February 2, 2022

Chapter 21: Black Market 2

At first glance, the man looked like a worker in the city. This kind of person usually had money and coupons.

Xiulan hurriedly walked towards him. When she arrived at the man’s side, she lowered her voice and asked, “Excuse me! Comrade, do you want foodstuffs?”

The man looked at her with some excitement and surprise, then replied, “Girl, do you… Do you have foodstuffs?”

Xiulan nodded.

The man’s name was Guo Aidang. He had just wandered around the black market and wanted to buy some foodstuffs. But his luck was not that good, as he hadn’t met anyone who had foodstuff yet. He didn’t expect that someone would take the initiative to sell him foodstuff at this moment.

“Yes, I want them!” He nodded hurriedly and asked, “Girl, what kind of foodstuff do you have there? How much?”

She told him everything she had in the basket, “Five kilograms of rice, five kilograms of white flour, and five kilograms of dried noodles.”

Aidang eyes widened when he heard that.

What?

Five kilograms of rice, five kilograms of white flour, and five kilograms of dried noodles?

He looked at her clothes and thought that she was just a peasant. Even if she came to sell foodstuff, she could only take out sweet potatoes, sorghum flour, and other coarse grains.

But what she said was there were rice, white flour, and dried noodles.

These were all fine grains.

Even on the black market, where the price was several times higher, it was not easy to buy fine grains.

Not only she had fine grains, but there were so many as well.

He thought about it for a while, and then realized that maybe she was just deliberately disguising herself to sell food on the black market.

Many people who came to trade on the black market were people who have disguised themselves, just to hide from the public. He often came to the black market to buy foodstuff before, so it was not that he had never encountered one before.

But of course, he didn’t care about any of these, all he cared about was the foodstuffs in her hands.

He had forgotten how long it had been since he had eaten fine grains. Now that she said that there were rice, white flour, and dried noodles, how could he not be excited?

He hurriedly asked, “Girl, how much are your rice, white flour, and dried noodles, I want them all!”

Xiulan didn’t know the specific prices on the black market. Thinking of the information in the space she checked earlier, if the goods in this era were bought with food coupons, then rice was only twenty to thirty cents per half a kilo, and the white flour was almost the same as rice. Dried noodles were a little more expensive, about fifty cents per half a kilo. The price on the black market would be multiply by almost ten times, and some fine grains might be more than ten times more expensive.

In this case, although commodity foodstuffs were much cheaper, it was still difficult to get them from formal channels even if you had money and coupons, otherwise the prices of foodstuffs on the black market would not be so much more expensive than the foodstuffs being sold in the shops.

She tentatively quoted a price and said, “Rice and white flour are three yuan per half a kilo, and dried noodles are four yuan per half a kilo.

“But if you can give coupons, rice and white flour are two yuan and fifty cents per half a kilo, plus 250-grams food coupons. Dried noodles are three yuan per half a kilo, plus 250-grams food coupons.

If you don’t have food coupons, then other coupons will be fine. Let’s see, cloth coupons, sugar coupons, oil coupons, et cetera. I can accept them all, even industrial coupons!”

She needed money and coupons now. Although there were many supplies in her space, those could not be taken out at will. But if she had various tickets, then she could explain the legal source of the things she would get in the future.

Aidang was a little stunned when he heard the prices quoted by her. For a while, he thought that he had auditory hallucinations in his ears and probably just heard the prices wrong.

Why are the prices so cheap?

He bought foodstuffs from the black market every month and obviously knew the prices. The prices quoted by her were at least thirty percent cheaper than what the other people were selling on the black market.