Go back to the prosperous days and become a layman

Chapter 719 Chapter 718

During the afternoon break, Tang Zhitong first went to the scientific research class to hand in a part. Then, seeing his classmates busy, he gave up the idea of ​​making a kite here.

Tang Zhitong had planned to make the kite here and take it back to give Xiao Wang a surprise, but the other students in the research class were busy with their work, so it would be inappropriate for him to work overtime on private work here.

In fact, doing it at home is also a good choice. At least it can make Xiao Wang feel a little involved.

On the way home from school, Tang Zhitong wanted to buy some large white paper to make kites for the ceiling, but was told that they were out of stock.

It is both reasonable and unexpected that the white paper is out of stock.

This is understandable because even paper for students is sold in limited quantities and in a targeted manner in the city, so other papers must be scarce.

It is said to be unexpected because the people in the old city have the habit of pasting paper on the ceiling.

The ceiling can not only effectively isolate the dust falling from the roof, but also increase the brightness inside the house, especially the one covered with white paper.

If you have the conditions, use white paper; if you don't, use newspapers. You have to use them once a year or three years at most, because when the weather gets cold, you cook indoors, which is full of smoke and fire. The paper will either be smoked black or have holes in it.

There are always more solutions than problems. The lack of stock did not stump Tang Zhitong. He found a Chinese medicine shop on the roadside and went in.

Nowadays, all Chinese medicine shops, whether state-owned or joint-stocked, use environmentally friendly materials. Hemp paper is purchased in bundles and cut as needed.

Tang Zhitong walked in and saw that there were not many people in the store. A pharmacist was dispensing medicine for a patient, and an old man with a goatee and reading glasses was sitting next to him.

This is obviously a family-run store. Even if it has been jointly operated, the higher-ups are too lazy to send anyone. After all, these are the people who understand Chinese medicine. As long as the medicinal materials company controls the purchase and sales channels, they can't turn the tables.

"Boss, can I buy two pieces of hemp paper from you?" Tang Zhitong sat in front of the old man and took out the money first.

The old man didn't even raise his head. He just raised his eyes and glanced at Tang Zhitong through the gap above his reading glasses. He waved his hand and went back to reading.

"How about food coupons?" Seeing that this trick didn't work, Tang Zhitong took out food coupons from his pocket. The food coupons were from his home.

This food coupon was originally intended to be returned to Gu Mancang, but considering that the food coupons in Sijiu City were different from those in the school and it would be inconvenient for Gu Mancang to use them, Tang Zhitong exchanged them for dry food and gave him a pound and a half of the steamed bread that he had stored before.

One pound of grain can produce one pound of semi-finished products. Even if you use the college's food coupons to buy meals, the cafeteria will serve meals according to the weight of the raw materials. This is reasonable.

"Five." The old man was happy this time. He put the book down, took off his reading glasses, and made a gesture to Tang Zhitong, because he saw clearly the food coupons Tang Zhitong had, which were worth half a catty.

"I only want two. Can you give me the change?" Tang Zhitong pointed to the large piece of hemp paper next to him and did not bargain.

"Okay." The old man smacked his lips and finally agreed. Although two taels of food coupons were not a lot, they were enough for him to have breakfast.

After getting the paper and the change, Tang Zhitong rolled the hemp paper into a tube, asked for a piece of paper rope from the pharmacy, tied it up and went out.

When he entered the house, Tang Zhitong saw Fengzhi sticking her butt up and scratching at the toilet door with a small stick: "What's going on? Is it dirty?"

"Brother, the teacher asked me to find fly pupae. I have to hand in my homework tomorrow." Feng Zhi heard her brother's voice, and she threw the stick away on the ground. She turned to Tang Zhitong with a sad face and asked for help: "Brother, there are no fly pupae at home. How can I hand in my homework tomorrow?"

"I'll help you find them later. Go wash your hands first. Look at you, a little girl, but you're covered in dirt. It's so dirty." Tang Zhitong knew it was strange that there were fly pupae at home. They had already used hanging weeds to pull them out when they were making compost and turning the soil a while ago.

