The Red Era: Starting from a Truck Driver

Chapter 130 Taking the Apprentice to a Restaurant
At around 10 o'clock, Zhou Lingying and Jiang Cheng's parents arrived at the stop at the intersection outside Jinhe Commune. At around 2:30 in the afternoon, Zhou Lingying had to come here again to wait for the bus to Yi'an County, and then take the bus from Yi'an County back to Changcheng City.

So Zhou Lingying could not stay here for a few hours, but she only wanted to see her friends when she came back. She missed Zhang Yan and Wang Fang. She also wanted to tell them a surprise. Zhang Yan was from Shaoxing, and her husband might pass by by car. If her family wanted to bring her something, they could bring it directly.

National food coupons are not available just because you want them. Other types of coupons have regional restrictions. And ordinary food is classified as "unnecessary" by the post office and is not allowed to be sent.

So if these educated youth had something sent from their hometowns, it would be of good quality, either money and national food coupons, or some supplementary food, biscuits, candies, cakes, etc.

But how many families can get those supplementary foods? If Jiang Cheng passes by someone's hometown, he can bring the ordinary so-called "unnecessary" items.

Of course, the premise is that Jiang Cheng does not deliberately take a detour. Jiang Cheng must go to Zhou Lingying's house, and he will not violate the rules by going to other people's houses.

Soon the three of them arrived at the village and returned home. Jiang Cheng's three nephews and nieces were playing with the neighbor's children at the intersection. Li Xianglan had gone to work in the fields and had not returned yet.

Children in rural areas are raised like this, and they won't run around, but there are also some who play too much and run away without knowing how to return. It's not uncommon to look for children in rural areas, but they can basically be found.

If you really can't find it, you have to go find the village chief, and then many people in the village will go out with kerosene lamps and shout the name everywhere to look for it.

"Juanzi, take your brother home to eat watermelon." Zhou Lingying shouted to her eldest niece Jiang Juan.

"Aunt." Jiang Juan heard the shout, turned around and saw that it was Zhou Lingying, and immediately called out, then patted her two younger brothers who were squatting on the ground playing with something and said, "Aunt and grandpa and grandma are back, let's go back and eat watermelon."

The two brothers in open-crotch pants heard that there was watermelon to eat, so they followed their sister Jiang Juan. As for the neighboring children who played with them, they also wanted to eat some when they heard that there was watermelon to eat.

But children of this generation really don't have much of a spirit of sharing. Everyone has enough to eat, and if they have food, they really take care of their own family. Only brothers and sisters at home will keep food to share, and they will never give it to outsiders, even if they are good friends.

In the city, only those with better-off families might share snacks with friends. In the courtyard where Zhou Lingying lived, it was common to see a child eating something and many other children staring at him, but they were just greedy and would not ask for more. When the child finished eating, everyone would stop looking.

The little kids quickly caught up with Zhou Lingying. Zhou Lingying gave each of them a candy, and then went back to their room to put their things away after arriving home.

Then he took the watermelon and some other things into the kitchen, and brought back some lard and lard residue. He fried some vegetables with the lard residue, and fried some watermelon rind, and that was it for lunch.

After cutting the watermelon, Zhou Lingying gave one piece each to her nephew and niece. Then she cut two more pieces to give to her parents when her sister-in-law Li Xianglan came back.

It's not even eleven yet, and the weather is already very hot. I start work earlier in the morning and finish earlier. The same goes for the afternoon. I don't finish work until nearly six, and at six it's already bright.

When Zhou Lingying saw Li Xianglan coming back, she knew that the educated youth team was almost done with work. However, she did not leave immediately, but went to the main house with Li Xianglan to ask whether the production team had distributed grain.

This was also a coincidence. The production team had just distributed grain yesterday, and Li Xianglan exchanged all the work points of the Jiang family for grain. But the work points were not many, and they still owed some grain to the production team, so after deductions, there were even fewer.

The grains are rice, sweet potatoes and corn. Corn is also grown in the south, but not much, and it is grown on some mountainous land. So corn only accounts for about 15% of the grain distribution in the south where rice is grown, and sweet potatoes account for 30 to 40%.

Rice accounts for about half of the grain distribution, but rural people are generally reluctant to eat rice. Many city people will take coarse grains to the countryside to exchange for rice.

Now that the grain had been distributed, Zhou Lingying was not concerned about how to buy work points in exchange for grain. She could go to the Youth Corps to find someone to return the grain. Moreover, she had asked Zhang Yan to collect the work points she had earned in the Youth Corps when the grain was distributed last time, so she also wanted to go and see how it went.

