For Zhang Tie, the two days on the weekend passed very quickly. Because his father had to go to work on Saturday, Zhang Tie spent the day making rice wine with his mother at home on Saturday. The small shop at home probably I can sell about five or six cans of rice wine, which is not a lot of income, but it is also a small supplement to the Zhang family, who have always lived a careful life.
Rice wine is a traditional Chinese delicacy, and its preparation is not complicated. The main raw material is rice, and the processing process is also simple. Wash the rice first, put it in a pot and cook it until it is about halfway cooked, pick up the rice, and dry it. Then steam it in a steamer, dry it, and then put it into a tight pot into a clay pot. During the canning process, mix in sugar and honey, and finally sprinkle with water, which is yeast liquid. After sealing it, let it ferment naturally. After one month, it can be opened for consumption. The taste of the prepared rice wine retains the sweetness and glutinousness of the rice. It is rich in nutrients and has a comfortable sweetness. It can not only satisfy your hunger, but also has a very refreshing but not intoxicating taste of alcohol. It is refreshing. It relieves summer heat, nourishes the spleen and stomach, and is extremely delicious. Zhang Tie and his brother grew up eating rice wine made by their mother.
Although the manufacturing process of rice wine is simple, the proportion and heat of each step are very particular. The Zhang family's rice wine has a little reputation and popularity among nearby neighborhoods and regular customers, but it has been conscientious for more than ten years. It was accumulated bit by bit.
The result of a busy day on Saturday was to make seven cylinders of rice wine. After making these rice wine, he moved the rice wine to the warehouse behind the shop and stored it. Zhang Tie went out on a small tricycle modified at home to carry goods. I made two trips, one to a rice store to buy rice. The rice in the rice vat at home almost bottomed out after making rice wine, so Zhang Tie had to go to the rice store every weekend. On one trip, after buying rice, I also bought two kilograms of sugar. When buying rice this time, Zhang Tie found that the price of rice in the rice shop had increased a little. Last week, the price of a 25 kilogram bag of ordinary rice was 4 silver coins and 45 copper coins. Today, when he went to the rice shop, he found that 25 kilograms of rice were sold at 25 kilograms. The price of a bag of ordinary rice has quietly increased to 4 silver coins and 58 coppers per bag. Within a week, the price has increased by nearly 3.
Zhang Tie was shocked. We ordinary people are extremely sensitive to the price changes of these daily necessities. Zhang Tie remembered that the price of rice in Heiyan City has basically not changed in the past three years since he entered middle school. Last week At that time, each bag was worth 4 silver coins and 45 coppers. How could it have increased so much in just one week
"Oh, Zhang Tie, there's nothing we can do. The price of rice went up the day before yesterday when we purchased the goods. We can only follow the increase. We can't do a loss-making business!" The owner of the rice store is also an acquaintance. When it comes to rice prices, , began to complain to Zhang Tie, "Our rice in Heiyan City is brought from outside. Several farms and planting areas outside Heiyan City cannot guarantee the city's food supply. We What can be done? The prices of these things are all decided by the big business groups above. Not only the rice, but also the noodles have also increased in price in the past two days. If you don’t believe me, go look elsewhere. They are all at this price. , and some are more expensive..."
The owner of the rice shop has been a regular customer for many years. Zhang Tie is not stupid enough to actually look elsewhere. The price of grain in Heiyan City is basically the same everywhere. The same bag of rice will be sold at various rice stores in Heiyan City The price difference in the store is one to three coppers at most. If the price difference is more than five coppers, it is basically impossible to sell it. I have been dealing with it for many years. This rice store is also run by a hard-working and shrewd Chinese owner. This is trustworthy. There are still some.
According to the price of 4 silver coins and 58 coppers, which is 458 coppers, Zhang Tie bought three bags, which is 75 kilograms of rice, and put them on his tricycle. This tricycle was made of a second-hand bicycle with a pocket and It's a modified wheel. It looks ugly, and its load capacity is limited. Three bags of rice and one person like Zhang Tie is almost its limit. When moving the rice, Zhang Tie carefully checked the needle holes and threads on the rice pockets. He was relieved when he saw that there were no traces of holes or re-sewing. Some rice shop owners and grain merchants with evil intentions were going to do something If you are trying to make a difference by substituting a shoddy product, or even worse, adding sand to the rice, you have to remove the needle and thread on the rice pocket and sew it up again, so if you are careful, check the thread on the rice pocket. You can tell whether a bag of rice has been tampered with by looking at the eye of a needle or the end of a thread. The children of poor people become rich early. This is Zhang Tie's experience in buying rice over the years.
After buying rice and two kilograms of sugar from a local grocery store not far from the rice store, Zhang Tiecai rode a tricycle home. As expected, after the price of rice increased by 3, the price of sugar also increased. However, the price of sugar has risen even more. Last week, the price of jaggery was 91 copper coins per kilogram. This time, it went up to 1 silver coin per kilogram. After looking at several nearby stores, Zhang Tie bought two kilograms. Candy, put in a cloth bag and hung on the handlebar of the car. Riding that ugly modified second-hand tricycle, I staggered back home.
When I got home, I told my mother about the increase in the price of rice and sugar, and then gave her the remaining money to buy goods, which was a lot of money. I watched my mother take the money, and finally thought After thinking for a while, he counted ten coppers from his hand and gave them to Zhang Tie as pocket money.
