Chapter 5 Time Counting
In the misty morning, the tractor entered Jiangchuan City.

It was Zhang Yunfeng's first time going into the city to sell cigarettes, and he was extremely nervous, especially on the way there, he was worried about being caught by the people from the Fengyang County Tobacco Control Office.

Zhang Yunqi felt that his elder brother's worries were not unreasonable. If he walked on the road too much at night, he would encounter a ghost sooner or later. If he was caught by the Fengyang Tobacco Control Office, his car would be confiscated and he would be fined.

It is necessary to prepare for a rainy day. If there is someone protecting you from above, you don't have to worry about such things. But his family is very poor, and all his relatives are farmers digging in the fields. None of them are strong enough to show off.

At this moment, he suddenly thought of Ji Ling.

Arriving at the tobacco station, the two brothers unloaded the cured tobacco, and Zhang Yunqi ran to a nearby store to buy a strip of soft white sand and a few newspapers. In those days, rural information was too isolated, and if he wanted to know about the outside world, he could only read these things. However, after flipping through them, he found that today's news was all bullshit.

Having been to the Jiangchuan City Tobacco Station once, Zhang Yunqi was familiar with the route. He took his elder brother to find the bearded man, took out a bag of soft white sand and stuffed it into his hand, smiling and saying, "Uncle, this is my elder brother. Please help me more in the future."

The bearded man glanced at Zhang Yunfeng, nodded and said, "You guys bring the cigarettes in."

The two brothers carried the cured tobacco into the factory, and the bearded man asked people to filter out the low-grade tobacco and broken tobacco.

Smokers would stuff inferior tobacco into good tobacco, which is like injecting water into beef. Although Zhang Yunfeng carefully screened the tobacco when he collected it, some of it slipped through the net, causing him to buy the low-grade tobacco at the price of the second-grade flue-cured tobacco. However, the professionals at the tobacco station would screen them out and buy them at 5 yuan per pound. This means that he had to pay a few yuan for every pound of low-grade flue-cured tobacco that was screened out.

Zhang Yunfeng felt very painful when he saw this, and he should be more careful next time.

The process of selling cigarettes is the same as last time, first rating, then weighing.

There were 600 kilograms of flue-cured tobacco in total. Big Beard picked out 40 kilograms of the lowest-priced flue-cured tobacco, and the remaining 560 kilograms were all purchased by the Zhang Yunqi brothers at the price of second-grade flue-cured tobacco. Among them, Big Beard rated 134 kilograms as second-grade, and he rated the remaining 426 kilograms as first-grade.

Zhang Yunfeng's heart was pounding as he started to calculate. Grade one was 1 yuan more expensive than grade two. 426 kilograms of grade one flue-cured tobacco meant a gross profit of 426. After deducting all the miscellaneous costs, he would definitely make a huge profit of 400 yuan from this business!

Zhang Yunfeng was so happy that everyone was stunned.

Zhang Yunqi did not show any joy on his face. He handed a cigarette to each person in the circle, called them "big brother" and "big sister" with admiring eyes and a tone of voice. Then he took the dazed Zhang Yunfeng to the finance office to settle the bill and returned home.

When passing Longwan Town, Zhang Yunqi said he wanted to buy some meat.

He really couldn't stand the food at home. In the half month since he came back to life, he had to eat spicy peppers at every meal, so that every time he took a shit, his fart was hot and spicy.

Zhang Yunfeng was very happy. Now that he could earn money, it was necessary to improve the food. He said, then let's cut a few kilograms of fat pork!
In this era, people generally lacked oil and water, and liked to eat fat meat. Zhang Yunqi didn't like this, so he cut three catties of pork belly, fifty catties of rice, and bought a catty of fruit-flavored hard candy for Xiao Xiao at his strong request. The total cost was only 22 yuan. It must be said that money at that time was really valuable and had strong purchasing power.

When he got home, Zhang Yunfeng immediately went into the inner room to keep accounts.

Zhang Yunqi carried 50 kilograms of rice and 3 kilograms of pork to Zhang Ma, and gave fruit candies to Zhang Xiaoxiao. The little girl was so happy that she almost flew to the sky. She hid some of the fruit candies in the pockets of her ragged clothes and in the pockets of her tattered pants. If it wasn't for the New Year or other festivals, she wouldn't be able to eat such good things.

Zhang Yunqi was in trouble. He was scolded by Zhang Ma for spending money lavishly and was sent to the fields to pick pigweed. As a result, he picked a basket of bitter herbs and came back with it. He almost made Zhang Ma seriously angry.

Aunt Zhang poked him on the forehead and scolded him: "You are such an idiot! How can you eat bitter food? If you don't eat it, how can you expect the pig to eat it?"

Zhang Xiaoxiao was giggling with her hands covering her sugar-covered mouth. Zhang Yunqi was embarrassed. He could learn farm work from his elder brother, but this was the first time in his life to pull pigweed. He didn't recognize those messy wild vegetables. Seeing there were so many of them in the field, he pulled them all back. As a result, he made a big joke.

Zhang Yunfeng had finished keeping the accounts. When he heard the noise outside, he called Zhang Ma into the inner room, took out a handful of money from the drawer, and said excitedly, "Mom, this is the money we made from selling cigarettes this time!"

Aunt Zhang asked quickly: "How much did you earn?"

"403!"

Zhang's mother was so happy that she counted the money over and over again: "I can earn more than 400 yuan per trip, which means yuan a month. It won't be long before our family becomes a millionaire!"

