Go back to the prosperous days and become a layman

Chapter 752 Buying Cotton Cloth in the East Market

Tang Zhitong received a total of 16 yuan for tuition fees, which was about the same as the last time he attended the postal code promotion training.

Tang Zhitong did not keep a penny of the money and gave it all to Xiao Wang after the meal.

Xiao Wang counted them happily and said, "I just wanted to make you a shirt. This money is enough to make three shirts."

"Didn't we just do it last year? Our family doesn't have that many cloth coupons, so you guys come first. I don't have high requirements for what I wear, and I can wear it for a year with just enough." It has been nearly two years since he came here. Not only is he happy at work, he also married his classmate Xiao Wang. Although he lacks in food, clothing, and entertainment, Tang Zhitong is very content.

"That won't do. You are a cadre and a college student now. If you dress too shabby, wouldn't that be embarrassing for me? It's like I don't care enough about you." Xiao Wang didn't care what her husband said. She didn't even give him room for negotiation. She took out the cloth coupons from her pocket and showed them to him: "My mother also supports my idea. Here, she gave me all the cloth coupons."

"Okay, then I'll listen to you." Being cared for and loved by someone is a great blessing. Tang Zhitong did not refuse.

Sunday, May 4.

Tang Zhitong took Xiao Wang to Wangfujing Department Store to buy cloth.

When Wangfujing Department Store opened, it was known as the one with the most complete merchandise range in the entire city. But when Tang Zhitong came here this time, he found that the merchandise was not as complete as usual.

A lot of the high-end leather jackets that had made Tang Zhitong gasp in amazement were removed from stock, and the cloth became mainly low-end, with fewer mid- to high-end ones. Not only were there fewer of them, but there were also purchase restrictions. Even so, one could hear from others that the clothes were out of stock from time to time.

This wave of consumption downgrade is indeed a passive one.

There are many reasons for this situation. One is that the actual domestic cotton production is declining, and the other is that domestic demand is continuing to increase.

The supply to the military ports cannot be cut off, and the export cannot be reduced. Even if the remaining cloth is some coarse cloth, it was transported to Sijiu City by compressing the supply from other sister cities.

"Comrade, I need eight feet of 60-count white cotton cloth." When it was finally Xiao Wang's turn after queuing, she pointed at the white cloth hanging next to her and said.

Student Xiao Wang studied with the book for a long time. Last night, she also measured the size of her husband. Considering her husband's height, he would need at least seven feet of cloth. In order to have some room, she asked for eight feet.

As for the fabric, the couple agreed that 60-count cotton cloth is not that hard. Not only does it have a good shape, but it is also more wear-resistant, making it very suitable for making shirts.

"There is a purchase limit. I've said it many times. One person can only buy six feet at most." When the salesperson heard that Xiao Wang wanted to buy eight feet of cloth, he waved his hands impatiently, as if to say that he would leave immediately if Xiao Wang didn't change his mind.

"I'm four feet, he's four feet, this should be okay, right?" Student Wang is a flexible person and pointed to Tang Zhitong next to him.

Tang Zhitong almost laughed out loud. It was still Xiao Wang who was good at taking advantage of loopholes. As for the salesperson's service attitude, it didn't matter. She was just the executor of the purchase restriction. What's more, the purchase restriction was also intended to allow more residents to buy fabrics. The original intention was good.

Besides, these days there are very few salesgirls and salesmen who greet people with a smile. They stand for eight hours a day and are basically not idle. No matter how much goods they sell, their salary will not increase by a penny. It's good enough if they don't roll their eyes or curse at others.

The salesperson glared at Tang Zhitong, and after seeing the four pockets on his shirt, he swallowed the words that were on the tip of his tongue and reluctantly wrote out two bills, each of which was four feet long.

The citizens who wanted to buy cloth later didn’t expect that it could be operated in this way, and they regretted not bringing their families over to queue up.

After Tang Zhitong came back with the receipt stamped with "Cash Received", the two of them successfully got the eight feet of cloth. Maybe the salesperson knew that Xiao Wang and Tang Zhitong were in cahoots, so he didn't cut the cloth.

"Look, I've grown up in vain, but the rations of food and cloth are the same as others. Not only do I get hungry quickly, but I also waste cloth." Tang Zhitong joked to himself as he walked out of the Wangfujing Department Store.

"Hmph, if you weren't that tall, I wouldn't even look down on you." Student Wang patted her husband's arm. She loved the man so much that she wouldn't allow him to say bad things about her.

"Hey! Comrades, please show your IDs. How can you flirt with each other in the street?" Before Tang Zhitong could say anything, he heard a familiar voice behind him.

"Hey, Captain Zhang, Aijun, are you guys on a field trip?" Tang Zhitong turned around and saw Zhang Xinping looking at him with a smile. Next to him stood Wu Aijun, who had a strange look on his face.

