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Chapter 121: Chapter 115: The Great Golden Deer
This year, because Dashuan’s wife was giving birth, Shen Yunfang was without a helper, but fortunately, she had done it all before last year, and now it wasn’t so difficult to do it again. After busying herself with soaking seeds to hasten germination, she finally managed to keep up with the schedule and got all the land planted on time.
Although they raised chicks at home again, this year was much less trouble than last year.
Once the chicks got a little bigger, Shen Yunfang let them mingle behind the grown hens; after eating a meal at home in the morning, they would exit through the backyard gate, pecking at grass seeds and chasing grasshoppers on the grass patch to supplement their own protein intake. In the evening, a simple cluck from Shen Yunfang in the yard was enough to send them scurrying back home for dinner.
Of course, they remembered their duty; every morning, they would lay their eggs before heading out to wander.
The ducks and geese were the same; each morning, they would lay their eggs at home bright and early, then the older ones would lead the younger ones, waddling their way to the stream at the head of the village, frolicking and feasting on small fish and shrimp. Hungry in the evening, they would return home for dinner.
So, you could say Shen Yunfang had it easy; feeding the chickens, ducks, geese, and pigs was all she had to do in the mornings and evenings.
With eight duck eggs and eight goose eggs a day, it didn’t take many days for Shen Yunfang to save up a jar’s worth. After boiling some brine, she pickled them all. She didn’t sell any, choosing instead to keep them all for her own family to eat. Of course, this was only temporary; if she saved too many, she would still sell some.
When the weather warmed up, Shen Yunfang dismantled the plastic shed in her own backyard, as it took up too much space. She still hoped to plant more grains and vegetables in the backyard.
Because there were more chickens, it was definitely not feasible to keep them in the front yard anymore; there wasn’t enough space, and it wasn’t great for passersby to see them—it’s always better to keep a low profile when conducting business.
So, in the end, Shen Yunfang came up with a not-so-great solution, fencing in the space between the left-side house and the wall. The area wasn’t big, but just enough for the chickens to roost. Then she adjusted the planting layout in the backyard, sowing corn on the left side. In this way, once the corn seedlings grew up, she could directly build fences in the field like last year, connecting them to the chicken coop, and the chickens, ducks, and geese would have a larger range to roam.
Another thing happened that no one expected: For some reason, Aunt Shen had a change of heart and had Shen Zhijie and Shen Zhiwen come to help her with the farming.
It was an act of kindness that Shen Yunfang couldn’t refuse, and she gratefully accepted their help. The two of them helped her plant the privately-owned land, and she managed to sow the backyard area herself during the mornings and evenings, saving a bit of money. 𝚗𝚘v𝚙𝚞b.𝚌𝚘m
Actually, Aunt Shen’s generosity was her way of showing approval now that Yunfang seemed to be getting her life on track. Last year, Yunfang had raised chickens, ducks, geese, pigs, and sheep, not missing out on any opportunity, and now it was apparent that her poultry was beginning to pay off, and her life was improving. It was the right time for Aunt Shen to add icing to the cake.
While it wasn’t uncommon for villagers to raise a couple of pigs, no family in the village raised over thirty chickens all at once (outsiders only knew she raised over thirty chickens). The villagers gossiped that the younger son of the Li Family must have given her a lot of money; otherwise, where would she get the confidence to raise so many chickens at once? After all, they were mouths to feed, requiring a substantial amount of grain over the year.
Shen Yunfang was unaware of these whispers; these days, she was busy planting in the hills every day.
Since the area she was cultivating this year was larger, she didn’t stick to planting only sweet potatoes; like at home, she intercropped sweet potatoes, corn, and soybeans, and even found space between the ridges to plant some peanuts.
With quite a few sheep at home, she planted two ridges of carrots around the perimeter of the large plot of land, with a ridge of fragrant melons and a ridge of watermelons beside them.
Remembering that she also had a box of honeybees at home, she interspersed three rows of sunflowers around the outer edge and then placed the beehive next to the pigsty.
