Local food coupons will expire, but national food coupons will not. It is still very easy to exchange food for food coupons.

If it really doesn’t work, you can find a speculator and exchange the grain for some national food coupons from him.

Of course, this is talking about Uncle Guan. Li Le would not do that. There is no other way because he has too much food.

After leaving Uncle Guan’s house, Li Le rode his tricycle on the streets of the imperial capital.

When passing by a forest, Li Le stopped the tricycle and felt the temperature. It was quite cool.

Li Le had no intention of leaving. He pushed the tricycle into the woods and found a relatively secluded place.

Lock the tricycle, take out the bag for collecting bottles and spread it on the tricycle, then lie directly on the tricycle.

You know what, it’s really comfortable in this woods. At least it feels really cool.

Li Le covered his face with the straw hat and soon fell asleep. When he woke up, it was almost half past two.

This is only the case with Li Le. I don’t know what’s going on, but he seems to be insulated from mosquitoes. No matter where he is, mosquitoes will not bite him.

No one knew whether it was because of the kung fu he practiced or for some other reason, but Li Le couldn’t find it.

If it were an ordinary person, in this weather, at this time, and in this place, after taking a nap, I wonder if he would be able to get up.

Because there is a high chance of excessive blood loss.

After waking up, Li Le stretched and immediately felt refreshed.

The weather was too hot, and Li Le had no plans to continue collecting waste, so he prepared to go to the grain station to buy grain and then go home.

Li Le’s home was not far from the grain station. When he arrived at the grain station, it was already past three in the afternoon.

He parked the tricycle outside and went in with the bags of food.

“Comrade, I want to buy food.”

“Give me the grain book.” The grain station staff member stretched out his hand and said.

Li Le quickly handed over the grain book. The staff member took a look and said, “On your grain book, one is 42 jin, two are 36 jin, a total of 114 jin.”

“Yes!” Li Le nodded quickly.

“Twenty percent of refined grains, a total of 22.8 kilograms. You can buy white flour or rice.”

“Then let’s go with white flour!”

In the imperial capital, people eat white flour more than rice. Let’s put it this way, for every ten kilograms of flour you buy, you may not necessarily buy one kilogram of rice.

Although it doesn’t matter whether Li Le eats white flour or rice, others don’t! So Li Le can only buy white flour.

If you don’t eat this thing yourself, you can sell it to others or exchange it with others.

“You can use the rest to buy coarse grains,” the staff member said to Li Le.

“Comrade, I would like to ask, what are the coarse grains?”

To be honest, Li Le has never known much about coarse grains, but fine grains are simple, such as rice or white flour.

“There are bean flour, sorghum flour, sweet potato flour, corn flour and corn flour.”

“Uh! Comrade, aren’t cornmeal and cornmeal the same thing?”

The staff shook his head and said, “They are different. Cornmeal is made from pure corn, while cornmeal is made directly from corncobs.”

In fact, cornmeal is made with corn cobs. Li Le took a look and found that cornmeal was yellow, while cornmeal was white and looked gray.

“Comrade, what is the price of cornmeal and cornmeal?” Li Le asked without any hesitation!

“Corn flour is 700 yuan per pound, and corn flour is 500 yuan per pound, a difference of 200 yuan.”

If calculated using the second set of RMB, cornmeal is 7 cents and cornmeal is 5 cents, a difference of 2 cents per pound.

Don’t underestimate these two cents. For a family of five or six, if all of them buy it, the difference will be at least more than three dollars.

This is why it is said that five dollars a month is enough for each person to live on.

For example, Li Le’s monthly ration is 42 kilograms, of which fine grains account for 20%, or 8.4 jin.

If we calculate this 8.4 jin as white flour, and one jin of white flour is 1.42 cents, that would be one dollar and 1.9 cents.

The rest was used to buy corn flour, 33.6 pounds, 5 cents per pound, which is 1.68 yuan.

Of course, if you buy cornmeal, it would be two dollars and thirty-five cents.

In other words, if you buy food according to the fixed quota, you will spend at most RMB 3.54 a month, and at least RMB 2.87 a month.

Then the remaining money can be used to buy 4 taels of meat according to the fixed quantity, and the rest can be used to buy vegetables.

Yes, the monthly ration of meat per person in the imperial capital was four ounces, and the price of four ounces of meat was just over twenty cents.

