Go back to the prosperous days and become a layman

Chapter 469 Chapter 468 "Stamp Collecting"

Gu Yong's father, Gu Guangsheng, came back a little late, and when he got home he just caught the mutton soup coming out of the pot.

Sun's mother is not a live-in nanny and has already returned home.

Sun's mother comes over every afternoon to cook a meal and also helps with the cleanup, washing clothes, sweeping, mopping the floor, etc. She earns more than ten yuan a month.

"This soup is delicious. Aunt Sun is a great cook." Gu Guangsheng took a bite and praised.

"You're praising the wrong person. Xiaoyong asked his friends to make this, and the pancakes were made by Sun's mother. You try it." Gu Yong's mother Tian Yuping picked up a piece of pancakes and handed them to her husband. Mutton soup must be eaten with pancakes, but it is hard to buy them outside now, so she can only make them herself.

"Oh, is that Xiao Tang who came to visit you at your wedding?" Gu Guangsheng knew most of his son's social life, and the one who impressed him the most in terms of cooking was Tang Zhitong.

Gu Yong and Liu Yue got married on May Day and had a get-together with friends at home. Gu Guangsheng came home from get off work and had dinner with some leftovers. He had a high opinion of the fried chicken and rabbit.

"Yes, that's him." Gu Yong stuffed a piece of biscuit into his mouth, drank some soup to wash it down, and grinned at his father.

Liu Yue ate her meal peacefully without saying a word. Perhaps because she was still in the early stages of pregnancy, she did not have any morning sickness reaction and enjoyed everything she ate.

"You have good skills. You can be a chef in a restaurant." Tian Yuping nodded and affirmed.

"Hey, he won't go to the restaurant. Not only is he studying at the Post and Telecommunications College on a commissioned basis, he has also become a deputy section chief in the Escort Department." Gu Yong was proud of his friend's excellence, and after seeing that Liu Yue loved to eat sausages, he picked some from his bowl and scooped it over with a spoon.

"He is not very old, right?" Gu Guangsheng was stunned and asked.

"A little younger than me." Gu Yong touched his head. He didn't know how old Tang Zhitong was. He called him "Brother Yong" every day, so he assumed that he was younger than him.

"Xiao Tang is twenty years old this year." Liu Yue understood what his father-in-law meant. The superiors were used to it. When asked a question, they would not want to hear ambiguous answers. They wanted to know the accurate reply.

"How do you know?" It was fine for everyone else, but Gu Yong was a little surprised. He couldn't let the woman he treasured be thinking about someone else.

"Jingwen told me that they are both old enough to get married this year." Liu Yue glanced at her husband and replied as a matter of course.

"Very young." Tian Yuping exclaimed.

Tian Yuping knew Tang Zhitong. When Gu Yong was in the Summer Palace branch, his achievements were inseparable from Tang's support. It could also be said that he took advantage of Tang, but no one suffered any loss.

At that time, Tian Yuping was thinking of waiting for Xiao Tang to ask Gu Yong for help and then help him with the job, but while she was waiting, alas~ he became a deliveryman.

"He is indeed young. Xiaoyong, since we are friends, don't always order Xiao Tang around. Thank him later." Gu Guangsheng reminded him that Xiao Tang is young and promising, and it is not a bad thing for his son to have such a friend.

Gu Guangsheng understood his son well. He knew that he was not very good at socializing and it would not be easy for him to get a stable management position. He had originally planned to let him pursue a technical career, but he did not expect his wife to ask someone to transfer him to the telephone bureau.

On the contrary, Gu Guangsheng is very satisfied with his daughter-in-law, who is better than Gu Yong in every aspect.

"Dad, you wronged me. I really wanted to keep him for dinner, but when I went to pick up Yueyue, he ran away and I couldn't stop him." Gu Yong complained.

"That's because little Tang is sensible. Food is so scarce now, you should give him two kilograms of food coupons later." After hearing what her son said, Tian Yuping's impression of Tang Zhitong improved a little.

There are four people in my family now. My husband and I eat in the cafeteria, which ensures both quality and quantity. My husband occasionally entertains us, so we can save some food. The food at the dance academy is famously good. Only Gu Yong's ration is spent every month.

"Mom, his wife gave Yueyue pine nuts several times, so I thought I should give him some gifts in return. I wanted to give him food coupons yesterday, but he said he didn't need them for the time being. But I took two boxes of cigarettes from my dad, and he accepted them." Pine nuts were just one of the reasons, but Gu Yong couldn't tell the other reasons. When he said this, he also glanced at Gu Guangsheng, fearing that he would be beaten.

"Then just use cigarettes from now on." Tian Yuping made the final decision.

"He didn't ask about the source of this?" Gu Guangsheng asked, pointing at the mutton offal.