As May arrived, the exhausting spring farming was finally over. Meanwhile, two major events unfolded in Gaijiatun, and both concerned the Shen Family.
The first event was that Shen Yunfang bought a bicycle. By mid-May, seeing a decent stockpile of eggs in her cellar and lacking transportation to sell them, she decided to get a bicycle. Although she had her own ways of doing things unseen, having a tool to do so openly was necessary, so she set her heart on making the purchase.
Taking advantage of a rest day, she took Uncle Yougen’s horse-drawn cart to the county town and headed straight to the department store.
Originally, she thought that with tickets and money in hand, she wouldn’t need to ask anyone for help and could just make the purchase upon arrival. But to her surprise, it was a seller’s market, and although Shen Yunfang saw the bicycles on display at the department store, the salesperson simply told her they were out of stock and asked her to go home and wait.
It was clear they just weren’t selling to her, which infuriated her. Seeing the haughty attitude of the salesperson, Shen Yunfang stormed into the manager’s office. She was determined to find a leader to complain to about her experience.
As it turned out, the person who received her was an acquaintance, Xue Jialong. It appeared that Xue Jialong had been transferred from the supply and marketing cooperative to the department store before the New Year.
This was truly a case of fellow villagers feeling a bond, and Shen Yunfang didn’t bother with formalities, directly sharing the unfair treatment she had just endured.
Xue Jialong listened to her with a smile, not getting angry at all and pacifying her with a good temper. Then he asked her to wait in the office while he went out, and not long after, he came back in and took her out to choose a bicycle.
There were two brands of bicycles in the department store, one was Shanghai’s Phoenix, the other was Qingdao’s Golden Deer. Shen Yunfang wasn’t very familiar with these, but after Xue Jialong’s introduction, she ultimately chose the larger Golden Deer from Qingdao.
The reason for this choice was that it was a model with a high load capacity, which would be needed if her family were to sell goods outside in the future.
As for whether it looked good or not, they were all big two-eight bicycles; there wasn’t much difference, not really a big deal.
Shen Yunfang left the department store feeling completely satisfied, having paid one hundred and eighty-five yuan for the bicycle, when she suddenly asked Xue Jialong, who was walking beside her with a bit of a recoil in her attitude, "Brother-in-law, how are you going to deal with that salesperson?" If this were in later times, that would be grounds for dismissal.
"How to deal with it? That man is the director of the county committee office," Xue Jialong said with a chuckle.
Shen Yunfang smacked her lips. Hmm, that person had clout. She’d better keep her distance.
And so, Shen Yunfang spent money and tolerated arrogance to buy a bicycle from the department store.
When Shen Yunfang returned to Gaijiatun riding her Golden Deer brand two-eight bicycle, it could be said that the entire village was astounded.
This was Gaijiatun’s very first bicycle, and from the entrance of the village to her house, it took her the entire afternoon to push it home, with men and women, old and young, coming over to touch and marvel at it, showcasing just how rare and precious it was.
Some of those with a good relationship with her even asked to take it for a test ride, like Wang Jianjun. Shen Yunfang wasn’t stingy, she lent him the bike directly, just asking him to return it to her before he went to sleep that night.
This trend lasted for three days before it gradually subsided, and Shen Yunfang’s bicycle finally came to rest peacefully in her yard.
When Uncle Shen learned she had bought a bicycle, he was very excited and circled around the bicycle for a long time. He also inquired where the bicycle ticket came from, and Shen Yunfang, who had thought about it beforehand, simply said it was arranged by Li Hongjun’s comrade-in-arms, and the money for the bicycle came from her own pig-selling money from last year and the money Li Hongjun sent in the mail.
Uncle Shen kept muttering how expensive it was, but later whenever he needed to go to the commune for a meeting or something, he always came to borrow Shen Yunfang’s bicycle. She didn’t care about this; as long as she wasn’t inconvenienced, she was willing to lend it to anyone with good relations who asked.
The second thing was about Shen Yunxiu finding a partner. If it were just an ordinary young girl seeking marriage, not many people would care, but Shen Yunxiu was different. She had found herself an educated youth from the production team and insisted on getting married at home.
