Hard times: I worked as a truck driver in the county town

Back at the transport station, Jiang Cheng parked the car and first went to the office to offer Station Chief Chen a Lushan cigarette. He didn't want to open the Daqianmen brand, which was more upscale.

Jiang Cheng doesn't smoke, but he plans to learn. When he was in the army, smoking was not allowed in many situations, and Jiang Cheng couldn't bear to spend his allowance to buy cigarettes.

But now that we're in the countryside, in this day and age, if a man doesn't smoke, he'll seem out of place. People will laugh at him, saying, "What kind of man is someone who doesn't even smoke?"

Moreover, the driver's smoking gives others an opportunity to strike up a conversation. Once this conversation starts, some people will want to ask the driver for favors, and the driver will inevitably try to make a little extra money in return.

Therefore, it is also a need for drivers to smoke.

"Mount Lu is really nice," Station Chief Chen said with a hint of envy as he took the cigarette Jiang Cheng offered him.

"I have another pack here, Daqianmen cigarettes, I'll save it for New Year's Day," Jiang Cheng said, showing off another pack of cigarettes as he opened his pocket.

"Master Jiang, you don't look like someone who has served in the military," Station Chief Chen said with a smile.

"You shouldn't take a single needle or thread from ordinary people, and what I'm taking isn't from ordinary people either," Jiang Cheng retorted.

Soldiers do need to maintain a certain image when they're out in the field. Showing off things like Jiang Cheng's isn't typical of a soldier. But in reality, soldiers are just like ordinary people in private; they might get something good and brag about it to their comrades. However, they have to be careful when bragging, because if it's food or drink, some close comrades might just snatch it away.

"How did you manage to have lunch?" Station Chief Chen asked.

"I ate a meal at the supply and marketing cooperative's canteen for free," Jiang Cheng replied, patting his stomach.

He got two packs of mid-range cigarettes and a meal. And every time he drove, the transport station gave Jiang Cheng a 60-cent subsidy. Some things are truly enviable.

"Master Jiang, would you like me to introduce you to someone?" Station Master Chen asked.

"We can talk about introducing someone later. I have quite a few relatives who want to introduce me to potential partners. If I don't find anyone suitable, I'll ask you for help again," Jiang Cheng said, essentially declining the offer.

If a car driver wants to find a girlfriend in the city, there are girls lining up for him to choose from.

In the county town, matchmakers are too embarrassed to introduce people from poor families.

Jiang Cheng chatted with Station Chief Chen for a while, then returned to the lounge. In the lounge, Jiang Cheng considered whether he should go to the market at Xiangyang Commune the next morning.

Based on Jiang Cheng's current understanding of the system, this is definitely not as simple as just going to the market. He'll likely encounter some kind of opportunity once he gets there.

After thinking it over for a long time, Jiang Cheng felt that this opportunity seemed unusual and decided to go and take a look. He planned to go there at six in the morning and return to the transport station before eight.

Having made up his mind, Jiang Cheng went to see Station Master Chen Minggang. He told Station Master Chen that he would be driving out the next morning and would be back before eight o'clock. Using a company vehicle for personal purposes should at least be discussed with the station master.

Station Chief Chen agreed to Jiang Cheng's request. This kind of thing would become the norm sooner or later, as long as it didn't interfere with the normal dispatching tasks.

Around 5 p.m., Jiang Cheng left work early and went to the supply and marketing cooperative to buy peanuts, melon seeds, and candy.

Jiang Cheng has one older brother and two younger sisters. In this era, there was a preference for sons over daughters, and parents tended to value the eldest son more. At least in Yi'an County, the prevailing custom was that the eldest son was primarily responsible for supporting his parents.

Parents usually live with their eldest son, so most of their belongings are left to him. Jiang Cheng's older brother is named Jiang Yong, who is more than two years older than him.

When Jiang Cheng went to join the army, his older brother Jiang Yong was just twenty years old, unmarried and without a girlfriend. Now, after being discharged, Jiang Yong is a father. He got married the year before last, and his wife gave birth to a son last year.

Jiang Cheng used to share a room with Jiang Yong and his two younger sisters. He remembered that when his sisters were younger, they slept with their parents, but when they got a little older, they were moved to sleep with them.

As everyone got older, they initially used a plank bed to widen the beds so everyone could sleep together. Later, when they were even older, they put a tattered cloth curtain in the middle of the house as a partition. The two younger sisters slept in separate beds.

