Returning to the small mountain village of '86, intelligence updated daily.

As noon approached, the town market was becoming increasingly crowded.

Meanwhile, Zhou Rui and the other two were eating the lunch that Zeng Jiamei had brought.

"Dad, I made a lot of money today."

"Hahaha, the main thing is that we made that bastard Li Dehua suffer a loss, and he even has to thank us happily. It's so satisfying!"

Zhou Shiwei laughed heartily. Having spent years navigating the complexities of the world, he was well aware of the intricate calculations involved.

He was very satisfied with what his son had just done.

Since Li Dehua passed away, Zhou Shiwei has been generous in praising his son.

Zhou Rui took a bite of stir-fried cabbage with pork cracklings, and looking at the little pork left in the tricycle, he felt completely satisfied.

His pockets were already bulging.

Yesterday, when he and his father were cutting up the pork, they calculated that the wild boar weighed 98 jin (44 catties) with its hair on.

After accounting for losses, we can sell more than 50 kilograms of it.

However, only about 20 pounds of it was lean meat; the rest was offal, ribs, pig's head, and the like.

Now there are only two pounds of pork tenderloin left in the tricycle.

This was something Zhou Rui deliberately left behind; he hadn't originally planned to bring it.

But I don't know why I saw it again in the car. Maybe I didn't notice when I packed it up and just put it all in there.

He wanted to save those two pounds of meat to cook for his grandfather when he got home tonight.

Zhou Rui shoveled the cornmeal into his mouth and then reached into his pocket to take out a cloth bag containing his earnings from selling pork that day.

Of the four bright "Great Unity" bills, Li Dehua contributed two, while the rest were a large pile of five-dollar and one-dollar bills.

Zhou Rui picked it up, counted it, and found it totaled 92 yuan and 8 cents.

This was already a considerable sum; in those days, the average annual income per capita in rural areas was only four or five hundred yuan.

Ninety yuan is roughly the monthly wage for a strong laborer.

Zhou Rui was filled with emotion. Although he had suffered a lot before achieving success in his previous life, he never felt that a few dozen yuan was so precious.

This is probably what it means to feel something that is hard-won.

Zhou Rui carefully sorted out the few dozen yuan in his hand and then handed it all to his father, Zhou Shiwei.

He didn't want to keep the money himself; his father was still the head of the family and couldn't be without money.

Zhou Shiwei took the money, looked at it, and then stuffed it all back into Zhou Rui's hand.

"Take it, it's what you deserve. We're father and son, we don't talk about these things."

Zhou Shiwei has already accepted his eldest son and has begun to support him secretly.

Zhou Rui looked at the 92.8 yuan that had been stuffed back into his hand. He then took out four 10-yuan bills and two 5-yuan bills and gave them to his father.

"Dad, without your support over the past few years, our family might have fallen apart long ago. Money doesn't matter. Now that your son has grown up, he can take on some responsibilities."

This time, Zhou Shiwei did not refuse and accepted the large bills.

He reached out and patted Zhou Rui on the shoulder, murmuring something under his breath.

"yes......"

Zhou Rui and his group stopped setting up their stall. After cleaning the tricycle, Zhou Rui handed the two jin of pork tenderloin he had packed to his second uncle.

The father and son planned to go to the market to buy some rice, flour, and cooking oil.

After all, with such a large family, the food they got from trading with Aunt Li wouldn't last more than a few days.

The second uncle rode his tricycle to the head of the market town to wait for the two of them, because the market was already very crowded and it was not suitable to ride the tricycle in.

In this era, market towns were no longer simply operating under the supply and marketing cooperative model; rather, a situation arose where market-based bargaining and transactions coexisted with supply and marketing cooperatives.

The father and son still prioritized going to the supply and marketing cooperative because the prices of rice, flour, and cooking oil there were usually a bit cheaper.

The rice in the supply and marketing cooperative was about 2 cents per kilogram. It was "returned grain" and there was strict control over the quantity purchased.

In the outside market, it costs 2.5 to 3.5 cents per pound.

Looking at the familiar supply and marketing cooperative from my memory, a dazzling array of goods adorned the area below the glass display cases and on the shelves behind them.

Because he was still short of money, Zhou Rui couldn't bear to buy slightly extravagant things like cigarettes and liquor.

Instead, he bought 20 jin of rice, 10 jin of flour, and one jin of rapeseed oil, which was his and his father's monthly ration.

One pound of rapeseed oil was definitely not enough, so Zhou Rui planned to go to the market outside and buy oil for about 1.5 yuan per pound to make up the difference.

The same goes for rice. Twenty catties of rice is not enough for the eight people in the family at this time, so we have to buy more from the market to make up the difference to fifty catties.

After leaving the supply and marketing cooperative, Zhou Rui used his silver tongue from his previous life to successfully negotiate the lowest price of the day, and thus bought thirty catties of rice and four catties of oil.

"Brother Zhou, you bought so much oil and eggs today! Are you rich now?"

When some of the villagers saw the rapeseed oil and eggs that Zhou Rui was carrying, they were immediately filled with envy.

Because eggs are one of the few sources of nutrition, their status on the dining table is generally second only to meat.

There's a saying in rural areas during this era.

"Birthday celebration, long tail, eating a boiled egg and laughing heartily."

This clearly demonstrates the importance of eggs on the dining table.

Rapeseed oil is a major expense in rural dining, and Zhou Rui's large purchase naturally attracted attention.

After buying enough salt and soy sauce, Zhou Rui had already spent 23.5 yuan.

Seeing that the original forty-odd yuan in his hand had dwindled to less than twenty yuan, Zhou Rui felt no heartache whatsoever; this was a necessary expense.

Moreover, fifty kilograms of rice seems like a lot, but in reality, it can only last a family of eight for a week at most, and they will have to come back to buy more after that.

Fortunately, the salt and rapeseed oil will last for a while.

Zhou Shiwei was originally going to pay, but Zhou Rui stopped him, saying, "I'm still young, it's no use for me to have the money."

So Zhou Shiwei didn't touch the fifty yuan in his hand.

I strolled around the market and bought some vegetables, eggs, and daily necessities, spending a little over four yuan.

It was already close to evening. Zhou Rui carried ten kilograms of flour and other daily necessities, while Zhou Shiwei carried fifty kilograms of rice toward the head of the market town.

Zhou Rui did not share any money with his second uncle, not because he was reluctant to part with it.

However, his second uncle cannot give him money yet, otherwise the results of his recent successful guidance might be wasted.

Moreover, to put it bluntly, Zhou Rui, who had been a small business owner in his previous life, clearly understood one principle.

The more value you create, the more you get paid. But now my second uncle is basically just taking, so how can he give any more compensation?

Although it may sound a bit cold-hearted, Zhou Rui is very firm in this belief.

Want to eat? You'll have to earn it with your own hands. Want to spend money on alcohol? Sorry, you need to take care of your basic needs right now.

However, Zhou Rui still bought a bunch of "White Rabbit" milk candies as a snack, knowing that his mother, second aunt, and younger brother all liked them.

This milk candy is a true "luxury food," much more expensive than ordinary candy, with a price difference of five or six times.

It's been a long time since my mom and the others last ate there...

But Zhou Rui didn't feel the pinch at all; after all, money is meant to be spent.

The eggs were bought for my grandparents to supplement their nutrition; there were 20 of them.

Zhou Rui was very happy, genuinely happy. He didn't buy himself anything, but his joy was evident on his face.