60s: I have a store

Chapter 595: Black Market Grain Purchase
The twilight was like ink spread out by water, gradually soaking through the gray tiles of the courtyard.

When Zhou Yimin stepped into the courtyard, the blue shirt on the clothesline was still swaying gently. The aroma of cooking wafting from somewhere mixed with the smell of burning coal briquettes fermented in the sultry air.

The noodles in the enamel bowl were piled high, and the red oil wrapped around the trembling pieces of braised meat was glowing temptingly under the street lights.

Zhou Yimin only took a few quick bites, and as he stirred with his chopsticks, the fat from the meat created ripples in the noodle soup.

He swallowed gulply, his Adam's apple rolling up and down rapidly, as if he wanted to lock the warmth of the bowl of noodles into his stomach.

When the last ray of sunset disappeared behind the eaves, a lantern had been lit on the stone table under the locust tree.

Zhou Yimin wiped his mouth and went out. In the dim light, Dapeng was squatting in the corner rolling a pipe, and Li Youde was pacing beside him with an enamel jar in his hand, the tea leaves in the jar floating up and down.

"Dapeng, do you know what this meeting is about?" Zhou Yimin kicked the stone at his feet away.

Dapeng raised his head, the match light illuminating his wrinkled face: "It seems that a few families in the courtyard are short of food, so I was wondering if I could help."

Before he finished speaking, Li Youde suddenly sighed heavily: "The children of Old Wang's family have become very thin. They used to have steamed corn bread to eat, but now they can't even have steamed corn bread."

The flame of the lantern suddenly shook, and the shadow of the tree on the wall twisted into a ferocious shape.

Zhou Yimin recalled the smell of wild vegetable paste wafting through the window when he passed by Lao Wang's house last week. At this moment, the noodles in his stomach suddenly felt heavy.

The sound of a child crying came from afar, torn into pieces by the night wind and drifting in every corner of the courtyard.

"Is everyone here?" An old man's voice came from the main house.

Zhou Yimin followed the crowd and gathered around. The moonlight climbed up his shoulders and intertwined with the halo of the lantern, casting shadows of varying depths on the ground.

The leaves of the locust tree rustled, as if sighing in advance for the discussion that was about to begin.

The lanterns swayed between the branches of the locust tree, casting the shadows of everyone on the mottled brick wall, as if a group of demons were dancing wildly.

An old man stood on the steps leaning on a jujube wood cane, beads of sweat embedded in his wrinkles flickering under the light: "I believe everyone knows the reason for today's meeting. I hope everyone will speak up and see if we can come up with a solution."

As soon as the words fell, the discussion exploded like boiling water.

The second uncle was squatting in the corner, puffing on his pipe, the sparks flickering on the end of the pipe; the third uncle's glasses had slipped to the tip of his nose, he pushed the frame up and was about to speak, but was interrupted by the sobbing of Old Wang's wife.

The children squeezed between the adults' legs. The youngest girl was holding half a piece of hard steamed bread and looking at the adults eagerly. The yard was filled with an atmosphere of anxiety and helplessness.

"Alright, alright!" The old man slammed his cane on the bluestone slab, startling the night owl in the treetops. "Yimin, do you have any good ideas?"

Zhou Yimin was originally staring at his work shoes that were stained with motor oil. Suddenly, he looked up when his name was called.

More than forty gazes shot at him like searchlights. In the halo of the lantern, he saw the red eyes of Old Wang's wife and the trembling cigarette between the fingers of the second uncle. His Adam's apple rolled violently.

The night wind blew the locust flowers past his ears. He forced himself to take a deep breath, his nails digging into the old scars on his palms.

Time froze in the sound of cicadas. Five minutes later, Zhou Yimin suddenly straightened his back, and the fabric of his work clothes rustled as he rubbed against each other. "I thought of a solution that is not a good idea. Let's raise funds and send people to buy food on the black market. Give some to the needy families, and the rest will be distributed according to the proportion of money contributed."