Now that Jiang Cheng has returned from military service, his family has gained a sister-in-law and a one-year-old nephew. His third sister, Jiang Fang, is nineteen years old (by Chinese reckoning), of marriageable age, but still unmarried. His fourth sister, Jiang Juan, is only seventeen (by Chinese reckoning), and naturally lives with everyone else.

Before Jiang Cheng returned, while Jiang Yong was dating, his two younger sisters lived with their parents. Now that he's back, the family originally planned for the two younger sisters to live with their sister-in-law and nephew first, while Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yong would stay with their parents for a while.

Everyone knows that once Jiang Cheng returns from military service, he will go through the proper procedures to be assigned a job. Even if he isn't a driver's soldier, ordinary soldiers will be provided with housing after being assigned a job.

They had agreed on it, but for some reason they changed their minds. The older brother and sister-in-law moved in with their parents and nephew, while Jiang Cheng temporarily stayed with his two younger sisters.

Although they are siblings, there are some things they should avoid because of their age difference. However, in this day and age, there are many families like Jiang Cheng's.

Jiang Cheng was serving in the army in the Suzhou-Wuxi area, which is close to Shanghai. In Shanghai, it's common for seven people to live in one room, and even three generations to share a room.

Many things are inconvenient. For example, some sensible parents will deliberately go out for a stroll at night, even if it's dark outside.

Even though the son and daughter-in-law felt a little embarrassed at that time, knowing that their parents were leaving so that they could do "that" at home, they still had to hurry and not waste their parents' good intentions.

Jiang Cheng shared a room with his two younger sisters, which was inconvenient, but he had to put up with it.

After buying things from the supply and marketing cooperative, Jiang Cheng went home, but no one was there; everyone was at work and hadn't returned yet.

Last year, only Jiang Cheng's father, Jiang Dahe, had a job at the county's soy sauce factory. He knew how to brew soy sauce and was now considered a master craftsman at the factory.

Jiang Dahe was originally worried about how to find a job for his son Jiang Yong, but in the second half of last year, several makeshift blast furnaces were set up in the suburbs of the county, and some factories in the county were also expanding and recruiting workers.

As long as you're healthy, you can basically get a job in a factory by signing up. Even seventeen-year-old Jiang Juan went to a factory to work as a transport worker pushing a wooden cart.

However, they are all temporary or contract workers, without permanent positions, and their benefits are relatively poor. But it's still better than before when they all stayed at home, occasionally finding odd jobs, and relying entirely on Jiang Dahe's efforts.

Even if no one is home, Jiang Cheng will not cook or do any housework, even if he is lying idly in his room.

That's something women do, that's the thinking of Jiang Dahe, the father, instilled in him by his grandparents. Crucially, Jiang Cheng's mother, Wang Lan, also accepted this view when she married into the Jiang family, because her family also held this belief.

Take Jiang Cheng's two younger sisters, for example. They've lived in the Jiang family for so many years, and they might have questioned things before. But now they've accepted it all, and the housework is their responsibility.

Is it fair to men and women? Jiang Cheng thinks it is. Men have an easy life at home. But men have to shoulder the heavy responsibility of supporting the whole family. They work themselves to the bone outside, and they might not even be able to afford a two-cent pancake.

Although Jiang Dahe often displays the authority of the head of the family at home, in the past, the whole family relied on his salary to live, and in addition to food and drink, they also had to support their children's schooling.

Jiang Cheng sat on the bed in the room, where some of his clothes were piled up. There was nowhere else to put them, so they were just piled on the bed.

Jiang Cheng's files have already been sent to the county housing management section by Station Chief Chen. He is a formal employee of the unit and also a driver. Therefore, people like Jiang Cheng do not need to apply for housing at the county street office or neighborhood committee. Instead, the person in charge of the unit goes directly to the housing management section to arrange housing according to the corresponding standards, and preferably as close to the transportation station as possible.

Jiang Cheng could have stayed in the company's break room temporarily, and he did indeed intend to do so. He didn't stay there mainly because he had only been working there for a week and wasn't familiar with the transportation station's situation.

Now that we understand the situation, if we want to stay in the rest area, the first thing we need to solve is the food problem. The transportation station doesn't have its own canteen, so Station Master Chen always eats at home.

Also, with the Lunar New Year approaching, Jiang Cheng plans to move there after the New Year.