The golden age began in 1977

Chapter 1 Life was tough in the s
The humid sea breeze carried the faint fragrance of osmanthus into the door of the tube building, but it could not overcome the smell of coal smoke that had been in the corridor for years.

Red bricks are exposed where the wall paint has peeled off, and at the base of the wall are piles of honeycomb coal sealed with tarpaulin paper from each household.

Qian Jin took out a copy of "Seaside Daily" from the iron mailbox delivery slot on top of the coal pile and read it carefully.

The lead type of September 1977, 9 is clear and firm, and the smell of fresh ink is as moving as it was in 15.

The tram bell outside the wall rang urgently, and he subconsciously looked up.

The No. 3 bus had a mottled grass-green paint job. The conductor, wrapped in washed-out work clothes, leaned half of his body out of the window and rang a copper bell.

A torrent of bicycles was passing through the intersection, and on the wall in the background were large slogans such as "Govern the country by grasping the key links" and "Never forget class struggle."

In the morning light, one after another of people in blue work clothes and green military uniforms flowed on the gray asphalt road, they were filled with fiery passion.

The three-jointed metal loudspeaker at the street intersection began its routine morning broadcast:

"Comrades in the proletarian revolution! Now we are broadcasting today's news..."

"The 31st session of the United Nations General Assembly resumed, during which Yugoslav President and proletarian revolutionary Tito delivered an important speech, emphasizing that the establishment of a new international economic order requires a struggle against superpowers such as the Soviet revisionists..."

"Since the beginning of autumn, autumn harvest activities have been launched across the country. Inspired by the spirit of the 11th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the cadres and members of the people's communes have focused on both the major and minor autumn harvests, vowing to win a complete victory in this year's agricultural harvest campaign..."

"..."

"Today's newsletter ends here. In the days ahead, this station will strive to run a successful broadcast and unremittingly contribute to serving the people of China and the world."

The residents in the tube-shaped building who were not working started to wash up after listening to the broadcast. The sound of enamel basins colliding and old cast iron faucets gurgling could be heard from the public bathroom.

In this way, Qian Jin will go home.

He is not from this era.

But a time traveler.

Just a day ago, he was still figuring out how to lie down and play dumb in 2027 without starving to death.

Now he has become a returned urban youth in 1977 and a waiting-to-report worker of the Taishan Road Street Construction Team in Haibin City.

A scene of one day and one night.

Fifty years have passed.

Move forward.

While he was reminiscing, he heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs above.

He doesn't want to interact with his neighbors now.

Because he was a transmigrated soul and did not have the memories of his previous life, his understanding of the present depends entirely on the diary left by his previous life.

Therefore, he lacks the confidence to deal with people of this era.

Unfortunately, when he returned to his room 205 and was about to open the door, the rusty spring lock malfunctioned.

I turned the key twice but it was stiff and I couldn't open the door.

The owner of the 'thump thump' footsteps had already run down quickly.

He was a tall and thin young man wearing an old and worn green military uniform.

The military uniform was loose and the trousers were held up by a canvas belt.

The boy's hair was dry, yellow and split, indicating severe malnutrition. His face was pale, his eyes were big and his cheeks were thin. His huge Adam's apple hung like a big peach pit, which was very unsightly.

Seeing Qian Jin standing at the door turning the key in vain, the boy blinked and ran upstairs:

"Deng deng deng deng..."

Soon he came running back, holding a glass bottle of glucose injection sealed with a rubber stopper:
"Brother Qianjin, your door lock won't open?"

"Look at me, the anti-rust oil my dad brought from the port is even smoother than sewing machine oil."

The boy enthusiastically took over the key and pulled it out.

He skillfully put some black lubricant into the keyhole and then put a few drops on the key.

The key was inserted into the keyhole again, and with a "click", the door opened.

Seeing this young man oiling the door lock inside and outside again:

"Hehe, this kind of four-invalid lock is like this, it needs to be oiled from time to time."

Qian Jin smiled awkwardly and nodded to express his gratitude.

The boy smiled brightly and ran away again.

Amid the creaking sound of the door hinges, Qian entered the house, revealing the entirety of the small apartment of more than ten square meters.

