Courtyard House: A Prosperous and Joyful Life

"You can earn more than ten yuan just by assembling a radio. This money comes too easily! It seems that Wang Jun is going to have a good life." The third aunt sighed.

Yan Bugui squinted and replied, "Wang Jun can assemble radios, which is an opportunity for us. I plan to talk to him tomorrow." A shrewd glint flashed in his eyes as he plotted to buy all of Wang Jun's radios and then resell them at a higher price to make a profit.

These days, radios are in high demand; you can't buy one even if you have money but no ration coupon. Wang Jun's skills allow him to make radios without ration coupons, so he'll definitely be in high demand, and he won't have trouble selling them even if they're a bit pricey. Yan Bugui did the math in his mind: buy them for 50 yuan, sell them for 60 yuan, make 10 yuan profit per radio; ten radios would be 100 yuan! He absolutely couldn't miss such a good deal.

Chapter 8 successfully lured the stick-shaped coin to its wallet!

After finishing his work, Wang Jun remembered that the fishing system offered one free chance per day, which he hadn't used yet. So he opened the virtual panel and, sure enough, it showed one free fishing opportunity, plus two designated charms and one small bad luck charm (which he had already used and found effective).

[Designator: Designates a person within 200 meters to fish, and retrieves one item from their inventory.]

Wang Jun decided to give it a try, silently chanting: "Use the designated symbol for fishing! Target: stick! Start!"

In an instant, a virtual fishing line was cast out, reeled in a moment, and a black wallet was caught. Wang Jun raised an eyebrow; this wallet was supposed to be cheap, but he hadn't expected to actually catch one! He opened it and found over a hundred yuan inside!

"Heh, they're quite wealthy." Wang Jun was in high spirits. He took out the money and threw the empty wallet into his system space.

At this moment, Qin Huairu and Jia Zhangshi were helping Banggeng limp home. Banggeng had knocked out a front tooth and been bitten on the leg by a dog that day, so they went to the dentist for a shot and filling. In the 1980s, dental tools were rudimentary; the dentist used a hammer and small pliers to tap and pound in Banggeng's mouth, leaving him with a buzzing head. The filling wasn't finished until dark.

When Banggeng got home, he checked his pockets and found his wallet was gone! It contained over a hundred yuan, which was two months' income for him; losing it would be incredibly painful!

"Have you seen my wallet?" Bang Geng asked urgently.

Madam Jia shook her head: "I haven't seen it. What's wrong?"

"My wallet is gone! There were over a hundred dollars in it!" Bang Geng exclaimed in frustration.

Qin Huairu hurriedly said, "Quickly look for it, maybe you left it at home."

Jia Zhangshi, Qin Huairu, Huaihua, and Xiaodang searched high and low for a long time, but found nothing. Banggeng scratched his head in bewilderment: "What the hell! I clearly had it with me, could it have grown wings and flown away?"

Qin Huairu speculated, "Perhaps it was lost."

They searched the house thoroughly but couldn't find it, and everyone assumed it was lost. The thought that over a hundred yuan could buy 125 jin of pork (at the time, pork cost 8 mao per jin) made Qin Huairu and Jia Zhangshi wince in pain.

The next morning, as soon as Wang Jun got up, a group of neighbors gathered at his door: "Wang Jun, open the door! I'm here to buy a radio!" "I want one!" "Get in line, don't cut in line!"

Uncle Zhou bought one last night, and everyone thought it was a good deal at 50 yuan each. This morning, they all rushed to buy it. When Wang Jun opened the door, five gleaming radios were lined up, looking like they were from a department store. Everyone exclaimed, "So beautiful! Just like new!"

"Five units in total, 50 yuan each, first come, first served!" Wang Jun shouted.

An older woman handed over five "big unity" bills (10 yuan each): "Give it to me!" After paying, she went inside, picked out a red lantern sign, and left happily.

Soon, all five radios were sold out, and Wang Jun earned 250 yuan. Adding the 50 yuan he made the night before, his total income from selling radios reached 300 yuan, equivalent to half a year's wages for a worker!

At this moment, Yan Bugui strolled over slowly, his small eyes gleaming with shrewdness.

Wang Jun looked up: "Uncle San, what's the matter?"

Yan Bugui nodded and said bluntly, "Wang Jun, starting tomorrow, I'm taking all your radios. Don't sell them to anyone else."

Wang Jun was taken aback, then realized that Yan Bugui was trying to become a reseller! He bought radios for fifty yuan each, then sold them for fifty-five yuan each, making a net profit of five yuan per radio. Ten radios would be fifty yuan, equivalent to an average person's monthly salary. Quite shrewd.