"This teacher is the same. He did this last year, and this year everyone is so incompetent, yet he still does it again." Zhang Guifang was also full of complaints about this.

"It's the Patriotic Health Campaign. It was even published in the newspaper a few days ago. It's all a task assigned by our superiors." Tang Zhitong remembered the newspaper he read a few days ago and spoke up for the teacher.

It's better in the city, where students are only required to hand in fly pupae, flies, mosquitoes, rats and so on. In the countryside, in addition to these, students are also required to pick up manure and hand it in to the government. Everyone has a certain weight task, and if they fail to complete it, they can only find a way out on their own. Most of them will use their own farm manure.

As for where the farm manure that was submitted went, who knows?

"What are you buying paper for? For pasting the ceiling? We won't be pasting it this year. Not only is it a waste of paper, but also food." Zhang Guifang noticed the paper her son brought back. He didn't plan to paste the ceiling. Pasting the ceiling required paste, and their house was large, so he would need at least a pound of flour.

"Hey, it's not for pasting the ceiling. I plan to make a kite." Tang Zhitong scratched his head. He didn't even think about his own ceiling when he bought the paper.

"Is it necessary to buy paper? Just use newspapers." Zhang Guifang glanced at her son and knew that he did this because he wanted to take his daughter-in-law out to play, so she did not object.

"You can paint this to make it look better." Since it was a toy for Xiao Wang, Tang Zhitong really wanted to make it more beautiful.

"Do you want to pull the door curtain again? This time, pull it from the bottom, and tie it up tightly so it won't fall apart." Both the son and daughter-in-law are wage earners and they are not stingy every month. Zhang Guifang did not say anything for a kite and she was very happy this time.

"Okay, don't worry, the door curtain must not be destroyed." Tang Zhitong promised.

People in the old city hang door curtains twice a year. In winter, they hang cotton curtains to prevent heat from escaping, and in summer, they hang bamboo curtains to prevent mosquitoes from entering the room.

Bamboo door curtains are like mats. They can not only effectively block mosquitoes, but also have good ventilation. However, the price is relatively high. Those who have no money will choose straw door curtains, and those with even worse economic conditions will simply piece together a piece of rags and hang it on the door. Anyway, every household must have such an item.

The Tang family uses bamboo door curtains. Although the price is a bit higher, they can be used for several years.

The reason why Zhang Guifang said "again" was because Tang Zhitong once pulled out the thin bamboo strips from his own door curtain and made a kite with Ma Kejian.

"Brother, fly pupae." Feng Zhi didn't care about the kite at all at this moment. There was only one thought in her mind: to complete the task assigned by the teacher.

"Okay, got it. You do your homework in the room and I'll help you find it. How many do you want the teacher to find?" Tang Zhitong put down his bag and asked.

"Twenty!" Fengzhi stretched out two fingers and gestured.

"Go and do your homework. When you finish it, I will definitely find you twenty, no more, no less." Tang Zhitong gave his sister a slap on the head.

Fly pupae are relatively common, and many people may have seen them without paying much attention.

There are several ways for flies to overwinter, among which fly pupae are the most common.

The outer shell and enclosed space of fly pupae give them strong resistance to frost, allowing them to survive in low temperature environments. They usually hide in the cracks of toilet walls, in the soil of pig pens and chicken pens, or even in the cracks of tree bark.

Of course, Tang Zhitong easily gathered the fly pupae that Fengzhi needed. He tore off a piece of newspaper, wrapped them up for her, and prepared to ask her to hand them in tomorrow to complete the task.

As for where these fly pupae eventually go, Tang Zhitong feels that it definitely won’t be in the stomach.

"What are you doing?" Xiao Wang and Feng Zhen entered the house together. When she turned around, she saw her husband struggling with the door curtain.

"Pick two bamboo sticks and make a kite tonight. Why did you two go together?" Tang Zhitong asked when he saw them come in together.

"I picked a few flowers from my workplace and sent two to my mother. I happened to meet Fengzhen on the way. Do they look pretty?" asked Xiao Wang, taking off a few flowers tied to the handlebars like he was presenting a treasure.

