The Red Era: Starting from a Truck Driver

Chapter 204 Another Director Xiong Host
In fact, this time Jiang Cheng came to Zhu Lan and asked her to help deal with the fabric, mainly for profit.

He wanted to do fish ball business in Hong Kong, on a wholesale basis, not just do what those vendors who sell snacks from carts do and just make a little at a time.

It costs money to rent a cold storage, and you even have to buy a refrigerator. You can't just go to the cold storage every time you process a few fish balls.

Even if you hire a temporary worker, it will cost a lot of money per day.

Originally, Jiang Cheng wanted to cooperate with Zhu Lan, sell the processed and leftover cloth from Hong Kong at a good price and give her some dividends.

But Director Xiong's intervention forced Jiang Cheng to do a favor, mainly because when Zhu Lan was competing for the deputy director position, Jiang Cheng did promise some polite words to Director Xiong. Now Director Xiong happened to catch him, so he lost some profit.

Director Xiong is also a good person. We will go to the Oriental Hotel tonight and pay the supply and marketing cooperative.

And now it was past four o'clock, and Director Xiong directly took Jiang Cheng to the hotel to discuss cooperation, whether to ask their supply and marketing cooperative to help sell it or to get it privately.

As for Jiang Cheng's wife, even his two friends could be invited to the restaurant to eat. It didn't matter if they ordered more rice or more dishes, it would be on the supply and marketing cooperative's account anyway.

Zhu Lan became an errand boy again, but now she was the deputy director, not an ordinary employee of the supply and marketing cooperative. Jiang Cheng had so many goods, she also wanted to get some, to make a set of clothes for her family, her own family, and some connections she had to maintain.

Now it all depends on how Director Xiong eats. When he eats meat, the people below him always have to drink some soup. Even the salespersons, invoice clerks, and warehouse staff at the supply and marketing cooperative have to give them at least one or two horses to buy.

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Zhou Lingying, Zhang Yan and Wang Fang came back at around five o'clock after watching a movie. The movie was about a group of brigade leaders in a rural commune who led villagers to fight against natural disasters.

Anyway, there aren’t many movies these days, so everyone finds any type of movie interesting.

On the way back, Zhou Lingying didn't see any cars parked at the intersection outside the alley. She thought Jiang Cheng might not be able to come back today.

As soon as she got home and opened the door with her key, Zhou Lingying saw a pile of things on the table.

Her man is back, but now no one knows where he has gone~.

"Yingying, why are there so many things on the table? I was the one who cleaned the table at noon, and it seemed that it had not been cleaned when we left. This is... milk powder, and so many pastries." Zhang Yan followed Zhou Lingying and was shocked when she saw the things on the table.

Milk powder is something more refined and expensive than malted milk.

In this era, due to malnutrition or some other reasons, women have no milk after giving birth.

In some places, cow's milk and goat's milk can be used as substitutes, but in the city, you can only get some rice porridge, which is definitely not nutritious, but it is good enough if it can feed the people and keep them alive.

In this era, the most effective solution is to find a neighbor or relative who has also produced milk to help with feeding. In this era, many people grow up drinking other people's milk. Of course, when drinking other people's milk, parents usually choose to wean their children early, usually around six months old.

In fact, families with decent financial conditions will try their best to get milk powder if they can. After all, if you want to drink someone else's milk, you have to go to their house and ask for it, and this favor may not be easy to repay.

As for pastries and black sesame paste, they are quite difficult to get in this era.

"It should be Jiang Cheng who is back. Maybe he went out again for something." Zhou Lingying responded. She was also checking the things on the table.

Especially the soft one that looks like a delicious pancake, packed in a paper box with a layer of wax paper inside.

After checking the things on the table, Zhou Lingying went to the side room again, with Zhang Yan and Wang Fang looking at her with envy. There were also more things on the table in the side room, including fish, shrimp and meat.

Seeing so many things, but not seeing Jiang Cheng. Plus, it was almost five o'clock, and Zhou Lingying had reserved some food for dinner. Now she was thinking about whether to add more food. After all, if Jiang Cheng was not out of town, he would basically eat at home.

After thinking for a long time, Zhou Lingying decided to kill the shrimp. Fish and meat can be marinated simply by adding some salt, but the shrimp will taste terrible if it is dead.

Just when Zhou Lingying asked Zhang Yan and others to help salt the meat and fish, Zhu Lan came.

"Lingying, and your two friends, go to the Oriental Hotel for dinner. You know Jiang Cheng is back, and he's with Director Xiong whom you met last time. I asked you to come back and invite my family to have dinner with you. I'll go and call my friend to come along and have some drinks with you." Zhu Lan greeted them happily when she saw Zhou Lingying and the others at home.

