Chen Haichao had barely been sitting on the stone block at the village entrance for two minutes when he heard a familiar voice calling him.
"Abao? What are you doing here?"
He turned to see his eldest sister jogging toward him with a shoulder pole, her face alight with delight.
"Did Mom send you?"
"Yes."
Chen Zhaodi, the eldest, had shoulder-length hair and wore a shabby gray cotton-padded jacket and patched pants. Though she was only twenty-seven, she looked several years older, with chapped lips, rough skin, and a touch of highland red on her cheeks.
He stared at her for two seconds before speaking. "Where are you coming from? Why do you have a shoulder pole?"
"I was thinking of going up the mountain to chop a couple of bundles of firewood to take home."
Chen Haichao opened one of the cloth bags to show her.
"Mom's been getting up early and coming home late these past two days, scooping up shrimp by the sea. She dried some and told me to bring them to you. The other bag is for Chen Yindi. I still have to take it to her later."
The eldest was named Chen Zhaodi, and the second was named Chen Yindi...
He had seen nothing wrong with their names for the first thirty or forty years of his previous life. Plenty of people in the countryside had names like those. After he started working at a factory, though, he realized the names weren't good.
Chen Zhaodi said happily, "Thanks to Mom for all that effort. You should have kept them to eat yourselves. You didn't have to bring them all the way here for me."
"There's more at home. She scooped up several more buckets this morning, so another batch will be dry in a couple of days. We only just put out the fish the production brigade distributed yesterday, and it isn't dry yet. Mom said she'll send you some once it is, or you can go back and get it yourself."
Looking guilty, she added, "I didn't even have anything to take home for the New Year visit, and I took a whole pile of dried fish when I left. Now you're bringing me so much dried shrimp..."
Chen Haichao was just about to speak when a passing Jiefang truck suddenly stopped beside him, kicking up dust that nearly got in his eyes.
Two men got out of the truck. He frowned and stood up warily.
Chen Zhaodi tightened her grip on the shoulder pole and stepped in front of Chen Haichao. "You... what do you...?" she asked nervously.
One of them, an older middle-aged man, smiled. "Don't be afraid. We don't mean any harm. We were passing by and saw these little shrimp, so we got curious and came down to take a look."
She breathed a sigh of relief.
An idea occurred to Chen Haichao. He picked up the bag of dried shrimp and set it in front of them for a look.
"We dried them ourselves. Are you two passing through on a long-haul trip?"
"Yes. Could we have a word somewhere more private?"
The little man in his heart was already sitting there, counting money with glee.
Chen Haichao and Chen Zhaodi carried the two bags of dried shrimp off to one side, away from the main road at the village entrance.
The middle-aged man followed them, while the younger one stayed by the truck, looking around to keep watch.
The middle-aged man lowered his voice and asked, "I'd like to buy these little shrimp. Are you selling?"
"These are for my sister, but at home I..."
Chen Zhaodi grabbed his arm, excitedly lowering her voice. "Sell them! Sell them to him first. It doesn't matter if I don't get any. It's fine."
The man tasted one and asked, "How much?"
Chen Zhaodi was stumped. How much? She didn't know. She looked at Chen Haichao.
Chen Haichao thought, Damn, I haven't gone to the purchasing station to check the prices of the different kinds yet. After a moment's thought, he decided to tell the truth.
"To be honest, we dried these to eat ourselves, so I don't know what a fair price would be. But it takes more than ten jin of shrimp to make one jin of dried shrimp."
"You've traveled all over and seen a lot. Tell us how much you're willing to pay, and if it's reasonable, we'll sell them to you. If you want more, I can get some for you too."
What he was doing didn't count as speculation and profiteering. Selling homegrown farm produce or agricultural byproducts that weren't under state control didn't count.
Only long-distance trading and buying to resell counted.
"How about 1.5 yuan? I'll take all of these, and if you have more, you can sell those to me too."
"These are lightly dried golden-hook shrimp. You just tasted them yourself-they're not salty at all, and they're dried right through. They're clean, with no salt or bits of shell, and they're not small either. It takes more than ten jin, nearly eleven jin, to make one jin of these. You can't buy them anywhere else, and they're much rarer than meat. Seafood is especially expensive inland. Mine are dried, so they'll keep for a whole year without going bad. Most importantly, you don't need coupons..."
Whether the price was fair or not, he had to praise them to the skies. The key point was that his shrimp didn't require coupons.
The last point about not needing coupons was probably what won the man over.
"Two yuan at most."
Chen Haichao quickly calculated in his head. There were about twenty jin here, which came to forty yuan. He was more than willing, but he still held back. If the man could offer that price, he had to be making at least two or three times as much by reselling them.
