Chapter 193: Mooching a Meal

Thanks to those little snacks, Zhang Lu had already become the queen bee, with a swarm of kids trailing behind her like bodyguards—even some from other courtyards.

In times like these, if you had just a single piece of candy, you could get other kids to bow down in allegiance.

Not to mention, the snacks Zhang Lu got from Zhou Yimin weren’t just a handful.

That was exactly why Zhang Lu adored Zhou Yimin and wished she could move in with him. Whenever the weekend rolled around, she couldn’t wait to tag along with him to Zhoujiazhuang.

She had a sweet tongue, too, and had coaxed Zhou Yimin’s grandparents into absolute adoration. They were practically seeing her as their own granddaughter.

“Mangoes—you’ve never had one, right?” Zhou Yimin said with a smile.

Zhang Lu’s eyes lit up. She really hadn’t ever tasted a mango.

Even Zhang Yu, who was off to the side doing chores, pricked up her ears and tried to play it cool, but the way she was sneaking glances totally gave her away.

And who could blame her? This was a mango, after all—a tropical fruit, rare and exotic in the North. Just seeing one was a rarity, let alone eating it. Zhang Yu had never tasted one in her whole life!

For a moment, she felt a twinge of envy toward her older sister.

To marry someone like Brother Yimin in the future would be wonderful.

Zhang Lu excitedly opened the cardboard box and took out a mango, roughly the size of her fist, utterly thrilled.

“Brother Yimin, this is a mango? It smells so good,” she said, holding it up and salivating just from the scent.

Her mother immediately snatched it away, put it back in the box, and closed the lid. Turning to Zhou Yimin, she said, “Yimin, you should keep these mangoes.”

In her view, mangoes were far too precious. They’d be perfect as gifts for officials or superiors—what a waste to eat them themselves!

“Auntie, don’t worry about it. We still have plenty at home. This whole box is just for you all to try,” Zhou Yimin replied with a shake of his head.

“There’s no need to give us so much. Just one or two to try would be more than enough.”

Who would be extravagant enough to eat a whole mango?

“If you can’t finish them, just give them away! I heard that once mangoes ripen, they don’t last long. Best to eat them soon,” Zhou Yimin explained.

Auntie Zhang smiled helplessly.

“Just give them away,” he says?

Say something like that in public, and you’re asking for a beating. Even coarse grain—if you couldn’t finish it, you still wouldn’t give it away easily. Let alone something as rare and precious as mangoes.

Of course, she understood what Zhou Yimin was getting at.

He was subtly suggesting that Old Zhang should use some of them as gifts to curry favor with the leadership. Definitely no harm in that.

After a couple more rounds of polite refusal and seeing that Zhou Yimin had no intention of taking the box back, she accepted it. She handed one mango each to Zhang Lu and Zhang Yu, sealed the box, and told Old Zhang to take the rest and gift them out.

Even if it didn’t land Old Zhang a promotion, it could at least help build good relations with the research institute.

Zhang Lu and Zhang Yu were so reluctant to eat their mangoes that they just kept sniffing them lovingly.

“Don’t take them outside, you hear me?” Auntie Zhang warned her younger daughter.

Before long, Zhang Jianshe came home from work, looking to be in quite a good mood.

Because of the nature of his work, neither his family nor Zhou Yimin asked him why. In fact, their lab had just overcome a technical hurdle, hence his good spirits.

Zhou Yimin’s fiancée, Zhang Yan, also came home, hugging a stack of books.

Auntie Zhang went to prepare dinner.

Thanks to Zhou Yimin’s visit, tonight’s dinner was guaranteed to be better than usual.

After all, they no longer lacked food. Zhou Yimin would bring stuff over from time to time—grains, meat, and other goods—so they had a decent stockpile. Even if there was no food sold outside for a whole month, their household wouldn’t go hungry.

“I forgot to bring some baby bok choy—our village grows it ourselves. It just started supplying the steel factory,” Zhou Yimin said, noticing Auntie Zhang picking some tired-looking vegetables.

“Zhoujiazhuang’s veggies are ready for harvest?”

They’d been to Zhoujiazhuang and were well aware of its affairs.

“Yeah! Just started a couple of days ago. They’re hauling thousands of pounds to the steel factory every day, making over three hundred a day,” Zhou Yimin said frankly.

“That’s fantastic.”

Over three hundred a day means more than three thousand in just ten days.

That kind of income is no small thing in a rural village. Clearly, this vegetable farming venture had been the right move. Since Zhoujiazhuang was the domain of their future son-in-law, they naturally hoped things would go well for it.

Then Zhou Yimin shared a bit about Zhoujiazhuang’s upcoming plans with Zhang Jianshe.

Like building a reservoir, and even constructing a small power station.

“Power generation?” Zhang Jianshe was surprised.

Could a small village really pull something like that off?

He had to admit, this son-in-law’s ideas were bold. And Zhoujiazhuang’s people seemed to be pretty gutsy too. Most villages would never go all-in with a young guy’s wild plans.

Yet Zhoujiazhuang practically treated his words like gospel.

No wonder the young man was willing to pour so much into the place.

“Yeah. Without electricity, a lot of ideas can’t be put into action,” Zhou Yimin said plainly in front of his father-in-law.

“Getting a generator won’t be easy, though.”

Zhou Yimin nodded.

Actually, he could design a basic generator himself. And thanks to his connections at the steel factory, getting them to help make some parts wouldn’t be hard.

A generator wasn’t particularly complicated, nor was it high-end tech.

Even hand-crank generators existed, though they generated very little power and weren’t much use.

“Leave this to me.”

After all, Zhang Jianshe was a research guy. The principles of a generator were child’s play to him. Honestly, with a few skilled workers, he could probably handcraft a small hydroelectric generator himself.

If it were a large-scale generator, that’d be a different story.

Even knowing the theory and the parts involved wouldn’t help. The materials required for large generators were too specialized, with very strict standards.

“Uncle Zhang, I’ll leave it to you, then! If they need anything from our end, we can discuss it later.”

With Zhang Jianshe stepping in, things couldn’t be better. And anyway, Zhou Yimin preferred staying behind the scenes when possible.

He was confident that with Uncle Zhang’s skills, they could get a generator in a clean, legitimate way—no one would be able to say a word against it.

“Alright. I’ll let you know in a few days. Don’t count on a brand-new one, though. Getting an old one shouldn’t be too difficult,” Zhang Jianshe replied.

With their lab’s network and resources, getting an old small-scale hydroelectric generator was definitely doable.

“As long as it works,” Zhou Yimin said. His standards weren’t high.

As long as it could generate electricity and cover Zhoujiazhuang’s needs, that was good enough.

Dinner was white rice, a plate of scrambled eggs, a plate of cured meat, and a plate of greens. Such a simple meal, in this era, was basically on par with a New Year’s feast.

Plenty of families couldn’t even afford this for the holidays.

Zhang Jianshe even had a couple of drinks with Zhou Yimin.

The liquor was a bottle of Wuliangye he’d quietly snagged from Old Zhu.

At this time, Wuliangye’s packaging was still simple and unassuming. After all, it was brewed from five grains and known as “Yaozi Xuequ.” Even though it missed out on the first National Liquor Tasting Conference, it truly made its mark at the second, rising to fame from there.

(End of chapter)