Chapter 246 Recasting
Old man Zhang Liushun welcomed his first Spring Festival after being released from prison.

In his eyes, this Lunar New Year is very different from when he was in prison.

The whole city of Jiangchuan seemed to be filled with a warm, festive and vibrant atmosphere. Although the streets were still the shabby streets he had seen a few years ago, and the houses were still the dirty and messy bungalows and tube-shaped buildings covered with smoke and dust, he could always sense a spirit that had never been seen before from the expressions on the faces of the common people. As a poor person who had gone through the ups and downs of the old society, he knew that the spirit was brought about by the increasingly affluent life after the earth-shaking changes in society.

Just look at the street!

Small restaurants, small shops and clothing stores, which were once regarded as a scourge of private economic activities, have long been openly established on the streets. Street vendors hawk their wares like ants in the alleys of the city. Since when, more and more people have been wearing colorful clothes, and the streets are full of fashionable foreign gadgets, including food, clothing, daily necessities and toys. As long as you have money, it seems that all material needs can become a reality in your life.

When he was first released, Zhang was puzzled by the changes in society, wondering if people nowadays no longer need cloth coupons and food coupons to buy food and clothing. When he asked, he learned that in April last year, when he was still in prison, the cloth coupons and food coupons that had accompanied him for more than 40 years had been abolished by the state, symbolizing the end of the "coupon era" that symbolized the poverty of China.

You have to know that in his old era, tickets were the lifeline of life. Without tickets, you could not take a single step. You needed meal tickets to eat, cloth tickets to wear clothes, meat tickets to satisfy your cravings. In addition, there were oil tickets, sugar tickets, cigarette tickets, bath tickets, soap tickets, cotton tickets, bicycle tickets... For ordinary people, tickets were as precious as "second currency". However, now, if he wants to eat fish or crack a handful of melon seeds and peanuts, he no longer needs to wait until the Spring Festival. As long as the wallet in his trouser pocket is thick enough, he can eat anything that flies in the sky or swims in the sea.

The pace of change in this era is so fast!

It seemed that in silence, those gray, monotonous, dead old things and the old society were abandoned by the new era. Then the people cheered and recast new hope for life on the ruins and accepted new and straightforward foreign ideas.

As for his family, the changes were even greater. The most basic change was that they no longer had to eat or wear clothes. In the past, it was not easy to weigh some pork to make dumplings during the Spring Festival, and the children always wore tattered clothes with patches on top of patches. Now? Chickens, ducks, fish and meat are all available. The children wear expensive brand-name clothes. The electrical appliances and furniture in the house are all high-end foreign goods that he can't even name. The family lives a rich and beautiful life, prosperous and harmonious.

To Old Man Zhang, the life before his eyes was as incredible as a dream.

In the eyes of the retired elderly people in the community where he lives, he is also a happy and carefree old man, with fine clothes and delicious food, and a very leisurely life. More importantly, his son is a wealthy man and drives a million-dollar luxury car!
Old man Zhang has never lived such a dignified life in his life.

When he walked in the neighborhood, neighbors he knew would smile at him politely, greet him warmly, even fawningly, and flatter him. If he joined the gossiping old men and women in the neighborhood, he would of course become the center of attention.

However, he also has his own unspeakable sufferings.

People are always contradictory. When they are busy, they feel that life is heavy, and when they are idle, they feel depressed.

Led by the third son Yunqi, each member of the Zhang family has created a business of their own, big or small. The eldest son Yunfeng is always busy with everything, and he walks with a gust of wind. He is either planning to open a new store or having a love affair with Guorui's youngest daughter Xiaonan.

As for the third son, Yunqi, it goes without saying that he is busy all day long. As for the New Year, he only stayed at home and visited relatives and friends on New Year's Eve and the first day of the New Year. On the second day of the New Year, his daughter Zhang Qiulan and son-in-law Niu Fen came, and the three of them pulled a cart of work.

By the third year of junior high school, he was nowhere to be seen again.

He heard from his wife that the canning factory would start work on the eighth day of the first lunar month, and there were a lot of things to be decided, and he had to work overtime with the employees of the canning factory's production department to develop new canned products. Oh! It's not easy to be a boss. He is young, still in school, and his body hasn't fully developed. He works day and night, always dragging his tired body home in the middle of the night, eating some hot cold rice and cold dishes, and falling on the bed. When the next day dawns, he is gone again.

