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

The siblings chatted for a while, and then Li Chunmei ran over. Seeing Wang Xingguo return, she quickly called out, "Brother-in-law, you're back!"

Wang Xingguo replied cheerfully, "You're back, Chunmei, you seem to have grown a little taller."

Li Chunmei nodded repeatedly and said happily, "Brother-in-law, you're not mistaken. My mom measured me a few days ago, and I'm 1.5 meters tall now."

Although she's not very tall, she's still young, and children are always happy to grow taller.

As more and more clansmen returned home from get off work, they all rushed to his house upon learning that Wang Xingguo had come back.

There wasn't enough room inside, so Wang Xingguo, holding his child, simply chatted with them at the doorway.

Wang Xingning took Wang Jianhua and led him back into the house.

Li Xiuping was adding food to the meal, preparing a nourishing dish for Wang Xingguo. She had opened a can of luncheon meat to cook with it.

Don't underestimate canned luncheon meat. Just slice it and fry it, and it will render oil just like pork belly. After all, the old recipe has a fat content of 30%.

The clansmen all wanted to know if Wang Xingguo could still bring back supplies, because they were also having a hard time.

Wang Xingguo was in a bit of a predicament because it was inconvenient for him to do so due to his work schedule.

After thinking for a moment, he asked, "What's the situation now? Is it that everyone in the tribe is lacking food, or that you're lacking nutritional supplements?"

"Xingguo, our hometown is short of food. The autumn harvest there is destined to be greatly reduced. We need to prepare food in advance to send it back."

"I'm lacking nutritional supplements, Xingguo. Look at your younger brother Xingen, he's so thin it breaks my heart."

As everyone chattered amongst themselves, Wang Xingguo stroked his chin and whispered to Wang Yongchang, "Did we return that warehouse to the neighborhood committee before?"

Wang Yongchang shook his head and said, "No, I rented it for a year at once, and there are still two months left on the lease."

Wang Xingguo nodded, then whispered to Wang Yongli, "Uncle Yongli, go collect the money. Corn is one yuan a pound, I'll get a thousand pounds. Dried sweet potatoes are two mao a pound, I can get about two thousand pounds. Cured meat should be about fifty pounds, five yuan a pound. I'll have someone take the stuff back to the warehouse tonight. You can discuss how to divide it, I don't care about anything else. Also, if we get checked, everyone must keep their mouths shut. If I get checked, we're all doomed."

Wang Yongchang sneered, "Who dares? If anyone dares to talk nonsense, I'll bury them."

Wang Xingguo waved his hand and said, "Alright, you can all leave now. It's too much trouble for you to gather here. Go do whatever you need to do. Uncle Yongchang, you guys stay and have a drink. You can take care of your business later."

Wang Yongchang started to shoo people away, saying it was really inappropriate for everyone to be gathered here, and even people who used to work at the night market wanted to come over.

Wang Xingguo didn't have that many things to sell them. He was already struggling to take care of his own relatives, friends, and clansmen, let alone them.

With so many people coming, Wang Xingbang couldn't even get a word in edgewise when he got back from get off work. Now that everyone's gone, only Li Laishun and a few others are left, so at least they can finally have a conversation.

He asked, "Second brother, why did you take so long this time? Everyone was worried sick."

Wang Xingguo shook his head and said, "Brother, don't ask. I can't tell you. Anyway, I just worked overtime, nothing serious."

Director Zhao nodded and said, "Yes, don't ask about Xingguo's work."

Seeing that Director Zhao was also very thin, Wang Xingguo didn't dare to ask him about the situation at the subdistrict office, because he couldn't help with that.

Everyone has their selfish desires. When the clan members need to get food, most of it is to support their hometown. So he dared to help get some, since they could use the excuse of saving the food for themselves when they carried it back.

However, the neighborhood office requires everything to be recorded in the accounts, and once that's done, Wang Xingguo will be in trouble, so he can't help.

And he didn't have that many things to help him anymore.

We opened two bottles of Erguotou (a type of Chinese liquor), but didn't let them drink first. Everyone went home to bring their own steamed buns, and we ate first before drinking.

To help Wang Xingguo improve his health, Li Xiuping not only stir-fried cured meat and opened a can of luncheon meat, but also cut up a few salted duck eggs and took two crucian carp from the water tank to make fish soup.

This woman was really good to Wang Xingguo; she even ate the food that she herself wouldn't eat.

Wang Yongchang picked up a piece of fatty cured pork and ate it, saying with satisfaction, "I really miss this taste. I don't even know what meat tastes like anymore."

Everyone laughed; they were all pretty much the same.

In other words, every time Wang Xingguo returned from a business trip, he would bring nutritional supplements for the family, and Li Xiuping would also share some with everyone, otherwise life would be even more difficult.

For city dwellers with grain rations, mixing wheat flour with grain substitutes was somewhat better, but for those in the countryside, mixing cornmeal with grain substitutes was simply too difficult to swallow.

During the meal, everyone drank a few ounces of alcohol, which is quite rare these days.

Wang Yongli and his team started collecting money. Wang Xingguo took the keys, rode his bicycle out, and arrived at the warehouse. He then used the keys to open the door and went inside.

His space had some stored grain because he had harvested two rounds of grain.

After careful consideration, Wang Xingguo put in 2,000 jin of cornmeal, 2,000 jin of dried sweet potatoes, about 3,000 jin of potatoes, and 500 jin of wheat flour.

The wheat yield was really not high enough. The wheat he grew in his space, after being ground into flour, only yielded about 150 catties per mu.

After two rounds of wheat harvesting from five mu of land, including what was left over from before, the yield is only about 1,800 to 1,900 jin.

After all, they were his own people, and Wang Xingguo couldn't possibly not help them.

He really doesn't have much cured meat left. He still has 170 or 180 jin of fresh meat, but only 70 or 80 jin of cured meat. If he takes out 50 jin, he won't have much left.

The flock of chickens and ducks in the space has grown again. There are still thirty adult chickens, but there are forty or fifty small, local chickens weighing a little over a pound each, and more than eighty newly hatched chicks.

There are about thirty adult ducks, about forty ducks weighing a little over a pound, and about sixty ducklings weighing three or four ounces.

The most frightening thing is the rabbits. Because Wang Xingguo didn't take care of them often, there were already seven or eight hundred of them, and about five hundred of them had grown to three or four pounds.

Wang Xingguo stroked his chin. Rabbits are the easiest meat to produce right now because the government encourages self-reliance and allows the raising of poultry such as chickens and ducks.

However, chickens and ducks need to be fed, so rabbits have become the easiest animal for people to raise.

He thought to himself, why not get a batch of rabbits and bring them back to the compound, so that each family could have a pair to raise?

There are still crops in the fields, and in winter we can feed them with radish tops and old cabbage leaves, so it's okay to raise rabbits.

Anyway, everyone has someone at home who's free to take care of feeding the rabbits.

He didn't lack cages, because he had kept quite a few of the chicken cages that the village used to make from bamboo after storing them in his space.

Without hesitation, Wang Xingguo put the rabbits into cages in pairs, separating them by sex.

After 10 o'clock, he returned to the compound with some things, where Wang Yongli and the others were still waiting.

When they learned that Wang Xingguo had brought back so many things and that they were going to raise rabbits, everyone thought it was a good thing.

After thinking for a moment, Wang Yongli said, "If Xingguo has so much stuff, I'm afraid we'll need to bring the people from the compound along. Otherwise, if they see us all carrying things back, they might cause trouble."