sbdcsierra Chapter 442 The electric stamp was installed
Chapter 442 The electric stamp was installed
Li Ju'an acquired a considerable amount of hides. Before the Lunar New Year, Pang Duolai planned to come to the Xing'an Mountains to transport all the hides out of Li Ju'an. According to Pang Duolai, no one does business before the Lunar New Year, so he came to do business in order to earn extra money before the holiday and have a peaceful year.
Who doesn't think this way? Men work hard all year round, just so that their families can live a stable life.
Li Ju'an said on the phone, "I understand, brother. There's nothing more to say. Come over to our house for a meal, and we'll celebrate the New Year together."
Pang Duolai grinned on the other end of the phone and said, "Alright, can I order food now?"
"Sure, what do you want to eat?"
"Bear paw!"
"piss off."
Li Ju'an himself had never eaten bear paw; it was all for sale. None of the merchants had ever eaten bear paw either. Everyone knew that such a valuable item could fetch a high price, so who would be willing to eat it themselves? It's the same principle as his mother, Song Lanhua, watching the hens lay eggs in the backyard. But even though the hens actually laid eggs, she wouldn't eat them herself; she would only take them to the market to sell in exchange for some cotton.
Li Ju'an complained that his home didn't have a telephone, making it extremely slow to contact suppliers, feed mills, and merchants from other provinces.
He had no choice but to go outside the city telephone exchange to see the notices and apply for telephone installation.
The staff outside the telephone exchange saw him and shouted, "What are you doing here!"
"Applying to install a telephone."
"Why didn't you do this earlier? Did you get your number plate yet?"
What number plate?
Li Ju'an genuinely didn't know that a phone number plate was required to apply for telephone installation. In his previous life, when he was doing business in the south, Zhang Yingnian was the one who made the trips back and forth to install telephones.
The staff member waved his hand and shouted, "Come back to line up at 2 a.m. We've already taken all the number plates."
Li Ju'an was dumbfounded, as was Lu Zhiqiang, who had gone with him. Lu Zhiqiang exclaimed, "What? Getting a number and queuing at 2 a.m.? That's insane!"
"So what? We're just following the rules and regulations. I kindly reminded you two to come at this hour, and you think you're in the right? What are you looking at!"
Lu Zhiqiang stood tall and defiantly shouted, "What are you going to do about it! Come at me!"
"Fine, let's do it. Are you fucking afraid of me?"
The staff member had a bad temper and could easily get into a fight with Lu Zhiqiang after just a few words, so Li Ju'an quickly stopped him. Li Ju'an smoothed things over by saying, "It's alright, it's alright, we'll come tomorrow morning."
He managed to persuade Lu Zhiqiang, and the two had no choice but to return to the village. Along the way, Lu Zhiqiang continued to grumble and complain, saying that applying for a telephone installation was such a hassle, requiring queuing up at dawn to apply for a number, and that it would be better not to install one at all.
Li Ju'an smiled wryly upon hearing this.
Lu Zhiqiang had no idea that installing this telephone was already difficult, and when it reopened in the early 1990s, the application process would be even slower. It was a first-come, first-served system. Waiting a few more years would bring the same situation, with no improvement whatsoever.
He said, "Alright, let's go to a restaurant and have a good meal first. I'll come by myself in the early morning."
Lu Zhiqiang said, "You come by yourself. Do you have a car? The forest farm's small train hasn't even started running yet. How are you going to get here? The forest farm's motorcade can't lend you a car."
"I'll ride my bicycle. There's a road in front of my house now. It'll take me around to the main road at the village entrance, making it much easier to get into the city."
Lu Zhiqiang slapped his forehead, realizing he'd forgotten—he'd really forgotten there was a main road in front of Li Ju'an's house. His eyes were filled with envy; he was tired of even saying it.
That year, getting a telephone installed was difficult and making calls was slow; the municipal telephone exchange received over 5000 applications for telephone installation every month. Li Ju'an had submitted his application a month or so before it was finally approved. Among these, over 3000 were applications for private telephones, and Li Ju'an was one of them.
Li Ju'an went to queue up in the early morning to apply and finally got a number. He then submitted his application letter in the long queue.
In the latter half of that year, the Li family finally got a landline phone installed. It was a telephone with a dial pad. Captain Yang Dezheng's office also got a programmable telephone with a three-digit number.
Yang Dezheng could make direct calls between different work units. His program-controlled telephone was limited to calls between units; if you used it to call into the city, it would be a long-distance call and would require transfer by the telecommunications bureau's main switchboard. From the city, the program-controlled telephone could only reach the towns and villages via an extension number, which would then transfer the call.
Yang Dezheng thought about calling his friends in Shanghai. He had heard that his old friends were doing business in Shanghai and making a lot of money, which made him a little envious. So he first looked up the directory assistance number and found the phone numbers of several hospitals and department stores in Shanghai. Then he opened his notebook and dialed the switchboard.
He dialed the switchboard while holding the phone, and a sweet voice from the operator calmly said, "Busy, please wait."
Yang Dezheng waited for several minutes, getting impatient, and dialed again, begging the operator to expedite the call. Soon, the call was answered. He was about to speak excitedly when the person on the other end suddenly said it was a wrong number, not the person he was looking for; that person was in another office.
Yang Dezheng was getting impatient and tried everything to appease him, saying it was urgent and he could find someone nearby, just a short trip to the office. The person agreed, saying, "Hang up, I'll have him call you back."
Yang Dezheng was a shrewd old fox; he knew that once this connection was broken, there would be no future. He hurriedly pleaded, "Please, brother, we finally got through. Just call someone to help us."
There was a dead tone coming from the receiver; it turned out the connection had dropped.
Yang Dezheng was so angry he wanted to smash the phone receiver. He quickly dialed back, only to be met with another sweet and pleasant operator's voice: "Busy, please wait." He was so anxious that he scratched his head and cheeks. When he finally got through, he actually managed to find his friend who was making money in Shanghai.
He excitedly blurted out everything he was going to say, and quickly said, "I plan to come to Shanghai at the end of the month. Firstly, to learn from the experience of a big city, and secondly, to see you. It's been so long since we last met."
This man was a business partner he had met at a local conference. Unexpectedly, the man, speaking with a heavy local accent, said, "Come on, brother, it's my treat, it'll be great!"
He had just opened his mouth to speak when the line went dead again. Yang Dezheng was so angry he wanted to smash the phone receiver. He turned and ran towards Lijialou. The director of the Women's Federation, who was trying to calm the villagers down, asked him, "Team Leader Yang, where are you going in such a hurry?"
Yang Dezheng shouted without turning his head, "I'm going to borrow a telephone from Li Ju'an!"
Because of the telephone set installed by Li Ju'an, many villagers come and go from the Li family's self-built house every day. Most of them come to borrow it to make phone calls.
Song Lanhua, the mother, worried that the villagers would all take long-distance calls. Long-distance calls are very expensive, costing up to a dollar if the call takes too long. Many villagers brought eggs, so the calls wouldn't take too long, thus maintaining good relationships and resolving the problem.
Qian Dingxiang, who came over for a visit, sighed and said, "Song Lanhua, you're too soft-hearted. If so many of us came to borrow the phone, I definitely wouldn't lend it to you."