Reborn in 1977

Chapter 696: It's Open

The snow fell intermittently for two or three days. The roads were slippery, and Chen Fan had been to Shanghai many times, so there wasn't much to see. Apart from picking up and dropping off the two sisters from school, he simply stayed at home.

He didn't go out, and Zhou Yali also stayed at home, not clamoring to go out and play. She didn't even go to see the newly renovated house. She spent her days by the fireplace, eating when she was hungry and sleeping when she was tired.

She lived like two little monkeys. Even Ban Jin and Ba Liang, the two raccoon cats, had to stick to their posts, accompanying and protecting their mistresses at school.

Only the Gyrfalcon braved the wind and snow, spending most of its time soaring in the sky. It only returned to sleep and didn't even need to be fed, no one knew where it went to hunt.

Two days passed like this, and the time came to December 25th, Christmas.

At this time, the domestic masses naturally had no awareness of celebrating Christmas. This thing only started to spread slowly from universities after entering the 90s, especially among student couples exchanging gifts, or suitors spending a fortune to buy gifts for people, mostly successfully winning over their targets.

It was really strange, why would a religious birthday become Valentine's Day?

It was under the influence of this trend of buying gifts that businesses in society began to engage in Christmas promotions, coupled with the influence of Western customs, which later evolved into an annual nationwide commercial festival.

But that was later.

If one had to say who would celebrate Christmas this year, it would be Christians and a very small number of Westerners who remained in China to work and live.

Then there was Zhou Yali, who had returned from Western countries to visit relatives.

At this time, she was not sitting by the fireplace, but wrapped in Chen Fan's fox fur coat, with her hands tucked into the sleeves, pacing back and forth in the living room, and occasionally running to the door to open it and look out, "Why isn't he back yet?"

And Chen Fan, whom she was waiting for, was driving around like a headless fly at this time.

After coming out of the department store, he threw a large bag full of things onto the passenger seat, then turned to the driver's seat, opened the door, and got into the car. He first turned on the air conditioner, and after the heat came on, he exhaled a white breath and couldn't help but shake his head, "What kind of conditions are these, wanting to celebrate Christmas, where am I going to find you a Christmas tree."

Starting the car and slowly driving on the road, he widened his eyes and looked around. At this time, the snowy and slippery road became a good thing, everyone was driving slowly, it didn't delay finding the target, and there was no need to worry about being rear-ended.

It's just that, where are there any shops selling trees on this street? And it has to be fir trees, pine trees, Christmas trees like that?

After driving for a short distance, he suddenly saw heat rising from a restaurant. He immediately rolled down the car window and sniffed.

Mm, fragrant.

Taking another look, hey, it turned out to be a Hunan cuisine restaurant. Smelling the aroma, it seemed to have the fragrance of rice noodles?

The weather is so cold, why not slurp a bowl of noodles first.

In fact, Shanghai's catering was quite rich at this time. In the "Shanghai Guide" compiled and printed by the Shanghai Science and Technology Publishing House in 1980, there was a "List of Famous Local Cuisine Restaurants in SH City" table.

Among them, a selection of representative local restaurants were selected, including Cantonese cuisine, Shanghai cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, Sichuan cuisine with a touch of Yang, Sichuan-Yang cuisine, Yangzhou cuisine, Beijing cuisine, Suzhou cuisine, Wuxi cuisine, Halal cuisine, Vegetarian cuisine, Hunan cuisine, Hangzhou cuisine, Fujian cuisine, Ningbo cuisine, Chaozhou cuisine, Anhui cuisine, Henan cuisine, Western restaurants… etc., a total of more than one hundred restaurants of dozens of categories.

Of course, compared to the entire Greater Shanghai, these restaurants were a bit lacking.

It was not until after 1984 that the catering industry began to develop, and then in 1992, the prices of all food and beverages in the city were liberalized, and the catering industry entered the fast lane.

At that time, there were only 6,565 restaurants and taverns in the city, with 65,117 employees.

How could it be like later generations, where the number of catering shops on a certain online platform exceeded 200,000, although this included coffee shops, tea restaurants, milk tea shops, and other light beverage shops, the difference in numbers was really a bit too big.

The small restaurant in front of Chen Fan, looking at the facade, knew it was a collective small unit of the street office food company. The disadvantage was that the place was small and the variety was single, but it also had advantages, that was, people were easier to get along with, their handling of affairs was flexible, and there were not as many rules and regulations as large restaurants.

Avoiding the entrance, he parked the car and walked towards the small shop.

A three-bay house, with a space separated on the side to make a kitchen, and the other locations were filled with tables and chairs.

Compared to the wonton stalls on the roadside, the layout was almost exactly the same, the only difference was that there was an extra room that could shelter from the wind and rain.