Zhang Yunfeng said, "Yunqi said that this is a seasonal business and will only last for one or two months at most. We have to hurry up. Yunqi and I have to go buy flue-cured tobacco this afternoon. Mom, hurry up and cook."

"Yes, keep the money safe."

Zhang Ma gave the money to Zhang Yunfeng and went to the stove to cook. Lunch was ready before twelve o'clock. There was fragrant rice and a big pot of stir-fried meat with chopped peppers and cabbage. The aroma of red oil was wafting, and the food was spicy and delicious. The whole family ate until their faces were greasy and even the bottom of the basin was scraped clean.

When cooking, my mother originally wanted to keep half of the meat, but it was only at Zhang Yunqi's insistence that she finished cooking it all.

Zhang Yunqi watched Xiaoxiao lick the bottom of the bowl clean and felt very sad. He picked up the last piece of meat in his bowl and gave it to the little girl.

After lunch, Zhang Yunqi and his elder brother went to the countryside to harvest tobacco and did not return until the evening.

The next day before dawn, the two brothers went to the city to sell cigarettes again. Although they were tired from early morning to late at night, the family situation was getting better day by day. At least they no longer had to worry about food. There was enough meat for every meal. He was happy and could enjoy the youth that he didn't have time to enjoy in his previous life with a calm state of mind.

In her spare time, Zhang Xiaomei would call him to play together, along with Ji Ling. The three of them would go to the river to catch shrimps and climb trees to pick dates. After a while, they seemed to have found the feeling of their previous life.

Although she came to the countryside for her summer vacation, Ji Ling brought a lot of textbooks and homework. She was a freshman at Jiangchuan No. 1 Middle School, the best middle school in the city. There would be a placement test at the beginning of the school year, so she needed to review her junior high school homework.

Once, Ji Ling encountered a problem that he couldn't solve, so he asked Zhang Xiaomei. Zhang Xiaomei immediately betrayed Zhang Yunqi and said, "There's a top scorer in the high school entrance exam sitting next to me, so don't embarrass me."

Ji Ling didn't know about this yet, so he looked at Zhang Yunqi and asked, "Really?"

Zhang Xiaomei continued, "How could this be fake? He is the genuine top scorer in the Fengyang County high school entrance exam. Isn't that amazing? He is the pride of our entire village!"

"I didn't realize that, Xiao Zhang, you are pretty good."

Zhang Yunqi didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

He took the exercise book and looked through it carefully, then gave the answers to Ji Ling. In fact, what he had learned before had long been forgotten, but fortunately these junior high school questions were not difficult and he could figure out most of them. When he encountered questions he didn't know how to answer, he would find an excuse to explain them tomorrow.

The tutoring time passed quickly, and before we knew it, it was evening. Ji Ling was tired of doing the exercises, so he closed the exercise book, squinted at the sky, and said to Zhang Yunqi, "Let's go out for a walk?"

Zhang Yunqi nodded and agreed.

It was already past six in the afternoon, the sky was getting dark, the sun was setting, and Yunxi Village was shrouded in warm sunshine. Zhang Yunqi accompanied Ji Ling as they chatted and walked, all the way to the river, where they saw dandelions blooming on the green grass, one furry little ball after another.

Ji Ling happily picked a lot of them, held them in her hands, then sat by the river with Zhang Yunqi to talk, took off her shoes and soaked her feet in the clear water.

Ji Ling said that your high school entrance exam results were so good, which high school did you apply to?

Zhang Yunqi said: "I didn't apply for a high school in my high school entrance exam, but a technical secondary school in the provincial capital."

"Then when you go to the provincial capital, you may only see each other during the summer vacation. You may not see each other for a long time. Many good friends slowly forget each other in this way."

Zhang Yunqi turned his head and looked into her eyes, watching the wind blow the dandelions in her arms away and scatter them on the water, like a light snow.

He suddenly recalled some of the things he had experienced with Ji Ling in his previous life. They had drifted apart in this way. Zhang Yunqi withdrew his gaze and smiled, "Isn't it always like this? We meet sometimes, but never meet again."

"Why are you talking about never seeing each other again at such a young age? You act like a little adult."

Zhang Yunqi couldn't explain this. No matter how he tried to cover it up, his mentality was that of a greasy middle-aged uncle. He couldn't speak or act like a child. "Maybe I read too many books. There's a cliché saying that goes, if you have too many stories in your heart, your mentality will become old."

"Then tell me a story. I'm really bored."

"Once upon a time..."

"Brother, this is such a clichéd beginning."

"Sister, please don't interrupt me. It's hard to get in the mood for storytelling."

"Okay, go ahead."

"A long time ago, there were three boys chasing after a girl. The girl said to them: Travel around the world and come back, and I will choose you. The first boy went to Europe, America, and Africa, the second boy went to Australia, and the third boy came back to the girl, walked around her and said: You are my whole world!"

Ji Ling said: "The third boy must have touched the girl a lot, right? Did she choose him?"

Zhang Yunqi smiled: "Yes, the girl was very moved and shed tears, and then she chose the richest one among them."

“Is there such a realistic girl?”

“It’s just a story.”

Ji Ling held her delicate chin with her hand, thinking: "If it's you, which boy are you?"

Zhang Yunqi laid on the grass with his hands on his head: "You think too highly of me, I'm only 16 years old, a minor, and my mother told me not to fall in love too early."

******
(End of this chapter)