Chapter Twenty-Four: Beating Soybean Oil

  Qiu Ye went home from downstairs and took the grain coupon borrowed from Aunt Zhao to buy bean oil. When she entered the house to take money, she thought that she didn't know how much the bean oil was selling for now, so she took it all. Then she went to the kitchen to find an oil bucket and rushed to the grain store of Shida University to buy bean oil.

  The grain store wasn't too far away, and it was in the opposite direction of her mother's tofu shop, which was next to the elementary school. In less than two minutes, Qiu Ye ran to the entrance of the grain store. She took a bucket inside and saw a young woman sitting behind the counter knitting a sweater. She knew that this grain store also belonged to the university, so the people selling things inside were also relatives of the staff, just like her mother. However, this job was much better than her mother's, as it didn't require much effort every day, and sometimes there were even some extra benefits. It wasn't a job that ordinary people could do if they wanted to. The person sitting inside was the younger sister-in-law of one of the university's vice presidents.

  This woman was originally a rural person. After joining her brother-in-law, she became a family worker and was arranged to do this easy job here.

  Qiu Ye thought to herself, it's always the same, having someone in a high position makes things easier to handle. People can be so frustrating. But she just thought about it and didn't say anything out loud, she wasn't some kind of angry youth. The fact that others could sit there leisurely knitting sweaters was also a testament to their abilities, something to be admired but not attainable.

  Qiu Ye had been in for a while, and that person was still knitting his own sweater, not even thinking of paying attention to her. She couldn't help it, she still had a lot of things to do, now it's almost 3 o'clock, she went forward and sweetly called out: "Auntie, I want to make bean oil."

  Her voice was useless, the woman seemed to have not heard her and remained motionless with her head down and eyes closed. Qiu Ye had no choice but to continue calling out: "Auntie, auntie, I want to buy bean oil."

  "What's all the shouting about?" The woman said impatiently, then she raised her head and saw that the little girl in front of her looked somewhat familiar. "You're Old Qiu's eldest daughter, aren't you? What brings you here to buy oil by yourself?"

  "Auntie, my dad is Qiu Yanlin. They've all gone to work, so I'm the one who came to buy oil." Qiu Ye said as he pushed the grain forward.

  The woman finally put down the needle in her hand, took over Qiu Ye's grain book and looked at it. It wasn't theirs. She asked suspiciously: "Where did you get this grain book from?" The tone of her voice implied that Qiu Ye had stolen the grain book, which made Qiu Ye frown slightly.

  "Auntie, it's just that the uncle's family downstairs from our house ran out of oil at home today since they all went to work, so I'm helping them run an errand to buy a catty of bean oil." Qiu Ye made up a lie, otherwise this woman would still be asking questions.

  This woman heard that Qiu Ye would hit a catty of bean oil, and she somewhat believed it. If someone had stolen grain from another family, how could they not have bought it all at once?

  "Is it edible if I just hit it with a catty?"

  Qiu Ye looked at this affected woman and felt annoyed, but couldn't afford to offend her, so she said: "Auntie, Fang Shu's family has few people, one kilogram of oil is enough for a while, it's just that our family doesn't have bean oil, do you have any other family's leftovers? If so, I'll get some more."

  The woman listened and stared at Qiu Ye, saying: "No. One catty of bean oil, 70 cents, pay first."

  Qiu Ye counted out 7 one-yuan bills from his pocket and handed them to the woman. The woman spat on her finger, counted the bills again one by one, making sure there were 7 of them, before standing up, taking the oil can that Qiu Ye had handed over, and went to get oil for him.

  In this era, there was no oil in supermarkets like the kind that came in buckets. Instead, they used large iron drums over a meter high to store oil. A woman walked up to one of these drums and found a rubber hose attached to it. She pressed down on a plug at the top of the drum, and soybean oil flowed out through the hose. She filled a one-catty ladle to the brim with oil, then found a funnel and placed it over the mouth of her own oil container, pouring all the oil into it.

  Qiu Ye saw that there was still oil dripping from the ladle into the funnel, and the woman straightened it up, no longer pouring. She knew this was a trick to save oil, and the little bit of oil left in the ladle belonged to her. No wonder they said this job had perks - accumulating small amounts like this meant she didn't even need to spend money on oil for home use.

  Qiu Ye looked very angry, but didn't have the ability to argue with others. At this time, Qiu Ye could only thank him and hurriedly carried the oil bucket back home again, today was really late.

  When Qiu Ye arrived home and finished collecting the soybean oil, it was already 4 o'clock when she returned the grain coupon book. Her mother had just entered the house and said, "Where did you go? You've only just come back."

  "Oh, mom, I just went to Uncle Fang's house and Aunt Zhao said not to cook dinner tonight, she invited our family to have dinner at her place." Qiu Ye hurriedly told her mother this news in order to change the subject.

  As expected, Mrs. Qiu was startled after hearing the girl's words and said: "Why did Aunt Zhao invite us to dinner? Didn't you get into some kind of trouble?"

  Qiu's mother felt strange, why did Zhao Shuyan and her husband suddenly say they wanted to invite them to dinner? Although they lived on the upper and lower floors, their relationship was good, but Qiu's parents always had some inferiority complex in their hearts. The cultural level of the adults in the two families was different, and their economic conditions and living standards were also different. So Qiu's mother and father were like this, usually just getting along with their neighbors, never being overly enthusiastic, making people think they were trying to curry favor with them.

  What's going on today? Could it be that Old Maiden has gone to someone else's home to cause trouble?

  "No, I'm so well-behaved, how could I get into trouble? It's just that Uncle Fang thinks I'm cute and wants me to be his goddaughter. I said this is something I can't decide on my own, I have to ask my parents. So he said he'll invite you guys over for dinner tonight."

  "Oh, that's it, then I really need to discuss this with your dad." Qiu's mom heard this and thought, "This person has taken a liking to our daughter," which was only natural, since her daughter was perfect in every way. It would be strange if they didn't like her.

  Qiu's mother started bragging again, praising herself.

  At this time, Qiu Ye also remembered that today her mother went to the market to sell tofu. Thinking that there was only one big piece of tofu left in the kitchen, she thought all the others had been sold, so she said: "Mom, you must have sold a lot today, I see that there's no more tofu."

  Qiu's mother's expression turned ugly in an instant. She hadn't even made as much money today as her daughter had on her first day selling meatballs, and she had only sold one piece of tofu for 40 cents. Everything else was pushed back just the way it was pushed out. Just now, she had gone to her husband's workplace and sent all the remaining tofu to the cold storage to freeze, so that the tofu wouldn't go bad in vain. At this moment, when her daughter asked, her face couldn't hold up.

  Qiu Ye saw her mother's face change, knowing that it might not be good, so she shut up and waited for her father to come back to ask. She was afraid that her mother would get angry again and vent her anger on her.

  Qiu Ye didn't have time to chat with her mom, she still had to go sell meatballs later. You know, she spent her own money buying a kilogram of oil today, so she must earn it back today.

  Originally, Mom said she would take her there, but she saw the exhaustion on Mom's face, who had been up since 3 o'clock in the morning and hadn't taken a break yet. She really pitied Mom, so she said not to bother Mom with it, and wait for big brother to come back, then go together with him.

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