Ye Yaodong was wild with joy inside, but his smile merely deepened. In front of other people, he could not let himself get too excited.
"You're a soldier, Group Leader Zhao. You certainly wouldn't cheat ordinary folks like us. I trust you. When I get back, I'll tell everyone to dry more while the weather holds, in case rain comes along and ruins things. Then we wouldn't be able to go out to sea or dry any fish."
Group Leader Zhao nodded. "Don't worry, I don't deceive people. Your dried fish smells good, and most of the soldiers really like it. They eat fresh fish often, so having dried fish for a change now and then is quite nice."
"All right, then. Thank you for looking out for us, Group Leader Zhao."
"I'll pay you for today's dried fish first. Work out how much it comes to."
"Sure, sure."
Ye Yaodong grinned so broadly his mouth nearly reached the back of his head. He hurriedly took out his pen and paper again to do the sums.
"The toadfish comes to 383 yuan and 4 fen. The mixed fish weighs 219 jin altogether. Let's charge for 190 jin..."
"Make it 200 jin. That's easier to calculate, and we can't keep having you give us so much for free."
"Uh... all right. Thank you, then. I'll round down the total in a moment. Two hundred jin is 60 yuan, making 443 yuan and 4 fen altogether. Just give me 440 yuan!" Ye Yaodong said as he calculated on the paper.
"All right!" Group Leader Zhao readily took out the money.
Ye Yaodong was beside himself with delight.
Selling to soldiers was so much better than selling to merchants. He had heard that merchants were nowhere near this prompt about paying. They kept