tang Zhitong actually saw two places that met the requirements.

The sled was tied with a slipknot and entered the city. Tang Zhitong quietly pulled the rope behind the carriage to detach the sled. Then he observed the surroundings, put the sled, the baggage, and the money into the space, and started moving forward.

You can't go to the old town. A girl named Jin has seen me before. Although it was dark and I couldn't see clearly, the voice couldn't deceive anyone.

As for the new city area, I guess there isn’t much to see and there aren’t any tourist attractions.

It was a very cold day, and Tang Zhitong didn’t get enough rest last night, so he planned to find a place to sleep.

Since I didn't ask Fang Yuan to issue a letter of certification this time, I couldn't get into many guesthouses with better conditions.

Even though it's just a guesthouse, most of them are directly operated by government agencies and are not open to the public at all, which makes them very arrogant.

This bullish trend continued until around the millennium, when it ended with marketization.

With the rise of other similar places, the halo of guesthouses has been taken off, and they have become synonymous with backwardness, with outdated facilities that are not even as good as some budget hotels.

After choosing and choosing, Tang Zhitong came to the bathhouse where he and Fang Yuan took a bath last time. If he remembered correctly, when he was paying, someone had arranged for accommodation nearby.

A bath costs 2 cents, and a back scrub is extra.

You need a ticket to take a bath. If you don’t have a ticket, you have to pay. They don’t look at the letter of introduction.

This place is similar to the bathhouse in Sijiucheng. There are two ways to store clothes: either rent a cabinet or put them in a basket.

The cabinets cost money, three cents each, but the baskets are free and are looked after by someone.

Tang Zhitong paid the money and rented a cupboard, which cost him 23 cents in total, which was 3 cents cheaper than taking a shower in Beijing.

After putting the clothes in the closet, Tang Zhitong pretended to pull out a towel from it, but in fact it was a "defective product" he bought from the supply and marketing cooperative at the construction site, which he pulled out from the space.

You can take a bath and scrub mud in the big bath, but you cannot use soap in it.

Anyone who has used a bathtub knows that when the soap is applied, a layer of film will float on the water surface. If you apply soap in the bathtub, others will not be able to soak in it.

Tang Zhitong soaked for a while, went out, put on some soap, and rinsed under the shower head.

Using soap can soften the dead skin and stains on the body. After showering, I went to the master to give me a bath.

When I take a bath at home, this job is done by my classmate Xiao Wang, who is now a middle-aged man and has no passion at all.

When changing the face, the bath attendant will pat your buttocks.

At this time, the guests will turn over tacitly.

Tang Zhitong once saw a little potato from the south blew himself up. When he was traveling in Harbin, he went into a bathhouse to experience it. As a result, when the auntie slapped his butt, he skillfully raised his buttocks...

After taking a shower, Tang Zhitong washed the towel, wrung it dry, and wiped himself from head to toe before going out to change clothes.

This is only for men, who can wipe from head to toe with one towel. If women were to take a bath, I really don’t know how many towels they would have to bring. I heard that some even wash clothes in the bathroom.

Fortunately, these days, there are very few promiscuous relationships between men and women, and the transmission routes of monkeypox are almost non-existent, so various serious diseases have no way of transmission.

If it were a few decades later, Tang Zhitong would definitely not dare to go to the bathhouse to take a bath, and he would have to bring his own bed sheets and quilt covers when staying at a hotel.

This is in Qilu, where the number of infections in Ai and Mei is the lowest. If it were in other places...

Emm...Anyway, when you go out, the most important thing is to protect yourself.

Having space means convenience. Tang Zhitong worked in the cupboard and took out a set of clean underwear that classmate Xiao Wang had prepared for him and put it on. He threw the old ones directly into the space and would take them home in two days.

After getting dressed, Tang Zhitong returned to the front desk: "Comrade, do you have a private room here? I want to take a rest."

"Yes, 30 cents a day." The waiter replied, holding a cigarette in his mouth. "Okay, please open one for me." Tang Zhitong pushed the key of the cabinet he had just rented over, and then took out 30 cents and handed it over.

The waiter threw the cupboard key into the basket next to him, then tore off an invoice, handed it to Tang Zhitong along with the key, and reported a room number.

Tang Zhitong thanked him, asked for the location, went straight to the room and locked the door.

After being busy for the whole morning, I didn't even have time to eat lunch. Forget the dry food and pork head that my aunt prepared for me, as they had frozen into ice lumps on the way here. I had to eat what I had prepared two days ago.

After eating, drink some water, lie down on the bed with your clothes on, cover yourself with a quilt and go to sleep.

I slept soundly until I heard someone knocking on a pot outside to chase people away: "It's time! It's time to get off work. If you want to continue resting, go to the front desk and get a private room!"

This room is next to the rest hall and the door has poor sound insulation, so Tang Zhitong heard everything clearly from inside.

Tang Zhitong lifted the quilt, stretched, found the light switch and turned it on. He looked at the time. It was past six o'clock and it was already dark outside.

It's all over. I don't know if there is still public communication out there.

Tang Zhitong was not familiar with the area, so he put on his hat, wrapped his scarf around his neck, opened the door, went to the front desk and asked the staff, "Comrade, is there a public telephone nearby?"

"Everyone's off work at this time. Why don't you go to the train station and see if there's someone on duty there?"

"Okay, thank you!" Tang Zhitong thanked the person, walked out of the bathhouse, lowered his head, tried his best to cover his face, and walked along the road towards the train station.

Perhaps because it leads to the east, the public telephone at the train station is manned. However, it is different from other places here. You have to pay a deposit before making a phone call.

