Back in the 1980s, hiking in the mountains was also a way of life

Chapter 1157 Suppressing Anger
When delivering grain to the state, the grain needs to be inspected, and the people who inspect the grain are called quality inspectors.

The normal procedure is that those who are to pay grain tax first register their home address and head of household information, and then report the number of people who need to pay grain tax.

Because the amount of land owned by each person is fixed in the local area, once the population is reported, the amount of grain that the family needs to pay is automatically calculated.

The way quality inspectors check grain is by randomly inserting a grain probe into the sack when people carry the grain into the grain warehouse, and taking out a handful of grain particles as a sample.

First, observe whether there are any shriveled grains, impurities, or mold and deterioration. Then check the fullness. Finally, put the grain particles into your mouth and chew them to feel whether the grain is dry.

To be honest, the previous testing methods were fine, because anyone who isn't blind can tell the quality of the grain.

But this final method of testing, which involves feeling the moisture level of the grain with your mouth, is practically complete nonsense.

Because how much water a grain contains is not something you can determine by simply chewing it. Being able to feel whether the grain is moist is already quite remarkable.

The main reason is that everyone has saliva in their mouth, so even dry food will become moist when it enters the mouth.

And the problem arose precisely from this amount of moisture content.

After Wang An and the others finished registering, the quality inspector, as usual, inserted a probe into each sack and took out more than ten grains of grain for testing.

Both Wang An's and Shen Wei's grain passed inspection. Although two or three milligrams of water were deducted, it was within the normal range.

So after the five men carried all the grain from Wang An's family and Shen Wei's family into the granary, Wang An finally got the grain delivery receipts for both his family and Shen Wei's family.

The term "deduction" refers to subtracting the corresponding amount from the weight after weighing.

For example, deducting 2 units of water means that for every 100 jin of grain, 2 jin are reduced, and it can only be counted as 98 jin. If you deduct 3 units of water, it means that for every 100 jin of grain, 3 jin are reduced, and it can be counted as 97 jin, and so on.

Although everyone's grains are dried properly and quite dry, there is actually no standard for how much water they contain, because there are no testing instruments available now.

Moreover, the grain harvested that year was indeed more moist than the old grain, and as everyone knows, new grain will keep losing weight when left there until all the moisture evaporates and it reaches a stable value.

Therefore, deducting two or three water deductions is simply a routine procedure for quality inspectors and cannot be considered wrong.

However, when delivering grain to the state, people would usually bring extra grain to make up the required weight in order to prevent such a situation from happening.

When inspecting Wang Lijia's rice, the quality inspector only glanced at it briefly, then casually tossed a grain into his mouth and remarked:
"This rice is wet, so deduct 3 water points."

After the quality inspector finished speaking, no one objected.

But when it came to testing the wheat grains, the quality inspector seemed a bit annoyed and casually remarked:
“These wheat are all substandard. Either replace a few bags, or deduct 8 units of water.”

Upon hearing this, Wang Li immediately became anxious, because according to the quality inspector, the 1200 jin of wheat in Wang Li's family could only be counted as 1104 jin, a full 96 jin less!
This is really hard to accept!
Wang Li couldn't help but say:
"Brother, my wheat was dried on the kang (a heated brick bed), it's not that wet!"

Wang Li's older brother, Wang Shun, also spoke up in a positive light:

"Brother, could you deduct a little less? We don't even have enough extra wheat to go around."

How much water to deduct from grain is entirely up to the quality inspector, so as long as the quality inspector agrees, there shouldn't be any major problems.

Seeing this, Wang An quickly took out a cigarette and offered it to him, saying with a smile, "Brother, this wheat was dried on the kang (heated brick bed), how can you say it's wet like this, right? How about we deduct three drops as a token gesture, just to be lenient, hehehehe."

The quality inspector didn't accept the cigarette, but instead gave Wang An a disapproving look and said:

"Who do you think you are? You're just wasting my time. Get the hell out of here."

It's normal for quality inspectors to get frustrated after a day of inspecting grain, so it's not surprising that they might deliberately make things difficult for people when they're frustrated.

However, as the saying goes, "one should not concern oneself with affairs if one is not in a position of authority," and this quality inspector actually came up with such a statement. Given Wang An's temperament, he was naturally furious instantly.

Unfortunately, the matter was not yet resolved, so Wang An could only suppress his anger.

It's important to know that there are deadlines for paying public grain. If you fail to pay within the stipulated time, you will bear corresponding responsibilities, ranging from fines and forced labor to being imprisoned in jail.

Wang An forced a smile and continued to speak kindly:

"Brother, let's talk this over. It's not a big deal for you. How about you calculate it as 4 units of water? The extra grain can still be used."

As he spoke, Wang An stuffed an entire pack of classic Bingcheng cigarettes into the quality inspector's pens pocket.

Although the quality inspector is just a nobody, he has the final say on whether the grain is up to standard, so most people really can't do anything about it.

Wang An thought that a pack of cigarettes would be enough to make him change his mind, since it was just a matter of loosening his tongue. The main thing was that the grain the brothers brought was the same, so there wasn't much moisture in it.

To everyone's surprise, after Wang An handed over the cigarette, the quality inspector took it out and threw it on the ground, muttering curses as he did so.

"Stop messing around and get out of my way. We won't take a single needle or thread from you, you know that?"

To be honest, the quality inspector's words sounded quite serious and pretentious.

But at this moment, the quality inspector's rudeness made Wang An so angry that he almost raised his hand to slap him.

Wang An suppressed his anger and wiped the smile off his face. He picked up the Classic Ice City cigarettes from the ground, put them in his pocket, and turned to Wang Li, calmly saying:

"Fine, fine. Fifth brother, just add the rice I just handed over. That should be enough."

Wang An tried everything, from sweet talk to offering cigarettes, but nothing worked. So Wang Shun and Wang Li fell silent. They figured nothing was of any use, so they might as well shut up.

As a result, Wang Li's grain was reduced by 8 units of water, and with the wheat that Wang An had left over, he barely managed to pay the public grain and receive a receipt.

Next, it was the turn of Wang Yong's corn. After the quality inspector's inspection, it was deducted 3 units of water as usual.

But when it came to Wang Gan's corn, the quality inspector caused trouble again.

After putting a corn cob from Wang Gan's house into his mouth, he casually said:
"This corn is too wet. Either take it back and replace it, or deduct 8 units of water."

(End of this chapter)