"Young man, you can't be too greedy. My price is very fair, and I have transportation costs too."
"All right, then, we'll go with what you said, Uncle. Two yuan it is. There are about twenty jin here. Do you have a scale?"
"Yes."
The man opened the truck door and took out a steelyard scale, then hooked both bags of dried shrimp onto it.
"Twenty-one jin and two liang altogether..."
"That comes to forty-two yuan. You can have the extra two liang."
"All right." The middle-aged man smiled and nodded, pulling the money straight from his waist pouch. "Count it."
Chen Haichao had watched him count it out, so there was no need. He took the money and slipped it into his pocket. "We have another batch drying at home. It'll take another two or three days to dry. Do you want it?"
"Yes. We'll ask to buy it when we pass through on our return trip. Let's set it for two in the afternoon on the fourteenth, though the time might be a little off. If we don't arrive on time, wait by the road for a while, young man."
"Sure, no problem."
He had just checked the calendar that morning. The fourteenth was Valentine's Day, the day before New Year's Eve. Today was only the tenth, so there was enough time to dry them.
"Then we'll be going." The middle-aged man waved to the younger one, and the two got into the truck and drove straight off.
Chen Zhaodi's face was flushed red with excitement. She gripped Chen Haichao's arm tightly, her hands strong from farmwork.
"Abao, that dried shrimp actually sold for over forty yuan. Good heavens, that much? When our brigade settled work points this year, even a strong laborer only earned seventy yuan for the whole year, and that was after we raised a lot of pigs. You sold it for so much! And you actually managed to hold yourself back from agreeing right away."
Chen Haichao smiled. "I didn't know what price was right, so it was hard to bargain. I just had to put on an act."
"Who would've thought that little bit of dried shrimp would be worth so much? Go back and tell Mom to dry more. If you need another pair of hands, I'll come help."
"These twenty jin of dried shrimp were supposed to be for you and the others to eat..."
"Eat them? How could I bring myself to eat something so valuable? I'm never eating them again. We have to save them to sell."
As she spoke, Chen Zhaodi even slapped herself on the mouth. "How much has this wretched mouth already eaten? We must never eat them again."
"If Mom found out you didn't sell them for forty yuan and brought them to me to eat instead, she'd skin us both alive."
With that, she chuckled. She was so happy and excited.
Chen Haichao pulled the money out again. "They sold for forty-two. I'll give you ten yuan, and I'll give Second Sister ten when I go to her house later."
"What are you doing? Mom dried them. Take the money back to her. Why are you giving it to me? I don't want it."
"They were meant for you to eat in the first place. Since you didn't get to eat them and we sold them instead, everyone gets a share. I'll take the rest back to her."
Chen Zhaodi shook her head like a pellet drum. "No, no, you can't give it to me. Take it back to Mom and let her save it for your marriage. It wasn't mine, so how could I take the money from selling it? You don't need to give any to your second sister either. She definitely won't take it."
"Hurry home and tell Mom first. Get ready and dry some more. That man said he'd come back to buy more in a few days."
"Oh, and whatever you do, don't tell anyone else when you get back. Only tell Mom that these can be sold for money. If other people find out, they'll get jealous. If they report us, nothing good will come of it for us."
"I know."
"We met a benefactor when we went out today and ran right into this good fortune. That's more than forty yuan! We scratch a living from the soil and have to work for more than half a year to earn that much, yet the dried shrimp you brought sold for that much. When you go back and tell Mom, she'll be so happy."
Chen Zhaodi was still caught up in her excitement. Her household hadn't split up, so she couldn't make the decisions, and she had never had so much money in her hands in her life.
Chen Haichao tucked the money back into his pocket and took out the egg cakes his mother had given him.
"Someone gave us these today. Mom said to give one to each of your and Second Sister's children. Just sneak them to your own kids, and watch them eat them. Don't let anyone else see."
Chen Zhaodi smiled and nodded repeatedly. "All right, I'll sneak them to the children without letting anyone see. How about I take your second sister's two to her? I live close to her, so that'll save you the dozen kilometers you'd have to walk home after going to her place."
"That works. Give them to her secretly too."
"Mm. Hurry back now, and don't go wandering around. You've got so much money on you, so be careful. Whatever you do, don't lose it."
"All right."
He had originally wanted to make a trip to town, but he'd better take the money home first. To people at this time, it really was a large sum.
There was so much petty theft these days that it really wasn't safe to carry it around. It would pain him if it got stolen. He'd take it home first; the town was close anyway, so he could come back tomorrow just as well.
P.S. I changed the price of the dried shrimp from three yuan to two.