Of course, Old Man Zhang did not blame his sons. The two brothers, Yunfeng and Yunqi, were able to run from their poor and remote mountain corners to the city and build such an impressive career with bare hands. As a father who only eats white rice, his chest is filled with only pride and pride. However, seeing his two sons so busy and he can't help much, he is bored all day long, and he feels a little uncomfortable. As for Chunlan and Xiaoxiao, these two girls are in their youthful age, how can they have the time to accompany him, an old man who is neither old nor old, every day. Even his wife, who has been running the fishmeal shop for a long time and hears others call her boss all day long, has gradually become a female capitalist. She is in charge of all matters at home and is busy managing the opening of Zhangji Fishmeal Shop in No. 1 Middle School.

Usually he is the only one at home, not having to take care of anything. His daily task is to eat well, drink well, sleep well and take care of his body. But his life is really lonely. He is only in his early fifties. At this age, the pampered civil servants are far from retiring. He is a farmer who is used to staying in the countryside, and he really can't stand such a leisurely life.

If he were in Yunxi Village, he would meet acquaintances everywhere as long as he walked to the fields with his hoe on his shoulder. But now that he was stranded in the city, he felt like he was locked in a cage made of reinforced concrete. Hey! He didn't know any of the people on the street, and the old men and women in the community were mostly retired intellectuals who spoke with a strange tone, which made conversations awkward and uncomfortable. It was not like in Yunxi Village, where after he finished his work in the fields, he would sit on the ridges of the fields with those illiterate old men, light a pipe, spit everywhere, curse the heavens and the earth, and feel very happy.

Now the only one who spits at him is Chu Dapeng.

This new old guy I met did slide a bit, but it was really interesting.

Chu Dapeng also knew his distress, but he always laughed at this old man for not knowing how to appreciate his good fortune, saying: "Isn't it easy for you to do some work? Just find your third son. He is so capable, and he can arrange any job you want!"

In fact, Old Man Zhang had thought about this matter, but after careful consideration, he gave up the idea.

The third child in the family is so young, it is not easy to make a career, he does not want to get involved and cause trouble. Of course, it may not be a problem for the third child to arrange a position for him, but how to arrange this position is a headache! If it is too high, he is a farmer and does not have that ability; if it is too low, such as guarding the door or something like that, not to mention the loss of face for the third child, the leaders in charge will also have a hard time, how dare they give orders to the boss's father? In the end, everyone is embarrassed, supporting a useless person, he is not without food, it is better for him to stay at home.

The days passed by in this way.

After a few days of lively Spring Festival, on the sixth day of the first lunar month, the third brother Yunqi and his son-in-law Niu Fen were discussing things at home and rarely went out.

At first, Old Man Zhang, who was sitting in front of the TV watching "Desire", didn't pay much attention to it. Until later, when he heard his son-in-law say that the planting cooperative run by Yunqi in Yunxi Village was about to hold a members' meeting to elect the chairman and vice-chairman, an idea suddenly popped into his mind.

Zhang Lao heard about Yunqi's shareholding crop planting cooperative from his wife a few days ago. At that time, he was only impressed by Lao San's idea. With this, the people in their village can make a lot of extra money on top of the previous years' crop harvest. Apart from anything else, if this project can really be implemented, the poor people in their village will at least have enough food to eat.

Now, Old Man Zhang suddenly had an idea: could he also invest in the village cooperative and do something big together?
Anyway, this planting cooperative is all about growing crops. He is not good at other things, but he is good at this! And he doesn't need to bother Yunqi to arrange anything for him. During the Chinese New Year, his filial children gave him red envelopes worth several thousand yuan. This savings is enough for him to buy shares in the cooperative.

Old man Zhang's heart began to burn.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt that this idea would work. Not only would he support the third brother's great cause, he would also find a job for himself and contribute to the development of the village.

But he did not discuss it with Yunqi immediately. Instead, he pondered it over in his mind. After his son-in-law Niu Fen had finished lunch and left, he took the third son Yunqi aside and talked about this idea.

Little did Yunqi know that he was stunned after hearing this.

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(End of this chapter)