However, Wang Jun didn't point it out. Having someone help him sell his goods saved him the trouble of going out to promote them, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. He readily agreed, "Sure, if Uncle San wants them, I'll sell them to you for fifty yuan a unit, cash on delivery."

Yan Bugui smiled and said, "Alright!"

His curiosity was piqued again, and he leaned closer to ask, "Jun, where did you learn to assemble radios?" To be honest, he was very interested in this craft and couldn't wait to learn it so he could assemble his own. If Wang Jun was willing to teach him, that would be even better.

Wang Jun saw through his thoughts and said calmly, "I learned it from books. If you want to learn, then read more books."

Upon hearing this, Yan Bugui felt a pang of frustration. Although he was a teacher, his educational background was not high, and he simply couldn't grasp the concepts of radio; moreover, he was getting on in years, and his mind wasn't sharp enough, making it extremely difficult for him to learn new knowledge.

He wasn't giving up and tentatively asked, "Jun, I'll give you two hundred yuan, how about you teach me the technique?"

Wang Jun almost burst out laughing. Two hundred yuan to learn this skill? No way. He deliberately put on a serious face: "Uncle San, this skill is something I learned with great effort. If you want to learn, give me 100,000 yuan, and I'll teach you."

One hundred thousand yuan would be a huge sum in later generations, let alone now. Wang Jun deliberately quoted a high price to scare him away.

Sure enough, Yan Bugui was startled, his eyes widening: "Jun, you're kidding me! In the entire city of Beijing, or even the whole country, no one can come up with 100,000 yuan!"

Wang Jun chuckled. Yan Bugui's vision was too narrow. With the current open policies, many people from the south had gone into business and made their first fortune; some were definitely worth tens of thousands. In Beijing, those with gold bars and antiques at home were also considered wealthy. But Wang Jun was too lazy to talk about these things and waved his hand, saying, "If you can't come up with ten thousand, don't even think about it. You can leave now."

Yan Bugui said sullenly, "You brat! Fine, I can't afford to learn your skills. But you'd better leave the radio you assembled for me."

Wang Jun waved his hand: "No problem!"

After Yan Bugui left, Wang Jun counted the money: 300 from selling the radio, 100 from "fishing" back from Banggeng, and 44 from the newbie gift pack, totaling 444 yuan. Decades later, that would be just the cost of a meal, but right now, 444 yuan could do quite a lot.

He figured he needed to find a few people to help him buy and polish the radio casings so he wouldn't have to do everything himself, and his efficiency would be improved, making it possible to assemble dozens of units a day.

Without hesitation, Wang Jun went out and found three junior high school classmates: Guo Hongbing, Li Xiangdong, and Luo Xuenong. They had a good relationship with his predecessor in school, so they were the first people Wang Jun thought of.

Luo Xuenong smiled as soon as he saw him: "Wang Jun, you called us out to play?" Guo Hongbing and Li Xiangdong also thought they were going to the park. These days, parks are lively and young people love to go there.

Wang Jun shook his head: "It's not for fun, it's about helping you make money. Interested?"

The moment the word "make money" was uttered, the eyes of the three men lit up. Who wouldn't be happy to buy food with money?

"have!"

"I want to make money!"

"I'm very interested in this!"

Guo Hongbing put the aluminum lunchbox on the ground, Li Xiangdong gripped the hem of his clothes and took half a step forward, and Luo Xuenong slapped his thigh. The eyes of the three workers' children lit up like light bulbs, just like elementary school students who had heard "no homework after school".

Wang Jun leaned against the old locust tree in the courtyard, his blue work clothes faded from washing, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth: "Go to the scrap yard to collect radio casings, take them home and polish and refurbish them, I'll give you 6 mao for each one that's finished."

"6 cents?!" the three exclaimed in unison, their voices cracking.

These days, pork only costs 8 cents a pound. 6 cents can buy half a pound of pork, or a big ball of cotton candy (skewered on bamboo sticks, so sweet it sticks to your teeth), two big handfuls of popcorn (the popcorn machine at the movie theater makes a "bang" that can smell the aroma of half an alley), two popsicles (cream-flavored, one lick and you'll feel a chill down your spine), plus two small packets of sour plum powder (eaten with a small spoon, so sour it makes your eyes squint). You can earn so much just by running errands?

"Junzi, you're not kidding us, are you?" Guo Hongbing scratched the back of his head, his Adam's apple bobbing. "Last time my dad repaired a bicycle, he only got 5 cents after saving up for a whole week."

Wang Jun stomped his cigarette butt on the ground: "Are you in or not? If not, I'll find someone else."

