novelraw Chapter 328 - 325: Jinjiapingzi
Chapter 328 - 325: Jinjiapingzi
Lin Lan smiled. "We have a pastry shop called Lanxiang House at the market in the south of the city. We also have the Lanyang Department Store on Limin Street, just past the big department store. You can go to either one—just give them my name and Xiangyang’s."
Li Xiangyang took out a pen and paper and wrote down the addresses and their names for him. "Captain Jin, when you go to the East Market, just follow what’s written here."
"If you can’t find either of those places, just go to the police station next to the city hospital and ask for me," Yao Xiuyun added.
Captain Jin was finally at ease. "Mr. Yao, thank you all so much. To think you’d still remember us from so far away."
"Don’t mention it," Yao Xiuyun said with a small smile. "When you go to the East Market to sell your goods, if you need to buy anything, you can ask Mr. Lin for help. Their family’s store has everything—clothes, watches, oil, salt, soy sauce, you name it."
Captain Jin’s eyes widened. He felt as if he were hearing a fairy tale. "Clothes and watches... private citizens can sell those now?"
"That’s right. Our family has most things," Lin Lan said, seeing his incredulous expression. "And if you can manage to bring fat pigs down the mountain, we’ll buy those too, for a better price than the state processing plant."
"So they’re not cracking down on private butchers anymore?" Captain Jin was so shocked his mouth hung open wide enough to fit an egg.
Everything Yao Xiuyun and Lin Lan said made Captain Jin feel as if a single day in the mountains was a thousand years in the world outside. He felt he needed some time to process it all.
Little Douzi was startled awake by Captain Jin’s exclamation. He rubbed his eyes, sat up, and looked around the room curiously. "Uncle Xiangyang, are we at the Jin family’s place?"
"Yep!" Li Xiangyang set him down. "Go and walk around for a bit, otherwise you won’t be able to sleep tonight."
Little Douzi clutched his pants. "Uncle Xiangyang, I need to pee."
Li Xiangyang nodded and led him toward the vegetable garden, with the Jin family’s two children tagging along.
Captain Jin thought for a moment and made a decision. ’After they leave, I’ll go down the mountain and see for myself. I need to see what the world is like now.’
He smiled at the group and said, "Mr. Yao, you won’t be able to get back to the East Market tonight anyway. If you don’t mind our humble home, please stay for the night and have a simple meal with us."
Yao Xiuyun quickly waved her hands. "Oh no, we couldn’t possibly trouble you. We brought our own food; we can just heat it up."
’They don’t have it easy here,’ she thought. ’There’s no way we can eat their food.’ They had prepared plenty of flatbreads and cured meats for the trip.
"Hey! Don’t be like that," Captain Jin said, starting to head outside. "As the old saying goes, anyone who enters our home is a guest. You came all this way to help us during the New Year festival. We can’t have you eating your own dry food. Absolutely not."
"Dad," Jin Dachun called out, stopping him. "Mom and my wife are already cooking."
Captain Jin looked at his guests. "My wife is already at the stove."
Yao Xiuyun had no choice but to nod graciously. "In that case, we’ll be imposing on you and your wife, Captain Jin."
"It’s just a simple meal, no trouble at all," Captain Jin said, waving his hand happily before sitting down to chat with Xu Dong and Li Xiangyang.
In the courtyard, Little Douzi and the two Jin children were in front of the livestock pen, feeding grass to the mules.
After a while, Captain Jin’s wife and daughter-in-law brought the food into the main hall. They looked at their guests apologetically. "We don’t have much to offer here in the mountains. I hope you don’t mind the simple fare."
"Ma’am, you’ve both gone to too much trouble."
Lin Lan quickly stood up. The guests saw the dishes on the table: a plate of eggs stir-fried with garlic shoots, a large bowl of glass noodles in sour soup, a dish of boiled greens, a bowl of potatoes the size of a child’s fist, a small bowl of fried broad bean paste, and a pot of mixed-grain congee.
