Chapter 131: Pretty Much the Same Thing

Zhou Yimin had them apply some medicine at Eldest Uncle’s house.

In fact, those guys had come to this courtyard precisely to get treated.

If they went back in that state, setting aside whether their families would beat them up, they’d definitely be laughed at by the villagers. Even passing kids would probably collapse on the ground laughing.

Still, they did get a decent haul this time—each of them essentially snagged a dumb roe deer. While not as big as a wild boar, each one was still forty to fifty jin.

The street office was offering a purchase price of one yuan per jin, and that was based on gross weight. So, each of them would be getting at least forty yuan.

That’s almost a regular worker’s monthly salary.

What more could you want?

As for getting stung by a few hornets—it’s not like it’s fatal, so what’s there to be afraid of?

If Zhou Yimin knew what they were thinking, he’d definitely tell them that hornets can kill people.

From the looks of their “injuries,” it might not even have been hornets.

Supposedly, a hornet sting causes immediate swelling, pain, even bruising and skin necrosis. Systemic symptoms include dizziness, headache, vomiting, stomachache, diarrhea, agitation, and elevated blood pressure.

Hornet venom is absolutely in a different league than bee venom.

While they were being treated, Zhou Yimin headed to the neighboring courtyard and called over Zhou Dazhong.

“Take them to stay the night at Daqiu’s place,” Zhou Yimin said.

It was already dark. Zhou Yimin didn’t feel good about them going back like this, so he figured they could just stay a night in the city. There were vacant rooms over there anyway.

Not enough beds? Then just sleep on the floor! It’s not winter—they wouldn’t freeze to death.

“Oh, and have Dapeng bring out some noodles for them to eat,” Zhou Yimin added, not wanting to go himself.

So, after applying the medicine, Zhou Dafu and the others followed Zhou Dazhong to the house where Daqiu was staying. Right now, that courtyard was occupied by Daqiu and Luo Dapeng, and still had plenty of space.

“Dazhong, you said this place belongs to Uncle Sixteen?” Zhou Dafu and the others looked around as they entered the courtyard.

They were clearly envious of Zhou Daqiu—he’d become Dr. Chen’s apprentice and moved straight into the city. If nothing unexpected happened, he’d definitely become a doctor in the future. That’d be great! Way better than being a factory worker—less tiring and still pays just as well.

“Yeah! Uncle Sixteen said people from our village who come to the city can stay here temporarily,” Zhou Dazhong replied.

That’s right—temporarily. For those working in the city, once the factory assigns them housing, they have to move out and make room for others.

Seeing how Zhou Dafu and the others were acting, Luo Dapeng couldn’t help but burst out laughing on the spot.

After the laugh, he went to get some noodles, even threw in a few eggs and made egg noodle soup.

“Eat up, make sure you’re full. The rooms over there have already been cleaned—you can all sleep in there. If you’re not used to it, clean it up yourselves,” Luo Dapeng said.

They all knew each other anyway—Luo Dapeng had been to Zhoujiazhuang plenty of times.

“Thanks, Dapeng-ge. We’ll do it ourselves.”

A bunch of young guys meant lots of conversation, and before long they were deep in chatter.

Zhou Dafu didn’t hide their recent earnings either. You couldn’t talk about this stuff in the village, but outside was fair game. Though Zhou Dazhong and Zhou Daqiu were also from Zhoujiazhuang, they’d already “made it out,” so they weren’t going to get jealous over a bit of extra income.

“Sounds like what you’re doing is pretty decent too. Why bother looking for city jobs?” Luo Dapeng asked.

If it were him, he wouldn’t care. It made money and the work was flexible.

Because once you enter a factory, you’ve got to clock in and out on schedule. Zhou Yimin’s situation was a bit special.

Zhou Dafu shook his head. “Can’t do that. Always walking by the river—how can you not drown…”

Luo Dapeng corrected him, “Ahem! It’s ‘how can you not get your shoes wet.’”

Good grief! His own grades were already bad enough—he didn’t think there were people even worse. Suddenly, he found Zhou Dafu and the rest much more likable.

“Pretty much the same thing.”

Luo Dapeng rolled his eyes. Getting your shoes wet and drowning—those are not the same thing.

“If you’re always up in the mountains, eventually you’ll run into something dangerous. Who knows when you might not come back. So it’s better to be a factory worker—more stable. Plus, you get to move to the city,” Zhou Dafu explained.

Actually, there was another important reason.

Food and supplies—in the countryside, even if you had money, you couldn’t buy certain things. Rationed goods like grain quotas, for example—once you had a city job and moved your household registration, you could eat commercial grain.

The group talked late into the night.

Once Zhou Dafu and the others had gone to bed, Luo Dapeng made his move.

Early the next morning, Zhou Yimin added 100 jin of flour and 100 jin of prawns to his shop inventory.

Nothing much to say about the flour—it had already appeared several times.

But the prawns—those were great!

It had been a long time since he’d eaten shrimp. He’d save these for Grandma’s birthday banquet.

Today, he needed to get some eggs that could hatch into chicks. Not too many—around 500 should do!

At first glance, that sounded like a lot, but if you spread them out over a mountain, it wasn’t much at all. Any modern small-scale private chicken farm could put that to shame.

Just a few hundred? Who are you trying to impress?

Large-scale chicken farms worked in tens of thousands.

The main consideration was that Zhoujiazhuang didn’t have the capacity to raise that many. Using the insects and other resources from the mountain, 500 chickens was probably the limit.

Zhou Yimin would still have to intentionally “raise” some bugs on the mountain later.

On the way back, he ran into Zhou Dafu and the others.

Gotta say—Eldest Uncle’s medicine was effective. After just one night, the swelling had gone down completely. If you didn’t look closely, you wouldn’t be able to tell they’d been stung by a swarm of hornets.

“You guys take your time walking,” Zhou Yimin said to them.

There was no way one bicycle could carry all of them.

Back in Zhoujiazhuang, the villagers all greeted Zhou Yimin.

He responded to them one by one. First, he stopped by the school and dropped off the 100 jin of highland barley. After thinking it over, using it to make liquor just didn’t seem worth it. Besides, he had no shortage of alcohol now.

There were already over twenty bottles of Moutai in his shop inventory—all rare and valuable ones he remembered from the future.

“Figure out how to eat it yourselves,” Zhou Yimin said, dropping off the barley and leaving.

He left Zhou Zhigao and his daughter standing there in confusion.

This sack of wheat-like stuff was definitely grain and would last the school many days.

“I’ll have the village grind it into flour and see,” Zhou Zhigao said.

Usually, grains like this were ground into flour for eating.

So, he went out to find someone to help. Work done for the school was all voluntary—everyone understood. After all, all the children in the village were attending school and eating for free. What’s the big deal about helping out?

When it came time to harvest wheat, the school would even give students time off to help with farm work.

“Third Aunt, where are you going?” Back home, Zhou Yimin noticed Third Aunt was dressed to go out.

“She’s heading back to her mother’s house,” Grandma said.

Sure enough, she had dropped off little Qianqian and said she was only going to be gone for a day.

(End of Chapter)