Let's Keep Breakfast Simple!

Early the next morning.

After Liang Xin got up, he rubbed his belly. That extra meal last night had been so filling.

He had put away a whole jin of fatty pork, and he still wasn't hungry.

But he had to eat even if he wasn't hungry!

He had to develop good eating habits!

If anyone found out what he was thinking, they would probably curse him to death.

Other people couldn't bear to eat their fill even when they were hungry, yet here he was, insisting on eating when he wasn't hungry?

Couldn't he just skip the meal and save it?

Saving it was out of the question. Sorry, that just wasn't his habit!

He still had half a jin left from the jin of dried noodles he'd bought yesterday.

He spent five mao on a jin of eggs.

Hey, little farm eggs-eleven of them!

The water in the small pot came to a boil, and he cracked three eggs into it to poach.

In went half a jin of dried noodles, followed by a sprinkle of salt.

It felt like something was missing.

Hmm, for life to go smoothly, it needed a little green.

He bought some seasonal greens at three fen a jin and sprinkled them in.

They were baby bok choy!

All done!

A nice, simple breakfast, costing about three mao.

He'd just eat a little!

Liang Xin opened his gaping maw and treated himself to a demonstration: one egg per bite!

The poached eggs were tender! The yolks were still runny, too!

Well, that meant they weren't fully cooked.

But these weren't the eggs from before his rebirth, the kind he had to worry about this and that with.

These were all-natural, green, pollution-free little farm eggs. No need to worry!

In three strokes, five divided by two, he finished the big bowl of noodles and the three eggs.

His balance dropped from twenty-five yuan and eighteen fen to twenty-four yuan and thirty-eight fen.

There were also the eight remaining little farm eggs and a handful of unused baby bok choy.

"Hmm, that should be enough nutrition. Time to tidy up and go to work!"

"Though I definitely won't work myself as hard in this life as I did in the last one, holding down a job shouldn't be a problem."

"Otherwise, in an environment like this, if I didn't even have a job but could still afford to eat, people would get suspicious!"

"Besides, my job seems pretty good. I don't have to suffer away cooped up in a factory, and I'm out and about every day. It seems relatively free!"

"I love freedom! Long live freedom!"

After racking his brains, Liang Xin triggered a few memories.

He remembered what he did for a living.

He was a collection agent in the supply and marketing cooperative system.

Note that it was collection, not procurement.

Procurement meant going out and spending money to buy things. Whether you could get them depended on the will of heaven and your own abilities.

Collection agents had it much easier.

They all went to designated locations to complete their collection assignments.

The locations were basically fixed.

They were in county towns around the capital-well, mostly in the countryside.

This was the era of eating from the big communal pot and working collectively.

It was also the era of the so-called planned economy.

Take a village, for example: everyone farmed the land together, and livestock were raised collectively.

Apart from wives and children, nothing was privately owned.

No one could just plant or raise whatever they wanted.

There were quotas and assignments from above for what to plant and raise.

And his job was to go out to the countryside and collect what the villagers had grown and raised according to those assignments!

The prices were all set uniformly, too. All he had to do was check the quantity and quality and pay the villagers according to the amount.

Then he brought the goods back!

But that didn't mean there were no benefits to be had.

Many goods were sorted into quality grades, and naturally, each grade had a different price.

But sometimes, the quality of the goods being graded was hard to pin down.

If the quality was decent but not that good, and it could be assigned either a higher or a lower grade, what then?

There were also things that weren't included in the plan.

For instance, those living by a mountain lived off the mountain, and those living by the water lived off the water. From time to time, the villagers gathered wild fruit in the mountains or fields, or hunted game.

At such times, collection agents like him could also turn into procurement agents, spending money to buy those things as the supply and marketing cooperative required.

Those unplanned goods were often good stuff!

Well, the goods themselves might not be all that good, but they made it easy to pull a few tricks!

Liang Xin thought hard and finally remembered how to get to his workplace.

The collection department was large and operated independently.

It was right behind the district supply and marketing cooperative.

But it shared a cafeteria with the cooperative.

The cafeteria served three meals a day.

Liang Xin remembered that this was the era of eating from the big communal pot.

Every work unit had its own cafeteria. If a unit was small, it shared one with someone else.

Neither the supply and marketing cooperative nor the collection department was small, but they were sister units-well, both belonged to the general supply and marketing cooperative.

Their senior staff were rotated frequently.

So they had always shared a cafeteria.

Liang Xin arrived early, so he went to have a look around the cafeteria first.

"This cracked-corn porridge is practically clear soup."

"These steamed buns aren't very white, either. They're only this big, and they still cost two liang in grain coupons plus five fen?"

"Sure enough, I was right to make do with a simple bite at home."

"If I'd come to the cafeteria, I couldn't even have made do."

"Unless I spent several mao on breakfast, but that would be too conspicuous. Even the department head wouldn't dare eat like that, would he?"

When communal dining was first introduced, everyone had scrambled to eat.

Because the food really was good back then.

But after two years of eating like that, the standard of communal meals had plummeted, getting worse and worse.

After all, food came from the fields; it didn't just blow in on the wind.

How could they possibly keep eating like that?

Even a landlord's family wouldn't dare eat that way!