Gu Jun came back from work at noon, and Lin Shu had already finished cooking.
Gu Jun sat down, and seeing the bowl of rice was fuller than usual, he looked at Lin Shu and asked, “In a good mood today?”
Lin Shu said, “Grain’s about to be distributed soon, how could I not be in a good mood?”
Thinking that in three days they’d finally get their grain, and that yesterday both she and Gu Jun had suffered enough, she’d splurged a little — no dried sweet potato mixed into the rice this time, and an egg each on top of that.
Gu Jun nodded. It wasn’t just her — he’d also been anxious about their food situation for a long while, and could finally breathe easy now.
Lin Shu suddenly asked him, “Oh right, that thing the team leader mentioned this morning about oil coupons and sugar coupons — do they have expiration dates?”
Some ration coupons had time limits on them.
Gu Jun answered, “The oil coupons expire at the end of the month. The sugar coupons last a year, so there’s still more than half a year left.”
Lin Shu thought it over and said, “Then when can we go to the commune, and use up the oil coupons while we’re at it?”
Besides, she’d been wanting to buy some elastic band for almost a month now.
Gu Jun picked up his rice bowl and said, “After the grain’s distributed in a couple days, we’ll go to the hospital in the city.”
He said this and started shoveling down his rice.
Lin Shu asked, “What are we going to the hospital for?”
The next second, something occurred to her, and she asked uncertainly, “A prenatal checkup?”
She wasn’t sure, because in this era, prenatal checkups weren’t common at all.
Gu Jun nodded, swallowed the rice in his mouth, and said, “I heard from Sent-down Youth Wang that you city folks, the ones with means, go to the hospital for a checkup every month or two once you’re pregnant.”
“We can use up the oil coupons while we’re there, and swing by the supply and marketing co-op to see if there’s anything else we need.”
Lin Shu snapped back to attention and asked him, “How are we getting there?”
Gu Jun had originally planned to borrow a bicycle from Qi Jie, but after what she’d said yesterday, he definitely couldn’t borrow it now.
Besides, now that the double rush was over, plenty of people wanted to borrow the production brigade’s bicycles, and it wouldn’t be his turn anyway.
“After the grain’s handed out, the production brigade will give everyone time off to rest. During the break, there’s a tractor going to the city once a day — we just need to catch it early.”
Today was the last day of the double rush. When they checked before finishing work in the afternoon and found there was nothing left to do, everyone let out a thorough sigh of relief, like a weight had lifted, as if they’d all been given their lives back.
Gu Jun had been strung tight for over two months, and the moment the double rush ended, all his strength drained out of him at once. After coming back from work and eating dinner, he didn’t even bathe — just went straight to bed.
Lin Shu didn’t disturb him either, moving around lightly and quietly.
When she got up in the morning, she saw a thoroughly refreshed Gu Jun carrying water.
Lin Shu asked him, “When did you wake up?”
Gu Jun poured the water into the vat and answered, “Three or four in the morning.”
Worked himself to exhaustion for over two months, and just seven or eight hours of sleep made up for it?
“So what did you do after you woke up?” She hadn’t heard a sound either. Black Lotus Translation — Black Lotus Novel
Gu Jun said, “Lay in bed until it got light out, then went to boil water, and carried a few loads of water back while I was at it.”
“Boiled water for a bath?”
Gu Jun made an “mm,” thought about it for a moment, and to make sure she knew he’d actually taken her words to heart, specifically explained, “Didn’t you say I shouldn’t bathe in cold water? So I boiled hot water.”
Lin Shu said, amused, “You were actually going to take a cold bath first thing in the morning? Not afraid of getting rheumatism when you’re old?”
Gu Jun’s brow furrowed slightly — he hadn’t explained himself so she could make fun of him.
Lin Shu didn’t dwell on it and went off to wash up.
As she picked up her toothbrush, she turned her head and asked, “When am I getting a new toothbrush? “
The bristles were almost all gone.
Gu Jun said, “I’ve got industrial goods coupons, can trade them for a toothbrush and toothpaste. When we go to the city, we’ll trade them in.”
Hearing this, Lin Shu’s expression turned to surprise. “Just how much stuff do you have stashed away?”
He kept popping out with supplies every so often.
