“It’s cloth!” Zhao Fu said excitedly.
Hearing it was cloth, Zeng Shuyi was also very happy.
She unzipped and saw there was cotton fabric, as well as woolen cloth and so on.
But when she flipped further down, she realized something was wrong…
Zhao Fu was still excited, “We thought we’d come all this way for nothing. But that place, after 10 PM, is different—lots of people rush to buy. My brother and I saw the situation immediately and went to buy. And it’s even cheaper than our state-run stores. One meter of cotton cloth costs only two mao, and cotton fabric only one yuan.”
“This isn’t right. The bottom is all scraps!” Zeng Shuyi frowned deeply.
Hearing her, the Zhao brothers’ smiles froze instantly.
The shopkeeper had said they only sold for half an hour and told them to hurry.
They had only done a rough check and hadn’t looked deeper.
Now, when they uncovered the bottom, it was all scraps.
No matter how cheap, shipping these scraps back would still be a loss.
Zhao Fu was stunned, and Zhao Lei angrily slapped himself.
“What do we do?” Zhao Fu almost cried.
They had traveled such a long way—it couldn’t be a total loss.
Zhao Lei, in anger, wanted to go confront the shopkeeper but was stopped by Zeng Shuyi.
“If you go now, they definitely won’t acknowledge it. Besides, they have helpers; we might even get arrested for causing trouble.”
She thought for a moment about what to do.
Scamming outsiders like this was definitely common for them.
If they stubbornly resisted, the shopkeepers united wouldn’t let them off easy.
Zeng Shuyi didn’t want money; she wanted goods.
Around 10 PM that night, the three of them arrived punctually at the Zhao brothers’ shop entrance and saw the door open. Zhao Lei dashed in first.
After Zeng Shuyi and the other entered, they closed the door behind them.
Outside, someone knocked on the door.
The shopkeeper angrily scolded Zhao Lei for what he was doing.
Zeng Shuyi looked and saw it was the same shopkeeper who had spoken to her that day.
“So it’s you, boss. These two are my business partners. Last night, you filled up the cloth with scraps and sold it to them. Don’t you owe us an explanation?”
“Miss, what are you talking about? I always conduct business with integrity. And as for stolen goods, you didn’t notice at the time—how would I know if you didn’t swap scraps afterwards?” The shopkeeper flatly denied it. At that moment, his younger brother came in from the back door. He quickly said, “Go get Hui Ge and the others. Tell them someone’s causing trouble here!”
“Wait!”
Zeng Shuyi took out a bottle of gasoline.
“You know what this is, right? They say no one beats those who don’t fear death. Honestly, the three of us borrowed a big loan to sell cloth. If you make us lose money, we won’t survive. Tell me, if I burn your shop down, won’t you lose money too?”
Cloth is highly flammable.
It doesn’t even need gasoline—just lighting one piece burns a whole area quickly.
Zeng Shuyi was ready to take a desperate gamble.
Coming back to Rongcheng like this, losing money wasn’t the only thing—she couldn’t swallow this anger.
But she didn’t know that the shopkeeper’s cloth was sold on credit.
If she burned it down, the shopkeeper would lose even more.
As for Hui Ge, once he arrived, the entire place was going to burn.
Still, the shopkeeper was hoping for a way out, “You… don’t scare me. I wasn’t raised afraid. If you burn my shop, you won’t get away with it. Just wait to rot in jail!”
“In jail, there’s food and shelter. That’s better than owing money and getting beaten up. Lei Ge, since he refuses to give us the goods, let’s act. We’ve been locked up before. Three or five years inside—maybe the outside world will be better by then.” Zeng Shuyi imitated a scene from a film and opened the gasoline.
Seeing Zeng Shuyi pull out a matchbox, the shopkeeper’s legs went weak. He immediately caved, “Fine… fine, we’ll give it to you!”
“That’s right. Let’s do business honestly. Why cheat people?” Zeng Shuyi gave Zhao Fu and Zhao Lei a look, grabbed their cloth, and took a few extra pieces. “Because of you, I had to cancel my train ticket. This is your compensation. Do business honestly in the future, or if you meet someone even tougher than us, don’t say I didn’t warn you—your shop won’t just burn, you two won’t even see tomorrow!”
