Chapter Fifteen: Rely on the mountain and eat the mountain

  Su Cheng arrived at Dongying again and first found Shulan, smiling like a wolf's grandmother, saying: "I'm here to ask for that meal."

  "Discussing food? How unpleasant." Shu Lan held a book in her arms, giggling, her plump chest pressed against the book's spine, leaving a deep impression.

  "It doesn't matter if it's not delicious, as long as it's affordable. Let's find a restaurant nearby, I still have things to do this afternoon."

  "Alright, let's go with what we said last time. I'll treat you to a sour fish meal." Shulan skipped ahead, leading the way.

  She wore a dress today, a flowing long skirt tightly wrapped around her small buttocks, without any conservative reserve of the times.

  However, upon closer inspection, it's not that her dress is too revealing, but rather that her figure is too good, such that the same-sized dress would be loose on others, yet fits her perfectly.

  Of course, Shulan had shorts under her dress, so it wasn't like her buttocks were exposed or anything, but under Su Cheng's venomous gaze, what did a pair of shorts count for? The brain was invincible.

  Two people walked along the outer wall of the school and turned onto Xueyuan Road, which was relatively bustling. The students of the technical school were relatively free, and it was not uncommon to see boys and girls strolling together, while lone males or females were rarely seen.

  Shulan quickly became aware of something and awkwardly walked away a little.

  Su Cheng was taken aback, this was his first time seeing a middle school from the 80s, compared to later generations, the girls seemed more mature, with some of the style of Republican-era female students.

  The pickled fish restaurant is hidden in a small alley, and it's hard to find if no one leads the way. The main space of the store is the backyard of the owner's house, and the kitchen is naturally the owner's kitchen. After wandering around Suzhou for a while, he sighed: "This is the real private dish."

  "Four rooms?"

  "It's just a small shop that opens in the boss's own home, with no waiters or fixed menu." Su Cheng thought for a moment and said: "Good wine is not afraid of alleys, private dishes rely on word of mouth and signature dishes, isn't it similar to this store?"

  Shulan tilted her head and said, "I was thinking, which store in front of school isn't like this?"

  Su Cheng was suddenly speechless.

  State-owned enterprises have always been the most backward collective in China's reform. Dongying City, which was established with the support of Shengli Oilfield, has a development speed that is far behind the south. Most of the small restaurants here are the first batch of individual businesses, they don't have capital, lack confidence, and mostly operate in a way that saves money, using their backyard as a storefront is not uncommon. These restaurants are all word-of-mouth without waiters or fixed menus, which is exactly the private kitchen model of later generations.

  But at this time, the price of private dishes is far from comparable to that of street restaurants.

  Su Cheng stared at the fish that weighed at least five catties and said, "You won't be eating a fish this big every day, will you?"

  "What can I do? My monthly allowance is only 20 yuan." Shulan smiled and picked up her chopsticks, saying: "You can eat now, there's only this one dish today."

  Su Cheng bluntly picked up the tenderest piece of fish meat and savored it for a while, then quickly picked up the second piece.

  "Greedy, always snatching fish belly!" Shulan also quickly put down her chopsticks.

  Of course, no matter how fast Su Cheng is, he is far inferior to Shu Lan in terms of endurance when it comes to food.

  In the end, the fish was enough to fill a table, and even the soup was all gone.

  Shulan gently put down the rice bowl and smiled: "Are you here to read books this time too?"

  Su Cheng rubbed his full belly, looking at her with an incredulous gaze, saying: "I'm here to find Master Liang, I have a component that I'd like him to take a look at, and also, I want to find another processing plant."

  "What's a component? Can I see it?" Shulan's eyes sparkled with stars.

  Su Cheng smiled and found a clean table, then took out the drawings from the roll.

  Shulan bent down to look at the picture, her long hair falling over her shoulders, revealing a tender and delicate neck.

  Su Cheng took a deep breath, feeling that the air was filled with sweetness. But thinking of her not having graduated from high school yet, he immediately felt a bit guilty again.

  In a flash, Su Cheng thought that locking up such a beautiful and tender girl in school was the real sin.

  Eastern women should get married at 16 years old. If they start dating after entering university, wouldn't that be a waste of six years of youth?

  Suzhou's gaze followed down along her neck, through the slender shoulders, and contracted at her waist.

  Further back, the unintentionally tense buttocks and straight long legs that bent down to look at the picture also fell into Su Cheng's thief eyes, revealing a unique temptation.

  After holding his breath for half a minute, Su Cheng said in a low voice that if he met the officials from the Ministry of Education, he should shout at them: You are committing a crime, this is what constitutes a crime.