There is no living room or bedroom in the house, only two rooms, one inside and one outside, one large and one small.

There is no bathroom or kitchen, it is simple and crude.

There were no appliances and not much furniture. Apart from the bed and wardrobe, there was an octagonal table against the wall and a three-drawer table where he had read his diary all night.

The thermos on the Eight Immortals table was covered with a straw cover, and there was a small oil lamp made from an ink bottle.

On the three-drawer table was a thick diary and a simple photo frame with a black and white photo.

The middle-aged man in work clothes in the photo frame has sharp eyebrows, bright eyes and a handsome face. He looks 80% similar to him and is 70% as handsome as him - this is his predecessor's recently deceased father, Qian Zhongguo, a logistics warehouse keeper at the Haibin City No. 6 National Cotton Mill.

Seeing his own situation again, Qian Jin sighed again.

So poor!
Before traveling through time, he felt that his family was poor enough.

A quarter of the 21st century has passed, and his family still hasn't installed air conditioning.

Now that I have traveled back to 1977, I realize that I was just like a blind man climbing a ladder - I didn't know the height!

Compared to now, my family was quite well-off in the past.

With a sigh, he opened the diary.

This is Qian Jin’s diary from 1977.

After traveling through time yesterday, he read it twice and had a general idea of ​​the content.

Now he opened it not to read the diary, but to take out a palm-sized booklet tucked inside.

The cover of the booklet is gold.

The content is simple, with the five words "Material Purchase and Sales Certificate" printed on it, and a row of time below: 2027-9-15.

This booklet was picked up by Qian Jin in 27.

He traveled through time after picking up this booklet yesterday!

When he picked up the booklet, the date printed on it was 2027-9-14!

A day passed.

The time in the booklet changed by one day.

But the cover of this booklet is not an electronic product like a display screen, its material is——

It's made of a strange material.

Soft but indestructible.

Qian Jin tore the book, cut it with a knife, burned it with fire, and soaked it in water, but the book was not affected.

Open the booklet.

There are no inner pages, only one sentence:

'Please use this certificate on gold'.

Qian Jin really wants to use it.

He guessed that this thing had taken him through time. So he guessed that perhaps the purpose of this certificate was to take people through time.

But looking at the current predicament of this family and considering the current era, it is obvious that he cannot get the gold.

This made him very melancholy.

What made him even more depressed was that he had to solve the problem of eating quickly.

Qian Jin had been here for a day and a night. There was some food in stock at home, which was some noodles, sweet potato noodles, two handfuls of dried beans and other food that his predecessor had brought back from the countryside.

But he couldn't cook.

There was no kitchen in the two rooms of the house, only a homemade stove made of a tin barrel at the door.

He observed it yesterday evening.

Every household in the building has limited housing and no kitchen, so they rely on this homemade stove to cook and boil water, so there is a strong smell of coal smoke in the corridor.

My predecessor's father had been seriously ill for many days and was unable to cook for himself, so he relied entirely on his apprentice who worked in a textile factory to bring him meals.

There is no coal at home now, so we can’t start a fire.

However, there was a public kitchen in the corner of the ground floor, and he had seen some elderly women carrying rice, flour and vegetables to cook.

Yesterday he was afraid that someone would notice something was wrong, so he didn't rush to the public kitchen.

But I have to go today.

I'm so hungry I can't stand it anymore.

He chose a time when there were few people around to enter the public kitchen.

There were two stoves in the kitchen, and two women were busy working inside.

So he could only wait silently by the side.

A sturdy, dark-skinned woman glanced at him and said, "Xiao Qian, I'm almost freeing up a stove."

Qian Jin smiled and said, "No rush."

The woman was cooking sorghum rice.

She poured sorghum rice from the enamel jar into the aluminum pot, added water, hesitated for a moment, and then added two more scoops of water.

Another woman had already started cooking. She stood with one leg straight on the ground and the other leg sideways, like a compass.

Qian Jin felt that this woman was not a good person.

Because since he came in, the old woman with the compass has been looking at him sideways.

When she saw the dark-skinned woman adding water to the rice, she said with her thin lips:
"Sister-in-law Liu, you're planning to pour all the water from West Lake into your pot, just a porcelain jar of sorghum rice?"