They opened the door, and the waiting customers rushed in immediately.
Zeng Shuyi ran like the wind.
The three of them rushed back to the guesthouse and boarded the train that very night.
Even without a ticket back to Rongcheng, they would go somewhere else first.
Without tickets, the three sat at the junction between two train cars. Even now, Zhao Fu hadn’t fully recovered.
“I…I…” Zhao Fu took several deep breaths, still very nervous.
Zeng Shuyi’s heart raced as well.
Zhao Lei looked at Zeng Shuyi. “I really didn’t expect you had this side to you, Shuyi. If I didn’t know your background, I’d have thought you really lived rough.”
“I was scared too, scared to the point of clutching my stomach. But I thought, I invested so much money; if I lost it here, I’d be even angrier. Might as well go all in and scare them.” Zeng Shuyi was now extremely excited. It was already 2 AM, but she had no sleepiness.
Zhao Fu was a little worried, “Do you think the shopkeepers will call the police?”
Zeng Shuyi said no, “They run a business that scams outsiders; they dare not call the police. If we stayed in Guangzhou selling cloth, we’d definitely get trouble. But we left overnight, and they don’t know our names or addresses. Where would they find us?”
She had thought this through before, so she dared to act.
Zhao Lei said, “That’s how it is. Next time, we can’t come again.” He still thought that if they could buy enough goods, maybe they could make steady money.
Zeng Shuyi said not necessarily, “That Hui Ge can’t be around forever. I don’t believe the government can’t catch him. Also, if we can’t go to Guangzhou, we can go elsewhere. I heard business is better in those areas. We don’t have to limit ourselves to one trade.”
When free, Zeng Shuyi went downstairs at the guesthouse to chat with people so much her voice went hoarse, but she still got some results.
The three stayed up all night. The next day, they took a different train back to Rongcheng. By the time they reached the train station, it was already six in the evening.
All the goods were stored first at the Zhao family home. When Zeng Shuyi arrived, it was already eight o’clock. Everyone at home was asleep. She knocked several times, but no one opened.
Her sister-in-law’s room was closest to the door; the others might not have heard, but the sister-in-law definitely did.
Yet no one opened the door for Zeng Shuyi.
She couldn’t force the door, as making a big noise would cause neighbors to come out. If they found out she came home so late, her reputation would be completely ruined.
Wrapped in a piece of woolen cloth she had deliberately brought back, she sat in the courtyard until dawn.
The next morning, Lin Jiazhen opened the door and was shocked to see someone sitting on the front steps. “Who is it?”
“Mom, it’s me.” Zeng Shuyi barely managed to say before fainting.
When she woke up, she was in the hospital. Her mother sat beside her, red-eyed. “Girl, you’re back. Why didn’t you knock?”
“Mom, I did knock, but you didn’t hear.” Zeng Shuyi’s throat hurt; she didn’t say much.
She felt miserable inside. If she had her own house, she wouldn’t have to suffer like this.
She held that thought tightly in her heart. From that moment on, she desperately wanted a house of her own.
After leaving the hospital, she didn’t mention it. She treated Wang Juan the same way. If she were Wang Juan, she wouldn’t open the door in the middle of the night either.
Zeng Shuyi didn’t like to complain about life or others. If there was a problem, she would solve it.
The cloth they brought back with Zhao Fu earned Zeng Shuyi over five hundred yuan, but they didn’t dare go back to Guangzhou. Instead, they hired a long-distance driver to help bring goods from the south, paying him twenty yuan each time as a tip.
Although the goods the driver brought were limited, at least it was more convenient and safe than going out themselves.
Winter passed into spring. By May 1982, the Family Planning Office was officially enforcing policies, and Zeng Shuyi had saved some money.
One day, just after dinner at the Zeng family, they suddenly heard crying from the alley. Zeng Xiangmin put down his bowl and ran out, quickly returning. “Dad, Mom, it’s Sister Moli from next door. She just got back in a panic.”