"Well, it looks nice and festive. Here, brush the wine bottles and put them up." Tang Zhitong picked up a wine bottle from the ground. This was the bottle of Fenzi that Ma Kejian and his brother drank when they came two days ago.

Zhang Guifang piled up all the wine bottles in the house beside the wall of the south courtyard, storing them there and selling them when there are more. "Well, give me another one, and I'll put one in the main house too." Xiao Wang took the wine bottle in one hand and held the flowers in the other, saying.

"Sister-in-law, let me do it." Fengzhen saw that her brother was busy and her sister-in-law had no hands free, so she bent down and picked up a wine bottle.

"Okay, you guys go wash the bottles, I'll tie up the door curtain." Tang Zhitong pulled out two bamboo sticks, both from the bottom of the door curtain.

The reason for pulling it out from the bottom is that, firstly, mosquitoes don't have the intelligence to enter the door from the bottom, and secondly, it is easier to tie it again so that the door curtain can remain as compact as before.

Xiao Wang got the bottle and started working as soon as he entered the house. After brushing the flowers, he filled most of the bottle with water, trimmed the branches, and inserted them into the bottle in an orderly manner.

The mouth of the wine bottle was small and couldn't hold many flowers, so Xiao Wang picked a few of the remaining flowers and put them on the heads of the two sisters-in-law: "Go, look in the mirror and see if you look good."

"It looks good!" Fengzhi turned her head left and right in front of the mirror, unable to see enough.

Fengzhen is a shy girl. She stands behind her sister and looks at herself in the mirror. Although she doesn't say anything, the smile on her face shows that she likes it very much.

"Mom, let me pick one for you too." Student Wang picked out two more flowers.

"I'm old and I don't want to join in the fun with you young people." Zhang Guifang waved her hands quickly as if avoiding a snake or scorpion.

"Who said you are old? You are not old at all. You look good with flowers in your hair." Xiao Wang didn't believe it and wanted to put a flower in the hair for his mother-in-law. However, his mother-in-law's hair was too short to hold the flower in the hair. In the end, he could only clip it on her ears.

"You guys play with it, I'll just hold it and look at it." Zhang Guifang always felt awkward and held the flower in her hand to look at it.

All she had come into contact with before were the flowers in New Year pictures. When she was young, she had no time to pursue beauty and was busier than cattle and horses every day. She used to envy other children of the same age who had flowers on their hair, but she had no time to care about it.

If you do less or work slower, you will be beaten.

Even so, he couldn't avoid the fate of being sold.

Although my mother-in-law treats me well, I am a wife after all, so I can't care about these things.

"Wow, flowers are competing for beauty." After Tang Zhitong entered the room, he saw that Xiao Wang had a small jade peach blossom pinned behind his head, Feng Zhen had a plum blossom on her head, and Feng Zhi had a peach blossom.

The plum blossom has a very long flowering period. They started to bloom before I finished painting the cold-relieving picture at home. Until now, it has been quite some time since I finished painting the cold-relieving picture, but the flowering period has not yet ended.

"Does it look good?" Student Wang turned her head and showed it to her husband.

"Well, it's beautiful, the faces of people and the peach blossoms complement each other redly. There are so many flowers in your unit, why haven't I seen them before?" Tang Zhitong praised. Before this time, only in midsummer, Fengzhi would occasionally go out to play with the children from the neighborhood and pick a few wild flowers from outside. At other times, there was basically no flowers at home.

For ordinary people, food is the most important thing. No one would specially grow flowers and plants. Only people who have enough to eat would have the leisure to do these things.

For example, classmate Xiao Wang has obviously had contact with this before, and this is the gap between families.

"They are all hidden behind the building. What's in your hand?" Xiao Wang asked, looking at the paper bag in her husband's hand.

"Fly pupae, Fengzhi's homework." Tang Zhitong handed the paper package to his sister and said, "Put it away, don't open it, and give it to the teacher tomorrow."

When Xiao Wang heard about this thing, he felt uncomfortable and lost interest in exploring it.

After finishing their meal peacefully, those who needed to do their homework did their homework. Tang Zhitong pinched some flour into a cooking spoon, poured some water and mixed it, then squatted over the stove to make paste, preparing to make a kite later.

