Chapter 514: Eating Melon and Saving Life System (13)

No wonder Grandmother Xie has to live frugally.

Although there are some savings in the family, now that there is an extra little cousin to raise, her meager salary is truly not enough for daily expenses.

But Xie Yang has always believed: money is earned, not saved.

Hmm, she needs to ponder carefully and see how to increase her income.

But for now, the meat has already been taken out, so it must be eaten!

Scrape off the pig skin and clean it thoroughly to make meat jelly.

Cut off the snow-white fat to render lard.

Cut one-fifth of the beautiful pork belly, with its layers of fat and lean, to make red-braised pork and reward her stomach, which has been lacking in oil and water.

Cut another one-fifth to mince for filling, add some green onions to make steamed buns; the staple food for tonight and breakfast for tomorrow will both be settled.

She plans to use the rest to make sausages.

She has already prepared the casings, having ordered them from the Vegetable Station a day in advance.

Upon hearing that she was going to make sausages, the old lady breathed a sigh of relief. She was afraid her granddaughter would be too free-handed and use such a large slab of meat all for fresh eating.

Smelling the aroma of lard wafting from the Xie Family home, the neighbors could no longer sit still.

Wang Yumei: "Oh, Yang Yang, what time did you get up to line up this morning? You actually managed to buy meat."

Luo Caifeng: "Auntie, do you have any extra meat coupons? Spare one for me; my three boys haven't eaten meat in almost two months."

Zhang Baogen's wife, Li Axiang: "Old sister, are you making white flour buns? Do you want some Chinese cabbage? I happened to buy a few extra, let me get you one."

After saying this, she actually carried a head of Chinese cabbage over.

Grandmother Xie waved her hands repeatedly to decline: "We don't have that much white flour at home. I'll just add a green onion, make a few small ones, and that will be enough to satisfy Yang Yang's craving."

"..."

Don't be like that! If there isn't enough white flour, mix in some corn flour; it would be great to add a cabbage and make a few more. Later, she could send a few to her house, just to offset the cost of this cabbage.

But how could Grandmother Xie not see through Li Axiang's little scheme?

These are buns, not dumplings; especially the buns her granddaughter makes, each one with thin skin and thick filling, one is worth several dumplings.

If she accepted Li Axiang's cabbage, she would have to send four buns to her house per head later.

Grandmother Xie couldn't bear to do that.

Besides, her granddaughter only bought the meat because she was craving it. Just to send a few buns to the neighbors, she would have to add a whole cabbage—is she eating meat or eating cabbage?

No cabbage!

Just green onion and meat filling!

Grandmother Xie insisted on not accepting Li Axiang's cabbage.

Seeing Li Axiang get snubbed, Niu Cuifen gave a secret smile and turned to go into the house.

"Mom, when are we going to eat meat!" Wang Lin looked at the bland, watery meal on the table and muttered gloomily, "Our family hasn't touched meat for almost a month. Every day it's cabbage, tofu, potatoes, and vermicelli; I'm sick of eating it."

"If you're sick of it, then don't eat! Who is begging you to eat?" Niu Cuifen scolded her daughter crossly, "All you know is eating all day long. Do you think pork is free? If you were like Xie Yang, working and drawing a salary, I wouldn't care how many times a month you ate meat!"

Wang Lin: "..."

Well, she wasn't working yet.

She would at least have a high school diploma in the future.

Unlike Xie Yang, who only has a junior high diploma. Hmph!

Xie Yang was also pondering what she could do with her junior high diploma.

The College Entrance Examination had been restored, but as for letting her go back to repeat high school and then take a university exam, she decided to forget it.

The purpose of her transmigrating to this plane was to recover the Chi Gua Bao Ming System bound to Zheng Miaomiao next door, and since she had replaced the original owner, she would incidentally take good care of the sixty-year-old grandmother and the five-month-old little cousin for the original owner.

Repeating high school to take the university exam went against both of these tasks.

Moreover, in the late seventies, while academic qualifications were indeed important, they were not as crucial as they would be in later generations.

After much deliberation, Xie Yang decided to start from her position, push her current job to the limit, and strive to transition from an Ordinary Production Worker doing repetitive labor to a Senior Technical Worker focused on research.

The salary of a Senior Technical Worker is three times that of an Ordinary Workshop Worker!

Having decided on her salary-increase goal, Xie Yang began to pave the way—no, work hard for this goal.

Although she still left work the moment the bell rang, after all, there was an old person and a young one waiting for her at home.

But during work hours, she was no longer as relaxed or slacking off as before. After finishing her assigned tasks, she didn't stop, but instead found some scrap materials to continue studying the machining precision of the lathes.

She borrowed a sum of points from the Main System, scoured the System Mall for a batch of self-study books for interstellar engineers, and bought a set of maintenance tools and parts for advanced interstellar equipment.

She wanted to see if she could modify the existing lathes.

She had looked carefully; the lathes currently in use at the Mechanical Factory were basically second-hand lathes phased out by the Soviet Union, and their machining precision had already reached its limit.

To machine more precise parts, she first had to upgrade the machining precision of the lathes.

Thinking of the workshop next door where Hui Yi worked, they had recently been driven to distraction by a batch of parts with high precision requirements. The workers had been working overtime until their eyes were bloodshot and dark circles appeared, sacrificing their days and nights just to barely meet the deadline.

This was only because the current lathe equipment could not meet the requirements for machining high-precision parts.

The result of forced machining was—the pass rate was too low, not only sacrificing the workers' rest time but also scrapping a large batch of unqualified parts and wasting a huge amount of material.

What Xie Yang wanted to do was to improve the machining precision of the lathes.

"Xiao Xie."

Zhao Wenhui had made a special trip to Yichejian before the end of the shift.

Ever since that child Xiao Xie fainted once, she was probably scared; unless the factory issued a notice requiring collective overtime, she would leave the moment the bell rang.

If she came late, she wouldn't be able to catch her.

"Hui Yi, are you looking for me?"

"Indeed, your sister Wenqing said that a batch of flawed corduroy fabric arrived at the counter recently, and it doesn't require coupons. If you want some, I'll have her save a few feet for you."

Corduroy is thick and blocks the wind.

Zhao Wenhui had bought some herself; as the weather was gradually turning cold, she intended to make jackets or trousers for her family, both old and young.

Xie Yang's eyes lit up: "Is there a purchase limit? If there isn't, I want fifteen feet."

Zhao Wenhui was startled: "What do you need so much for?"

Although no ration coupons were required, corduroy fabric itself was not cheap.

"It's getting cold, so I want to make new outfits for my grandmother and my little cousin."

So it was to make clothes for the old and the young.

"Then what about yourself? Your sister Wenqing said there is a bolt of ginger-yellow among them that is suitable for you young girls to make jackets."

"Alright, then I'll take another eight feet."

"..."

Before getting off work the next day, Zhao Wenhui brought over the twenty-three feet of corduroy fabric that Xie Yang wanted.

Fifteen feet of navy blue, eight feet of ginger yellow.

Even though no ration coupons were required, it still cost her eighteen yuan.

The wages she had just received hadn't even warmed up before more than half were spent.

This made Xie Yang even more determined—to become a Senior Technical Worker as soon as possible.

However, the quality of this batch of corduroy was truly excellent; it was very thick, making it both warm and durable when made into clothes.

For the winter clothing material, after cutting away the parts with obvious flaws, the navy blue would be enough to make a lined jacket for Grandma Xie that could be worn alone or over a cotton-padded coat, a pair of long trousers, and the remainder should be enough to make a small cape and a hooded jumpsuit for her little cousin.