Chapter 9: This harvest, satisfying

It’s a completely helpless situation: things that are useless or temporarily unneeded are just sitting idle in one’s hands, while the things one wants or needs are sitting idle in someone else’s!

Isn’t that damn frustrating? Who wouldn’t be frustrated by that?

People have to live, after all!

To live, one has various needs. With supplies currently so scarce and the regulations so strict, the result is that the crime rate is skyrocketing!

When Wang An arrived at the market, it was already nearly 10 o’clock. He tied up his mule and, without even unloading the roe deer, began to shout.

“Live roe deer! A live roe deer! Anyone want a live roe deer?”

Although the market was crowded, no one else was actually shouting to sell their goods; everyone was trading through normal conversation. Wang An’s shout immediately drew the eyes of most people there.

“How much is the roe deer meat per jin?” a woman asked. Meat was scarce in this era, regardless of the kind.

While passing other stalls earlier, Wang An had gotten a rough idea of the prices: wild boar and bear meat were basically 3 to 3.5 mao per jin; pheasants over four jin were 2 yuan each, those around 3 jin were 1.5 yuan each, "silly chickens" were 5 mao each, and "jumping cats" (lynx) were 4 mao per jin. There were even people selling hazel grouse—a single bird, weighing at most half a jin, could fetch 5 yuan! Good things are valuable no matter the time!

Wang An didn’t have a scale, so he borrowed one from the old man selling tobacco leaves next to him and weighed a few chunks of roe deer meat. They were all roughly two jin and one or two liang.

“Three mao a jin. A piece of meat is two jin and a bit, so let’s call it six mao!” Wang An said quickly.

After saying that, he continued to shout: “Live roe deer, roe deer meat, pheasants—everything is for sale! If you’ve got the money, I’ll sell it!”

The woman looked for a long time, picked out a large piece, and handed Wang An 6 mao. Wang An shouted loudly: “Here you go, sister, take good care of this meat! It’s good quality, a generous portion, and cheap! Everyone, hurry up and buy! Once it’s sold out, that’s it!”

Wang An kept shouting without stopping, and the other stall owners watched him and laughed, as if he were a joke!

Wang An didn’t care how they looked at him; let them look however they wanted!

Just then, a young man wearing glasses approached. He wore black leather shoes, knitted wool gloves, a Zhongshan suit, a military-green overcoat over it, a military-green cotton hat, and a long gray scarf around his neck. He looked like someone who worked at a proper office, riding a Phoenix 28-inch bicycle. He felt quite stylish! And quite wealthy, too!

“Hmm, the live roe deer has a buyer!” Wang An thought to himself.

“Old fellow, how much for this live roe deer?” he asked, pointing at the deer on the cart.

Wang An did a rough calculation in his head. Asking for a bit more definitely wouldn’t be a problem! It wasn’t like they couldn’t haggle!

“I’ll sell it for 30 yuan. It’s cheap. This thing is easy to kill but hard to find, and a live one is really hard to catch!” He put on a face that said, *You’re getting a huge bargain.*

To his surprise, the young man didn’t even haggle, simply pulling out three "Big Unities" (10-yuan bills) and handing them to Wang An.

Wang An was stunned. The old man selling tobacco was stunned. The stall owners nearby and the onlookers were all stunned!

In this era, ordinary government employees and formal forestry workers earned a monthly salary of 37.5 yuan, while temporary workers earned 17.5 yuan. So, 30 yuan was quite a lot for an ordinary person!

Roe deer meat was 3 mao a jin; a 60-jin roe deer would be doing well to yield 30 jin of meat! Add in the hide—which wasn’t worth much, maybe 1 yuan—and the deer pizzle, which might be worth two or three yuan. A whole roe deer was worth at most 13 yuan in total!!

It actually sold for 30 yuan! Holy crap!

Wang An was stunned for a moment but immediately snapped back to reality. There are plenty of people in every era who aren't short on money!