"Why did you think of making a kite?" Back in the room, classmate Xiao Wang sat opposite Tang Zhitong and watched him busy.

"Didn't you say you haven't flown a kite for a long time? The weather is getting warmer, so I was thinking of making a kite and taking you out for a spring outing and some fun." Tang Zhitong said with a smile.

"I was just saying it casually, do you really take it to heart?" These words are more effective than any sweet talk. After hearing this, Xiao Wang's eyes narrowed into slits.

"That's right, you have to remember it. I'll paste one with newspaper first. I haven't done it for many years, so my hands are not good at it. You are not allowed to think it is ugly." Tang Zhitong lit a candle and prepared to roast the bamboo strips, with the paste he had just made placed next to him.

"As long as it's made by you, I don't mind it being ugly." Student Xiao Wang rested his elbows on his knees, supported his cheeks with both hands, and watched intently.

"Hey, when it's done, we'll measure the size, then cut a piece of suitable size on the hemp paper and draw on it. When we paste it back together, it will be a kite with a painting on it." Tang Zhitong talked about his plan while he was busy.

"Well, that's okay. Looking at your movements, you don't look like you're new to it. You must have done this a lot before, right?" Xiao Wang asked as she watched the bamboo strips slowly take shape in her husband's hands.

"How is that possible? If you made a butt curtain when you were a kid, you would get beaten." Tang Zhitong shook his head. He had indeed done it when he was a kid, but not many times.

"Fart curtain?" It was the first time that Xiao Wang heard this word and he was very curious.

"It's this kind of simple kite. It looks like the piece of cloth that children wear to cover their buttocks when wearing open-crotch pants. Most people in Beijing call it a fart curtain." Tang Zhitong explained, pointing to the kite he was making.

"This name is really... unique." Xiao Wang was baptized by the authentic Beijing culture and didn't know how to describe it for a moment, but she was more interested in her husband being beaten: "Wouldn't it be better for the child to exercise his hands-on ability? Why should he be beaten?"

"Because you need bamboo strips to make a fart curtain, and the child can't split the bamboo by himself, so he can only think of making a door curtain."

"The door curtain is so precious, and the child didn't know how to tie it up after smoking. If you're not careful, the whole door curtain will fall apart."

"I remember one time when Ma San took advantage of a neighbor's nap and pulled two cigarettes from his door curtain. As a result, the victim came to his house and complained."

"That old lady stood at the door of Ma Sange's house, just watching him get beaten. Not only did she not stop him, she even advised him: He's still a child, just give him a couple of hits.

Look at the tone and expression. He is just talking but not stopping. Does that sound like he is trying to persuade her? He is clearly adding fuel to the fire. "

Tang Zhitong stopped what he was doing and vividly performed for Xiao Wang the daily quarrel-prone situations of the people in the old city.

Student Xiao Wang covered his mouth and laughed without saying anything.

"If you ask me, he didn't deserve the beating. Brother Ma San had a lot of fun making the fart curtains, but Uncle Ma had to follow him to clean up his mess. He had to find a craftsman who made curtains from door to door and pay him to make the curtains, and then he had to repair it for the neighbors!" Thinking of the bad things that happened in his childhood, Tang Zhitong also laughed.

"Have you ever secretly pulled the door curtains of other people's houses when you were a child?" Classmate Xiao Wang didn't care much about Ma Kejian's childhood. Instead, she wanted to know what her husband looked like when he was a child.

"No, I don't have the guts." Tang Zhitong shook his head immediately, then said confidently, "I only beat my own family. Your mother-in-law mentioned this today."

"Bah, you coward." Xiao Wang laughed even more happily, "Did you get beaten?"

"Beat him, why not? You need bamboo strips to make a butt curtain, and you need thread after the butt curtain is made, right? That day I not only pulled out the bamboo strips, but also took a roll of cotton thread from my mother's sewing basket..."

The more fun he has during the day, the more pain his butt will suffer at night. The more fun he has during the day, the more pain his butt will suffer at night. This may be the complete childhood of the little boy...

(End of this chapter)