  Of course, they may not even know what crime they have committed.

  "Is it like a water supply system?" Shu Lan's voice suddenly awakened Su Cheng.

  He smiled and readjusted his mood, saying: "It's just a shower device, you can say it directly."

  "Take a shower? And show this picture to Master too?"

  "Besides asking Master Liang to look at the picture, we also need to ask him to help find someone to make it."

  "What's difficult about it? My brother is in the machine shop, get some iron sheet or something, and I'll have him make one for you." Shulan didn't say another word, pulling Su Cheng's clothes as she walked out.

  Su Cheng grasped the soft little hand with a reverse grip, and after a while, he let go.

  Shulan's face turned red to her ears, and she coquettishly said: "If you dare to grab my hand again, I'll chop off your dog paws."

  The words were fierce, but the tone was not fierce enough.

  Shulan's brother Shu Hao has thick eyebrows and big eyes, working in a repair factory.

  When Su Cheng and Shu Lan found him, Shu Hao was holding a long wrench in his hand, struggling with a pipe. The pipe was thick and black, Shu Hao's wrench was long and hard, the sunlight shone straight down, heating up the transparent machine oil to make it soft and hot, wrapping around his hand, giving off the aura of a martial arts master.

  Shu Hao deals with large oil machinery every day, and after glancing at Su Cheng's blueprint, he said disdainfully: "This small job of yours, our factory doesn't take it. You can either wait for a few hours, I'll finish my current work and help you weld one."

  That's the style of state-owned enterprises in the 80s. As they say, rely on the mountain to eat the mountain, rely on the water to eat the water, workers are the masters of the factory, and it's nothing for the master to use his own factory's welding gun and scrap metal to make an iron box.

  For the oil extraction team, the shower room was extremely difficult to build. For Shu Hao, it was a piece of cake. Of course, he could give Su Cheng a water tank for free, but two or three were not possible, and the factory didn't have that many spare parts either.

  Su Cheng understood in his heart, first handed him a pack of cigarettes and said: "I also know some welding skills, let's do it together."

  "My life here can be repeated."

  "No big deal, I'm in an oil extraction team, just doing maintenance work." Su Cheng felt quite proud of his own identity.

  Shu Hao smiled and said, "Do you know how to use a pulley? You take down the belt wheels of those few electric motors, I'll deal with them later."

  Su Cheng nodded and picked up a simple wheelbarrow from the ground and went into action.

  It wasn't until almost quitting time that Shu Hao finished his own tasks and started working on the shower cubicle without a break.

  The shower equipment designed by Su City is mainly a large enough water tank and two fixed upper water pipes, with the middle connecting part made of plastic, and the nozzle also replaced with plastic hose.

  The oil field has its own ethylene production equipment, and the plastic is not expensive at internal prices. The main cost is iron sheeting, which is currently at the peak of price dual-track system. Each company regards production materials as more important than their own wives. Su Cheng spent 120 yuan to get two steel plates from the warehouse under Shu Hao's face, and used them to make the main part, adding some auxiliary materials, a shower device was completed.

  "Alright, I'll find a vehicle to pull it tomorrow." Su Cheng looked at the large shower box that could fit two people with satisfaction.

  Shu Hao smiled as he packed his things: "Tomorrow, I'll make a shower for myself too. Your idea isn't bad, it's just that heating the water is too much trouble."

  "Just put in a heating rod."

  "Heating rod?"

  "A coil of resistance wire is wound around it, and a glass sleeve is placed on the outside. With good insulation design, it becomes a heating rod, but it's a bit power-hungry."

  "Electricity doesn't cost money." Shu Hao curled his lips.

  Su Cheng was stunned for a moment, only then remembering that the current residential area didn't charge electricity fees, water fees, or property management fees.

  He thought for a moment and asked: "Those who live in high-rise buildings in the factory area, don't have many people with showers at home?"

  "Who can have their own shower at home? They all go to the public bathhouse in the factory to take a bath."

  "Then we make a batch of such showers and add a heating rod, won't it sell for a lot of money?" Su Cheng's mind suddenly opened up.

  This is not what he imagined. In fact, by the late 1990s, there were still small workshops making and selling such shower equipment, which was still a water tank, a heating rod, an inlet pipe connected to the faucet, and a plastic outlet pipe with a shower head, at most replacing the heating rod with a bimetallic temperature-controlled heating rod.

  Like a martial arts master, Shu Hao suddenly became evasive: "What's the point of selling this thing for money? If someone wants it, just lend a hand."

  ……