He took the three bills, stuffed them into his pocket, and immediately smiled: “Should I deliver it to your house, or should I slaughter and portion it for you right now?”

“Just help me tie it to the back seat!” The young man seemed quite happy too!

“You got it,” Wang An replied casually.

He then went behind the stall to a pile of branches—he didn't know whose it was—pulled out three sticks about the thickness of four fingers, broke them to a length of just over a meter, and threw the leftovers back onto the pile!

He used a thin hemp rope to tie the three sticks horizontally onto the bicycle’s back seat, then placed the roe deer on top! With a simple binding, the transaction for the three "Big Unities" was complete!

The young man didn’t even look back; he hopped on his bicycle and rode away.

In reality, he could have just put the deer on the back seat without the sticks, but Wang An was worried about the deer dying—after all, he’d sold it to the guy for 30 yuan!

“Pheasants! Pheasants! Only one left, I’ll let it go for two yuan!” Hearing this, and seeing that pheasant that hadn’t sold all this time, the old man selling tobacco shook his head.

He shouted for a long time, but there were still 9 chunks of roe deer meat left, and the pheasant hadn’t sold either! The purchasing power of ordinary people in this era was truly just average.

An hour later, an old lady spent one yuan and nine mao, haggling and dawdling, to buy the pheasant from Wang An. When he arrived, there had been 13 chunks of meat, and there were still 7 left! He looked at the sack on the cart; there was still a pile of work to do!

Gritting his teeth, Wang An shouted: “Five mao! Two jin and two liang of meat for five mao! Hurry, hurry! Once it’s sold, I’m going home! Five mao!”

This shout wasn’t in vain. Many who had been watching from the sidelines started pulling out their money, and he sold four more chunks. Then, the final three chunks remained completely ignored.

“To hell with it! I’m not selling!” Wang An’s thought turned directly into action. There wasn’t much to pack up; he untied the reins, intending to leave, when he suddenly thought of something.

He turned back and asked the old man selling tobacco: “Old man, I heard you say your tobacco leaves are 2 fen a jin?”

“Yeah, this is flue-cured tobacco. It smokes better than anyone else’s. Here, young man, have a smoke and try it!” As he spoke, he handed Wang An a pre-torn piece of rolling paper.

Wang An didn’t know anything about this stuff; his own father smoked tobacco he grew himself! Wang An currently smoked cigarettes, and one pack lasted him half a month!

Wang An said: “Old man, look at my roe deer meat—isn’t it pretty good? How about we trade some?”

The old man was clearly tempted. It wasn’t easy to get a bit of meat in this era!

“How much is your meat worth? Six mao?” the old man asked.

“What six mao? Didn’t you see I was selling it for five?”

“That works.” With that, the old man readily weighed out 25 jin of tobacco leaves!

Wang An handed the largest of the three chunks of meat to the old man and took the tobacco. Good heavens, 25 jin of tobacco was quite a lot—a huge bundle!

Wang An looked left and right, took the sack that had held the pheasant, wrapped the tobacco in it, and threw it onto the cart.

Day after day, he hadn’t even gotten his hands on the big money yet, and he was getting tripped up by these small amounts!

He calculated the earnings: a total of 37.5 yuan and a huge bundle of tobacco, with two chunks of meat left over! This income was on par with the monthly salary of those formal employees! Although the live roe deer was a bit of a fluke—he just happened to run into someone who wanted it—it didn’t matter; the money was in his pocket! Besides, he’d only been hunting for two days! He was satisfied with this harvest!!

The stuff from those three animals was a windfall and didn’t count as labor income.

He drove the cart straight toward the supply and marketing cooperative. Not long after leaving the market, Wang An was still calculating what he needed to buy when he looked up and froze!!

Wang An saw someone! He saw the woman who had haunted his dreams in both his past and present lives—Mu Xueqing!

If you have the desire to keep reading, please add this to your library and recommend it. I would be incredibly grateful!!

(End of chapter)