“Why? What happened?” Zeng Qingliang was curious.
Zeng Xiangmin said the Family Planning Office people had caught her. “It seems Sister Moli is pregnant, and they want to detain her.”
Lin Jiazhen said, “I remember Moli’s first child was a daughter. So she’s pregnant with a second? But if she’s already pregnant, why would the Family Planning Office catch her?”
The family all carried their bowls out. Xu Zhaodi was crying, holding her daughter tightly, refusing to let the Family Planning Office take Zhang Moli. “Do you have no conscience? My daughter’s already four months pregnant. If you take her now to force an abortion, is that humane?”
Hearing Zhang Moli was four months pregnant, the people in the alley frowned. Some older residents stood up. “Young man, I don’t understand. You can control birth numbers, but why interfere with a couple’s childbearing?”
“Exactly. Saying one child per family—if something happens to the child or they’re unfilial, what then?”
“That’s harsh to say, but there’s truth. Since ancient times, every family wants a son and a daughter. Then this Family Planning stuff makes no sense. Now Moli is already pregnant. You can fine or imprison, but forcing an abortion at four months—that’s murder!”
One after another, people voiced their frustrations. The alley quickly gathered a crowd, all baffled why the rule was so strict, limiting families to one child.
Zeng Shuyi didn’t understand either. If a family could afford it, let them have more children.
Wang Juan also spoke up for Zhang Moli. She couldn’t have children herself but hated the Family Planning policy. “This is murder. Aren’t you afraid of ending your own family line?”
A group of people surged forward. The Family Planning Office couldn’t do much. They couldn’t take her away and had to call the police.
Wang Juan and others tried to reason with the police, but it was no use. In the end, Zhang Morong was taken to the hospital.
Because of this, the alley’s resentment grew. People dared to be angry but not speak out. There was no choice; the policy was so strict.
The next day, when Zeng Shuyi was preparing to leave, she saw the Zhang family picking up Zhang Moli from the hospital. Her face was ashen, looking lifeless.
When Zeng Shuyi met Zhao Lei, she was still thinking about Zhang Moli’s situation. She couldn’t shake the heaviness in her heart.
“Shuyi, are you in trouble?” Zhao Lei asked.
Zeng Shuyi said no.
“You don’t look well. I rarely see you so down.” Zhao Lei was getting married in the first lunar month, and his wife was also pregnant. He was happy every day about becoming a father.
Zeng Shuyi told him about Zhang Moli’s case. “They even force women under 45 to get an Intrauterine Device, saying if you don’t, you’ll lose your job.”
“That’s the worst part about having a job. You can’t lose your job just to have a child. If you don’t work, you have no money to raise the child. Most people have to compromise.” Zhao Lei said, “But we don’t have to be afraid. I definitely won’t have just one child. I’ve already decided—whether my wife’s first child is a boy or girl, I’ll have two more. That way, the kids have siblings to support each other.”
“Right, back to the real issue. My cousin is going south to start a business. This house was assigned to him by the school. The neighbors are all teachers, so the atmosphere is decent.”
Today, Zeng Shuyi was going to look at the house. After being locked outside her own home all night, she was eager to buy a place of her own. She’d been keeping an eye out, and when Zhao Lei mentioned this suitable house, she was tempted.
Zhao Lei’s cousin’s house was a two-bedroom bungalow with a living room. It had a small courtyard of five or six square meters planted with some flowers and grass.
When Zeng Shuyi arrived, she saw the neat, well-ventilated house, with good south-north airflow. Opportunities like this were rare, as few people sold houses.
For ordinary people, starting a business was like being kicked by a donkey in the head.
Zhao Lei whispered, “If you like it, just nod. I’ll negotiate the price with them.”
Zeng Shuyi was quite satisfied. The money she earned was to make life more comfortable. Keeping it in the bank didn’t really feel like enjoying anything.
She nodded to Zhao Lei. Understanding, Zhao Lei took his cousin into the house.