Gu Jun said, “Got these from when I was working at the construction site before. Two industrial goods coupons, small denominations, only enough for toothpaste, toothbrush, that kind of daily-use stuff. Also got a soap coupon.”
Lin Shu said, “That’s plenty. I’m not greedy.”
“But wait, aren’t you doing temp work? They give out industrial coupons for that too?”
Gu Jun nodded. “For every twenty yuan of wages a month, you get one industrial goods coupon. I often help out with other jobs at the factory, so as payment, they gave me some extra daily-goods coupons.”
He thought about it, then added, “I’ve still got some money saved up too, and if something really goes wrong with me, in case there’s some—”
Before he could finish the sentence, she cut him off immediately. “Stop right there. Don’t say things like that. Nothing’s going wrong, not even a little bit, understand?”
Lin Shu’s expression had turned quite serious, and Gu Jun didn’t say any more of that. He only said, “I’ve saved up enough money for you to have the baby at the hospital. And even for little ailments, you don’t need to just endure it — you can go straight to the hospital to get it checked.”
Hearing this, Lin Shu said with satisfaction, “Now that’s more like it.”
Gu Jun felt that ever since things had eased up between them recently, she seemed to have taken to bossing him around a bit.
Still — the feeling wasn’t bad, somehow.
There was no work today, so Gu Jun tinkered here and there, then went to pull weeds in their private plot, never stopping for a single moment all day.
Watching him, Lin Shu couldn’t help but sigh over what a born workhorse he was.
Early the next morning, someone walked through the whole production brigade with the team leader’s megaphone, announcing that the grain was about to be distributed.
Hearing this, Lin Shu’s mood soared, no less excited than the first time she’d just started work and got notified by finance that her paycheck had come in.
She hurriedly called out to Gu Jun, “They’re dividing up the grain! Shouldn’t we hurry over there?!”
Gu Jun splashed water on his face and said, “It’s not first come first served. They’ll hand out the grain ration one by one according to the names in the register.”
Lin Shu suddenly understood, then asked, “You said the baby’s due in October — will he get a basic grain ration by the end of the year too?”
Gu Jun draped the towel over the clothesline pole. “As long as there’s a headcount, there’s a basic grain ration. It’s just that the basic ration is different for under-fives and under-tens — anyone ten and up gets the normal amount, thirty-two jin of unhulled rice a month for men, thirty jin for women.”
“Under five, it’s fifteen jin a month. Five and up but under ten, twenty jin.”
Which meant that while the baby was still nursing, he’d still get a basic ration of fifteen jin — that was pretty good too.
Gu Jun unhurriedly picked up two baskets on a shoulder pole, and went with Lin Shu to the lawn to collect their grain.
Between the two of them, it came to roughly two hundred and fifty jin of rice.
By the time it was hulled, there’d definitely be some loss — probably ten jin of unhulled rice would only yield seven jin of rice.
It definitely wasn’t enough to eat on its own, but besides the refined grain, there was also coarse grain.
Once the sweet potatoes, taro, and corn were harvested in September and October, those would be distributed too.
With coarse grain mixed in with the refined grain, it wouldn’t exactly be prosperous, but they definitely wouldn’t starve. Black Lotus Novel — Black Lotus
When Lin Shu and Gu Jun arrived at the big lawn, the team leader was in the middle of speaking.
“This year, after handing over the state grain quota, we were the first production brigade to finish, and we’ve hit our targets every single year, so they gave our brigade fifty jin of meat coupons — we can go straight to the meat processing plant and get meat with them.”
“Everyone’s worked hard this year. Tomorrow we’ll all go to the meat processing plant and trade every last coupon for meat, let everyone get a good boost.”
“Our brigade plus the sent-down youths comes to two hundred and sixty-two people total. The meat coupons are limited, so we’ll divide them up according to each household’s total share of work points. Nobody’s got objections, right?”
Hearing this, Lin Shu already knew their household wouldn’t get much.
The original body’s owner hadn’t worked in half a year, and Gu Jun hadn’t worked for a month either — if the two of their work points added up to an average amount, that would already be pretty good.
Gu Jun carried one load of rice on the shoulder pole back home, while Lin Shu stayed behind to watch over the rest of the grain.