Deathly silence instantly enveloped the whole place. The beads on the abacus of the third uncle suddenly clattered, and the pipe of the second uncle was hanging in the air, forgetting to knock off the ashes.

The wife of the old Wang family staggered forward half a step, but froze in place as if she was afraid of disturbing something.

Suddenly, someone's radio began to play the tune of a model opera, which was soon drowned out by the constant discussions.

"I think it's okay!" An old man was the first to break the silence, and his cane fell heavily again, "It's better than just waiting!"

Before he finished speaking, Zhou Yimin had already taken out a neatly stacked stack of banknotes. Ten ten-yuan bills shone brightly under the lantern. "I'll pay one hundred."

This action is like a drop of water thrown into a frying pan.

An old man pulled out a rolled-up banknote from his blue cloth belt: "I'll give you fifty!"

The second uncle and the third uncle looked at each other and took out crumpled bills at the same time.

The sound of coins colliding, the sound of people counting money, and the suppressed exclamations of children mixed together. Under the lantern, the four hundred and twenty yuan gradually piled up into a small mountain. The portrait of Chairman Mao on the edge of the banknote flickered in the light and shadow.

The old man's reading glasses slipped to the tip of his nose. He squinted and fiddled with an abacus: "Tonight, will all the laborers in the hospital go to help?"

Zhou Yimin looked at the tense yet hopeful faces of the people in the moonlight and nodded heavily.

The leaves of the locust trees rustled, as if applauding this difficult self-rescue.

The footsteps of the people leaving the meeting startled the crickets in the corner. The moonlight cast the elongated shadows of the people on the blue brick floor, which flickered with the shaking lantern.

An old man carefully put the collected money into his pocket. The sound of the fabric rubbing against each other was particularly clear in the silent night. "Everyone go back and take a nap. Gather at the gate of the courtyard at 3:45 p.m."

Zhou Yimin walked home following his own crooked shadow, the wrenches in his overalls pocket clinking with every step.

When passing by the window of Lao Wang's house, he heard a suppressed cough from a child in the house. He subconsciously slowed down his pace, looked up and saw a swaying figure on the window paper - Lao Wang's wife was mending clothes under a kerosene lamp. As the needle and thread shuttled, the shadow on the wall was as thin as a dead leaf that would fall at any time.

After returning to the house, Zhou Yimin put the iron lunch box heavily on the table, with half a bowl of braised pork noodles left in it.

The moonlight outside the window came in through the glass covered with newspapers, casting tiny spots of light on the wall, like small pieces of silver scattered on the ground.

From next door came the sound of Dapeng packing his backpack. The rubbing of canvas mixed with muffled curses: "This broken kettle is leaking again."

Zhou Yimin lay down on the bed, and the wooden bed creaked under the weight.

He stared at the swaying shadows of the trees on the ceiling, but his ears kept echoing what the wife of the old Wang family said at the meeting.
The trembling voice said, "The child hasn't seen fine grains for three days."

As the night deepened, the entire courtyard fell into sleep.

Only the old man's room had a kerosene lamp still on. The dim light shone through the window lattice, leaving a long tail on the ground.

He counted the banknotes repeatedly while wearing reading glasses, rubbing the edges of the banknotes with his fingers, muttering to himself: "Four hundred and twenty yuan, I have to exchange it for three hundred kilograms of cornmeal."

The sound of bangzi at Chou time came from afar, and Zhou Yimin was suddenly awakened from his light sleep.

He put on his shoes in the dark, and when he went out, he ran into the second uncle who also pushed the door open. The two looked at each other, and saw fatigue and anxiety in each other's bloodshot eyes.

Under the moonlight, the gate of the courtyard slowly opened. The creaking sound startled the night owl under the eaves, and also awakened this silent battle with hunger.

At three quarters past midnight, the sound of clappers echoed in the empty streets.

The wooden door of the courtyard opened quietly, and Zhou Yimin, an old man and six young people came out one after another. The moonlight stretched their shadows into long and slender shapes.

