Chapter 12 twelve

Zhennan Fort is completely different from what I imagined. I regret that I hurried for thirty miles all morning, and the soles of my feet hurt from walking. The so-called market town is just an earthen village built by the herders in the past on the pasture. It is located among pebbles and gravel at the foot of the mountain, and achnatherum splendens grows sparsely around it.In the earthen wall rammed with loess, lived about a dozen families, not as many as our team.The gate of the earthen wall has been demolished long ago, and people who come and go get in and out through an ugly hole like a broken tooth.However, there is a postal agency with an earthen house, a credit union with an earthen house, a shop with an earthen house, and a police station with two earthen houses, so it seems to have become a political and economic center.There were more people than usual, but it was bustling. It reminded me of Middle Eastern movies made by Hollywood, such as the scene of the small Arabian bazaar in "Green Blood and Yellow Sand".I first went to the postal agency to send a letter to my mother, telling her that my office was disbanded, and now I have become a real worker, a "self-sufficient laborer"; I eat well, grow fat, I was very tanned, and everyone said I was a standard, strong young man, just like a poster in the Soviet Union "What have you contributed to the motherland?" "Steel workers on the board.

I don't have any money, but I have a lot of nice things to send my mom. My team members, including the "Director of Sales Department", also entrusted me to send letters.Their letters are very thick, and they are probably reciting bitter scriptures to their families again, asking their family members to apply for a relocation permit for them as soon as possible, I think.The provincial newspaper from a week ago is posted on the door of the postal agency.The movie theater in the provincial capital was showing the Soviet film "Red Sails".I know it's based on Green's original book.Ah, Hongfan, Hongfan, can you bring me happiness like you did to Asoli? ... I went out into the street.This "street", I walked back and forth twice in less than ten minutes.The store contained only a few bolts of dusty cotton cloth, a few cotton wool blankets, and, of course, salt.On the blackened earth wall, there is a "lubu" that reads "Good News Newly Arrived in Iraq Candied Dates for 2 Yuan per Catty", and the red paper has turned orange.Ask the old man leaning against the stove, it really happened half a year ago.

There were twenty or thirty old farmers setting up stalls in the fair, mostly baskets of shriveled old men's potatoes and yellow radishes, and some selling spicy noodles mixed with a lot of sorghum husks.A fellow villager brought an old sheep that looked like a thin dog, and it was quickly bought by workers from a nearby gravel factory at a high price of 150 yuan.I reckoned that it can butcher ten catties of meat at most.I kept watching the workers holding the sheep—strange, they didn’t let the sheep go by themselves—out of the hole, swallowed, and then turned my face.Meat, I dare not care about it.

My goal is yellow radishes, and potatoes are high-end foods.I walked towards a stall with brighter yellow radishes. "My fellow, how much is a catty?" "One piece, six cents." The fellow said while making gestures, as if he was afraid that I would not understand, but also as if he was afraid that I would be surprised.I wasn't surprised, and pointed to the potato next to me calmly: "Where are the potatoes?" "Two yuan." "How can there be such a deal? Potatoes are too expensive." "Expensive! My good brother, I'll let you go to the ground and suffer for a few days, I'm afraid you can sell it more expensive than me!" "Don't play with your clever words!" I used what I learned from that woman A local saying, "You have never suffered the pain I have suffered in eight lifetimes, do you believe it?" I asked him with my eyes wide open. "Hey..." He smiled dryly, as if he didn't believe it.

"Let me tell you," I sneered, "I just came out of the labor camp." "Ah, ah! That's, that's..." The fellow showed a look of fear. "How about it, potatoes are cheap?" I suddenly deliberately confused the logic, and changed the subject, "People exchange three catties of potatoes for five catties of yellow radishes." "How can there be such a price?" His fear was not to the extent of selling me potatoes cheaply.But because of this, he immediately fell into a subtle trap. "You bring three catties of potatoes, and I'll exchange you five catties of yellow radishes."

"Really?" I was calm on the surface, but I asked anxiously in my heart. "Really!" The fellow showed a very angry and decisive, "Three catties of potatoes for five catties of yellow radishes?!" "Okay!" I put down my backpack, "Weigh three catties of potatoes for me." I'll pay him the money first—we each received eighteen yuan yesterday, and after working for one day, we received a full month's wages, which is great!The fellow took out the homemade scale.The two of us fought for a long time on the choice.After weighing, he poured it into my back basket.I said, "Here, I'll exchange three catties of potatoes for your five catties of yellow radishes."

The fellow didn't even think about it, and weighed five catties of yellow radish for me.I dumped the potatoes back into his basket, picked up the carrots and left. I am triumphant, my cunning has succeeded again! In the Laogai farm, I often deal with fellow villagers who come to do business for us.I know they have a linear way of thinking.Sometimes, they will be surprisingly stubborn, trying their best to get into a dead end, only remembering one point, and ignoring the rest.This may also make them show an indomitable and tenacious spirit in fighting for their own interests or creative labor, but it is more likely that they will be fooled and played by others, making them take one thing and lose another, and fall for it.And I was one of those who played them with my own wit. "I", what kind of person do you mean?