Although it was not noon yet, there were already many customers dining inside. Chen Fan looked around at the entrance and silently gave a "not clean, but won't get sick" evaluation, and went to the ticket office to buy meal tickets.

"A large bowl of rice noodles, with beef."

The salesperson moved quickly, tore off a ticket and handed it to him, "In this damn weather, eating a bowl of beef noodles is really comfortable. A large bowl is 3 liang of food stamps, 28 cents, no food stamps is 40 cents."

Chen Fan paid the money and food stamps, and suddenly changed his accent and smiled, "Master, are you from Changsha?"

The salesperson's eyes lit up, "Hey, are you also a Fulan kid? I haven't seen you before, you look like a college student, coming to Shanghai to study? I came here when I was a child, it's hard to change my accent, you could hear it."

Then he shouted to the chef next to him, "Lao He, this is a fellow villager, give him more."

Chef immediately raised his hand, "We're all fellow villagers, easy to say."

Saying that, he got up and took a large bowl, poured the rice noodles into the boiling water, and grabbed a handful from a bucket and threw it into the pot. This was a lot, at least half a jin in total.

Look, the benefits of recognizing fellow villagers are reflected here.

What? He is from Jiangnan, not Hunan?

What does it matter, when you are away from home, your identity is given by yourself, if you can speak a Changsha accent, then we are Fulan people.

The salesperson looked at Chen Fan and smiled, "There are very few Fulan people here, it's rare to see a fellow villager, it's also fate."

Chen Fan stood aside and chuckled, "Didn't the meeting the day before yesterday say it was going to open up, I guess, in the future, exchanges between various places will definitely become more and more frequent, maybe you will be able to meet fellow villagers every day."

"I hope there will be such a day."

The salesperson said, pursing his lips, and suddenly lowered his voice, "Whether we can meet fellow villagers every day, I don't know. But ah, how this opening up is going to be done, the unit hasn't notified us yet, but the people who come to eat have 'opened up' first."

Seeing that Chen Fan didn't understand, he pointed his chin to the side.

Chen Fan looked in the direction he indicated, and saw a few young people in their twenties, sitting around a table, each with a bowl of plain noodles without meat in front of them, and each holding a cup that looked like they brought themselves, occasionally clinking glasses, taking a small sip, and then eating a rice noodle.

But let's not say, although they look a bit tight, their aura is very different. Some were sitting sideways on the stool, some were tilting their legs, and one was squatting directly on the stool, like a big monkey, waving his claws to play finger-guessing games.

Chen Fan had noticed this group of people just now, but they were playing their own games and didn't get in the way of anyone else. In comparison, the barbecue stalls of later generations were really lively.

Seeing Chen Fan looking at those people, the shop assistant's face was full of disdain. He curled his lips and said, "If this were before, would they dare to make noise and drink loudly in public? I would have beaten them to death!

But isn't it said that things are opening up? Nobody knows to what extent. If it really goes back to how it was 20 years ago, where anything is okay as long as it's not illegal, then we can't really say anything about them, since they're not hurting anyone."

As he spoke, he sighed. "It's upsetting."

Chen Fan turned his head to look at him, quite surprised.

Who would have thought this comrade would be so reasonable?

Someone with a bad temper would have gone up and slapped them a few times. So what if things are opening up? Even if there are new rules in the future, the old rules should still be followed until the new ones are in place.

However, there's also another possibility: the intense crackdown a few years ago scared a lot of people, especially here, which was one of the storm's epicenters at the time. So now that the situation is clearer and the wind has changed, some people are inevitably hesitant and afraid to act rashly, fearing another storm that might sweep them away.

At this moment, the cook placed a bowl of rice noodles piled high with beef on the food pick-up counter and called out, "Hey, fellow乡, your noodles are ready."

Chen Fan quickly walked over. "Thank you."

He picked up the rice noodles and smiled at the two of them before turning around to find an empty table to sit down. While slurping the noodles, he watched the young men play finger-guessing games, drink, and talk loudly.

Although what they were talking about was a bit far-fetched and unrealistic, it still revolved around the opening up.

What was that saying? It's probably something like: humanity's imagination of the future comes from its understanding of the world.

These people pretty much thought that opening up meant life would return to how it was 20 years ago, or even earlier, where people could sing, dance, drink, and play finger-guessing games, and private individuals could do business…

To the point that the big monkey-like guy was still shouting, fueled by alcohol, "When I get rich in the future, I definitely won't forget you guys!"

Then there was another round of clinking glasses.

Chen Fan ate the spicy beef, grinning to himself.

In the early days of reform and opening up, it could be said that most places in the country were singing, dancing, drinking, and playing finger-guessing games. As for private individuals doing business, those who actually took action were basically in the area from Zhejiang and Fujian to Guangdong.