"Let's do it!" Li Xiangdong grabbed his arm. "We have to do it! Tomorrow I'll dig out all the broken radio casings from the junkyard!"

"I'm going right now!" Luo Xuenong took off running out of the courtyard, his blue trousers sweeping across the moss on the threshold.

Wang Jun smiled and pulled out three 10-yuan bills from his pocket, handing one to each person: "This is start-up capital for collecting shells. Remember, they need to be unbroken plastic shells, not metal ones."

The three men clutched the money as if it were a gold-embossed college admission letter. Guo Hongbing even held it up to the sun to check its appearance; the worker, peasant, and soldier images on the banknotes were crystal clear—they weren't fake!

After they ran off, Wang Jun, with the remaining money in his pocket, strolled to the pigeon market at the entrance of the alley. This place was a "no-go zone" for the children in the courtyard. The adults said, "That's a black market; you'll be fined if you get caught." But Wang Jun was curious; he had heard that you could buy bicycle tickets, sewing machine tickets, and even TV tickets (which cost a lot of money) here.

The market was filled with the smells of coal stoves, roasted chestnuts, and an indescribable air of "sneakiness." Wang Jun circled around three times before stopping at a mutton stall. The fatty mutton was long gone, leaving only a few ribs, glistening with oil and gleaming amber in the sunlight.

"Comrade, how much are the lamb chops?" he asked in a low voice.

The stall owner was a bearded man wearing a greasy cotton-padded jacket: "Two yuan a pound, no coupon required."

Wang Jun frowned. Pork was only 8 cents, while lamb chops were more than twice as expensive. But then he remembered the roasted lamb chops he ate in Northwest China in his previous life. They were sprinkled with salt and grilled over charcoal, the oil sizzling and dripping onto the coals, the aroma so enticing it could steal your soul. Now he was craving that taste.

"Can you make it cheaper?" He rubbed his hands together.

"No way!" The bearded man placed the lamb chop on the scale. "But I'll give you a bottle of soy sauce, homemade, it'll make the meat really fragrant!"

Wang Jun weighed the scales; 5 jin of lamb chops, exactly 10 yuan. He took out a large bill and handed it over. The bearded man deftly threaded the lamb chops onto a straw rope and tied it to a small glass bottle (the soy sauce was sloshing around, emitting a soy sauce aroma).

Wang Jun carried the lamb chops towards the courtyard house. Just as he stepped across the threshold, he heard Aunt Li's loud voice: "Oh my! Wang Jun, you've bought lamb?"

"Tsk tsk, this one must weigh five or six pounds, right?" Uncle Zhang, pipe in hand, leaned over. "At least eight or nine yuan, enough for me to buy half a carcass of pork!"

"Not being married means you don't know how to manage a household!" Grandma Wang poked the ground with her cane. "Back in our day, we had to save up for three months before we dared to buy meat, but he eats five pounds in one meal!"

"They can assemble radios!" someone chimed in. "I heard they earn three yuan per radio, and can assemble two a day. That mutton is definitely worth it!"

Wang Jun smiled as he placed the lamb chops in the kitchen, oil splattering onto the stove with a sizzling sound. He recalled the retreating figures of Guo Hongbing and the other two, then touched the remaining money in his pocket. Life had a future.

The chatter in the courtyard continued, but Wang Jun didn't care. He squatted in front of the stove to start a fire, the embers reflecting off his face. He recalled the days in his previous life when he worked overtime until dawn and ate cold steamed buns. Suddenly, he felt that the wind of 1979 carried not only the smell of coal smoke, but also the aroma of mutton and the "hope" that could be held in one's hand.

Wang Jun deftly cut the succulent lamb chop in two, carefully putting one half away and placing the other half on the stove to roast slowly.

In no time at all, the lamb chops sizzled on the fire, dripping fat and releasing an intensely rich aroma that instantly filled the entire courtyard, making everyone's mouths water. The fragrance even wafted through the courtyard walls, drawing a large group of hungry children to gather around, craning their necks and gazing longingly at the stove.

forecourt.

Yan Bugui, who was eating lunch, suddenly twitched his nostrils and instantly realized that the food in his bowl was tasteless.

"That Wang Jun, he really knows how to enjoy life," Aunt San said, smacking her lips as she arrived, drawn by the aroma. "Such a huge piece of lamb chop, he just grilled it like that! He's going to eat his fill!"

In those years of scarcity, meat was a precious commodity. Ordinary families would buy meat, slice it thinly, and treat it as a "main dish" to improve their lives; having two or three slices per person was already a luxury. For someone like Wang Jun to grill a whole lamb chop and eat his fill was simply a fantasy.