Wu Aijun knew that Tang Zhitong and Zhang Xinping were close, but he didn't know that Zhang Xinping dared to say that to Wang Jingwen. What do you mean by flirting? They are a serious couple! Aren't you afraid that this person will get angry?
"There's a meeting going on there these days, and the Hometown Office is short-staffed, so they asked us to come over and help out for a few days. Is this your sister-in-law?" Seeing Tang Zhitong and his wife turned around, Zhang Xinping pointed in the direction of the big square and then looked at Xiao Wang. He was amazed and spoke seriously.

"Let me introduce you formally. This is my wife, Wang Jingwen. This is Director Zhang of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Municipal Public Security Bureau. You know Aijun better than I do." Tang Zhitong introduced the two people.

Classmate Xiao Wang did not get angry as Wu Aijun worried. Instead, he stood beside Tang Zhitong like a good little cat, smiling and nodding politely at Zhang Xinping. Wu Aijun received the same treatment.

"What's the matter with being a director or not? You are in charge of the work temporarily. I think you are well-informed. You even know that our unit has been upgraded?" After listening to the introduction, Zhang Xinping's expression did not change. In fact, he had already started to think about it. From what Tang Zhitong said, his wife was very familiar with Wu Aijun, and Wu Aijun had such a family background, then...

"Well, I often go to the Municipal Bureau. Whenever I see Brother Cheng, I will pull him aside to chat for a few minutes and I listen to what he says." Tang Zhitong has not contacted Zhang Xinping since he helped Wu Aijun transfer his job, but this did not prevent him from getting first-hand information from Cheng Hai.

"Old Cheng talks really fast. Are you and your sister-in-law here to cut cloth?" After imagining Wang Jingwen's family, Zhang Xinping stopped joking and asked as he looked at Tang Zhitong holding the cloth in a net bag in his hand.

"Yes, she insisted on making a shirt for me. I couldn't stop her. I had to accompany her." Tang Zhitong showed his big white teeth happily. At this moment, he had a new feeling about the curse of the Northeastern people.

In Northeast China, the most firm reason is "my wife wouldn't let me"; the most impressive sentence is "my wife bought it for me."

"You should be happy to have such a considerate wife. She is nothing like the one I have at home... It makes me angry just talking about it." Zhang Xinping gently gave Xiao Wang a hand and revealed a piece of news to Tang Zhitong: "I heard that buying ready-made clothes will require cloth coupons in the future. If you have any clothes you want to buy, you'd better hurry up."

"Really? This is the first time I've heard of it. Thank you. Let's discuss it when we get back." Tang Zhitong turned his head and glanced at Xiao Wang, as if he had never heard of it.

"Okay, you guys go ahead and do your work, we'll continue our patrol." When Zhang Xinping saw that it was Tang Zhitong, he just wanted to say hello. After saying hello, he also gave a message and then went back to his job.

"Hey, Brother Zhang, how's your house going? Any news? When are you moving in?" Tang Zhitong still remembered Zhang Xinping saying he was going to move to the dormitory, but now that the weather was getting hot, he still hadn't given him any news. "Soon, soon, I'll tell you when the date is set." Zhang Xinping turned around and waved at Tang Zhitong.

"Okay! Then I'll wait for your news." Tang Zhitong waved goodbye to Zhang Xinping and Wu Aijun.

"The Homecoming Office, the name sounds like the Homecoming Group." After Zhang Wu and the other person had gone far away, classmate Xiao Wang frowned and complained.

"Hey, this way the name is short and convenient." Tang Zhitong said as he glanced around. Thanks to the recent meetings held in the hall for several consecutive days, the streets were much cleaner than before and there were no beggars to be seen.

"I also heard that you will need cloth coupons to buy clothes in the future. But the time will not be so fast. There are still a few months left. It's still plenty of time to buy whatever you want. How about I buy you a few more clothes?" Xiao Wang stopped talking about the name and started talking about the cloth coupons.

"How many more? I don't want any of them." Tang Zhitong shook his head firmly:

"Right now, the purchase of cloth is limited, so at least we can still buy some to make clothes. But when we need coupons to buy clothes and cloth, the demand will be compressed invisibly.

By then, our neighbors and colleagues will have even fewer new clothes to wear throughout the year.

But I, because I knew the news in advance, have more clothes than others. Others wear patched clothes while I wear new ones. Is that fair? It's too conspicuous."

Tang Zhitong knew that he would need cloth coupons to buy ready-made clothes in the future, and not only cloth coupons, but also industrial coupons would be needed in the future.

We already eat much better than the people around us, and if our clothes are also obvious, we will become sitting ducks.

"We are thinking the same thing." Xiao Wang smiled at her husband and added, "But we can buy underwear to wear underneath. Underwear won't go bad in a year or two, and no one can see it."

"That's something we can consider." Tang Zhitong nodded. Underwear is always needed.

