By the time they left the sugar factory, it was already noon!
Factory Director Liang insisted on having Li Yi stay for lunch, but he declined.
Knowing these state-owned enterprise leaders as he did, a meal without at least eight or ten dishes and three or five bottles of Moutai would be utterly beneath their status.
Never mind whether it was extravagant or not—that was just the prevailing atmosphere these days.
Li Yi couldn’t hold his liquor, and his drinking habits were even worse—otherwise, he wouldn’t have ended up groping Tang Xue while half-drunk.
So ever since that incident, he’d decided to quit drinking—some mistakes are best made only once!
When Plant Manager Liang saw that Li Yi was adamant about not eating, he didn’t press the issue.
He could tell this young man was genuine and had strong principles. Since he was insisting, so be it!
The car pulled out of the sugar factory’s gates, but Li Na wasn’t there.
Wang Anguo asked in confusion, “Where’s your sister? Why don’t I see her?”
“She must have gone over to the textile factory!”
Li Yi explained, “A few days ago, the sugar factory had a major safety inspection, right? The workers weren’t allowed to leave the premises, so we temporarily moved our stall over to the textile factory!”
“Alright, I’ll give you a ride there!” Wang Anguo said.
“Sure!”
Sure enough, when the little jeep arrived at the textile factory, they could see Li Na bustling about from a distance.
Wang Anguo was about to drive right up to her, but Li Yi stopped him immediately, saying, “If you drive up like that, all the female workers there will run away!”
“Hahaha, I completely forgot about that!” Wang Anguo said with a laugh.
Seeing that Li Yi was about to get out of the car, Wang Anguo suddenly said, “Brother Li Yi, you’ve got to clear your schedule for next Tuesday!”
“What’s up?”
“It’s my old man’s 60th birthday, and I’d like to invite you!”
Li Yi thought it over. There were still six days until next Tuesday, so he should have time.
“Alright, I’ll come find you at the county bureau then!” Li Yi said.
“Alright!”
Just as Li Yi got out of the car, he saw Wang Anguo getting out too.
Then, right in front of him, Wang Anguo opened the trunk of the 212 Jeep and unloaded two burlap sacks.
“What’s in there?”
“A gift from your senior brother!”
“A gift?”
“Haha, nothing much—just some white and brown sugar produced at their factory. It’s not worth much!”
With that, without waiting for Li Yi to say anything, Wang Anguo hopped into the car, stepped on the gas, and sped off into the distance.
Li Yi looked at the two burlap sacks of sugar in front of him and couldn’t help but shake his head.
Sugar was a scarce commodity in those days. Even though there was a local sugar factory, the price of white sugar had long been stable at 80 cents per pound—and you still needed sugar coupons to buy it.
Sugar coupons were even harder to come by than the money itself.
According to policy, each person was rationed only half a jin of sugar every three months—just two jin a year, and not a gram more.
Yet sugar was a rare tonic in this era—needed for women during their postpartum confinement, and for sick children and the elderly at home—making it the hottest commodity on the black market.
Yet Plant Manager Liang had given him two burlap sacks of sugar at once—each standard sack weighing 50 jin, totaling 100 jin.
If he were to get them onto the black market, a conservative estimate would put their value at 120 yuan—and they’d be the kind of goods people would be scrambling to buy.
Looking at this whole situation, Director Liang first gave him 200 yuan as a token of appreciation, then offered him two permanent staff positions, and on top of that, these two huge sacks of sugar—his sincerity was truly evident.
Not to mention the large orders he’d placed for liangpi and white-skinned pancakes—roughly calculating this week’s earnings, he’d make at least a thousand yuan.
You have to admit, this Plant Manager Liang is really pulling out all the stops. He handled this so well that even Li Yi couldn’t help but give him a thumbs-up!
Don’t think that Plant Manager Liang is just using company resources to pay back a favor—after all, in this day and age, favors are the hardest thing to repay.
Spending a little money now to settle the debt is no big deal, but if the day ever comes when Li Yi personally shows up demanding repayment, that won’t be something that can be resolved with just a thousand or two.
Seeing Third Sister handling things with such ease, Li Yi didn’t bother her. He just squatted in the shade of a tree, watching, and keeping an eye on his two big bags of white sugar.
Just past 1:00 PM, Li Na finally wrapped up her business!
Li Yi immediately came over to help, and in the process, loaded the two big bags of sugar into the car.
“What’s this?” Li Na asked, wiping the sweat from her brow.
“Sugar!”
Li Na paused for a moment and asked, “Is that all?”
“Yeah, one bag of white sugar and one bag of brown sugar!” Li Yi replied.
“Where did you get so much sugar? There must be about 100 pounds of it!”
“Someone gave it to me—a full hundred pounds!”
“Who gave it to us? They’re really generous!”
“That Plant Manager Liang from the sugar factory!”
Li Yi didn’t hold anything back and recounted the whole story, though he didn’t mention to Li Na that he’d been pretending to be a fortune-teller; he simply said he’d discovered, by pure chance, that the sugar factory’s facilities had safety hazards.
His explanation was roughly the same as what he’d told Tang Xue earlier about dxmbang.
Li Na wasn’t interested in the specifics. When she heard that the sugar factory had offered Li Yi two permanent positions, she exclaimed with delight, “Does that mean we’re going to have two workers in our family?”
These days, being a factory worker was still highly sought after, and the reason was simple: workers were entitled to government-rationed food and actually got paid!
Li Yi smiled and asked, “What, do you want to go?”
“Can I?” Li Na asked, her eyes sparkling with anticipation.
“No way!”
“Hmph, I knew it. Are you planning to go to the factory with Xiaoxue?”
“No, I plan to give these two spots to my older sister and brother-in-law!” Li Yi said.
“Big Sister and her husband? Why?”
“We’ll talk about the details when we get home. For now, let’s focus on dealing with all this candy!” Li Yi said with a smile.
Seeing that Li Yi didn’t seem keen on discussing the topic, Li Na didn’t press him further.
She knew her younger brother had always been stubborn since childhood; once he made up his mind, it was hard for anyone to change it. Fortunately, he wasn’t acting recklessly now, so there must be a reason for his decision.
“Why don’t we take them to the black market and sell them?” Li Na suggested.
Li Yi chuckled. “Let’s not do that. Setting aside whether it’s safe or not, it’s just a bit of a face-saving issue!”
“What’s there to be embarrassed about? You still care about that?”
Li Na looked at Li Yi as if he were a monster. Her younger brother had always had a thick skin since childhood, and she was curious how he could be so shameless.
“That’s not what I meant. They just gave us these candies as a gift, and I’m going to turn around and sell them on the black market. Is that appropriate?”
Li Na thought for a moment and said, “You’re right, that doesn’t seem quite right. So what do you suggest we do?”
“Why not take them back to the village? See if any families need them and sell them to the villagers at cost!” Li Yi suggested.
“Better to help our own people than strangers—that works!”
“Let’s go. We need to head to the supply and marketing cooperative right away. We’re raising the roof beams tomorrow, so we’ve got to stock up on some good wine and meat!” Li Yi said.
“Okay!”
……..