For Zhang Tie, the two days of the weekend passed quickly, because his father had to go to work on Saturday, so on Saturday Zhang Tie made a day of rice brew at home with his mother, and the small shop at home could sell about five or six cans of rice brew every week, which was not much, but for the Zhang family, who had been living a careful life, it was not without a small supplement.
Rice stuffing is the traditional food of the Chinese nationality, the practice is not complicated, its raw materials are mainly rice, the processing process is also simple, first wash the rice, put it in the pot and cook it until about seven minutes cooked, scoop up the rice, dry it, and then put it in the steamer to steam, then dry, and then put its strict canning into the clay pot, mix with sugar and honey in the canning process, and finally sprinkle the water, that is, the yeast liquid, seal it up and let it ferment naturally, after a month, you can open the can to eat.
The taste of the rice brew retains the sweetness, softness and glutinousness of the rice, rich in nutrition, with a comfortable sweetness, which can not only satisfy hunger, but also has a very sharp but never drunken wine taste, cool and relieve the heat, moisturize the spleen and stomach, extremely delicious, Zhang Tie and his brother grew up eating the rice brewed by their mother since they were children.
Although the manufacturing process of rice brewing is simple, but the proportionality and heat of each step are very particular, and the Zhangjia rice brewing has a little reputation and popularity in the nearby neighborhood and old customers, but it has been accumulated diligently little by little for more than ten years.
The result of a busy day on Saturday, the last is to make seven cylinders of rice brew, do a good job of these rice brews, move the rice brew to the warehouse behind the shop and store it, Zhang Tie rode the small tricycle modified at home to pull the goods out of the house twice, one is to go to the rice shop to buy rice, the rice in the rice tank at home every time after making the rice brew is almost to have a bottoming trend, so every weekend Zhang Tie has to go to the rice shop to run, after buying rice, and buy two catties of sugar by the way.
When buying rice this time, Zhang Tie found that the price of rice in the rice shop had risen a little, last week the price of a 25-kilogram bag of ordinary rice was 4 silver coins and 45 copper, and today he went to the rice store, but found that the price of 25 kilograms of ordinary rice has quietly increased to 4 silver coins and 58 copper per bag, and the price has risen by nearly 3 in a week.
Zhang Tie was taken aback, 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 went to middle school, and when he came last week, it was also 4 silver coins and 45 copper per bag, how could it rise so much in this week "Oh, Zhang Tie, we can't help it, the price of this rice rose when we bought it the day before yesterday, and we can only follow it, and we can't do a loss-making deal" The owner of the rice shop is also an acquaintance, and when it comes to the price of rice, he began to spit bitter water to Zhang Tie, "Our rice 70 in Heiyan City is pulled from outside, and several farms and planting areas outside Heiyan City can't guarantee the food supply in this city at all, what can we do, the price of these things is determined by the big merchant group above, not only this rice, but also noodles, The price has also increased in the past two days, so I don't believe you can go elsewhere to take a look.
It's all at this price, and some are more expensive."
The owner of the rice shop has been a regular customer for many years, Zhang Tie will not be stupid enough to really go elsewhere to see, the price of this grain in Heiyan City is basically the same everywhere, the same bag of rice, the price difference in each rice shop in Heiyan City is at most one to three coppers, and the price difference is more than five coppers, basically it can't be sold, and it has been dealt with for many years, and this rice shop is also operated by a hard-working and shrewd Chinese boss, and this trust is still there.
According to the price of 4 silver coins and 58 coppers, that is, 458 copper, Zhang Tie bought three bags, that is, 75 kilograms of rice and put them on his small tricycle, this tricycle is modified from a second-hand bicycle with a pocket and a wheel, not to mention the ugly appearance, the load is also limited, and the three bags of rice and Zhang Tie are almost its limit.
When moving rice, Zhang Tie carefully checked the needle eye and thread on the rice pocket, and saw that there were no traces of leakage and re-sewing, so he put his mind at ease, some black-hearted rice shop owners and grain merchants, if they want to engage in the means of shortages or shoddy, or worse when adding sand to the rice, they have to remove the needle and thread on the rice bag again and sew it up, so as long as you are careful, check the needle eye and thread on the rice bag to find out whether a bag of rice has been tampered with.
The children of the poor are in charge of the family early, this is the experience of Zhang Tie who has bought rice over the years.
Bought rice, and bought two catties of sugar in a grocery store not far from the rice store, Zhang Tiecai rode a tricycle home, as expected, after the price of rice rose by 3, the price of sugar also rose, but the price of sugar rose more, the price of raw sugar of 91 copper per kilogram last week, this time it went directly to 1 silver coin a kilogram, and looked at the surrounding stores as well, Zhang Tie bought two catties of sugar, packed in a cloth bag, and hung on the handlebar.
Riding that ugly modified second-hand tricycle, staggering home.