The supply of cloth coupons for residents of the old city this year is 26 feet per person. Next year, it will be sharply reduced to 4 feet per person, which is only enough to cut a pair of trouser legs.

In real life, these cloth coupons are mainly used to buy some cloth to patch old clothes.

If you don't buy it now, when the cloth coupons drop sharply next year, you may have to wait for the high-price policy to come out to buy high-priced underwear, which has no quantity or purchase limit, but the price is also very high.

Now the price of an ordinary shirt is about 12.7 yuan per piece. Once the high-price policy is introduced, the price will immediately rise to about 28 yuan per piece and will remain so for several years.

The price of cotton and woolen shirts and trousers has increased by 2.8 times, and the price of fleece shirts and trousers has increased by 5 times!
The price of knitwear has increased by an average of 3.09 times (data from BJ Magazine Daily Industrial Products Business Magazine, P393).

Anyway, they are all legitimate needs, and buying them in advance is equivalent to saving money.

"Then I'll go back and ask our mother to get one set for each of them. Fengzhen and Fengzhi are growing up, so we can consider buying two sets." Seeing that her husband agreed, Xiao Wang started counting in her mind how many sets of underwear she needed to buy.

"Just buy them for you guys right away. I don't have high requirements for these. A set of fleece coat and trousers costs about 16 or 17 Yuan, and one set for each person costs more than 80 Yuan. Can your little piggy bank support it? You can buy them for Director Ye, Jingying, and Jingmin first, and then consider the rest for them." Xiao Wang couldn't spend all the money she saved on her husband's side, so she had to show her appreciation to Chunshu Hutong.

"I got it." Xiao Wang smiled at her husband again, as beautiful as the peach blossoms in full bloom at this moment.

"Hey~ Didn't you just sell a few chickens? Calculate how much you still need in total, and I'll ask mom for help." Tang Zhitong suddenly remembered that his mother had just received more than 200 yuan. She should have warmed up the money by now, right?
"How could you, a man like you, want to take our mother's pension money? How could you do that?" After hearing this, Xiao Wang was at a loss whether to laugh or cry. She pointed at her husband, not knowing what words to use to describe her.

"What's wrong with that? We have to make decisions in an emergency. I believe our mother can understand. As long as we go back and tell her that we need cloth coupons to buy clothes, she will definitely buy them for us without us even asking. Do you believe it?" This information gap is worthless for people without money, but for people who have some money and want to improve their lives, it is an opportunity to "save money."

You don't know how to cherish something until you lose it. When textiles needed cloth coupons, residents remembered the benefits of not having coupons. When high-priced textiles were put on the shelves, some residents felt it was unfair and began to miss the days when they had to buy with coupons.

If people knew about the "information gap" in advance, most of them would rush to buy it. This phenomenon includes but is not limited to rushing to buy Isatis root during SARS, rushing to buy salt during nuclear contamination, and rushing to buy stocks when the stock market is about to soar...

However, a lot of information is false. By the time the news becomes known to everyone, well-informed people have already set up a plan and are waiting for the smart ones to fall into it.

After hearing what her husband said, Xiao Wang, who was sitting in the back seat of the bike, covered her mouth and laughed. For a moment, the area around the bike was filled with a happy atmosphere.

While pedaling his bicycle, Tang Zhitong looked at both sides of the street. The sanitation and hygiene were much cleaner than before. At least there was not a single beggar in this area.

It is not accurate to say that they are beggars. They were originally farmers. The land they own is collective and there is no land annexation. Logically speaking, as long as there is food to eat, no one would be willing to leave their homeland unless they are pushed to the limit.

On the other side, Zhang Xinping was asking Wu Aijun about Xiao Wang's family background, but he was very tactful: "What is Xiao Tang's family situation like? Do you know?"

"He's quite ordinary. His father was a worker, and he passed away two years ago. But his family lives in a good condition, with a private house. Although ordinary, he is very outstanding, and was received by an audience a while ago." After all, he was his leader, and Tang Zhitong seemed to be quite familiar with Zhang Xinping, so Wu Aijun did not hide anything and even revealed the news he heard from his mother to Zhang Xinping.

"Oh? That's amazing! He's so low-key that I didn't notice it at all." Zhang Xinping had actually confirmed the news of Tang Zhitong's reception from Cheng Hai a long time ago, but he did not reveal it in front of Wu Aijun.

After Zhang Xinping finished his sigh, he paused for a moment and asked, "Aijun, Xiao Tang's wife doesn't look like she comes from an ordinary family."

"Not bad, about the same as me." Tang Zhitong had just revealed that he and Wang Jingwen were very familiar with each other, so it would be inappropriate not to say something, but Wu Aijun did not reveal more.

Zhang Xinping didn't ask any more questions after hearing this. Knowing this was enough...

(End of this chapter)