Tang Zhitong paid the deposit before calling Director Ding in the noisy hall: "Hello?"

"Hello? Comrade Xiao Tang?" Director Ding answered the phone quickly. The voice was seriously lost during the call, so he could only use a clear address to confirm whether the person on the other end was the person he was waiting for.

"Yes, it's me. We've reached an agreement. Let's go over there and you can come out to pick us up." Although there were not many people around, Tang Zhitong couldn't express himself clearly because it was a public place.

Fortunately, Director Ding understood. Although he still had a lot of questions to ask, he didn't ask any more questions. Instead, he replied cheerfully, "Okay, we'll set off right away!"

Perhaps because they had seen it so many times, or perhaps because the environment was too messy, the person on duty over the phone did not see anything unusual. He collected the money and returned the deposit. Everything seemed normal.

Tang Zhitong armed himself, walked out of the train station, and headed towards the forest farm with one foot deep and one foot shallow. There was no "we" at all. The reason he said "we" to Director Ding was just to give him the illusion that there were many people on his side.

After leaving the city and when it was quiet and deserted, Tang Zhitong pulled out the horses and sled again, lit a torch, and slowly walked west.

An hour or so later, Tang Zhitong arrived at one of the sections of road he had favored during the day and decisively stopped his horse.

The slow horses and sleds returned to their positions, the torches were temporarily put away, and Tang Zhitong began to perform the Great Shift of the Universe.

In order to make it more realistic, Tang Zhitong mixed some other kinds of fish and shrimp in addition to the mackerel.

Fifteen thousand kilograms of fish may sound impressive at first, but in terms of volume, it can only fill two tractor truck buckets.

Director Ding said that there are more than a thousand people in the forest farm, and each person only has an average of ten kilograms of fish. It is impossible to get full by relying on this stuff, but as a supplementary food besides the staple food, it can greatly reduce edema caused by food shortage.

Thinking of this, Tang Zhitong pulled out a little more. It would not be easy to survive the long and cold winter.

After finishing all these, Tang Zhitong gathered some torches and dry firewood, built a fire, sat in front of it to keep warm, and had dinner at the same time.

Director Ding arrived quite quickly. Half an hour after Tang Zhitong finished his meal, he heard the rumbling sound of a tractor coming from the west.

After a while, Tang Zhitong saw the light again. It was the headlights of the tractor. After thinking about it, he pulled out five or six pieces and carried them on his shoulders.

Manager Ding was sitting on the tractor and could see a large pile of fish illuminated by the fire. He was so excited that he kept urging the driver: "Hurry up, can you go faster?"

"Ding Chang, this is the fastest speed." The driver held the steering wheel. This tractor was a tracked one, so he dared to drive it on the snowy road. If it was a truck, he would never dare to drive so fast even if he was beaten to death.

"Okay, okay, slow down when you get close and don't ruin the fish." Manager Ding was relieved after hearing what the driver said.

In just five minutes, the tractor braked to a stop in front of the pile of fish.

Tang Wenbang also got off the car with Director Ding, but one sat in the driver's cabin and the other sat in the back bed.

Director Ding walked over to Tang Zhitong who was sitting by the fire and said, "Hey, Comrade Tang, you've worked hard. Thank you for your hard work."

"Director Ding, you have worked hard. After much persuasion, I finally accomplished my mission and got the deal. I was worried that the longer the night, the more trouble I would have, so I begged everyone to send the fish to us overnight. If the fish is farther away, they will not send it." Tang Zhitong stood up and shook the hand that Director Ding extended to him, speaking a mouthful of lies, but also some truth.

"That's very good, that's very good! How many kilograms do these weigh?" Director Ding was good at grasping the key points, and asked urgently.

"Sixteen thousand, no more, no less." Tang Zhitong grinned and replied with a smile.

"Oh! Comrade Xiao Tang is really a great benefactor of our forest farm. Thank you, thank you!" Director Ding's enthusiastic smile became even brighter.

"Haha, the other comrades are still behind?" Tang Zhitong looked at the tractor that was turning around, then looked into the distance and asked.

"Well, we only have this one tractor in our forest farm. The others are all animal-powered vehicles, so they are a bit slower."

"Okay, that's good. I was really worried that the tractor couldn't be transported back." Tang Zhitong joked, and then greeted Tang Wenbang: "Uncle, stand over here. There is a fire here. It's warm."

Anyone who has been outside freezing in this cold weather knows how it feels, not to mention the relatively fast tractor bed.

Tang Wenbang, wearing a fur coat, came over and asked his nephew about his well-being: "How did you eat today? Are you not cold? Your aunt left a few goose eggs for you, and your aunt has also prepared the meal. Come home and have some later."

"The food was delicious and I wasn't cold. Uncle, I won't go back with you today. I don't want anyone to see us." In front of Director Ding, Tang Zhitong said straight to the point.

"Then you will come to the forest farm tomorrow?"

"Well, I'll check the accounts with Director Ding tomorrow." Tang Zhitong said with a smile.

"Okay, then be careful on the road." Tang Wenbang looked around, then at the five or six and a half things on his nephew's shoulders, and warned.

"Don't worry, I borrowed a gun from someone for self-defense, so it's very safe." Tang Zhitong patted the gun belt and said to Tang Wenbang with a smile.

"Comrade Xiao Tang, how about we give you a ride on the tractor?" suggested Director Ding.

"No need. I can just walk back slowly." Tang Zhitong picked up the torch that had been prepared long ago, lit it on the fire, waved his hand, and walked east alone. He didn't mention anything about weighing, because he trusted his uncle.

(End of this chapter)