Siheyuan: I am a big capitalist after the founding of the People's Republic of China

By mid-July, the whole city was filled with rumors that food was being rationed and tickets were required to buy things.

The streets also began to explain the origin of the bills to the public.

Only those reactionaries and enemy agents spread all kinds of rumors in the dark.

During this period, the entire city of Beijing was at the peak of capturing enemy spies.

Every night, from time to time, there would be crackling gunshots from the streets of the city, and occasionally explosions.

Peace is still too far away in this era. Ordinary people still have a strong sense of crisis.

Wealthier families began to secretly store food and various daily necessities.

Even the young and naive guy Shazhu started hoarding flour and rice.

From time to time, I would bring back 10 or 20 kilograms of flour from outside.

He doesn't even know how to hide things from others. He's afraid that others don't know.

This also laid the groundwork for the people in the yard to later conspire against him.

All the preparations that Li Zihang had done in the past period of time in order to paint were in place.

He wanted to have a masterpiece that would be passed down from generation to generation. From the paper to the paint and ink, everything was top quality. It was no exaggeration to say that it was a luxury product.

Why did he prepare for so long? Just talking about the paper, the size of top-grade rice paper he wanted was not available in general antique shops.

It has to be custom-made from a paper factory that specializes in making Xuan paper.

The rice paper, which is 1.5 meters wide and 4.5 meters long, was completely customized, from the mold to the pond.

After finishing a set, apart from the labor cost of a few sheets of rice paper, the paper is more expensive than gold.

There are also various pigments, all of which are natural mineral pigments.

Some pigments are easy to find, but some are rare even in a year.

If it weren't for the old man's connections, he would have never been able to get all the paints together if he had asked someone else to buy them.

And the ink is all top-grade Hui ink that has been coveted by scholars and literati since ancient times.

This ink was obtained from the old man's collection.

It is said that one ounce of Tianhuang ink is worth one ounce of gold. This piece of top-grade Hui ink is much more valuable than Tianhuang ink.

The ink is warm and delicate. The ink written on paper will not fade for a long time. The ink left on the paper will look like new after hundreds of years.

Li Zihang felt that he had to get the painting as soon as possible before the era of bills arrived. Otherwise, the situation would become more and more chaotic.

In his previous life, he did not graduate from junior high school. After working, his mind was full of thoughts about how to make money. He really had no understanding of the historical situation of this period.

The only way to know about it was to wait until he became rich and then listen to his former business partners bragging about it over the dinner table or hear about it from people on the street.

That day, after all the paints and rice paper were delivered to his house, I took him to visit me when the old man was free.

The old man's mouth twitched unconsciously when he saw such a large size of rice paper, various natural mineral pigments, and his treasured Hui ink.

"Boy, you are acting like this. If you catch a sheep, you won't be satisfied unless you pluck it bald.

Judging from your behavior, I think this is just a one-time deal and you don’t plan to ask for a painting again.”

"My goodness, with this size of rice paper, are you planning to let Mr. Shi do nothing for the next two years and just paint for you? Aren't you afraid of exhausting him to death?"

Li Zihang grinned and didn't refute or say anything.

The old man shook his head and called the driver to prepare the car.

Li Zihang followed the old man, carrying bags and went by car to Yuer Hutong, where Mr. Bai lived.

When the visitor opened the door, he saw the old man dressed in luxurious clothes and a car waiting outside the door. He knew that it was a high-ranking official who came to visit Mr. Bai.

I didn't dare to neglect him and welcomed him in. Then I heard the old man introduce himself and said he was an old friend of Mr. Bai.

Send someone to look for Mr. Bai who is lowering the flag at the entrance of the alley.

After waiting for a quarter of an hour, Mr. Bai, wearing a white sweatshirt, big shorts, and cloth shoes, came back with a palm leaf fan.

"Oh~ What a rare guest, President Li, how come you have time to visit me in this humble room."

It can be seen that the old man and Mr. Bai have a good relationship. Otherwise, they wouldn't tease each other when they meet.

Old man: "Mr. Bai, you started teasing me as soon as we met. It seems that you are still in good health."

"Okay, tell me why you came to see me this time. You are a busy man, you don't meet people easily. You! You don't come to see me for no reason. Tell me~"

The old man looked normal, not affected by the teasing at all. He quickly explained his purpose.

Li Zihang helped by taking out the rice paper and paint. Then he took out a neatly stacked 1,000 yuan from his bag and put it on the table.

I would like to respectfully ask the old gentleman to write a piece of calligraphy for me.

Mr. Bai looked at the rice paper and paint on the table, as well as a piece of Hui ink. He twisted the paint with his fingers, picked up the Hui ink, smelled it, looked at it again and again, and then stroked the rice paper.

After some operations, he finally asked seriously what kind of painting he wanted at such a great cost.

Li Zihang quickly took out the photos of the sunrise over the sea of ​​clouds at the top of Tiandu Mountain in Huangshan from his bag.

It's not just one photo, but sixteen neatly arranged landscape photos, taken in sequence. Even the angles and gaps between photos are closely connected.

It's like taking a large photo and cutting it into sixteen small photos according to size.

To be honest, painters hate it most when others give them a certain subject to paint and they also give them photos.

There was no room for him to express himself. After the old man explained, the old man agreed to paint.