~~
At this time, Jiang Cheng and Feng Hua had already arrived in De'an County. If they had set out earlier in the morning, Changcheng to Jiujiang was only 150 kilometers away, and they might have arrived by now.

Now, although it was only 40 kilometers away from Jiujiang, if we continued driving, we would arrive around noon. But Jiang Cheng really didn't want to drive, probably because of the direction, as the sun was shining directly at him all morning.

The car was already as hot as a steamer. If we continued driving like this, I would almost get heatstroke.

When Jiang Cheng arrived at De'an County, he asked Feng Hua to get off the car and asked the people there, and found a restaurant. There are basically two or three restaurants in a county, serving grassroots employees, people on business trips, and some leaders.

Different grades of restaurants have different types of dishes. In small restaurants, there are not many dishes for you to choose from. People on business trips usually choose medium-sized restaurants. The prices of different grades of restaurants are not much different, but there are more dishes.

If you go to a bigger restaurant and only want to eat a bowl of noodles, and you're not dressed well, they won't say you're not welcome. They will just tell you that the noodles are sold out.

Although it was Feng Hua who asked about the location of the restaurant, the other party saw a large car nearby and directly told him a restaurant with more dishes but higher prices.

Jiang Cheng found a shady place and parked his car. He could park anywhere he thought was convenient, even if he blocked half of the intersection, and no one would care.

At the parking lot, Jiang Cheng saw a Jiefang truck with cargo in the back. The words Jiujiang Supply and Marketing Cooperative and its address were spray-painted on the truck.

Jiang Cheng took Feng Hua into the restaurant, and then directly used the provincial food coupons to exchange for the restaurant's meal tickets. In the restaurant, you order the staple food first, and if you don't order the staple food, you won't be able to order dishes.

Although this cannot be said to be true for all, Jiang Cheng has been working in the transportation business for over a month now, and it is basically the same when he eats out.

The staple foods include steamed buns, rice, noodles and dumplings. Jiang Cheng ordered a pound of rice.

"Comrade, please order some dishes." After buying the staple food, Jiang Cheng politely called out to the restaurant waiter.

"Hey, chef, I'm here." The waitress was polite to the customer, so she was polite too.

The work clothes on Jiang Cheng may look similar to those of many workers in other units, but the driver's work clothes are printed with the logo of the transportation station company in Changcheng. The work clothes also have more pockets, and there are differences in details.

Even if the waiter didn't see where Jiang Cheng's car was parked, he would be able to roughly identify the identities of some people.

Except for very large restaurants, restaurants generally do not have menus. After the waiter came over, Jiang Cheng asked about the ingredients.

That's right, there is no dish, and the waiter won't introduce you to the dishes. You have to ask for everything, the reason is very simple, because there are too many customers every day, the waiter is unwilling to introduce what dishes the restaurant can cook for each customer.

You have to ask what ingredients are available first, for example, if the waiter says there are eggs, meat, and fish, then you want to eat fish, and then ask what kind of fish can be prepared, and the waiter will introduce fish dishes.

This is also a kind of precise positioning in this era. If you want to eat something from the available ingredients, they will introduce it to you. If you don't like fish, you don't have to ask, and they can save trouble.

After some inquiries, Jiang Cheng ordered a plate of scrambled eggs with chili peppers, a plate of stir-fried celery and dried tofu, a plate of ready-made braised pork, and a plate of green vegetables.

There were four dishes, but I didn't order any soup. If you're thirsty, the restaurant provides free water, both hot and cold.

Green vegetables cost five cents, fried eggs with peppers cost two cents, and fried celery with dried tofu also cost two cents. Braised pork in brown sauce cost fifty cents per serving. I ordered a pound of rice, which cost two cents. Four dishes plus rice cost one dollar and fifteen cents.

There are only two people eating here. In fact, if there are two more people and they have enough food coupons, they can have a good meal in the restaurant for two yuan.

　Thanks to the brothers who have put the product on the shelves and occasionally give rewards.

　　Recently, there may be many brothers who are raising books. It doesn’t matter if you raise them, but I’m afraid that they will be taken off the shelves and abandoned.

　　I tried my best to write it well. If it's a bit dull sometimes, I hope you can understand. After all, in the novel, Jiang Cheng has only been a driver for more than a month. Some plots cannot be arranged too quickly, and it is impossible for him to keep doing transportation like this.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)