Siheyuan: Walking the Path of Qin Huairu

Thinking of this, Xu Huizhen secretly made up her mind that she would go to her hometown in the next spring to look for her parents. She remembered that they got married in 1960, and they should be 15 or 16 years old this year, younger than her current age.

Thinking that the three-year difficult period was about to begin, her mother in her previous life had told her more than once about what it felt like to be hungry. Eating bran or vegetables was fine, and eating tree bark or corn cobs was not uncommon. If she could find them, Xu Hui really wanted to do her best to help them suffer less.

It was less than 200 miles from Sijiucheng to Tianjin, and the train clanged along for three or four hours before reaching the destination. After getting off the train, she didn't have time to visit the local customs and people of Tianjin. She was traveling with her child, which was inconvenient, so she had to make a quick decision.

Xu Huizhen first bought a map of Tianjin to see how to get there.

She wanted to buy a large amount of seafood, so she didn't want to buy it directly from the dock. She wanted to find a fishing village near the sea and ask the village chief to buy it for her. If possible, she could make it a long-term deal.

To be on the safe side, she used the mouth under her nose to inquire again: "Hello, uncle! I am from Sijiu City and want to exchange some seafood to take back. Do you know how to get to the nearest fishing village?" Then she handed over the map in her hand.

Seeing Xu Huizhen holding a beautiful and sweet-spoken child in her arms, the old man enthusiastically showed her the way.

Xu Huizhen found a secluded place and fed Li'er enough milk. After checking that there was no one around, she put the child in the space, took out the bicycle, put a bag of rice and a bag of flour on the back seat, each weighing 30 kilograms, and tied them tightly. She got on the bicycle and set off.

She hadn't ridden a bicycle for many years, so her skills were a little rusty. She got on the bike and it twisted left and right, which scared her. She had to concentrate and focus on controlling the 28-inch bicycle. After ten minutes, she became much more skilled, after all, she was an experienced driver.

She felt tired halfway through, so she stopped, went into the space to have some lunch and rest for a while.

I don’t know how long I rode for, and Xu Huizhen didn’t have a watch, but I finally arrived at the Shawang Village that the old man mentioned.

As the name suggests, the soil in Shawang Village is seriously desertified, and the yield of crops is low. The main way to make a living is to go fishing. The village is not small, with about 100 to 180 households. When she entered the village, she met a few people. Everyone looked at her from a distance with curiosity.

Xu Huizhen found that the people in the village were very skinny, with not much flesh on their bodies. But they were in good spirits. From a nutritional point of view, seafood is rich in protein, so eating it will not make you fat, while the main component of grain is starch, and eating too much will easily make you fat. So it is very likely that they eat too much seafood, which is why they are so thin. Thinking of this, Xu Huizhen smiled unkindly. In the future, you can eat as much expensive seafood as you want. You are so "lucky".

Xu Huizhen took out two pieces of candy from her pocket, handed them to a half-grown child, and said, "Can you take me to the village chief's house?" The child happily took the candy and said, "I'll take you there!" Then he led the way.

After a while, the child pointed ahead and said, "See? That best brick house is the village chief's house." Then he ran to the door of the village chief's house and shouted at the top of his voice, "Uncle village chief, there are guests looking for you."

When Xu Huizhen came over with her bicycle, she saw a middle-aged man in his forties coming out of his house. His face was tanned, probably due to years of exposure to ultraviolet rays at the beach. He had a pipe in his mouth. When he saw Xu Huizhen, he asked with a puzzled look on his face: "You look unfamiliar, I wonder if you are..."

Xu Huizhen smiled and said, "Hello, uncle! I'm from Beijing. Our village is close to the sea. I want to exchange some seafood for my relatives at home. Is it possible?" As she said that, she turned around and patted the bag of grain on the back seat of the bicycle.

The village chief was also a smart man. He immediately smiled on his bronze face and said, "Sure, why not? What's the most important thing in our village is seafood. Come, let's talk inside."

Xu Huizhen unloaded two bags of grain from the bicycle, and the village chief came up and picked up one bag, then went into the house. It should be around four o'clock in the afternoon, and Xu Huizhen didn't have time to waste. She asked straight to the point: "Uncle, how much is your seafood per pound?"

The village chief saw that the young wife was pretty and spoke in a pleasant way, so he did not ask for an exorbitant price. He said, "Dried kelp is 2 cents a pound, dried shrimp is 3 cents a pound, large shrimp and small dried fish is 5 cents a pound, large sea rice is 8 cents a pound, hairtail is cents a pound, Spanish mackerel is cents a pound, sea bass is cent a pound. And octopus is cents a pound."

As he spoke, he took out his own stock and showed it to Xu Huizhen. Xu Huizhen saw that the fish were really big. There was no overfishing in this era, and the marine resources were still very rich. There was no artificial breeding either, and they were all natural and wild.

Xu Huizhen opened the bag and took out a handful of white rice to show the village chief. The village chief's eyes lit up when he saw the rice and flour. The thing their village lacked most was food. They had been eating seafood all year round and their mouths were sore.

Xu Huizhen asked: "How much do you think rice and flour are priced at?"

The village chief said, "35 cents for flour, how about 30 cents for rice?" In Beijing, flour is 18 cents per pound, and rice is 15 cents per pound. But food is supplied per person, and there is a limit on the quantity. You can't buy as much as you want. The key is that the food Xu Huizhen brought is of very good quality, and the village chief is very knowledgeable about the market, so the price he gave is also good.

Xu Huizhen nodded and continued to ask: "Uncle Village Chief, it's not easy for me to come here. Can you buy more and the price be cheaper?"

Village Chief: "How much can you buy?"

Xu Huizhen: "This is all the food I brought with me. The rest can be bought with money. I can buy about 3000 kilograms." The village chief was surprised when he heard this.

He thought for a moment and said that the price he just mentioned would be reduced by one cent for prices above 10 cents, and by five cents for prices below 10 cents.

Every family in their village has a lot of seafood. After selling them, they can just go out to sea to fish again. Fishermen have a hard life these days. They work hard to go out to sea to fish, but they can't sell seafood at a good price.