Fishing and Hunting 82, Starting with Three Sisters Who Overprotect Their Brothers

"I heard Zhang Wenshan is back."

"His second brother-in-law wouldn't let him get a job as an apprentice at a farm machinery factory, earning only eighteen yuan a month. What would he do back home?"

"He got so enraged at the card table that he started a fight and got knocked out on the spot, tsk tsk..."

"Er Ya is ruined. She married that man and has to support five nephews and nieces. She's like a stepmother. Her job is gone. She's practically lost everything."

"Isn't Dafeng the same? A few years ago, things were tough. Zhang Wenshan didn't work in the fields and gambled away money. She married Zhao, the mute man, and that's how the Zhang family got through it."

"Sigh, gambling really ruins lives. He used to be such a good kid..."

In 1982, the adobe houses in Chishongtun were not soundproof.

Gossip drifted in intermittently through the old newspapers pasting the windows.

Zhang Wenshan sat on a patched mattress, staring at the portrait of the great man on the opposite adobe wall, his handsome face filled with astonishment.

As the voices spoke, memories flooded my mind.

It didn't take him long to accept the fact that he had transmigrated to a parallel world and was inhabiting the body of a young man from a rural village in Northeast China with the same name.

The original owner of this body is nineteen years old this year.

Five years ago, in order to save his three older sisters, he single-handedly lured away a crazed wild boar, fell off a cliff, and lay on the kang (a heated brick bed) for nearly half a year. During his recovery, he learned to gamble and play cards.

I don't know how many beatings I've endured, but I just can't change.

In the days when work points were earned, there was a person who only ate and didn't work, yet still gave money away; no family could afford that.

Seeing that the grain owed to the team was piling up, the eldest sister hurriedly got married, bringing a laborer into the family.

At the beginning of the year, when the land was allocated, my second sister also got him a job in the factory, hoping he would settle down.

Before joining the factory, the original owner repeatedly promised not to gamble, but after only a few days, he relapsed into his old ways. On the day the incident occurred, it took less than half an hour for the higher-ups to understand the situation and fire him.

"You all have no guts! What business is it of yours what I do with my family affairs?"

The mother, Xu Xiulian, roared harshly, and the outside fell silent instantly.

"Fourth brother, if you're not dead, come out and eat!"

"Coming," Zhang Wenshan answered instinctively, then put on socks that revealed his heels, dressed, and got out of bed.

Lift the curtain.

A robust rural woman was busy working in the field outside the house.

"Just make do with this. You might come back unexpectedly and we won't have enough food at home."

As Xu Xiulian spoke, she slammed her breakfast onto the table: half a bowl of porridge, a cornbread bun, and a plate of mustard greens.

Damn it!

I ate this stuff again.

Zhang Wenshan picked up the cornbread and took a bite, but it felt like his mouth was filled with wood chips; no matter how much he chewed, he couldn't swallow it.

He shook his head, picked up a few strands of mustard greens, and put them in his mouth.

The intense salty and spicy flavor hits you right in the head, instantly making you forget the texture of the cornbread, and then you go for a bowl of bland, tasteless porridge.

I could barely swallow it.

"It tastes even worse than what you get at an orphanage."

Zhang Wenshan gave his assessment with a pursed lip, his face contorted with resentment and anger.

One of the driving forces behind my hard work in my past life was that I didn't want to eat this stuff.

He started with countless part-time jobs from a young age, later making a living by translating and editing wilderness survival videos, and then using the testing of various tools and methods to prove their effectiveness as a gimmick.

Having finally joined the ranks of bloggers with millions of followers, I never imagined that I would wake up to find myself in 1982, a time of scarcity.

All that effort for nothing.

No, it was worse than being in the orphanage. Back then, we ate a mix of rice and coarse grains, and every now and then we could get some meat.

This is the current year.

There is no cold-resistant, high-yield rice in Northeast China, so rice is a rare commodity, and meat is even more so, requiring ration coupons to purchase, and can only be eaten once a year during the Spring Festival.

"Now you know what it's like to gamble? If you dare to gamble again, I'll have your dad kill you, and I won't stop you at all."

Xu Xiulian assumed that her son was still in pain from the beating, and her cold voice revealed a hint of heartache.

He's already dead!

Zhang Wenshan rubbed his shoulders.

Meeting Xu Xiulian's eyes, which were full of concern and disappointment, he felt something called family affection for the first time, and his heart warmed.

"Okay, I won't touch it."

"Don't just talk the talk."

Xu Xiulian clearly didn't believe her and continued speaking to herself.

"After you finish eating, go to the fields to find your father and the others. Now that the land has been allocated, you can't borrow grain from the team anymore, and you have to pay back what you borrowed before."

"How much is still owed?" Zhang Wenshan frowned slightly.

This isn't the future, where you can travel all over the country with just a mobile phone.

In an era when mobility was restricted and one couldn't go anywhere without proper permits, he was already bound to the Zhang family.

The mess must be cleaned up, and as quickly as possible.

If we owe the team food, we can't get anything done.

"Over 800 jin (400 kg)."

Xu Xiulian sighed heavily, her face full of sorrow.

"Our family has ten mu of land, which can produce about four thousand jin of grain. After paying the taxes, we will still have about three thousand jin left. We have to pay back half of it first."

"That's still not enough to eat!" Zhang Wenshan blurted out.

On average, each person won't even get 500 catties of grain. How can they possibly last until next year?

Xu Xiulian rolled her eyes and didn't say anything.

Zhang Wenshan realized that his rations were originally intended to be returned to the team.

Eight hundred catties of grain is enough to feed the whole family for more than three months, and it would be worth more than one hundred yuan in cash. The average worker in town only earns thirty-eight yuan and fifty cents a month.

For a rural family that relies solely on farming for a living, this is an astronomical figure.

He instinctively reached into his pocket.

In these times, food is precious, so it's best to avoid using it if possible and pay off debts with money instead.

Upon discovering that his pockets were emptier than his face, he couldn't help but mutter to himself again.

After working for more than half a year, I haven't saved a single penny.

Gamblers will never have a good end.

"I don't want to farm," Zhang Wenshan said tentatively, raising his head after thinking for a moment.

It's already late June, and the autumn harvest will be in September. Working in the fields is a drop in the ocean, so it's better to find a way to get some urea and herbicides.

In 82, fertilizer was purchased and distributed by the team, but it was far from enough.

Herbicides were just beginning to appear, and most people didn't know what they were.

If all of them are used, production can increase by at least one-third.

"My second brother said that your gambling and fighting this time will be on your file, and you won't be able to join the army, get a job, or go to school. What else can you do?"

Xu Xiulian rolled her eyes and said irritably.

In her mind, there were only a few ways out, and they were all blocked.

"I'm thinking of starting a business. You've seen how lively the market is, and there are plenty of stalls in town. Besides, the policy encourages families to have side businesses, so we can't just rely on farming."

"Come on, give me a break!" Xu Xiulian waved her hands repeatedly. "Your eldest sister wove several baskets at the beginning of the year. She went to the market every time, and her legs got thin from running around for so long before she sold just one."

"Listen to your mother's advice: to do business, you need skills and capital, which we don't have."

"Let's settle down and focus on farming!"

"No capital is needed for anything from the mountains or the water," Zhang Wenshan said with a confident smile.

From what he remembered, the process of liberating the individual economy here was similar to what he knew. Now was a window of opportunity, and there was definitely a market for wild delicacies.

After all, who doesn't want to eat meat?

As for the technology...

His gaze sharpened slightly, and with a thought, a panel that only he could see appeared in his field of vision.

[Today's intelligence update countdown: 00:04:59]