"It's the middle of the month already. Isn't Brother Liu spending money at the port?"

Mrs. Liu sighed, "The combined stomachs of all the boys in our family are bigger than the West Lake."

"There are six people in my family, and we only add a little water when cooking. How can we feed them all with the limited rations provided by Old Liu?"

The compass woman curled her lips and said, "Hey, aren't you burning newspapers at the grave to fool the ghosts?"

"Water is not enough to satisfy hunger. If I drink more, I'll pee and my stomach will be empty."

Liu's sister-in-law still sighed: "It's better to fool people for a while."

The compass woman turned her back to Liu's sister-in-law and rolled her eyes, muttering:

"What's the point of staying in the city like this? It's better to go back to the countryside."

"If it were me, I would have returned to the countryside long ago. It's not like there's no food to be made in the fields there."

Mrs. Liu pretended not to hear and continued to work.

Sorghum rice was cooking in the pot while she cut and washed pickles.

After finishing her work and having nothing to do, she washed her hands, took out a stack of food coupons from her dusty apron pocket and counted them again and again.

There are 17 in total.

Counted five times.

If the lid of the aluminum pot on the stove hadn't popped open, the woman would have counted it twice more.

When the sorghum rice was cooked, Liu's wife quickly poured a few drops of soy sauce into the rice, mixed it, and said:

"The grocery store has lard. I'll buy some and mix it with the rice so it'll be delicious."

As she spoke, she seemed to feel that she was a little delusional, so she shook her head and laughed.

After taking away the sorghum rice and pickled vegetables, Liu's wife said to Qian Jin, "Come here, Xiao Qian. Why didn't you bring any coal?"

Qian Jin scratched his head.

The first time he entered a communal kitchen, he neglected the fuel issue.

The compass lady was quick-witted and said with a smile, "My neighbor has gone to the countryside and experienced the hardships of life. He has learned how to live in the countryside."

"After the previous household finishes cooking in the public kitchen, there's still some leftover fire, so the next household can use it. This saves a lot of coal over the year."

Then she nodded and praised Qian Jin: "Okay, Comrade Xiao Qian, you are a very good person at living. Let me promote you. It will be easier for you to find a partner in the future."

Qian Jin smiled at her and said, "Thank you, sister-in-law. I just came back and I felt the hospitality of our old neighbors. I must use the foreign words I learned before to praise you."

The compass lady was surprised: "Oh, you know foreign languages? How do you compliment people in foreign languages? I've never heard of it before."

Qian Jin gave her a thumbs up: "Yoshi, you, a good citizen, work hard and have a good conscience!"

The compass lady didn't know whether to be happy or angry.

She stared at Qian Jin with hatred, but suddenly smiled: "You can be proud now, but you will be unhappy in a few days."

There is something wrong with this statement!

An alarm bell rang in Qian Jin's heart.

Liu's sister-in-law intervened, saying, "Master Qian's honeycomb coal ran out last month. Xiao Qian just came back this month and has been busy with funeral arrangements. I'm afraid he didn't have time to go to the coal station to buy more coal."

"Here, I've finished cooking, and I have two extra coal cakes for you to use."

Qian Jin smiled at her.

Liu's sister-in-law cooks simple meals, and Yuangui's wife's home is actually not much better.

Her family cooked brown rice and the dish was stir-fried wilted eggplant.

Stir-frying eggplant consumes a lot of oil.

The compass lady only used a little oil, and then added water to the pot, without even using soy sauce. In the end, the eggplant was fried white.

After the two women left, he boiled water and cooked noodles.

Another middle-aged man came in with a little girl. He blanched some rapeseed and made some cold salad, and also made some tofu with green onions.

The man brought a small bottle of sesame oil. He carefully added a few drops of sesame oil to the two dishes, and then rubbed the bottle with his finger and moved it downwards.

The little girl naturally went over and took a few sips, then happily skipped away.

In the end, there is still money left for yourself.

The flames in the stove licked the bottom of the pot listlessly.

Qian Jin stared blankly at the simple kitchen in the cramped tube-shaped building.

I was filled with sadness for a moment.

Life was tough in the seventies!

I don’t want to travel through time!!
(End of this chapter)