Gu Guangsheng works in the financial sector. The yellow sheep were sent by the Mongolian area, and the company distributed them only after approval from the higher-ups.

As a leader, he must promote his style. Gu Guangsheng and other leaders distributed the meat to other comrades first. He had prepared himself mentally for the taste to be bad, but unexpectedly it tasted quite good.

"No." Gu Yong shook his head.

"Well, you should move around more often in the future." Gu Guangsheng nodded, and his affirmation was revealed in just a few words.

Gu Guangsheng believed that Tang Zhitong would not go out and say anything, and he would not inquire about the source of the pine nuts either. However, he had a hunch that Tang Zhitong would never starve in any year.

When the Gu family was talking about Tang Zhitong, Tang Zhitong was writing a letter.

In addition to writing letters to several classmates who attended the training, Tang Zhitong also wrote a letter to Wu Haiyang.

It has been nearly a month since I gave Wu Haiyang the bad idea, and I don’t know how the progress is.

Tang Zhitong naturally couldn't ask the question directly, so he could only hint at it and wrote that his family had made tofu two days ago using old soybeans stored from last year, but because he was in a hurry, the tofu was not successful.

Even if someone investigates, they won't be able to find any clues. Last year, there were still big markets both inside and outside the city.

If Wu Haiyang saw this letter, he would naturally see different meanings, such as you can't eat hot tofu in a hurry.

This is exactly what Tang Zhitong wanted to express. Try various proportions slowly. Although a person has only one biological mother, there are many successful biological mothers.

After writing the letter, Tang Zhitong took out envelopes and stamps from the drawer and began to write the recipient's address and zip code on each letter.

During the promotional training, each trainee was given a postal code manual.

It might be more useful in the hands of other people, but for Tang Zhitong, it was simply used to look up the zip code.

After writing the address, start putting stamps on it.

Communication is not convenient at the moment, and most of the time we rely on writing letters. Many ordinary office workers who have communication needs will more or less keep some envelopes and stamps at home.

First of all, these things are not expensive, and secondly, the post office is not open all day.

If you write a letter and then go to the post office to buy envelopes and stamps, you may have to queue up if you are unlucky, and the letter will be randomly checked and weighed after you finish writing, which is very time-consuming.

If you have all these, you don't have to worry about it. You can just put the mail in the mailbox on the way to work. The postman in each area opens the mailbox at least twice a day to collect mail, and the delivery speed is not slower than going to the post office. As long as the stamp denomination is correct, don't put the stamp for out-of-town as four cents. When the post office sorts the letters and stamps them, they don't weigh them one by one. 99.9% of the letters are directly passed, unless there is a book in the envelope, but only the postage for ordinary letters is affixed, then it will be returned.

Tang Zhitong has the need to write letters, and so does Xiao Wang, so they both usually prepare some stamps and envelopes.

The envelopes are the same, but the stamps are more colorful, with a variety of patterns.

At present, at least twenty sets of stamps are issued every year, including commemorative stamps and special stamps, an average of two sets per month, which is very different from what Tang Zhitong had seen when he was a child.

When Tang Zhitong was a child, there were only a few common stamps: the 8-cent Great Wall and BJ Folk Houses, the 20-cent Shanghai Folk Houses, and the 50-cent Sichuan Folk Houses.

Those who are older may still remember the 8-cent Red Sun and Beijing Hotel stamps.

In the 8s, because some families had too many old stamps in stock and postage rates were rising, they would affix several -cent stamps to make up the postage.

Since philately was very popular at that time, commemorative stamps and special stamps were rarely seen by ordinary people. Every time they were issued, they were either pre-ordered long ago or people would go to the post office early in the morning to queue up to buy them.

But right now the situation is just the opposite.

Tang Zhitong has been a postman for more than half a year and feels that ordinary people are not interested in stamps. No matter whether they are commemorative stamps or special stamps, as long as the post office is willing to sell them and the denomination is right, they will just stick them on the envelope. They don't consider stamp collecting at all, and naturally they won't consider the future appreciation.

From the perspective of a time traveler, Tang Zhitong understands this behavior very well.

Firstly, whether it is commemorative stamps or special stamps, the number of stamps printed is very large, so there is no such thing as a shortage; secondly, given the general environment, even if you take out the dragon stamps issued by the Tartars and resell them, you may be labeled as "speculator", so naturally no one will think about collecting them and making a fortune next year.

There may be a stamp collecting craze abroad right now, but it started late in China. It had to wait until the 1990s before it became popular and heated up. Then in the millennium, with the gradual popularization of the Internet, computers, mobile phones and other devices that support instant messaging, stamp collecting quickly declined.

In fact, this is not to say that there are fewer stamps on the market, but that there are more things to play with.