Zhang Tie, who got ten coppers, said to his mother with a smile on his face, "Thank you, mom!" Today, my mother was much more generous. She usually only said five coppers at most.
My mother sighed and frowned, "The prices of rice and sugar have gone up. I'm afraid the price of our rice wine will have to go up as well. The profit is already thin. If the price doesn't increase, the business will be gone." If we continue to do this, if we raise prices, we may lose some old customers! Sigh... "
Looking at his frowning mother, Zhang Tie blurted out in excitement, "Mom, don't worry, I will definitely let you and dad live a good life in the future. I am different from before!"
"Mom knows, our little Guoguo is now an adult. Of course it's different from before!" Mom laughed and reached out to touch Zhang Tie's head.
Hearing the other meaning behind the word "adult" in his mother's tone, Zhang Tie felt embarrassed again for a moment, "Mom, it's not what you think, I mean..."
"Okay, okay, mom knows that our Guoguo has grown up and is a good and filial child. Let's not talk about this anymore. You can quickly send this rice soup to Aunt Teresa. It's too late today. I can’t catch up!”
Zhang Tie's words were interrupted by his mother, and the following words were not spoken. Zhang Tie sulked again and loaded the remaining jars of rice soup at home onto the ugly tricycle again. Zhang Tie felt a little depressed. He rode the bike again and rushed to another place. Thinking about how impulsively, he almost blurted out the strange thing about the Black Iron Castle, he felt a little bit guilty that he was still too impulsive. If the secret were to be known to his family now, apart from worrying his parents and bringing many unpredictable risks, Zhang Tie really couldn't think of any other benefits it would bring to the family. Riding on the car, Zhang Tie secretly made up his mind to let this secret rot in his heart from now on. If he has the ability, he can just let his family enjoy the benefits of the Black Iron Castle. There is no need for them to have to worry about this. Worry about yourself. Whether it is for yourself or this family, the less people know about the secrets of the Black Iron Castle, the better.
Heiyan City is an emerging industrial city with little historical heritage. One of the benefits of an emerging city is that at the beginning of planning, Heiyan City fully considered the convenience of urban transportation. Many roads are very spacious, especially On some main roads, sidewalks, non-motorized lanes, and motorized lanes are all clearly distinguished. Zhang Tie rode on the modified second-hand tricycle, ringing the bell, and drove quickly on the non-motorized road in Heiyan City. As I shuttled back and forth, I envied the cars that passed by on the motorway around me from time to time, and imagined that one day I could get a car and take my family or a beautiful woman like Teacher Dinah with me. Take a ride around town.
Before the catastrophe, the steam engine had been a technology that humans had eliminated for nearly hundreds of years. I heard that humans at that time had invented various advanced mechanical equipment and technologies, but left the steam engine in the garbage heap of history, never to be seen again. Nobody cares. Among those advanced technologies, some are like myths to Zhang Tie - such as various machines that can fly in the air, ships that can still move without adding fuel for hundreds of years, and means of sending people to the stars. , devices that can easily communicate and see each other even though they are millions of miles away, and the devilish weapons that can easily completely wipe out a city or even a country by planting a mushroom, etc., the school teacher was talking about These moments were full of sighs, and Zhang Tie's eyes were filled with stars. The human society before the catastrophe was really unimaginable. After the catastrophe, mankind lost all this glory. In desperation, mankind dug out steam engines from the garbage heap of history, from the simplest condensing steam vacuum pump to the most complex high-pressure steam turbine. These various outdated gadgets that were dug out from the pile of history began to glow with youth again, and supported mankind to stand up and start running again in this era that is different from any previous era, just like Just like those cars equipped with small boutique reciprocating two-stage steam engines and speeding around the city.
In Heiyan City, ordinary people's means of transportation are their feet and urban public transportation. Some working-class people may buy a bicycle. For example, Zhang Tie's family modified such a weird second-hand bicycle for the convenience of delivering goods and shopping. Tricycle. But for the truly rich, the only means of transportation for those rich people is cars, which cost thousands of gold coins each. For these people, cars are no longer just a means of transportation, but a symbol of status and strength. In the entire Black Flame City, after so many years, there are still less than 1,000 private cars, and the people who can sit in them are either rich or noble. At least in Zhang Tie's school, Zhang Tie didn't find any student or teacher's family who could afford such a car. Even for Captain Colin, as the most terrifying one-eyed dragon in Black Flame City, even though his salary is not low compared to ordinary people, if he wants to buy a car, it is possible that he will have to buy a car with just his salary. It is only possible to go without eating or drinking for 50 years.
From childhood to adulthood, almost all the superficial knowledge Zhang Tie learned about machinery and tools in school were related to various steam engines. As a man with an innate desire to conquer the world, 15-year-old Zhang Tie There were two biggest extravagant dreams for the future, one was Teacher Dinah, and the other was a beautiful private car. The combination of these two extravagant dreams gave birth to the kind of paradise-like life Zhang Tie dreamed of - driving every day. Get in the car, pull Teacher Dinah, and then find a place with beautiful scenery and no one to disturb you. Talk to Teacher Dinah about the human piston movement process related to the steam engine, and also test the anti-seismic performance of the car tires and seats.
The young man, immersed in the unknown "ambition", worked hard on the tricycle and flew around the city. Thirty minutes later, he finally made it before six o'clock in the evening and pulled the things on the car to Mother Teresa. Grandma’s orphanage…