To be more specific, it was in the areas close to Hong Kong and Macau. That's right, it's talking about the first special economic zones: Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, and Xiamen, and their surrounding areas.

There were special reasons for choosing these places as special economic zones.

Xiamen faces Taiwan. Even during the strictest times, fishermen from the other side would come over to take shelter from storms, facilitating exchanges between the two sides. Shantou was chosen because of the hundreds of thousands of Chaoshan people in Hong Kong, as well as dozens of wealthy Chaoshan businessmen.

Shenzhen goes without saying, it's separated from Hong Kong by only a river. Zhuhai also faces Macau across the sea.

As early as a few years ago, some daring people in these places, relying on relatives who had gone to Hong Kong, started family workshops. Some villages even participated as a whole, either setting up factories or working as laborers. The most common thing was to set up clothing factories, starting with a few sewing machines, supporting the embryonic form of an industrial chain.

Therefore, when the government announced the opening up, this industrial chain was like a crocodile under the water, slowly poking its head out. After confirming that it was safe, it leaped up and swallowed a large piece of the market.

The initial stage of any market formation is chaotic and disorderly.

So, while young people in other parts of the country were busy disco dancing and listening to Teresa Teng, the young people in these places had already caught up with Hong Kong.

In addition to nightclubs, they were also busy recruiting people, "grabbing territory," and other common plots from Hong Kong gangster novels…

In comparison, the mainland was indeed more than a decade behind in this regard.

Amidst the noise next door, Chen Fan quickly finished his rice noodles.

It was a bit spicy, and he broke out in a sweat. He opened his collar, gave the shop assistant and the cook a cigarette each, greeted them, and then went out to the car.

Driving the car, he continued to look for a Christmas tree. After a while, he turned onto Huashan Road.

Suddenly, he had an idea. Didn't the newly renovated garden villa have greenery?

Thinking of this, he turned the steering wheel and headed towards the villa.

Soon he arrived at the place, took out the key to unlock the door, and pushed open the courtyard gate, seeing a beautiful snowy garden scene.

In the large garden of more than ten acres, the open space was covered with a thick layer of snow, as if covered with a layer of white carpet.

On the edge of the garden, a circle of bare plane trees were planted… Tree transplanting is like this, generally cutting off the branches, which is indeed not very good-looking.

But there are also good-looking ones.

In the garden, there were several pine trees. In the southwest corner, next to the main villa, there was also a fir forest composed of a dozen trees.

Chen Fan clapped his hands. Wasn't this a Christmas tree!

Driving the car directly over the "carpet", several ruts appeared in the white snow, extending all the way to the grove.

Without needing any tools, Chen Fan found a good-looking one, hugged the trunk, and climbed up. When he reached a branch, he raised his right hand and chopped down with his palm. The branch, as thick as a woman's arm, broke in response, falling down with a burst of snow.

Chen Fan jumped to the ground, dragged the branch, loaded it into the car, and then hurried back.

More than ten minutes later, he finally returned to his home on Panyu Road.

Zhou Yali heard the movement, immediately opened the door and ran out, "Old bro, where have you been? I've been waiting for a long time."

Chen Fan parked the car and said unhappily, "You've been waiting for a long time, but I've been working hard for a long time. Why do you have to celebrate Christmas? It's easy to buy things, I bought everything at the First Department Store…"

As he spoke, he dragged the fir branch out and shook it vigorously at her, and a burst of water droplets immediately scattered over, startling Zhou Yali and making her quickly hide back into the house.

Chen Fan held up the branch and rushed over, "Didn't you want a Christmas tree? I cut down a tree from your villa garden and brought it over, come and get it."

Zhou Yali looked flustered and dodged everywhere, "Don't come over, there's so much water, if you spill it, you'll have to wipe it up."

Chen Fan slowed down as he entered the gate, put the branch at the connection between the living room and the dining room, and chuckled, "I think I've discovered that you're the kind of person who likes to sit back and enjoy the fruits of others' labor, but that's not possible today. We agreed before that I'm only responsible for buying, you do the rest yourself."

Seeing him stop, Zhou Yali leaned on the sofa and stopped running, panting and saying, "I can wrap the gifts myself, but you have to help me fix the Christmas tree."

Chen Fan put the branch on the ground and then walked to the back, "You don't need to tell me that, you wouldn't know how to anyway."

More than ten minutes later, the fir branch was fixed in a large flowerpot. Zhou Yali circled around it, nodding in satisfaction, then turned and walked to the dining table, starting to pack a pile of gifts.

It must be said that she doesn't mind doing this kind of meticulous work at all.

By the time evening came, Chen Fan had brought the two sisters back, and Zhou Yali had already transformed the living room with a completely new look.