An old man had 420 yuan wrapped in cloth in his arms, which swayed gently with his steps. It was the hope of everyone in the hospital.

The group ran quickly along the wall, avoiding the patrolling red armbands.

Turning the corner of the seventh alley, a scent mixed with food, sweat and low-quality tobacco gradually wafted into the air.

On the shabby brick wall ahead, someone had painted half a faded peony with red paint - a code word for the black market.

"We're here." Zhou Yimin lowered his voice. Everyone looked up and saw two mottled iron doors closed. Two burly men stood at the door, holding thick wooden sticks in their hands.

"What are you doing?" One of them looked at everyone up and down with eyes like an eagle.

"I heard that you can buy something here." An old man stepped forward and spoke in a steady voice.

"10 cents per person for entering the store." The man held out his hand, and then added: "10 cents for buying things, 20 cents for selling things."

An old man took out a few Mao bills from his cloth bag and handed them over. Everyone paid in turn. A Mao was so nervous that he almost dropped the money on the ground.

The lights in the black market were dim, and kerosene lamps swayed overhead, illuminating the densely packed crowd.

Someone was squatting on the ground selling wild vegetables covered in dirt, with morning dew still on the leaves. An old man in the corner secretly placed a few clay jars filled with honey that he got from somewhere.

On a stall farther away, a few pieces of dark-colored bacon were hung with ropes, glistening with oil under the dim light.

A woman in patched clothes carefully held a small bag of salt and bargained with the buyer. Someone was pushing a cart filled with coarse grains of different colors, including cornmeal and sorghum rice mixed together.

Several men vigilantly gathered around a tobacco and alcohol stall, on which were placed unpacked cigarettes and bulk liquor in plastic bottles.

Zhou Yimin led everyone through the crowd, quickly scanning the stalls.

Everything here was full of novelty and fear to the six young men. They followed closely behind, not daring to make a sound.

The palms of the old man holding the cloth bag were full of sweat, and he whispered to Zhou Yimin: "You must buy enough food."

Zhou Yimin stopped in front of a stall with a tattered curtain.

The stall owner was a middle-aged man with a face full of flesh. Below the stall, there were several tin cans filled with blackened bean cakes, and next to them were a few bundles of wilted vegetables.

"How much is cornmeal?" Zhou Yimin asked.

"3.50 a pound, no bargaining." The stall owner didn't even raise his head.

The sounds of bargaining echoed in the dark alleys, and every penny mattered to the livelihoods of dozens of people living in the courtyard.

Zhou Yimin knew that every transaction tonight had to be done with extreme caution.

The kerosene lamp swayed overhead, casting everyone's shadows on the dirt-covered brick wall, distorting them into a ferocious appearance.

The knuckles of the old man's fingers turned white as he clutched the cloth bag. Amid the noisy bargaining, he pulled Zhou Yimin's work clothes sleeves and said, "Yimin, take a few people with you to buy food. Just buy coarse grains!"

He lowered his voice, his cloudy eyes showing anxiety: "Fine grain is too expensive, it would be good if we can exchange it for some cornmeal or sorghum rice."

Zhou Yimin looked at the blackened bean cakes and gray bran on the stall, and his throat tightened.

. It is indeed as the old man said, these days, who doesn't exchange white rice and white flour for coarse grains that are more filling?

He turned his head and glanced at the six young men. A Mao was staring at the bacon hanging not far away and swallowing his saliva, while Xiao Shunzi was holding the hemp rope and rubbing his fingers nervously.

"Divide into four teams!" Zhou Yimin said in a low voice, which was particularly clear in the noise: "I, the first uncle, the second uncle, and the third uncle will each lead a team!"

He reached out and pointed, separating the young people into pairs, "Buy at the appropriate stalls when you come across one, don't crowd together!"

The second uncle pushed up his glasses that had slipped to the tip of his nose and fished out a few crumpled banknotes from his pocket: "I'll take Ah Mao and Xiao Shunzi to the east to have a look."