By this calculation, there is at least one dollar left to buy vegetables. If you buy corn noodles, there will be nearly two dollars left to buy vegetables.

The vegetables at this time are very cheap, the cheapest is one or two cents per pound, and the most expensive is only three or five cents per pound.

If we assume the average price is three cents per pound, this extra dollar is nearly two dollars, which can buy at least 50 to 60 pounds of vegetables.

It can be said that it is enough to eat for a month, and that is even with meat. Not only that, there are also fine grains to eat.

If you save a little more, exchange fine grains for coarse grains, and sell your meat coupons, four dollars will probably be enough for a month.

Using the money at that time, it would be 40,000 yuan. This is why some people can support a family of five or six with a monthly salary of more than 200,000 yuan.

“Forget about cornmeal, give me cornmeal!”

“Okay, wait a moment.”

“Ok!”

Li Le nodded, paid the money first, then handed over the flour bag containing grain, and then waited on the side.

Li Le brought over three flour bags in total, one filled with white flour and the other two filled with corn flour.

Nowadays, the bags used to hold grain are all cloth bags, and a bag can only hold 50 kilograms at most.

After about five or six minutes, the food Li Le bought was packed and weighed.

Li Le took the grain book and took a look at it, and found that this month’s ration had been stamped with the purchased stamp.

Yes, this kind of seal has only two words: purchased, which means it has been purchased.

If you want to buy it again, you have to wait until next month. The grain book has the year, month and date on it.

The grain book in Li Le’s hand is valid from December 1953 to November 1963, which means it can be used for ten years.

Once all the stamps are applied, it is time to change to a new grain book.

After packing up the grain books, Li Le carried the grain out of the grain station.

When Li Le returned home, it was not yet four o’clock, and there were still several hours before dark.

“Brother Le, why did you come back so early today?” Seeing Li Le coming back, Zhao Yanran hurried out of the house and asked.

“It was too hot outside, so I came back early.”

“Oh!”

Zhao Yanran and her sister didn’t care at all whether Li Le made money or not, because they knew better than anyone that their family was not short of money.

Not to mention that Li Le just came back early, even if he stayed at home for ten or twenty years, the two would not say anything.

Because the money in the family can never be spent even if you spend several lifetimes, so if that’s the case, why bother going through the trouble of making money?

“I’ll carry the food in first, then I’ll take a shower.”

“Brother Le, let me carry the food! You go take a shower.”

“No, I can do it. You’ll get wet if you carry it.” Li Le took the food off the tricycle and carried it directly into the house. After putting the food away, Li Le went into the house to get a set of clean clothes and went to the bathroom.

It’s summer now, and Li Le takes a shower at least twice a day, so his body is not dirty, he just sweats a little.

It took Li Le less than ten minutes to finish his bath.

After changing his clothes, Li Le returned to the main room. At this time, Zhao Yanhan had already made the tea.

Seeing Li Le coming in, Zhao Yanhan quickly said, “Brother Le, please sit down and take a rest. I’ll pour you some tea.”

Li Le smiled, rubbed Zhao Yanhan’s head, and sat down directly.

“Brother Le, you messed up my hair again.”

“I’d love to.” Li Le said, then picked up a cup of tea and took a sip.

“Huh, I’m ignoring you.”

To be honest, it’s still more comfortable at home! With the fan on and a cup of tea, it’s as cozy as it can be.

I wouldn’t change my life for a life like this even if I were a minister!

“By the way, Brother Le, the weather is getting hotter and hotter. I think we should not go out for a while. Our family is not short of that money.” Zhao Yanran said.

“Yeah! But you can’t not go out. You can go out less or come back earlier.”

Li Le and his friends are waste collectors. If they stay at home all the time and don’t go out, people will know that there is something wrong with them.

Li Le didn’t want anything to go wrong, so he had to go out.

At worst, I can just sleep outside like today and come back early.

In the following week, Li Le went out late and came back early every day. Let’s put it this way! The time he spent collecting waste every day was definitely no more than two hours.

The rest of the time, he either stays at home or sleeps outside. Anyway, no one knows, they just know that he is busy collecting waste every day.

That morning, Li Le was dawdling at home when someone knocked on the door.

Zhao Yanhan quickly ran over to open the door, and quickly ran back.

“Brother Le, there is a letter for you.”

“My letter?” Li Le pointed at his nose in surprise.

