The golden age began in 1977

Chapter 12: Law-abiding Comrade

Tuesday, October 9nd.

I had scallion pancakes for breakfast.

This is the signature dish of the state-owned breakfast spot on Taishan Road. It is fried in lard and sprinkled with fresh chopped green onions. It costs only 5 cents each and is very popular. If you want to have a taste of it, you have to line up early.

When Qian Jin got up, Liu Eryi and Liu Sanbing just ran back.

Among them, Liu Eryi was soaked all over, with water still dripping from his trouser legs, but he protected the cake tightly.

The army green shoulder bag bulged in his arms, as if he was holding two grenades.

Today was the first rain of autumn.

Qian Jin quickly gave him a dry towel to wipe his hands: "Why did you go out when you saw it was raining?"

Liu Eryi grinned: "If it doesn't rain, I won't go. If it doesn't rain, I can't queue up with those old men and women."

"Brother Qianjin, today is your first day at work. Eat well and work hard!"

Liu Sanbing vividly told him interesting stories about queuing:
"Du Daozui's mother was there too, holding an umbrella and trying to take my second brother's seat. My second brother immediately imitated Yang Zirong's 'The king covers the earth, the tiger pierces the buttocks with the umbrella handle'..."

Liu Siding plucked the sycamore leaves off his head and laughed, "Are you going to buy cakes or go to see Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy?"

"I didn't watch it. I went to perform!" Liu Sanbing was looking forward to eating scallion pancakes.

This scallion oil noodle is delicious and the ingredients are substantial.

A pancake costs five cents, but the money is so big.

After Liu Sanbing and Liu Siding got the cakes, they poked three holes in them, put them on their faces and started to laugh foolishly.

Qian Jin went out in the rain early in the morning, drinking boiled water and eating noodles with scallion oil.

He did not report to the neighborhood committee, but went to the purchasing station with an umbrella.

The purchasing station is not open.

Qian Jin found a tarpaulin tent outside to shelter from the rain.

It was past seven o'clock when I finally saw the bald Old Song, whom I had met yesterday, pushing his Forever bicycle into the alley.

There was a net bag hanging on the handlebars of the bicycle, and inside it was an aluminum lunch box. Qian Jin got closer and smelled the stinky smell of pickled vegetables:

"Stationmaster Song, good morning."

Old Song smiled when he heard the name and said, "Young comrade, why are you here selling scrap so early?"

"If you sell a lot or frequently, I'll need to see a letter of introduction from your neighborhood committee. There's no other way. This is the rule to prevent you from selling stolen goods."

Qian Jin followed him in: "No, I'm not here to sell anything, I'm here to visit Station Master Song."

When he entered the room, he deliberately rubbed the slogan "Resolutely cut off the capitalist tail" on the door frame with his sleeve.

Old Song's eyebrows twitched when he saw this.

Qian Jin followed the jingling sound of Lao Song's keychain through the waste pile.

The office door opened, and the morning breeze with a fishy smell blew out a piece of newspaper, which Qian Jin quickly grabbed.

He looked down and saw that it was a copy of "Reference News". The front-page photo showed crops in the Dazhai terraces being harvested.

Old Song took the newspaper back and said meaningfully, "We dare not throw away even a single stitch of the nation's property."

Qian Jin smiled and said, "Right, right. That's why I didn't dare let the newspaper fly out. Otherwise, it would be ruined if it got wet."

There was no one in the office, so Lao Song poured some water.

The sound of the teacup hitting the patinated counter was particularly crisp.

Qian Jin silently handed over a bucket of tea leaves: "Every autumn rain brings a chill. Stationmaster Song, please stop drinking green tea. Drink some black tea to warm your stomach."

Old Song grinned as soon as he saw the bright red tea canister with a golden lid. His grin widened when he saw the words on it:

"Wuyishan Dahongpao?!"

Qian Jin said, "There was an educated youth from northern Fujian in the countryside where I went. When I returned to the city a few days ago, he specially asked someone to bring me a bucket of this from his hometown."

"But I'm a young man who doesn't know how to drink tea and doesn't like it. Yesterday, I saw that you, Station Master Song, seemed..."

Old Song quickly pushed the tea bucket aside and said, "Stop talking, stop talking. Are you here to give me a gift?"

"This gift is too valuable. I dare not accept it."

Qian Jin smiled and said, "It's not expensive. As the saying goes, a good horse deserves a good saddle, and a good woman marries a good man. I want to drink this tea..."

"It's useless to say anything. I won't accept this stuff." Old Song shook his head vigorously. "You don't have to give me any gifts. No purchasing station would dare to touch you if you want to resell newspapers and periodicals."

Qian Jin said, "I didn't intend to resell newspapers and magazines. I saw a lot of wine bottles in the purchasing station, and I wanted to peel off the labels on them."

"Of course there are also cigarette labels and sparklers. It would be even better if I could pick some up along the way."

Old Song didn't believe it: "Are you kidding me? This is all junk."

Qian Jin said, "Really! I swear to my father's spirit in heaven that I am telling the truth!"

Old Song finally said doubtfully, "Comrade Xiao Qian, right? It's not that I'm suspicious, but no one would believe you."

"Let me ask you, this bucket of tea is not cheap, right?"

Qian Jin told the truth: "55 yuan."

27 yuan in 55.

Not a cent off, no cheating, he just bought it last night.

Old Song almost jumped up: "Don't hide? This is half a catty, right? A catty is over a hundred?"

He thought for a moment and nodded, "That's right, this is Wuyi Mountain Dahongpao, something only county-level officials and above can enjoy."

Then he didn't believe it again: "You gave me such expensive tea, just for those rubbish?"

Qian Jin said: "But it is of great use to me."

"I need to collect lots and lots of cigarette and wine labels and sparks, and accumulate them together to make something useful, but I will never resell them." He swore again. Old Song thought about it and said, "Okay, then you collect these junk. They can't be resold. What fool would want them?"

"Also, don't call me Stationmaster Song. Am I really a stationmaster? Haha, I'm just a minion."

Qian Jin said embarrassedly, "Uncle Song, it's not me who came. It's my four younger brothers who came because I have to go to work at the neighborhood committee."

Lao Song said, "Alright, let them come."

"But let me be frank. Tell them to be more careful. I heard that the second son of the Liu family once stole eggplants from the Children's Palace."

There are no secrets on the same street. If the owner of one street farts, the owner of another street can analyze what they ate.

Qian Jin helped Liu Eryi to give a guarantee.

Old Song felt relieved and started to make tea.

He carefully opened the box and took a sniff, exclaiming repeatedly, "Fragrant, really fragrant. This tea is roasted so well, so beautifully."

Qian Jin laughed guiltily.

The test has just begun.

As long as the other party has tasted good tea, he will know what kind of tea he is sending.

Old Song pinched some out and brewed a cup of tea. He smelled and looked at it with great satisfaction: "This good tea is different."

"Look at this tea soup. Hey, it's as red as the curtain of The Red Detachment of Women. Look at these leaves. They are slender and neat before brewing, but thick and plump after brewing..."

After taking a sip, he exclaimed again: "The flavor is mellow, the aftertaste is noticeable, and the throat lingering taste is distinct. This, this is great tea!"

Qian Jin continued to laugh.

He knew that Old Song had never tasted good tea.

Calming down, he took out tweezers and began to peel off the wine label as Liu Eryi taught him.

The most common items at the recycling station are beer bottles.

Haibin is a nationally renowned beer production base, with six large and small breweries alone, each of which sells several types of beer.

He brought a basin, poured hot water into it to make warm water, and soaked the wine bottle in it.

After soaking, he took out the wine bottle and gently rubbed a corner of the wine label with his fingers. After rubbing it, he slowly peeled it off with tweezers.

Old Song helped him find a bottle of liquor: "This is good, the Three Great Revolutions Sunflower Moutai, it must be a few years old."

Qian Jin doesn't like wine, doesn't understand wine, and has never studied wine. He doesn't know what the Three Revolutions Sunflower Moutai Liquor is.

He only knows that Moutai Feitian is very expensive.

After careful peeling, the "Sunflower Brand" Moutai wine label was removed.

This wine label is very characteristic of the times.

The front label has a yellow background with a red sunflower in the middle, surrounded by golden light, and below it are the five big red characters "Guizhou Moutai Liquor". The back label has three revolutionary characters.

After working for a while, the sound of the bell from the clock tower of the train station came into the alley along with the sea fog.

Qian Jin thought it was time to report, so he went home first.

He asked the four kids to peel off wine labels and look for cigarette labels to pick up sparks, while he took Liu Jiaqing to the neighborhood committee.

Liu Jiaqing received work clothes, Liberation shoes and labor protection gloves and started working.

It's okay to put the money in here.

There are quite a few members in the labor assault team on Taishan Road, dozens of them, divided into five teams in total.

Qian Jin was assigned to the second team, which consisted of twelve people.

It's raining today, so their team's job is relatively simple, which is to deliver sugar pills to families with babies.

This sugar pill is the famous polio vaccine, which can be said to be a medicine of great compassion and immeasurable merit.

Qian Jin had seen reports about the vaccine's development in short videos before, but had never seen it with his own eyes.

Now traveling back to 77, he saw it.

Sugar pills are live vaccines made from attenuated polio virus. The auxiliary ingredients are milk powder, glucose and cream, so they taste sweet and fragrant.

The commandos' task is to deliver the sugar pills to the homes of babies of appropriate age and to watch the babies take the vaccine with their own eyes.

The person who led the team in charge of this work was also a member of the commando team, an elegant young man named Zhou Yaozu.

He went to get a wooden box that looked like an ice cream box. The inside of the box was wrapped in a quilt, and an aluminum nameplate was nailed to the outside:
Haiweifangzi No. 087.

Qian Jin looked at it curiously.

Another young member of the commando team, Xu Weidong, is very outgoing.

She went over, put her arms around his neck, and introduced him seriously: "We're going out to collect money and sell popsicles on the way. Old Qian, what flavor of popsicles do you like?"

Qian Jin laughed dumbly: "Who would dare to put popsicles in the epidemic prevention box? There is attenuated polio virus in it. Even if it is attenuated, the virus is still alive."

"Besides, what if the popsicles contaminate the vaccine? These are for babies!"

Hearing this, the other commandos who were waiting to see a joke were greatly surprised.

Someone asked directly: "Comrade Qian, have you studied medicine? Or did you work as a barefoot doctor in the countryside?"

Qian Jin said: "No, I just like reading books and newspapers, and there are some relevant knowledge introduced in the newspapers."

Xu Weidong went up to him, stretched out his arm and twisted his neck, saying with a smile: "Good boy, you are well-educated. I wanted to use you as a conspicuous bag, but I became the conspicuous bag myself..."

Zhou Yaozu said gently: "Stop making trouble, it's time to set off."

"Weidong, go get the curling stones. Comrade Qian Jin, you just arrived, so I need to tell you some things to be aware of."

Xu Weidong walked in with a laugh and swinging his arms.

Soon he came out in a panic: "My captain is in trouble, the curling stone is missing!"

(End of this chapter)