When he came, Jiang Cheng told Zhu Lan that he had gone home, but he didn't see his wife. So he drove alone to the supply and marketing cooperative of her unit to pick up the cloth. "I know Jiang Cheng is back, there are so many things he brought back on the table." Zhou Lingying replied.

We went to the Oriental Restaurant for dinner. Zhou Lingying had been there last time and the food was delicious. Of course, it’s not that the dishes she made were not delicious, but the cooking methods were different. The restaurant used a lot of oil, and the seasonings and cooking methods of some dishes were also different.

After Zhou Lingying chatted with Zhu Lan for a while, Zhu Lan went to the backyard to call her husband.

"Lingying, it's not a good idea for us to go to the restaurant to eat together. Why don't you go alone with Sister Zhu and the others?" Zhang Yan said.

"Yes, we don't know anyone, so Zhang Yan and I can just eat at home." Wang Fang also agreed.

Of course, they wanted to go to a restaurant for a meal. Before they came to the countryside, it was very rare to go to a restaurant. Even if they went, it was just a family occasional improvement in the food, ordering one or two meat dishes.

I went to the restaurant because I didn’t have enough meat coupons. Sometimes I went once a month, sometimes once every two months.

Whenever I go to a restaurant, I never order vegetarian dishes. I think there’s no point in going to a restaurant to eat vegetarian food when I can just make it at home.

If they followed Zhou Lingying to a restaurant for dinner, they would definitely not have just one or two dishes. They definitely wanted to go, but the two of them were outsiders to everyone else.

"It's okay, I'm just going there to make up the numbers. Last time we went to the restaurant, I didn't say much. Let me tell you, this is paid for by Sister Zhu's supply and marketing cooperative. We just need to eat, and we can keep adding more rice. Last time I even brought a lunch box, so I could pack up everything to bring back. Just follow me, sit next to me, and eat more." Zhou Lingying said enthusiastically as she pulled the two of them.

Then I went to dinner with them last time and had braised pork, twice-cooked pork and other dishes, which were delicious.

After hearing what Zhou Lingying said, Zhang Yan and Wang Fang agreed with a little embarrassment.

If they had known earlier that there were delicious food and fun things to do at Zhou Lingying's place, they might have come earlier. Before, they were reluctant to spend more than 40 cents per person on the round trip fare, and they had to work hard in the fields all day.

But today, they made back their money by eating the chicken that Zhou Lingying killed, and she also took them to the movies and gave them peanuts and melon seeds to eat.

Not long after, Zhu Lan and her husband Wang Tao came over. Wang Tao even changed his clothes to have dinner at the restaurant. He went to have dinner mainly to accompany the guests for drinks.

Jiang Cheng's alcohol tolerance is much better than before, but he still needs to practice slowly, at least over a winter. Driving in cold weather, taking a sip from time to time, he can practice his alcohol tolerance over a winter.

This meal was different from last time as it was not at noon, so there was time for the hotel kitchen to prepare a few main dishes.

Because of the specifications, only six dishes can be served. Eight dishes can only be served to cadres of a certain level. In recent years, extravagance and waste have been investigated.

However, some places have countermeasures for policies, especially in some remote areas and some townships. When leaders come to inspect, according to their ranks, even the top leaders at the county level only have six dishes. Those who are not at the top may only have four dishes.

But in this era, some places have learned to make platters, where several dishes are put together as one dish.

This time, Director Xiong entertained Jiang Cheng and his friends with five dishes and one soup, but they used large plates to serve the dishes. One plate of braised pork was used as the previous two plates, and there was also stewed duck, meatballs, stir-fried pork with garlic leaves, hand-shredded cabbage, and carp tofu soup.

In addition, Director Xiong brought some wine from the supply and marketing cooperative. These days, many units are obsessed with eating and drinking and simply cannot afford it.

Before Zhou Lingying and the others arrived, Jiang Cheng had already negotiated the price of the fabric for the car with Director Xiong at the dinner table.

They don't ask the supply and marketing cooperatives to sell it, but let them take it away directly, at a price of about 1.8 yuan per meter. They can sell it privately for 2 yuan or 2.5 yuan, it's up to them.

You should know that there are not only processed fabrics, but also tail-end fabrics. The tail-end fabrics are not defective, but the orders have been returned and the styles and colors are not popular, such as black fabrics.

In China, there are only a few colors of fabrics. Young people don't like black fabrics. But older people, for some reason, like black fabrics. The kind that is black and thick. In winter, many old people go out wearing black coats.

Even the scraps of black cloth can be used to make cloth shoes. In China, there is no cloth that cannot be processed.

(End of this chapter)