From orchids at the beginning to calligraphy and paintings, antiques, cultural relics, jade, two-dimensional, virtual currency, blockchain, and even graphics cards later, they are all props for harvesting leeks.

Tang Zhitong believes that with the development of technology, the above will eventually be eliminated, and then a new round of gadgets will appear to complete one harvest after another.

As a member of the postal and telecommunications system, Tang Zhitong must support the postal and telecommunications industry. He must buy some of the monkey stamps and red stamps in the future.

Whether it was stamp collecting or hoarding Big Black Ten or Su Sanyuan, Tang Zhitong was indeed thinking about making some money, but as the saying goes, if you are poor, you should take care of yourself, but if you are rich, you should help the world.

Being poor is a very sad thing. Basically, you can't do anything well. If he can sell it smoothly, if he has not been assimilated by capital, if he has enough ability, Tang Zhitong wants to try "Da".

It’s nothing, I’m just fed up with the suffering of capital.

People who have actually experienced the pain of being caught in the rain know it deeply. Some people will choose to hold an umbrella for others, while others will choose to tear apart other people's umbrellas.

The house Tang Zhitong bought before he traveled through time was at a high price. Later, he found out that the houses that well-informed people bought were cleared out in 18 and 19...

However, on second thought, Tang Zhitong felt that he was thinking too much. By that time, he would be in his seventies or eighties. He might as well wait until he reached that age.

It’s okay if you can’t do it yourself. You should believe that wise future generations will be able to solve and deal with it.

The next day, November 11, Friday, was cloudy.

Tang Zhitong drew a spinning wheel during class.

Nearly a week had passed since he had thought of this, and he only took action today for the first time.

For the first version, Tang Zhitong did not go for high-end configuration directly. Instead, he simplified it based on the principle of reducing components as much as possible and drew whatever he thought of.

The wasted draft papers were not thrown away. Instead, the time and version of the drawings were clearly marked and kept together. In case someone suspected that he was a "monster" one day, he could use them to confront them.

Although Lu Jian attended classes every day, he could only understand every word the teacher said, and he was confused when he put them together.

At this time, Lu Jian secretly watched Tang Zhitong writing, drawing, and erasing.

After learning drawing, other students thought about making a switch or something, and their drawings were all related to their major. Only the guy in front of me, the drawings had nothing to do with the major. Their drawings were either of stoves or knives.

"What are you drawing? It looks like a hand drill." Lu Jian asked while smoking during class break.

"Hey, you're right, it's a bit similar." Tang Zhitong laughed. It's hard for him to think of something like a hand drill, but he has it now.

Since a hand-crank drill can be made, it shouldn't be difficult to make a miniaturized one, right? If the weight is further reduced, alloys may be involved. What major did Wan Xianghong study? It seems to be related to this. Can you expand in this direction?
"What are you thinking about?" Lu Jian saw Tang Zhitong grinning foolishly, just like Zhu Bajie dreaming of getting married, like a fool, so he pushed him gently.

"Oh, nothing. This thing is similar to a hand drill, the principle is the same, but the use is a little different. I'll keep it a secret as to what it does specifically, to avoid being embarrassed if it can't be done." Tang Zhitong came back to his senses, but in the end he didn't tell Lu Jian. After all, making a spinning wheel was somewhat unprofessional.

I am a planned outstanding student this semester, how can I let others know that I am not doing my job properly?
When school was over, the sky was still gloomy, as if it was going to snow but couldn't, which made Tang Zhitong feel constipated.

Tang Zhitong first went to the escort department. As it was near the end of the month, not only did he need to prepare a payroll sheet for the leader's approval and signature, but he also needed to organize the promotion data. He couldn't just leave all the work to Ma Wei.

Today's dinner has more corn porridge than yesterday, which is quite thin, and each person has a bowl.

After finishing her meal, Fengzhi imitated Zhang Guifang, turning the bowl around and licking the sides of it clean. Finally, she covered her face with the bowl and licked off the residue at the bottom of the bowl.

After licking the bowl clean, Fengzhi was not finished yet. She stuck out her tongue and circled it around her lips twice.

For places that your tongue can't reach, use your fingers to scrape them off and then lick your fingers.

If this happened decades later, parents would definitely consider it unhygienic behavior and would criticize and educate the child. But right now, it is a good habit to save food and should be praised.

Before the family implemented strict food rationing, Fengzhi never licked the bowl, and Zhang Guifang always helped her clean up and eat the leftovers.

Thinking about the past and looking at the present, Tang Zhitong felt distressed, sad, but also relieved.

The hunger she endured during this period was not in vain. Fengzhi has grown up and her behavior is becoming more and more like that of ordinary people who have experienced hunger.

(End of this chapter)