"It's not easy to make money from you big capitalists. It will take me at least a year or two to finish a painting of this size."

"But you are ten thousand times better than the kid a while ago. That kid took out two dollars and asked me to draw a picture for him. It made me very annoyed."

The old gentleman told a funny story about how a neighbor came to his house some time ago and asked him to paint a picture for him, but he was too embarrassed to refuse.

After some polite greetings, the two old men took the initiative to say goodbye.

Then he went straight to the concubine's house to ask for her calligraphy.

I introduced myself and said that Princess Pan and her husband were at home today.

The old man had dealt with them many times before, so he was naturally more casual in his speech.

After explaining Li Zihang's purpose clearly.

The couple couldn't help grinning when they saw something that looked exactly like Old Bai's.

"Little boy, you think we are painters. For a painting of this size, we, an old couple, would have to spend half a year without doing anything else."

This time, Li Zihang didn't dare to make any demands. He let them express themselves freely. On the way here, the old man scolded Li Zihang for not telling him about the limited painting topic in advance.

If it were someone with a bad temper, they would either kick them out or definitely not treat them well.

So this time he learned his lesson and let them draw whatever they wanted.

It was the same old rule, one thousand yuan was given. They were chatting happily at first, but when Li Zihang took out the money, the atmosphere became tense.

After a long while, Princess Pan complained to the old man. She said, "With their relationship, he still did this."

After the painting is completed, the excess ink and paint can be left to them.

At the request of the concubine and her husband, the old man and his wife had lunch at his home and returned home in the afternoon.

Since Li Zihang's family has done everything over the years, they have also been blessed by their parents.

In addition to the old man's prestige, people from the neighboring yard dare not visit easily. The gossips in the neighboring yard cannot disturb his family.

All the friends who used to play with Li Zihang in the same yard have become strangers. They don’t dare to play with him.

He also had nothing to talk about with the people in the next yard.

What are you talking about? The price of eggs has gone up by another cent.

It was the parents-in-law in the yard who had a big fight with my husband because he lost more than 2 yuan playing cards and his head was broken.

Or we could talk about a daughter-in-law who was scolded by her mother-in-law for an entire afternoon because she tore the sheets while washing clothes. We couldn't talk about anything.

Li Zihang's life was too far away from them, and their lives were happening around him all the time. But he was not interested.

In his eyes, things that cost the lives of ordinary people are trivial matters not worth mentioning.

The things he plays with are simply unaffordable for ordinary people in this era.

For example, the birds in his birdhouse. Xu Damao was envious, but what happened? He pestered his father to buy a lark. But it starved to death in less than half a month.

It's not something that ordinary people can afford to raise. It eats millet mixed with egg yolks, and needs to be fed with live insects from time to time. It also needs to be walked every day.

Li Zihang gave those birds to Xu Damao, but he couldn't afford to keep them.

As for photography, even if you give your camera to someone else, the money for developing photos is not something that most people can afford, not to mention the maintenance of the camera.

The quality of a photo is determined by a lot of practice.

Li Zihang's photography skills were average at first, but as he took more photos, his photography skills naturally improved.

Now when he takes photos, his control of light, angles, and even the contrast between light and dark have greatly improved.

Therefore, people who are not from the same world have never been able to play together since ancient times.

Sometimes Li Zihang just treats their family affairs and daily life as a fun thing.

If he really met someone who couldn't make ends meet, he would help them, but he would only help those who were extremely poor.

There are too many poor people in this era, so many that he has become numb to them.

There are so many miserable people that his heart is no longer filled with passion.

He used to think that cornmeal was dry corn kernels that were crushed and made into flour.

Now that he has traveled back in time, he knows.

There are two types of cornmeal. One is made by crushing the whole dried corn, which is called cornmeal.

There is another kind called cornmeal.

It is corn flour made from dried corn kernels that are crushed.

Cornmeal tastes rough on the throat, while cornmeal is a bit rough on the throat, but it has a strong corn flavor and is delicious.

That’s how the common people of this era are.

Cornmeal should be eaten sparingly.

This year, the willow trees are sprouting, and children and adults who have nothing to do by the river go to pick the willow buds.

Nothing else. Because when you are poor enough, you can eat willow buds.

Take fresh willow buds, pickle them with salt, and then boil them in water. Add some sesame oil, some dried chili peppers, and some minced garlic. This is a dish.

Every season has its own unique way of eating.

At the beginning of spring, I dug wild vegetables, such as shepherd's purse, dandelion, hemp leaf, grass seeds, and water spinach.

In this era, water spinach, sweet potato vines, grass seeds, and sweat hemp are eaten by humans and pigs.

What does it mean? In rural areas, people pick grass for pigs, and these are the wild vegetables they pick.

Then there was nothing to eat, so I tried every way to study these dishes.

It can be eaten mixed or fried, and both pigs and humans can eat it.

The weather is hot, and the locust flowers are blooming.

Make locust flower flour steamed buns by wrapping the locust flowers in flour batter and steaming them in a pot.

When the weather gets hotter, I catch cicadas everywhere, soak them in salt water when I get home, and boil them the next day to make another dish.

The slightly better ones are fried.

Anyway, in this day and age, because people can’t make ends meet, they have developed all kinds of ways to eat poorly.