Chapter 1 Teenage Ambition

For Zhang Tie, the two days of the weekend passed quickly, because his father had to go to work on Saturday, so Zhang Tie made rice brew with his mother for a day at home on Saturday. Selling about five or six cans of rice brewing is not a lot of income, but it is not without small benefits for the Zhang family who have been living on a budget.

Rice stuffing is a traditional delicacy of the Chinese people, and the method is not complicated. The main raw material is rice, and the processing process is also simple. First, wash the rice, put it in a pot and cook until it is about half-cooked, then scoop up the rice and dry it. Then put it in a steamer and steam it, then dry it, and then put it into a clay pot, mix it with sugar and honey during the canning process, and finally sprinkle it with water, that is, yeast liquid, Seal it up and let it ferment naturally. After one month, you can open the can and eat it. The taste of the finished rice stuffing retains the sweetness and softness of the rice. It is rich in nutrition and has a comfortable sweetness. It relieves heat, nourishes the spleen and stomach, and is extremely delicious. Zhang Tie and his brother grew up eating rice brewed by their mother.

Although the manufacturing process of Mi Niang is simple, every step of the process and the heat are very particular. The reputation and popularity of Zhang’s Mi Niang in the neighborhood and old customers have been conscientious for more than ten years. Accumulated little by little.

The result of a busy day on Saturday was to make seven cylinders of rice brew. After making these rice brews, they moved the rice brews to the warehouse behind the shop for storage. Zhang Tie went out again on the small tricycle that had been modified at home. I ran twice, one was to buy rice at the rice shop, the rice in the rice vat at home almost tended to bottom out after making the rice, so Zhang Tie had to go to the rice shop every weekend One trip, after buying rice, I also bought two catties of sugar. When buying rice this time, Zhang Tie found that the price of rice in the rice shop had increased a little. Last week, the asking price for a 25 kg bag of ordinary rice was 4 silver coins and 45 copper coins. The price of a bag of ordinary rice has quietly increased to 4 silver coins and 58 copper coins per bag. Within a week, the price has increased by nearly 3%.

Zhang Tie was taken aback. We ordinary people are extremely sensitive to changes in the prices of these daily necessities. Zhang Tie remembered that the price of rice in Heiyan City had basically remained unchanged in the past three years since he went to middle school. At the time, it was 4 silver coins and 45 copper coins per bag. It was only a week, how could it increase so much?

"Oh, Zhang Tie, there's nothing we can do. The price of rice went up when we bought the goods the day before yesterday, and we can only follow suit. We can't make a loss-making business!" , and began to complain to Zhang Tie, "70% of our Heiyan City's rice is pulled from outside, and the few farms and planting areas outside Heiyan City can't guarantee the city's food supply at all. What can we do? The prices of these things are determined by the big business groups above. Not only the rice, but also the noodles. The price has also increased in the past two days. If you don’t believe me, go look elsewhere. It’s all like this price, and some are even more expensive..."

The owner of the rice store has been a regular customer for many years, and Zhang Tie would not be so stupid as to really look elsewhere. The price of grain in Heiyan City is basically the same everywhere. For the same bag of rice, every rice in Heiyan City The price difference in the store is at most one to three coppers. If the price difference is more than five coppers, it is basically impossible to sell. I have dealt with it for many years. This rice store is also run by a hardworking and shrewd Chinese owner. This is trustworthy. There are still.

According to the price of 4 silver coins and 58 coppers, which is 458 coppers, Zhang Tie bought three bags of rice, that is, 75 kilograms of rice, and put them on his small tricycle. This tricycle is a second-hand bicycle with a pocket and a It was modified from one wheel, not to mention its ugly appearance, and its load was limited. Three bags of rice plus Zhang Tie was almost its limit. When moving the rice, Zhang Tie carefully checked the needle holes and thread ends on the rice pocket, and saw that there were no traces of poking or re-stitching.

Only then did I feel relieved. Some black-hearted rice shop owners and grain merchants would put the grains on the rice pockets when they wanted to use less-than-perfect methods or shoddy them as good ones, or even worse, when adding sand to the rice. The needle and thread are removed and then sewn together again, so as long as you are careful, you can find out whether a bag of rice has been tampered with by checking the needle holes and thread ends on the rice bag. The children of the poor have long been in charge of their families. This is Zhang Tie's experience in buying rice over the years.

After buying rice, he bought two catties of sugar in a grocery store not far from the rice store. Zhang Tiecai rode a tricycle home. As expected, after the price of rice rose by 3%, the price of sugar also followed It has risen, but the price of sugar has risen even more. Last week, the price of raw sugar was 91 copper coins per kilogram. Jin of sugar, packed in a cloth bag, hung on the handlebar of the car. Riding that ugly modified second-hand tricycle, I wobbled back home.

When I got home, I told my mother about the increase in the price of rice and sugar, and then gave my mother the rest of the purchase money, which was not less than a penny, and watched my mother take the money. After thinking about it, he counted ten copper coins from his hand to make pocket money for Zhang Tie.

Zhang Tie, who got ten coppers, said to his mother with a smile like a flower, "Thank you, mom!" Today, my mother is much more generous. Usually, there are only five coppers at most.