There is no way! Others may not know, but he knows himself too well. After he traveled to this era, he doesn’t know anyone!
Besides, even if I knew him, he all lived nearby, so it was impossible for me to write to him.

“Who sent it?” Li Le asked.

“I don’t know. The postman brought it to me.”

Li Le took the letter and opened it to read.

After seeing the content of the letter, Li Le was speechless.

Because the letter was sent by Mr. Liu, it didn’t say anything, just asked Li Le to go to his house after receiving the letter.

Mr. Liu is so adorable. He is only a short distance away from me, but he still needs to write a letter. Why not just come over or ask someone to deliver the letter to tell me?

It just so happened that Li Le thought the weather was too hot, so he hesitated to go out and went straight to Mr. Liu to see what Mr. Liu wanted to see him about.

He handed the letter to Zhao Yanran and said, “I’ll go see what’s going on.”

“Well! Go ahead!”

Zhao Yanran and her sister also knew Master Liu.

Half an hour later, Li Le arrived at the door of Mr. Liu’s house, parked the tricycle, locked it, and went straight in.

As soon as I entered the yard, I saw Master Liu sitting alone at a stone table drinking tea.

Li Le went over directly, sat down, poured him a cup of tea and asked, “Master Liu, what is the matter that you wrote to ask me to come over?”

Master Liu took a sip of tea and said, “Nothing serious.”

“Uh!”

Li Le looked at Master Liu speechlessly and said, “I thought there was something urgent that asked you to write to me.”

Master Liu looked at Li Le helplessly and said, “If it was really an emergency, why would I write to you? By the time the letter arrives, the flowers will be cold.”

Li Le scratched his head and said, “That’s right! If it was really urgent, you would definitely find someone to notify me. It would be much faster than writing a letter.”

“You just know it!”

“Okay! Blame me.”

Li Le finished his cup of tea, and then Master Liu looked at him and said, “You should have a lot of food, right?”

Li Le did not answer Master Liu, but asked: “What are you doing…”

“It’s like this, someone wants to sell some antiques, but they don’t want money, they want food.”

“You want food?”

“Yes, to be exact, I want flour. If you have a lot of flour, you can trade some.”

“Master Liu, it’s okay to ask for white flour, but you also know that the price of white flour is not cheap now.”

The current price of 85% flour at the grain station is 1,420 yuan, but you need a ticket. If you don’t have a ticket, the minimum price is 35 cents.

But Li Le did not have any 85 flour in his hands. All he had was Fuqiang flour, commonly known as refined flour.

This kind of Fuqiang powder is not available on the black market at all.

It can be said that since the implementation of food coupons, few people can buy Fuqiang flour.

It’s not that there is no flour, but this kind of Fuqiang flour was bought by some people before it even reached the grain station.

If ordinary people want to buy Fuqiang flour, it is impossible to buy it unless they are very lucky.

“Don’t worry about this one. The price is two levels higher than the black market. What do you think?”

Li Le said at this time: “Master Liu, my white flour is not available on the black market.”

“Can’t buy it? What does that mean?” Master Liu asked in confusion.

“Master Liu, the flour I have is all Fuqiang flour. As you know, Fuqiang flour is not easy to buy!”

“Are they all Fuqiang fans?” Grandpa Liu looked at Li Le in surprise and asked.

“Yes.” Li Le nodded.

“How about this! You sit down for a while, I’ll discuss it with the other party and I’ll be back soon.”

“Sure.” Li Le shrugged indifferently.

After Master Liu left, Li Le sat down and started drinking tea. It turns out that Master Liu’s tea was pretty good.

Although it cannot compare with the tea in his hand, it is also a rare and exquisite Longjing.

Half an hour later, Master Liu came in from outside, looked at Li Le and said, “The other party agreed. Your Fuqiang flour will be charged at 5,000 yuan per kilogram.”

“Okay, pick a time and we’ll go over then.”

“How about this! Let’s go take a look this afternoon. As for the deal, we’ll talk about it after you’re sure.”

“Yeah! It just gives me some time to prepare.”

At around eleven o’clock, Grandpa Liu brought Li Le to a courtyard house. This courtyard house was much larger than most of them.

“It’s right here. I’ll go knock on the door first.”

Arriving at the gate, Master Liu arranged for Li Le, then picked up the door knocker and knocked on the door a few times. (End of this chapter)