The third uncle puffed on his pipe, the sparks from the pipe flickering in the darkness: "The west is mine, there's more food over there."

The old man untied the cloth bag, divided the banknotes into four parts, and carefully wrapped each part with old newspapers: "Spend it sparingly, and the more you can exchange for, the better."

When he stuffed one of the packets into Zhou Yimin's hand, his old hand was shaking: "We have to go back before dawn."

Zhou Yimin and the two young men rushed into the crowd, and the shouts of joy exploded in their ears.

"Sorghum rice! Freshly harvested sorghum rice!" On the stall on the left, the stall owner lifted the torn quilt covering the stall, revealing a mountain of coarse grains, and the smell of rice mixed with bran wafted in the air.

He squatted down and grabbed a handful. The rough grains hurt his palm. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Second Uncle's team bargaining with the cornmeal seller. Second Uncle's abacus beads were moving very quickly, making crisp sounds in the dim light.

Suddenly, the sound of glass bottles breaking was heard in the distance and the crowd became agitated.

Zhou Yimin's heart tightened and he clenched the wrench on his waist - black market transactions are already precarious, and any disturbance could shatter this hard-earned hope.

Zhou Yimin clutched a money bag wrapped in oil paper and made his way through the crowded crowd.

The halo of the kerosene lamp flickered overhead, dyeing the coarse grains on the stall a dim yellow hue. The air was filled with a mixed smell of bran, sweat, and damp soil.

He and the two young men stopped in front of a stall covered with torn straw mats. The stall owner was a squinting middle-aged man who was stirring a hill of cornmeal with a chipped enamel bowl.

"How much is this noodles?" Zhou Yimin squatted down and inserted his fingers into the rough-grained noodles. It felt dry like sandpaper.

The slanted-eyed man rolled his only eye that could see normally, and said in a hoarse voice like a broken gong: "35 cents, no bargaining."

"Too expensive!" A Qiang, the young man following behind him, couldn't help but interrupt, "I heard it was only 30 cents the day before yesterday!"

The man sneered, grabbed a handful of cornmeal and threw it back onto the straw mat. The dust that rose up made Zhou Yimin squint his eyes: "Too expensive? Go look somewhere else - it's good to have coarse grains to eat these days."

Zhou Yimin held Aqiang's arm, took out a five-yuan note from his purse and pushed it over: "Weigh ten kilograms."

He knew that bargaining at this moment would be a waste of time, and the faint sounds of quarreling coming from deep in the alley made him even more alert.

The man took the money, counted it twice with his black fingers dipped in saliva, and then reluctantly picked up the broken scale.

As the weight swung on the hemp rope, Zhou Yimin noticed the bruises on his sleeves - obviously he had been beaten by the patrol.

"Next one!" Zhou Yimin picked up the heavy bag of flour and winked at his companion.

Suddenly, there was a loud sound of glass breaking in the distance, mixed with a man's shouting and cursing.

Zhou Yimin's heart tightened. When he took the bag of rice, he touched the calluses on the old lady's palms - those were hard scabs left by years of hard work.

"Hurry up!" He growled and dragged his companion into a darker fork in the road.

The noise behind me was getting closer and closer. The light from the kerosene lamp cast a swaying shadow on the ground, as if it would be swallowed by the darkness at any time.

When they met under the agreed old locust tree, the third uncle's team was hurried over carrying two bags of bran.

The old man's cloth bag was empty. He was panting, and beads of sweat dripped onto his clothes, leaving dark marks: "I bought a total of 230 kilograms."

The moonlight filtered through the leaves of the locust tree, illuminating the grain bags piled on the ground - yellow cornmeal, black sorghum rice, and bran mixed with grass scraps, each grain covered with the dust and anxiety peculiar to the black market.

Zhou Yimin counted the number of grain bags and suddenly heard the sound of a clapper in the distance - it was already three quarters past three in the morning.

He touched the wrench at his waist, and the coolness of the metal came through his work clothes: "Hurry up and pack it. We must leave before dawn."

(End of this chapter)