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 a day making rice wine with his mother at home on Saturday.
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. The method is not complicated. The raw material is mainly rice. 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 in 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 a month, you can open the can and eat it. The taste of the prepared rice wine retains the sweetness and softness of the rice, is rich in nutrients, and has a comfortable sweetness. It can satisfy your hunger and
There is also a very sharp but not intoxicating taste of wine, which is refreshing and refreshing, moisturizing the spleen and stomach, and extremely delicious. Zhang Tie and his brother grew up eating the rice wine brewed 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 again on the small tricycle modified by his family for transporting goods.
I made two trips, one was 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, he 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 asking price of a 25 kilogram bag of ordinary rice was 4
I went to a rice store today and found that the price of a 25 kilogram bag of ordinary rice had quietly increased to 4 silver coins and 58 coppers per bag. Within a week, the price 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, "70% of our rice in Heiyan City is brought from outside. Several farms and planting areas outside Heiyan City cannot guarantee the city's food supply.
What can we do? The prices of these things are all decided by the big business groups above. Not only the rice, but also the noodles. The prices have also increased in the past two days. If you don’t believe me, look elsewhere. It’s all like this.
Price, some are even 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 in various places 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 is 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 plus one person like Zhang Tie is almost its limit. When moving the rice, Zhang Tie carefully checked the needle holes in the rice bag.
and threads, and saw that there were no traces of leaks or re-sewing, so I felt relieved. Some rice shop owners and grain merchants with evil intentions would resort to unfair means or pass off inferior goods, or worse.
When adding sand to the rice, the needle and thread on the rice bag must be removed and re-sewed. So if you are careful, you can find out whether the bag of rice has been tampered with by checking the needle holes and threads on the rice bag.
.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 followed.
It has risen, but 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.
The candy was packed in a cloth bag and hung on the handlebar. I rode that ugly modified second-hand tricycle and staggered back home.
When I got home, I told my mother about the increase in rice and sugar prices. Then I gave her the remaining money for buying goods, which was a lot of money. I watched my mother take the money and finally thought
After thinking about it, he counted ten copper coins from his hand and gave them to Zhang Tie as pocket change.
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 pedal tricycle. 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 in the car, Zhang Tie secretly made up his mind.
, I will completely let this secret rot in my heart from now on. If I have the ability, I can just let my family enjoy the benefits of the Black Iron Castle. There is no need to let them worry about this for me. Whether it is for myself or for others.
For 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.
While walking back and forth, I looked enviously at the cars passing by on the motorway around me from time to time, while imagining 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.
No one cares about it. 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 ships that can transport people to
Means above the stars, devices that can easily communicate and see each other even though they are millions of miles away, and devil-like weapons that can easily completely wipe out a city or even a country by planting a mushroom, and so on.
The school teacher was full of sighs when he talked about this, and Zhang Tie's eyes were filled with stars. The human society before the cataclysm was really unimaginable. After the cataclysm, mankind lost all this glory, and helplessly
Next, 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.
Outdated gadgets began to glow with youth again, and supported mankind to stand and start running again in this era that was different from any previous era, just like those equipped with small boutique reciprocating two-stage steam engines, and in the city
Just like a speeding car.
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 the only means of transportation for the truly rich, those wealthy people, is cars. Cars cost thousands of gold coins each. For these people, cars are no longer a simple means of transportation, but a symbol of status and strength.
, in the entire Heiyan City, after so many years, the number of private cars has always been less than 1,000, and the people who can sit in them are either rich or noble. At least in Zhang Tie's school, Zhang Tie did not find any student's home.
Or the teacher’s family can 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 with ordinary people, he wants to buy a car.
If he only relied on his small salary, he might have to go without food or drink 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 - every day.
Driving the car, I took Teacher Dinah with me, and then found a place with beautiful scenery and no one was disturbed. I communicated with Teacher Dinah about the human piston movement process related to the steam engine, and also tested the anti-seismic performance of the car tires and seats.
The young man, immersed in the unknown "ambition", rode his tricycle hard in 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.