Yan Bugui narrowed his eyes, thinking to himself, "This kid has really turned his life around. Eating meat every day is just a regular thing for him." He roughly calculated that Wang Jun could easily earn ten or even twenty or thirty yuan a day now, so eating meat was naturally no problem for him.

Yan Jiekuang, who was standing to the side, had already been listening with his eyes shining, unconsciously swallowing his saliva: "Ah, I've never known what it feels like to eat my fill of meat in my entire life. I really want to buy a few pounds of meat and have a good, satisfying meal!"

"You?" Yan Bugui scoffed. "With your meager salary, you can't even afford a piece of meat, let alone eat your fill? Dream on!"

Intermediate People's Court.

Madam Jia was already having a bad lunch when the aroma of meat wafted into her nostrils, making her even angrier. She immediately burst into a tirade: "Which heartless bastard is grilling meat outside? Are you deliberately tempting my appetite and ruining my food! Huaihua, go out and see who's so rude!"

Huaihua honestly replied, "Grandma, it's Brother Wang Jun roasting lamb. He bought a huge piece of lamb chop that weighs at least four or five pounds, and the whole yard saw it."

Huaihua herself was also swayed by the aroma, feeling flustered and helpless. The domineering fragrance of roasted meat was simply irresistible to willpower.

Upon hearing that it was Wang Jun, Jia Zhangshi felt even worse and cursed viciously, "That bastard with no parents, he's gotten so used to living a comfortable life that he's forgotten everything. Eating so well, does he think he's tired of living and is in a hurry to be reincarnated?"

Huaihua was already used to her sharp and sarcastic face. She secretly glanced at Wang Jun's figure outside the courtyard, secretly planning that she would have to find a way to get a piece of meat when Wang Jun grilled it in the future. Although her family was no longer short of food and drink, she had never tasted such a hearty meal of meat before.

In the same courtyard, Yi Zhonghai, known as "Uncle Yi," was also unsettled by the aroma of meat, his Adam's apple bobbing involuntarily. He tried to appear calm, but his expression was rather unpleasant. Wang Jun not only made money but also enjoyed a life of luxury, which left him feeling quite resentful. However, reason told him that Wang Jun was earning money through his own abilities, and no matter how unhappy he was, there was nothing he could do.

in the courtyard.

After grilling the lamb chops, Wang Jun cut off a few pieces and gave them to the eager children. Once the children had left satisfied, he sat alone, slowly grilling the chops while enjoying them immensely. In the blink of an eye, he had devoured the two and a half pounds of lamb chops.

"The taste is really good, and the spices the stall owner gave me are authentic." He patted his stomach, thinking with lingering satisfaction, "If you sprinkled some cumin on it, the flavor would probably soar to the heavens."

in the afternoon.

Guo Hongbing, Li Xiangdong, and Luo Xuenong, three friends, arrived as promised, bringing their achievements for the day.

Guo Hongbing brought four, Li Xiangdong brought three, but Luo Xuenong was the most enthusiastic, bringing five!

The three of them worked together and managed to put together a total of twelve radio casings, which was a real surprise.

Wang Jun carefully inspected the shells and, seeing that although they weren't as perfect as the ones he had personally refurbished, they were still quite well done, praised them with satisfaction: "Not bad, not bad, you did a great job."

Upon hearing this, Luo Xuenong immediately became smug: "This is my first time doing this, I don't have much experience. Next time I'll be more experienced, and what I find will definitely look even better!"

Guo Hongbing echoed, "Yes, yes, with experience, you'll definitely reach a higher level!"

Wang Jun nodded, took out his notebook, and meticulously recorded the accounts. Even among brothers who would risk their lives for each other, clear accounting is essential to prevent future misunderstandings.

After recording the expenses, he took out the money from his pocket and distributed it directly.

Guo Hongbing got 2.4 yuan, Li Xiangdong got 1.8 yuan, and Luo Xuenong got the most, happily receiving 3 yuan!

Three hands held a "huge sum" far exceeding their usual allowance, trembling slightly with excitement. In those days, allowances from parents were often measured in "cents," so receiving so much at once was simply too much for the three of them to handle calmly!

With this "start-up capital," they can finally eat whatever they want—snacks they usually can't afford to buy, like popcorn and roasted sweet potatoes!

"We made money!"

"Thank you, Brother Jun!"

"Haha, we're rich now!"

The three of them were overjoyed.

Seeing their excited expressions, Wang Jun smiled calmly: "Getting excited already? Let's go, next batch of shells, keep searching, keep refurbishing. No problem, right?"

"No problem!" the three said in unison, full of enthusiasm.