Back to my 1980s

Yesterday, I went to a gambling den in another village to sell my wares; Shuanghuai Village also has gambling dens.

However, Shuanghuai Village is located by the river, and those who had fishing tools used to catch too much fish but dared not sell it. Instead, they would secretly give some to their neighbors or people in the surrounding area. Therefore, the people of Shuanghuai Village are basically indifferent to fish.

It was a bit difficult to sell the fish in Shuanghuai Village. Zhao Ru saw Zhao Hua staring at the fish without saying a word and suddenly remembered that the fish needed to be sold to make money. She scratched her head and sighed.

Seeing Zhao Ru sighing and groaning, Zhao Hua found it somewhat amusing. He stretched and said to Zhao Ru, "Go and get some straw rope."

"What do you need straw rope for?"

"String these IOUs together and give some to the neighbors."

Zhao Ru said "Oh," turned around to find the straw rope, and returned a moment later to hand it to Zhao Hua.

He took the straw rope and mentally calculated that eight fish would be about a pound.

If there are few people in the family, we'll eat two jin (1 kg) or three jin (1.5 kg) if there are many. Just taste it; what people really lack these days is oil and fat.

After roughly dividing the fish into piles, Zhao Hua planned to string them together.

Zhao's father was sitting in the main room smoking his pipe when he saw him about to skewer the fish. He quickly pulled the pipe out of his mouth and shouted, "What are you doing?"

Zhao Hua and Zhao Ru were startled by their father's shout and turned around to look at him in confusion. Zhao Hua said, "I was just taking some fish to give to the neighbors, what's wrong?"

"You're just delivering fish, why are you using straw rope? To string them together? So you don't need to twist straw rope yourself?"

Zhao Hua glanced down at the straw rope in his hand, then looked at his father with utter bewilderment and said, "You don't need to twist it yourself, did you? I bought this at the market."

Father Zhao choked for a moment, a hint of embarrassment flashing across his face, but it was fleeting. He quickly straightened his expression, coughed lightly, and said, "With so few fish, why didn't you just pinch them with your hands and send them over? Why use straw rope? What a waste!"

Zhao Hua glanced at him, didn't argue with him, and returned the straw rope to Zhao Ru. Anyway, her hands were covered in fishy smell from sorting, so it wouldn't make a difference.

Thinking of this, he secretly glanced at the pipe in his father's hand, wondering if he had washed his hands before sitting there smoking.

He picked up a handful of fish from the ground, ignoring Zhao's father who was still grumbling that he didn't know how to manage a household, and strode out the door.

He first delivered the fish to Zhao Ting's house. Zhao Ting's mother heard the commotion and came out to greet him. She exchanged pleasantries with Zhao Hua for a while, then held onto him, not letting him leave, and secretly inquired about how much money Zhao Hua had made catching fish.

Finally, he added that Zhao Ting had just been caught in the rain and hadn't changed her clothes, so she was lying inside and couldn't come out.

Zhao Hua went outside and looked up at the sky, as if he had been violated by someone. His eyes were empty, and he felt that dealing with these old women was more tiring than casting a net.

He then called Zhao Ru along when he went out, asking her to wait at the door with the fish. He originally planned to deliver the fish to each household and leave them at home.

This way, others wouldn't know how many families he had delivered to, making it seem more sincere. After the incident with Zhao Ting's family, Zhao Hua felt it would be easier to let others know that he had another family to go to.

The fish in the basket were finally sold out, and Zhao Hua and Zhao Ru received a lot of positive feedback.

The two walked home together. Zhao Ru wanted to hand the basket to Zhao Hua, but he put his hands behind his back, looked straight ahead, and walked home nonchalantly without even glancing at Zhao Ru.

They pushed and shoved their way into the courtyard. After thinking for a moment, he took a few more catfish out of the bucket.

Zhao's father stared at his actions and asked curiously, "What are you up to now? Why don't you just leave it there to grow?"

At the market, the catfish were sold in all sizes and at roughly the same price. He picked out a few of the larger ones and said, "I'll give these to my grandparents. These fish don't have any fine bones, so they'll be fine eating them."

Zhao's father didn't say anything more after hearing this. Zhao Hua then said to Zhao Ru, "Take a few fish to your eldest brother's house. They have children at home, so give them some fish with fewer bones."

Zhao Ru nodded. They'd caught so many fish today, but it was only a few. Just as she bent down to scoop some up, she stood up again and asked, "Why is it that you only have to go to Grandpa and Grandma's house, but I have to go to so many other places?"

"Stop talking nonsense! Hurry up and go! Come back after you deliver the goods, take a shower and change your clothes. Aren't you cold after being in the rain for so long?"

"It's not cold, the sun is shining every day, and it's so nice to have a rain shower. I feel really comfortable."

"Go ahead, go ahead. I still need to deliver some to the village secretary's house later. He's been turning a blind eye to it, so we can't be too inconsiderate."

Zhao Ru then had no objections and followed Zhao Hua out the door.

After delivering the fish back and forth several times, the two met at the gate of the courtyard one after the other. As they walked into the courtyard, they found that Zhao's mother had also returned from her old friend's house and was preparing dinner in the kitchen.

After casually greeting her mother, Zhao Ru went into the inner room to take a shower and change her clothes. Her older sisters had left her some clothes that they used to wear, so she still had some clean clothes to change into.

Zhao Hua took a quick shower in the yard wearing only shorts. By the time he finished showering, dinner was almost ready.

He casually put on a set of dry clothes and, together with Zhao Ru, carried the food to the dining table in the main room. After everyone had arrived, he quickly finished his meal and went into the east wing.

During this period, Shuanghuai Village was notified that electricity would be provided. Upon hearing this news, Zhao Hua immediately paid the money, and the power lines were run from one end of the village to the other, with distribution boxes at one end of the village.

Zhao Hua's family became one of the first households in the village to have electricity; other households would have to wait for the power lines to be laid before they could get electricity.

He turned on the bedside lamp, sat on the edge of the bed, pulled out a drawer containing several fishhooks, a folding knife, and a pile of money.

Before, there were no lights at night. We would bring home the money we earned during the day and just throw it in the drawer. At night, the candlelight couldn't illuminate everything, and we never properly organized the drawer.

Looking at the pile of crumpled banknotes and lumps of coins inside, I suddenly felt a urge to know how much I had actually earned since I came back.

He took all the money out of the box and laid it on the table, first sorting and smoothing out each banknote one by one.

Seeing that the light was on in Zhao Hua's room and the door was open, Zhao's mother peeked inside, then turned to Zhao Ru, who had just finished eating, and said with a smile, "Look what your brother is doing!"

Hearing this, Zhao Ru became curious and asked, "What are you doing?"

Zhao's mother went back to clear the dishes, smiled, and said, "Why don't you go and see for yourself?"

Zhao Hua was sorting banknotes inside and listened to their conversation the whole time. Sure enough, a little head peeked out from the doorway a short while later.

He glanced at it but ignored it and continued tidying up. Zhao Ru's eyes lit up when she saw the money on the table. She jumped into the room and closed the door behind her.

Seeing that there was no place to sit inside, he opened the door again, ran out to fetch a stool, and then came back to close the door again.

Seeing her fussing back and forth, Zhao Hua twitched his lips, but ultimately remained silent.

After fiddling around for a while, Zhao Ru sat down next to Zhao Hua and asked with a smile, "Brother, how much money is here?"

"I don't know, I just took them out and haven't had time to count them yet."

"Do you need my help?"

"Then could you find me some containers to hold the coins and sort them out?"