When I returned home, I told my mother about the increase in the price of rice and sugar, and then gave the rest of the money to my mother, and watched my mother take the money, and finally thought about it, and counted ten coppers from her hand to make pocket money for Zhang Tie.
Zhang Tie, who got ten coppers, said to his mother with a smile, "Thank you, Mom", today my mother is much more generous, usually there are only five coppers at most.
My mother sighed and frowned, "The price of rice and sugar has risen, and the price of our rice brew can only go up, this profit is already thin, and if the price does not rise, the business will not be able to continue, and if the price increases, you may have to lose some old customers."
Looking at his frowning mother, Zhang Tie blurted out a sentence under the agitation of his mood, "Mom, don't worry, I will definitely let you and Dad live a good life in the future, I am different from before now" "Mom knows, our little fruit is already an adult, of course it's different from before" Mom laughed, reaching out to touch Zhang Tie's head.
Listening to the other meaning behind the word "adult" in his mother's tone, Zhang Tie was embarrassed for a while, "Mom, it's not what you think, I mean me" "Okay, okay, mom knows that our family Guoguo has grown up and is a good child who is filial, don't talk about this, you hurry up and send this rice soup to Mama Teresa, it's too late to send it today."
Zhang Tie's words were interrupted by his mother, and the following words were not spoken, Zhang Tie stuffed his head again, and put the few remaining pots of rice soup at home today back onto the ugly pedal tricycle, Zhang Tie was a little depressed and rode back to another place, thinking about the impulse just now, he almost blurted out that he had the strange thing of the Black Iron Castle, and he blamed himself a little bit in his heart for being too impulsive, if this secret is now known to his family, in addition to worrying his parents, In addition to bringing many unpredictable risks, Zhang Tie really can't think of any other benefits for this family.
Riding on the car, Zhang Tie secretly made up his mind that in the future, he would completely let this secret rot in his heart, and if he had the ability, he would just let his family enjoy the benefits brought by the Black Iron Castle, and there was no need to let them worry about this.
The less people know the secrets of the Black Iron Castle, the better, both for themselves and for this family.
One of the benefits of the emerging city is that at the beginning of the planning, the convenience of urban transportation was fully considered, and many roads were very spacious, especially on some trunk roads, sidewalks, non-motorized lanes, and motorized lanes were clearly distinguished.
While looking at the cars that pass by the motorway from time to time, I fantasize that one day I can get a car and take my family or a beautiful woman like Ms.
Dinah for a ride around the city.
Before the cataclysm, the steam engine had been a technology that had been eliminated by mankind for nearly hundreds of years, and I heard that at that time, mankind had invented all kinds of advanced machinery and technology, and the steam engine was thrown into the garbage heap of history, and no one cared about it anymore.
Among those advanced technologies, some technologies 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, means of sending people to the stars, equipment that can still easily talk and see each other from a distance of millions of miles, and the devilish weapons that can easily wipe out a city or even a country with a mushroom, and so onThe human society before the cataclysm was too unimaginable.
And after the cataclysm, mankind lost everything that was brilliant, and in desperation, mankind dug the steam engine out of the garbage heap of history, from the simplest condensing steam vacuum pump to the most complex high-pressure steam turbine, all kinds of old and obsolete things that were dug out of the pile of history began to rejuvenate again, and supported mankind to stand and start running again in this era that has been different from any previous era, just like those with small boutique reciprocating two-stage steam engines, And in the city speeding like a car.
In Heiyan City, ordinary people's means of transportation are feet and urban public transportation, and some salarymen may buy a bicycle, such as Zhang Tie's family, which was modified to be a strange-looking second-hand tricycle for the convenience of delivery and shopping.
But the real rich, those rich people's means of transportation, will only be cars, cars that cost thousands of gold coins at every turn, for those people, it is no longer a simple means of transportation, but a symbol of identity and strength, in the entire Black Flame City, so many years have passed, the number of private cars has always been less than 1,000, and the people who can sit in it are either rich or expensive.
At least in Zhang Tie's school, Zhang Tie didn't find any student or teacher's family that could afford such a car.
Even for Captain Colin, as the most terrifying one-eyed dragon in Black Flame City, even if his salary is not low compared to ordinary people, if he wants to buy a car, it is possible that he will have to go without food or drink for 50 years with his little salary.
From childhood to adulthood, all the superficial knowledge about machinery and tools that Zhang Tie learned in school was almost related to all kinds of steam engines, as a man who was born with a desire to conquer the world, 15-year-old Zhang Tie once had two biggest extravagances for the future, one was Teacher Dinah, and the other was a beautiful private car, these two extravagances combined to give birth to the kind of paradise-like life that Zhang Tie dreamed ofCommunicate with Teacher Dina about the human piston movement process related to the steam engine, and test the seismic performance of car tires and seats by the way.
The young man, who was immersed in the "ambition" that no one knew, rode hard through the city on a tricycle, and after thirty minutes, he finally arrived at the orphanage of Mama Teresa before six o'clock in the evening: