1980: I have a spiritual spring

Chapter 10 Drinking Early Morning Wine

The next morning, Qiao Erhe carried a full load of fish to Cenhe Commune, ready to sell them.

He caught the fish early this morning. For Qiao Erhe, who possessed the powerful weapon of the spiritual spring water, the fish in the river were just like the fish in his own water tank. He could catch them whenever he wanted.

This load of fish consists mainly of common fish such as carp, grass carp, and silver carp, with each fish weighing around seven or eight jin (3.5-4 catties), with a deviation of no more than one jin.

Upon arriving at Cenhe Commune, Qiao Erhe headed straight for the main street.

Cenhe, as an ancient town with a history of thousands of years, naturally has more than just this one street. In this era, it had a total of six streets, namely Dajie (Minzhu Street), Hedong (Xingfu Street), Houjie (Shengchan Street), Hejie (Jiefang Street), Haojie (Jianshe Street), and Beichang (Fanrong Street).

In later generations, several more streets were added, including Huayan Street, Anxing Road, Guihua Road, Censha Road, and Tianze Road.

The main street of Cenhe Commune is about 1000 meters long. The post office, passenger station, grain station, food station, bank, waterworks and other units are all located here. Shops line both sides of the street, and agricultural supplies, seeds, individual stalls, noodle shops, restaurants and hotels are all gathered here.

Qiao Erhe carried the fish to the main street and saw from afar that all the noodle shops, restaurants, and other food establishments were full of diners, and without exception, all of them were leisurely drinking their wine.

Looking across the country, when it comes to the abundance of breakfast, Guangdong's morning tea is naturally a must-mention, while the morning wine of Jingzhou, Hubei, is equally famous.

It's hard for people who haven't seen it to imagine what it's like to drink early in the morning. The early morning drinking culture in Shashi, Jingzhou, originated from the dock culture of the Qing Dynasty and reached its peak in the 21st century.

In his previous life, Qiao Erhe was a staunch supporter of morning drinking after the family split up, and he drank it for thirty or forty years.

Now, seeing other diners drinking their morning drinks, he, who hadn't had any since his rebirth, immediately felt a strong urge to try it himself.

"Once we've sold all these fish, let's go have some early drinks."

With that in mind, Qiao Erhe chose a place with good foot traffic and put down his load.

Perhaps it was because Qiao Erhe's load of fish was so eye-catching that as soon as he put it down, a customer came over and asked, "Comrade, how much are your fish?"

Qiao Erhe replied with a smile, "Three yuan a piece, you can pick whichever you like, they're all freshly caught from the river, all lively and fresh!"

The customer's eyes lit up upon hearing this. Such a big fish for only three yuan was quite cheap. He pointed to a relatively large grass carp and said, "Comrade, I'll take this one." As he spoke, he took out his money from his pocket.

"Ok."

Qiao Erhe responded, then strung the fish on straw, handed it to the customer, and collected the money at the same time.

The guest left happily, carrying the still-jumping grass carp.

Clearly, this customer wasn't the only one who knew his stuff. In those days, resources were scarce, especially chicken, duck, fish, and meat.

Take supply and marketing cooperatives as an example. In addition to pork that requires meat coupons, supply and marketing cooperatives will occasionally provide some pork that does not require meat coupons. However, this kind of pork is not something that ordinary people can get. Only by knowing the news in advance and queuing up at the supply and marketing cooperative early can they buy this kind of pork.

Although there are plenty of fish in the river, they are not something you can catch whenever you want. Apart from a few people, most people can only look at the fish and sigh.

Even if you could buy fish at the market, you could only usually buy small fish. Large fish weighing seven or eight pounds like this are rarely seen in the market.

Nowadays, the fish brought by Qiao Erhe are large and cheap, which is a rare opportunity for many customers.

Therefore, after the first customer made a purchase, other customers flocked to the restaurant. "Comrade, I want this grass carp."

"Comrade, I want this grass carp and this carp."

"Comrade, I'll take this silver carp."

"Comrade, I was here first..."

Seeing the customers scrambling to buy, Qiao Erhe couldn't help but smile. This scene was exactly what he expected. As everyone knows, the bigger the fish, the better the meat. And the fish he sold were not only big but also cheap. It would be strange if the customers didn't fight over them.

In just a few minutes, Qiao Erhe sold all the fish in the load, earning a total of 48 yuan.

Because several customers bought two fish each, only about ten people actually managed to buy fish. Many customers were left out, and looking at the empty baskets, one of them couldn't help but ask, "Comrade, do you still have any fish left?"

Qiao Erhe put the money in his pocket and said with a smile, "Comrades, I will come back to sell fish again tomorrow morning. It will be the same place. Since the number of fish is limited, I will stop work once I sell them all. So those of you who want to eat fish, please come early tomorrow."

Another customer chimed in, "Comrade, please bring more fish tomorrow! So many people want to buy them, these dozen or so fish are hardly enough!"

Qiao Erhe thought for a moment and said, "Alright, I'll try to bring more fish tomorrow. That's all for today, everyone can go home now!"

Upon hearing this, the guests reluctantly departed.

Seeing that the customers had all left, Qiao Erhe picked up his empty carrying pole and headed towards a hot and sour noodle shop on the east side of the river.

Soon, Qiao Erhe arrived at this hot and sour noodle shop, which opened in February of this year. Two years later, the owner built Qiaodong Restaurant on the basis of the hot and sour noodle shop, and in June of the following year, he built a new restaurant on Minzhu West Road, which was named Jianhua Restaurant.

Over the next ten years, Jianhua Restaurant underwent three expansions, reaching an area of ​​688 square meters, capable of accommodating 200 people at the same time, making it one of the more famous restaurants in Cenhe.

Upon arriving at the chili noodle shop, Qiao Erhe put down his carrying pole and basket, ordered a bowl of signature hot and sour noodles, a serving of braised pork intestines, and a bowl of rice wine, and then happily began to drink the morning wine he had been craving for several days.

The taste was still the same familiar taste from his previous life. In his previous life, Qiao Erhe had frequented this owner's business many times, and he was already very familiar with the owner's skills. This was the main reason why he would leave the noodle shop on the main street and insist on coming all the way to Hedong to eat.

Inside the noodle shop, there were already several tables of customers, each with a bowl of rice wine in front of them. Everyone was eating, drinking, and chatting, enjoying the pleasant experience of this early morning drink.

These guests were all residents of the town, and most of them had a good job. Rural people like Qiao Erhe rarely appeared in town to drink early morning wine in this era. It wasn't that they didn't want to drink early morning wine, but mainly that their economic conditions didn't allow it.

Qiao Erhe drank for more than forty minutes before finishing this morning's drinks.

As he walked out of the noodle shop, Qiao Erhe couldn't help but think to himself, "This morning's drink was really refreshing."

……

PS: The author was amazed when he first went to Cenhe for an early morning drink. At six or seven in the morning, all the shops on both sides of the street were open for business, including the barbershop. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, who would have believed it?

Moreover, Cenhe has an incredibly diverse breakfast scene, with restaurants and noodle shops packed with diners, each with a glass of wine in front of them, creating an unparalleled atmosphere for early morning drinking.

(End of this chapter)