Chapter 248 - 240: Hu Weiwen
The car slowly navigated through the factory compound, Hu Weiwen proudly briefed them on the paper factory’s situation: "Our factory produces five tons of copper plate paper every day!"
"Why do we need so much copper plate paper?" Tian Sisi didn’t understand.
"Ah Nan, you’re so naive. Of course, it’s for printing the Red Treasure Books!" Tian Qinghua chuckled from the side.
"Oh!"
Tian Sisi didn’t ask further. In this era, apart from the Red Treasure Book, there really weren’t any other books to read. Almost everyone had a copy. With a population of seven or eight hundred million, just imagine, it’s no wonder a small paper factory in Jining has to produce five tons of copper plate paper daily.
The factory was rather rudimentary, devoid of tall buildings, all were low flat houses. Occasionally, you could see soldiers in green uniforms. According to Hu Weiwen, these were active-duty military personnel overseeing them. Few women were around, all with ruddy highland complexions, and their dusty appearances made it hard to discern if they were pretty or not.
The car stopped outside the dormitory where Hu Weiwen lived. It was work hours, so the dormitory was deserted and quite clean. Hu Weiwen stayed in a room for six and occupied a top bunk. Tian Xinhua opened the rear compartment, taking out all the food they brought: fried flour (made from soybean flour, rice flour, corn flour, etc.), homemade shredded pork, sausages, pickles, cucumbers, tomatoes, and so on. Other items were fine, but when Hu Weiwen saw the cucumber and tomato, his eyes lit up, and he immediately started munching on a cucumber.
"Ah, I’m dying of craving here. It’s okay to eat poorly here, but the lack of vegetables and fruits is suffocating. Only during this time of year can we buy a couple of watermelons to eat. Other times, we can’t even see anything green. When I first arrived, don’t laugh at me, but I didn’t have a bowel movement for a whole week. It was only after taking two laxatives did I manage to relieve myself, ah, so delicious!"
Hu Weiwen devoured the cucumber, eating it all, including the skin and stem, and then went on to eat two tomatoes. Only after that did he let out a satisfied belch, looking considerably more spirited.
Hu Weiwen kept prattling on about their situation here: "When I first arrived, I really couldn’t adapt at all. The battalion commander knew who my third uncle was, so he specifically took care of me, arranging for me to do the lighter work of pulp washing, but that’s usually done by girls. I only did it for two days before I volunteered to join the grass rolling team, which involves breaking grass into pieces. Now my strength has increased a lot compared to before."
At this point, Hu Weiwen even flexed his arm, striking a bodybuilder’s pose. Hu Weixin couldn’t help it and gave his brother a scornful glance, "Big brother, you’re really silly. You turn down easy work and choose to exhaust yourself with the breaking job. Look at your hands, they’ve become like pig’s trotters."
"I’m not a woman—how can I work alongside the girls! Third uncle has even praised me for my high consciousness. Little brother, don’t talk nonsense if you don’t understand," Hu Weiwen didn’t appreciate his brother’s retort and slapped Hu Weixin’s shoulder.
"Working here isn’t bad, but the food is really awful. Don’t even think about having rice. The first year was okay; we had millet flour buns every meal, and they tasted fine, except there were too many sand grains inside, making this gritty noise while eating. But later, they said we had to save, and each meal they gave us two big Inner Mongolian potatoes, each weighing about half a pound, leaving us belching acid all day in our stomachs."