Lan Shixing gave him a cold look. "You're going back to Shanghai tomorrow, aren't you?"

"Yes, yes, Captain, you are so magnanimous!"

"Do you know what you're supposed to do this time?"

"I know, I know... what do you want me to do?"

Feng Yucai was dumbfounded. Could it be that there was some secret mission on his way back to Shanghai?

Lan Shixing was too lazy to waste words with him and went straight to the point, "Buy more seeds of tatsoi and learn how to grow them!"

......

The next day, at 7:35 a.m., Li Xiangdong, along with the energetic Li Ping and the clearly preoccupied Feng Yucai, boarded the Beijing-Shanghai Express, a journey that would take 13 hours from Huichuan to Shanghai.

Feng Yucai had been feeling frustrated the whole way, but Li Xiangdong was too lazy to ask and pretended not to see it.

Finally, just before reaching the final stop, Feng Yucai told Lan Shixing everything he had been told.

He thought Li Xiangdong would be angry, but Li Xiangdong didn't react at all. "If I wanted to keep it from him, I wouldn't have told him about the cabbage. Just do as he says."

Relieved, Feng Yucai excitedly pointed to the tall buildings outside the window and introduced them to Li Ping.

Shanghai in the 1970s

It was already 10 p.m. when we arrived in Shanghai.

Li Ping stared wide-eyed at the still brightly lit streets, the buses, and the pedestrians coming and going.

"Second brother, this is much bigger than Huichuan County!"

Feng Yucai scoffed, "What's so special about Huichuan County? Shanghai is a major metropolis in the whole country!"

Li Xiangdong glared at him, then bent down and said gently to his sister, "When you grow up, you can go to university in Shanghai! Study hard and help build our Huichuan into a better place!"

Feng Yucai dared not speak again, muttering to himself, "He wants to take the college entrance exam in Shanghai? I'm a native of Shanghai, and I can't even come back!"

The Feng family lived in a room inside the Shikumen gate. This place was completely different from the clean and bright street they had just left. There were broken pots and pans everywhere, and tangled ropes hung overhead with clean clothes hanging on them.

A relatively tidy shikumen house from the 1970s

Feng Yucai knocked on the door, and an elderly woman with gray hair and a kind face walked out shakily and opened the door. "Yucai, you're here!"

The old lady was overjoyed, and her previously cloudy eyes lit up.

Feng Yucai pouted, and two tears welled up in her eyes. "Grandma, Alawi is here!"

"It's good that Wei is here, it's good that Wei is here!"

Feng Yucai wiped away his tears and introduced Li Xiangdong and his sister to his grandmother, "Iralai Mata Gucai Zong!"

Li Ping was completely confused and quietly asked Li Xiangdong, "Second Brother, what are they saying? Is Aunt Guimei speaking English?"

Li Xiangdong said, "This is Shanghai dialect. Just now, Feng Yucai told his grandmother that we came to buy seeds for tatsoi."

Li Ping suddenly realized, "No wonder people say that the winds change every five miles and the accents every ten miles!"

Just then, an impatient woman's voice rang out, "Always so fussy! It's disgusting!"

The old lady and Feng Yucai were stunned. The old lady quickly and quietly made beds for the three of them on the floor.

Feng Yucai explained, "The house is too small. The one who said we were too noisy was my aunt. Please make do for now and sleep on the floor for the night."

Nothing was said that night.

The next day, Li Xiangdong indeed saw a middle-aged woman with thin eyebrows and single eyes. She glanced at them impatiently and said, "Where did that little brat come from, you shrew!"

Feng Yucai's face flushed red instantly.

Li Xiangdong disliked this mercenary woman.

However, seeing that the old lady and Feng Yucai looked like they dared not move or speak, they did not refute.

I'm just staying temporarily, so it's best not to cause them any trouble.

The old lady got ready and went out, taking Li Xiangdong and Feng Yucai with her to buy seeds of tatsoi.

The agricultural supply store has three varieties: small eight-leaf, medium eight-leaf, and large eight-leaf.

According to reports, the small eight-leaf chrysanthemum is the best variety, with tender and yellow flowers, and is known as "frost-touched chrysanthemum is better than mutton".

One mu of land requires 20 jin of seeds for black cabbage, so 300 mu would require 6,000 jin of seeds. Feng Yucai bought 2,000 jin of seeds.

The two then spent money to ship the package at the post office, and finished the job in one morning.

There was no need to ask anyone else; Feng Yucai's grandmother knew how to plant it and explained the key points to her grandson in detail. Li Ping even carefully wrote them down in a small notebook.

Li Xiangdong was still worried, so he went to Xinhua Bookstore and bought a copy of "Encyclopedia of Vegetable Planting" to study it more on his way back.

......

In early winter in Shanghai, tall, golden ginkgo trees line both sides of the road, their small, fan-shaped leaves occasionally drifting to the ground in the wind. A peculiar coolness permeates the air, mingled with a faint, almost imperceptible fragrance of osmanthus blossoms.

Feng Yucai took a deep breath and said slowly, "I didn't expect that there would still be the fragrance of osmanthus."

Seeing the look of nostalgia and melancholy on his face, Li Xiangdong's heart softened. He was just a 20-year-old young man.

Leaving their hometowns and coming to rural areas thousands of miles away, they encountered various different lifestyles.

"Don't focus all your energy on how to please girls and take advantage of them. Maybe you'll be able to take the college entrance exam next year! Then you can go back to Shanghai."

"College entrance exam? Sigh, don't even dream about it."

Seeing that he didn't believe him, Li Xiangdong didn't say much more. "Let me give you two pieces of advice: the righteous path in the world is full of vicissitudes, and those who do many unrighteous deeds will surely perish."

Feng Yucai sighed, "I just don't know how to reject a girl's advances."

Li Ping, Li Xiangdong: ......

The three of them walked slowly along Chongqing South Road. When they came to a T-junction, nine huge red characters came into view: "Huaihai Road State-owned Second-hand Goods Store"!

The store was bustling with people, its liveliness no less than that of the Yanjing Department Store.

Feng Yucai said nostalgically, "This is the old Huai Kingdom, shall we go in and take a look?"

Li Ping countered, "Whose uncle?"

"Hahaha, the old one is new, it doesn't mean it's anyone's uncle!"

Li Ping blushed as Feng Yucai mocked him, and glared at him, "A secondhand store is a secondhand store. What do you mean by 'Huaiguo Old' or 'Cao Guojiu'? It's like the Eight Immortals crossing the sea!"

Even after being rebuffed by Xiao Lajiao, Feng Yucai wasn't angry. He continued to explain to the two, "The property of the 'landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements, and rightists' was confiscated before. There are two public channels for disposal: one is the state-run secondhand store on Huaihai Road in Shanghai, and the other is the Jing'an Temple Trust Consignment Store. So there are many good things here!"

Li Xiangdong's heart skipped a beat; luckily, he had brought several bundles of brand-new "big unity" coins with him.

The three of them strolled inside.

The old storefront of Huaiguo was indeed very large, with a high ceiling and a depth that seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see.

Rows of counters are filled with all sorts of goods, from large items like mahogany furniture, jewelry, and porcelain, to smaller items like pots, pans, ladles, bowls, chopsticks, knives, towels, and soap.

In addition, there are clothes, shoes and hats, mink and fox furs, silk and wool fabrics, clocks, cameras, and the Four Treasures of the Study.

It was truly a dazzling array, so much so that it was overwhelming!