One load on the shoulder pole was only about a hundred jin, so it took two trips back and forth to barely get it all home.
On the last trip, Lin Shu asked him, “Where are we going to put all this grain? If it’s not stored properly, won’t it go damp?”
Gu Jun said, “I’ll head to the production brigade’s storehouse in a bit and bring back our family’s grain bin — it can hold three hundred jin of unhulled rice at once.”
Lin Shu said, “Why would it be at the production brigade?”
Gu Jun paused for a moment before explaining, “Before we got married, my room was used as a storage room.”
“And most of the grain, you had converted into grain coupons and mailed back home, so I moved the grain bin to the storehouse.”
Well. She really shouldn’t have asked.
Once home, Gu Jun went to the storehouse to get the grain bin.
The wooden grain bin wasn’t especially heavy, but it was awkward to carry, so Gu Jun rolled it all the way back.
After rolling the bin home, Gu Jun cleaned the dust off it in the yard, then set it up in his own room.
Once the bin was in place, his room instantly felt cramped — there was barely enough space to stand by the bed.
None of this was a real problem for Gu Jun. What mattered most was that there was grain now, enough to fill their stomachs — he felt like even living in a pigsty wouldn’t bother him at this point.
Gu Jun poured the grain into the bin, keeping one basket of unhulled rice aside, and discussed it with Lin Shu: “These next couple days, people will be using the water-powered mill. Once we’re back from the hospital, I’ll carry this over to get it milled.”
Lin Shu looked at the grain bin and waved a hand, indicating she didn’t mind either way.
When there was no refined grain, every day she’d dreaded eating coarse grain. Now that there was refined grain, eating a few more days of coarse grain didn’t feel so bad anymore.
The next day, Lin Shu got up bright and early, packed a lunchbox full of steamed cornbread, and went with Gu Jun to wait for the tractor at the entrance of the production brigade.
Yesterday, after Gu Jun collected their grain, remembering the team leader had mentioned going to the meat processing plant, he’d gone to ask the team leader that same day, hoping to tag along to the city while there weren’t too many people going.
When the team leader heard they were going for a hospital checkup, he didn’t say another word and agreed right away.
The one driving the tractor was the same person who’d taken Lin Shu to the city last time.
After seeing him a few times, Lin Shu had learned he was the team leader’s son.
When the tractor driver saw Gu Jun, he called out, “Brother Jun, sister-in-law,” then asked Gu Jun, “Brother Jun, why don’t you take a turn driving too? Sit up front, that way sister-in-law won’t get jostled around.”
Lin Shu looked at Gu Jun in surprise.
She hadn’t said anything, but Gu Jun already knew what she wanted to say, and explained, “Before I went to work in the city, Gu Yang and I used to take turns driving the tractor.”
Lin Shu really hadn’t seen that one coming — he knew quite a lot, it seemed. Aside from not being able to read, he really did seem to learn everything.
Gu Jun said, “No, the seat up front is narrow, not good for two people. Someone could easily fall off from up there without meaning to.” · Black Lotus Novel Reading | BlackLotusNovel
He helped Lin Shu up into the tractor’s rear cargo bed, then climbed up himself.
With both of them up, Gu Jun laid out a woven plastic sack in the bed for her to sit on, and sat down right beside her.
The road from the production brigade to the city was a dirt road, but every year, several brigades organized people together to clear out the weeds and stones, so it was fairly smooth.
Lin Shu was jostled until she grew drowsy. Besides Gu Yang driving the tractor, there was no one else in the bed with them, so she couldn’t help herself and just leaned straight against Gu Jun’s shoulder.
Not minding that his arm went instantly rigid, she only said, “Too sleepy. I’ll just close my eyes a bit.”
After hearing Gu Jun answer with an “mm,” she fell asleep.
Lin Shu didn’t sleep too deeply — she could still hear the tractor’s putt-putt sound the whole time, and could feel Gu Jun’s arm come around her back, gripping her shoulder tightly, holding her body steady.
Half-asleep, hazily, Lin Shu thought to herself that he really was a good man.
A Gu Jun like this — what kind of psychological journey had he actually gone through, to end up becoming a villain who played dirty tricks in business schemes?