’This must be the best food they have to offer,’ Yao Xiuyun thought. She smiled and said, "Ma’am, this all looks wonderful. You’ve been too generous."
Captain Jin’s wife smiled, then left with her grandchildren and daughter-in-law.
Captain Jin sat down, picked up two potatoes, and handed them to Li Xiangyang and Xu Dong. "Have a taste. The potatoes here are nice and floury. You just peel the skin, dip them in a bit of the bean paste... I can eat ten of these in one go."
"A good appetite means good strength," Li Xiangyang and Xu Dong said, accepting them with a smile.
Lin Lan peeled a potato for Little Douzi. He dipped it in a tiny bit of the broad bean paste, took a bite, and nodded. "Mama, potatoes taste good this way too!"
Lin Lan nodded. "Good. If you want more, you can get it yourself."
Little Douzi took another bite and looked at Captain Jin. "Why aren’t the other boys eating with us?"
"They’re eating in the kitchen," Captain Jin replied with a chuckle. "Mr. Lin, your son is a good kid. Not a picky eater. He must be easy to raise."
Little Douzi leaned against Lin Lan and looked at the captain. "Grandpa, I love potatoes."
Captain Jin laughed. "I’ll give you some to take with you when you leave."
Li Xiangyang remembered seeing the uncultivated, fallow fields on the lower slopes on their way up. He struck up a conversation with Captain Jin, asking why the villagers didn’t move down there. It was much closer to the Ping Mountain Commune and had better access to transportation.
Captain Jin gave a bitter smile. "If the whole production brigade moves down the mountain, what do we do about our household registrations? Where would we get the land to build new houses? Without a registered household, we’d just be vagrants."
"Even if we solved all those problems, there wouldn’t necessarily be enough land for us to farm. Less land means we’d still go hungry. We’d have to give up our homes up here, so what would be the point?"
Yao Xiuyun, who was familiar with the household registration system, confirmed his concerns. Unless there was an official government policy for their relocation, dozens of families moving without a designated place to accept them would become unregistered citizens.
Captain Jin explained that when the brigade was larger, they had cleared a lot of new farmland. But then the construction of a reservoir forced more than half the families to relocate. Other families had also moved down the mountain to live with relatives and change their registration.
Now, their settlement had few people but plenty of land. Many of the fields lay fallow and had gone to waste.
"The mountain has chestnuts, walnuts, persimmons, local pears, and white-blossom peaches," he continued. "There are also wild mushrooms, various types of peppercorns, and spices like cardamom... But it’s too difficult to get out. Even if we manage to haul the goods down, they don’t fetch much money."
The persimmons, peaches, and pears just rot on the trees because no one picks them.
Everyone had grown used to the hardship. His generation would live out their days like this, but he worried about the younger ones. He was afraid they’d also be stuck in the mountains their whole lives, and eventually, they wouldn’t even be able to find wives.
Without a wife, the family line ends, and a man loses his purpose in life.
The visitors tried to comfort him, pointing out that the environment and soil quality were excellent. They suggested that if they could save up enough money to build a proper road for vehicles, they could transport their mountain goods out to sell. Life would surely get better.
Lin Lan then told him about what was happening in Lexing, where they were implementing the household responsibility system.
Captain Jin nodded. "I heard about that when I went to the grain station to deliver our quota. The other brigade leaders were saying it should be our turn by next year, or the year after at the latest."
"Working for ourselves would be great! The harder you work, the more you keep after you’ve paid the state’s share. The kids might even get to eat white rice for a change, instead of potatoes and sweet potatoes every single meal."
"That’s right. The folks in our own brigade have been saying the same thing."
Lin Lan took a few bites of the glass noodles in sour soup and turned to Captain Jin. "These noodles have a wonderful texture. Captain Jin, I have a suggestion. Instead of hauling raw potatoes and sweet potatoes down the mountain to sell, you should process them into noodles like these and take them to the East Market. One pound of sweet potato noodles can be traded for more than two pounds of rice, and you can still use the leftover pulp to feed the pigs."