In 1959, what's wrong with me pedaling a tricycle?

The He family also sent people here. After Wang Xingguo greeted them, he waved for them to set off to transport the grain back.

All the other people with different surnames came to watch the spectacle. They felt it wasn't safe enough last time and wanted to see what would happen again, and whether anything unexpected would occur.

As a result, when the Wang and He families excitedly hauled the grain back, they were filled with deep regret.

Wang Changshun's face was flushed, and he was so excited that he could hardly control himself.

Because he roughly calculated that this batch of grain definitely exceeded four or five thousand catties, he opened a bag and found that it was barley, but he didn't mind at all!

The amount of barley handed over could be used to offset the purchase quota for miscellaneous grains. Although barley is not tasty, it is classified as a miscellaneous grain, just like corn and sorghum.

In other words, they could hand over the barley and keep the corn and sorghum they grew themselves. Therefore, barley was less valuable than corn and sorghum in the city; three pounds of barley was only equivalent to two pounds of corn or sorghum flour.

But in their rural areas, all three are of equal value!

Wang Xingguo was unaware of these things. If he had, he wouldn't have wanted the brewery's rice and corn; he would have just wanted the barley.

The fact that they didn't care at all about exchanging five kilograms of barley, two kilograms of corn, and two kilograms of rice for a live pig shows that barley was considered even less valuable by the brewery leaders.

They might be able to offer the price of ten or even eleven kilograms of pork for one kilogram of live pig.

Barley not only has a coarse texture, but it also tastes bitter and sour. It doesn't feel very filling, and it's almost impossible to swallow on its own. It's usually eaten mixed with other grains.

Wang Xingguo didn't think much about it at the time. Even if it didn't taste good and was hard to swallow, it was better than going hungry, right?

Wang Changshun pulled Wang Xingguo aside and excitedly asked, "How did you manage to bring back so much barley? This stuff is great! With more barley to hand over for grain procurement, we can keep more corn for ourselves."

Wang Xingguo was dumbfounded. He hurriedly asked, "What? Twenty-first Master, you mean barley can be handed over as grain for requisition?"

Wang Changshun nodded and said, "Of course! Corn, sorghum, and barley are all coarse grains, so of course they can be used to complete the task of delivering requisitioned grain. Didn't you know that?"

Wang Xingguo shook his head and said, "I really didn't know about this. I just thought that I could get more barley by exchanging pigs, so I took ten pigs to exchange for barley."

Wang Changshun explained, "The barley was originally supposed to be delivered during the summer harvest, but we owed a lot of grain quotas. So after this batch of barley was delivered, we no longer need to use autumn corn to pay off our debts. In terms of filling, corn is still the best. Barley is not only unpalatable but also not filling."

Wang Xingguo nodded, knowing that he had accidentally done a good thing for the clan.

Once all the grain had been transported back, the next step was to distribute it to the He family. Wang Xingguo didn't concern himself with the specifics of how it was distributed or which grains were allocated to the He family; his only responsibility was to bring the grain back.

After eating two steamed buns, Wang Xingguo hurried back because he needed to restock the store.

Now he only tells his people that the other goods are kept in other places, and he will arrange for people to bring them over when there is a shortage.

There's no way around it; you can't raise pigs or sheep on the farm, and too many chickens and ducks would be too noisy, so it's quite troublesome.

When Wang Xingguo returned to the city, it was almost 1 p.m. He went back to the threshing ground and told his clansmen to go out for a stroll and come back after 4 p.m.

The clansmen knew what he meant; he wanted to make room for someone to deliver goods. They understood these customs, so they all went out shopping.

Wang Xingguo started restocking, replenishing more stock for items that sold well and less for items that sold poorly, and soon all the stock was gone.

The dog, which had been released, kept barking at him. Wang Xingguo had no choice but to put it back into his spatial storage to deal with it.

Today is October 21st. Meat doesn't keep for long these days, so we won't be slaughtering a pig tonight. We'll decide whether to slaughter one based on how many people ask about meat.

You need to wait until after November, until the temperature drops to around minus ten degrees Celsius. At that time, the meat can be frozen solid if left outdoors and can be stored for many days.

Fish and eels sell very well, but nobody wants loach...

Because this thing uses more oil than eel, it is not popular. Wang Xingguo was not annoyed. Since no one wanted it, he would cut the loach into small pieces and feed it to the eel.

At four o'clock, the tribesmen returned, carrying a sack of snails. It turned out that they hadn't wandered around aimlessly when they went out, but had gone to the agreed-upon place to collect the snails and waited for someone before returning with the snails.

Next comes cracking the snails, which is actually quite difficult. If you don't crack them hard, they'll fly away, but if you do, it takes a lot of effort.

Fortunately, the villagers didn't mind. They sat in the courtyard, chatting and cracking snails. A large sack of snails was finished by five o'clock. After washing them, the snail meat was picked out and used to feed the eels and fish.

The entire courtyard smelled strongly of snails, which disgusted everyone. They fetched several buckets of water to rinse the courtyard tiles.

Several cousins ​​began preparing dinner. Wang Xingguo had them kill two carp and a chicken, which were then added to the public accounts as expenses.

It doesn't make sense for someone to be making a living selling things and yet not have any meat to eat!

Wang Yongchang said with a regretful look, "That guest last night had such a big appetite, he bought up all the offal, what a waste of those big pig intestines."

Wang Xingguo laughed and said, "Uncle Yongchang, do you like eating pig intestines?"

Wang Yongchang chuckled and said, "Yeah, don't be fooled by the smell. Pig intestines without that smell are actually not very interesting. It's the slightly smelly pig intestines that make them a good accompaniment to alcohol."

Wang Xingguo just couldn't understand it. He found the smell of pig intestines, which smelled like pig manure, disgusting and couldn't understand why anyone would like to eat it...

After dinner, it was already 7:30 pm. Wang Xingguo and his group smoked and chatted while waiting for the time to pass.

At exactly eight o'clock in the evening, everyone lit the candles in the lanterns, opened the door, and hung the lanterns up.

About twenty minutes later, people started arriving.

Wang Yongqing led out a very arrogant old man and introduced him to Wang Xingguo, saying, "Xingguo, this is Master Shi. He has some business to discuss with you."

Wang Xingguo nodded, cupped his hands in greeting, and said, "Greetings, Second Master Shi. I apologize for not welcoming you sooner. Please take a seat!"

Master Shi nodded and followed Wang Xingguo to the table to sit down. Wang Yongli made him two cups of tea, and Wang Xingguo also offered him a cigarette.

Master Shi picked up a teacup in one hand and a cigarette in the other, blew on the teacup, took a sip, and said, "I heard you people here accept hard currency, is that right?"

Wang Xingguo nodded and said, "Yes, we did accept it, but we accepted it according to everyone's rules."

Master Shi nodded, put down his teacup, and casually took out a small yellow croaker from his pocket and placed it on the table: "Take a look at the quality of this thing. I want to sell it for cash."