My mother sighed, and frowned, "The prices of rice and sugar have gone up, and the price of our rice stuffing can only go up accordingly. The profit is already thin, and if the price doesn't go up, the business won't go up." If we can’t do this anymore, if we want to increase the price, we may lose some old customers! Sigh..."

Looking at the frowning mother, Zhang Tie blurted out a word in agitated mood, "Mom, don't worry, I will definitely let you and Dad live a good life in the future, I am different from before!"

"Mom knows, our little Guoguo has grown up, of course it's different from before!" Mom laughed and reached out to stroke Zhang Tie's head.

Hearing the other meaning behind the word "adult" in his mother's tone, Zhang Tie became embarrassed again for a while, "Mom, it's not what you think, I mean I..."

"Okay, okay, mother knows that our Guoguo has grown up and is a good and filial child, let's not talk about it, you hurry up and send this rice soup to Mother Teresa, it's too late today I can't catch up!"

Zhang Tie's words were interrupted by his mother, and he didn't say the following words. Zhang Tie was sullen again, and put the few jars of rice soup left at home today on the ugly tricycle. Zhang Tie was a little depressed He rode the bicycle again and rushed to another place. Thinking about the impulsiveness just now, he almost blurted out the strange thing about him having the Black Iron Fort, and he blamed himself for being too impulsive. If the secret is known to the family now, apart from worrying the parents and bringing many unpredictable risks, Zhang Tie really can't think of any benefits to the family. Riding on the bike, Zhang Tie secretly made up his mind to let this secret rot in his heart. If he has the ability, he can just let his family enjoy the benefits brought by the Black Iron Fort. There is no need to make them worry about this. Worry about yourself. Whether for himself or for this family, the less people know about the secrets of the Black Iron Fort, the better.

Heiyan City is an emerging industrial city without much historical background. One of the advantages of emerging cities is that at the beginning of the planning of Heiyan City, the convenience of urban transportation was fully considered. Many roads are very spacious, especially On some main roads, sidewalks, non-motorized lanes, and motorized lanes are all clearly separated. Zhang Tie rode on the modified second-hand tricycle, ringing the bell, and quickly walked on the non-motorized road in Heiyan City. Shuttle, looking enviously at the cars passing by from time to time on the motorway around me, and dreaming that one day I can get a car, bring my family, or a beautiful woman like Teacher Dinah Take a ride around town.

Before the cataclysm, the steam engine was a technology that humans had eliminated for hundreds of years. I heard that at that time, humans had invented various advanced mechanical equipment and technologies, and the steam engine was thrown into the garbage dump of history. Nobody cares. Among those advanced technologies, some technologies are like myths to Zhang Tie—for example, various machines that can fly in the air, ships that can run without refueling for hundreds of years, and those that send people to the stars. The means, the equipment that can easily talk and see the other party from millions of miles away, and the devilish weapon that can easily wipe out a city or even a country by planting a mushroom, and so on, the school teacher said When it came to this, he was full of sighs, and Zhang Tie was full of stars when he heard it. The human society before the cataclysm was really unimaginable. After the cataclysm, human beings lost all this glory. In desperation, human beings dug out the steam engine from the garbage dump of history, from the simplest condensing steam vacuum pump to the most complex high-pressure steam turbine, All kinds of old and outdated gadgets that have been dug out of the history pile began to glow with youth again, and supported human beings to stand and start running again in this era that is different from any previous era, just like Those cars are equipped with small boutique reciprocating two-stage steam engines and are speeding around the city.

In Heiyan City, ordinary people’s means of transportation are feet and urban public transportation. Some working-class people may buy a bicycle. For example, Zhang Tie’s family refitted such a weird second-hand bicycle for the convenience of delivery and shopping. Tricycle. But the real rich people, those rich people's means of transportation are only cars, and cars that cost thousands of gold coins are no longer pure means of transportation for those people, but a symbol of status and strength. In the entire Black Flame City, after so many years, the number of private cars has always been less than 1,000, and the people who can sit in them are either rich or expensive. At least in Zhang Tie's school, Zhang Tie didn't find any student or teacher's family who could afford such a car. Even for Captain Colin, as the most terrifying one-eyed dragon in Black Flame City, even if his salary is not low compared with ordinary people, if he wants to buy a car, it may cost It is possible to live without food or drink for 50 years.

From childhood to adulthood, almost all the superficial knowledge about machinery and tools Zhang Tie learned in school is related to various steam engines. As a man with a natural desire to conquer the world, 15-year-old Zhang Tie There were two biggest extravagant dreams for the future, one was Teacher Dinah, and the other was a beautiful private car. The combination of these two extravagant dreams gave birth to the kind of heavenly life that Zhang Tie dreamed of—every day Drive the car, pull Teacher Dana, and then find a place with beautiful scenery and no one is disturbed, and communicate with Teacher Dana about the human piston movement process related to the steam engine, and check the anti-seismic performance of car tires and seats by the way.

The young man immersed in the "wildness" that no one knows, rode a tricycle hard and galloped around the city. After 30 minutes, he finally arrived before six o'clock in the evening, and pulled the things on the car to Mother Teresa. Mama's Orphanage...

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