Chapter 24
◎ Jin Jianghai was busy with his work in an orderly manner, and said to Bei Bitang: "Little ◎
Jinjiang Haibin was busy with his work in an orderly manner, while speaking to Bei Bitang, "The small vegetable market is divided into two areas. The other area sells vegetables and some side dishes. We sell meats like chicken, duck, goose, mutton, beef, fish, shrimp, and crab. The fish stalls sell both local river fish and foreign ocean fish. The foreign fish mainly comes from Zhoushan and Dalian, shipped in by truck. Due to limited transportation conditions, in order to minimize losses and get them into the tank as quickly as possible, the vegetable market gives them special priority, allowing fish trucks to skip the line and jump directly to the weighing station. So we have to arrive earlier than the other stalls to receive and check the goods."
"You need to get to the back door of the market earlier than today. I arrived around five o'clock, so you can estimate the time roughly."
Bei Bitang listened carefully and said, "Master Jin, I will also arrive before five o'clock from now on."
As she spoke, she tried to reach out and lift the half-person-high square white water tank, which contained a large box of small yellow croakers.
Bei Bitang gritted her teeth, her face flushed red, before she moved the large water tank a little bit off the ground.
After watching for a moment, Jin Jianghai stretched out his hands, placed one hand on the bottom of the water tank, and the other hand on the edge of the water tank. With one effort, and with a relaxed expression, he poured the fish in the tank into the pool.
Bei Bitang looked ashamed and said in a low voice, "Master Jin, I'll practice more. I'm sure I can do it and won't hold you back."
Jin Jianghai remained unmoved and continued talking about the fish stall. He said, "The stall has three pools. The largest one in the middle is for the local fish, such as black carp and sea bass. Just put whatever you have, and fill the pool to about three or four centimeters from the edge. The smallest pool on the left is for crabs, eels, snails, frogs, etc. Don't put too much water, just a shallow layer will do, otherwise it will be difficult to fish out. The last one is for small fish and shrimp. The amount of water depends on the amount of fish and shrimp."
Bei Bitang responded and nodded from time to time, indicating that she listened carefully and remembered.
After Jin Jianghai finished speaking, he looked at the ground, which was covered with a thin layer of water. He pointed to a corner and assigned Bei Bitang a task. "Take that mop over there and mop the water from the ground into the gutter."
Bei Bitang had just finished drying the floor, washing the mop, and wringing it out when the market's announcement suddenly blared, "Open! Open! The main entrance is open!"
As soon as the main door of the small vegetable market opened, people who had been waiting outside rushed in. Most of them were elderly people who went to bed and got up early, and they especially loved to come to the vegetable market early in the morning to grab the freshest vegetables.
Amidst the clamor, Jin Jianghai, not caring whether Bei Bitang knew all the fish and shrimp, shouted, "You're responsible for catching the fish and shrimp! Do you know how to kill them?!"
Bei Bitang covered her ears and answered loudly, "Yes, Master Jin, I can kill fish!"
The crowd was bustling. Jin Jianghai raised his voice and said, "I'll leave that little fish to you! Go back today and memorize the price list. Once you've memorized it, you'll be responsible for weighing and collecting the money!"
Bei Bitang nodded heavily and said, "Okay! Master Jin!"
The fish stall was crowded with people in an instant. If it weren't for the pool blocking the way, Bei Bitang would have been afraid of being squeezed and falling to the ground.
She tried to listen carefully to each customer's needs, looked at the customer in front of her, and asked, "What do you want?" But the customers didn't listen to her at all, answering irrelevant questions or just staring at the fish in the pond, looking unhurried.
The people next to him were getting anxious. One of them shouted, "I want a carp weighing more than one kilogram." Another yelled, "Give me four eels."
The people behind surged forward like a tide, and Bei Bitang felt her head rumbling.
Jin Jianghai, who was killing a large fish nearby, saw that Bei Bitang could no longer handle the situation and shouted, "Everyone line up!"
In an instant, all the people who came to buy fish listened to his call, the anxiety on their faces disappeared, and they stopped pushing forward. Only the person in the front spoke, while the others waited silently.
Jin Jianghai took control of the situation. He turned to Bei Bitang and said in a slow tone, "Tell them to line up."
Bei Bitang instantly gave up the idea of serving customers with a smile. She nodded at Jin Jianghai, turned around, and said in a cold, expressionless voice, "Everyone, line up! Come one by one! Otherwise, I won't give you any fish!"
Bei Bitang was wearing a dark blue apron stained with water stains, blood, and fish scales. The sleeves of the same color were rolled up high, almost as if they were rolled up to her arms.
She stood in front of a small raised chopping board, holding the fish's head with one hand and holding a knife with the other. She knocked the fish unconscious with the back of the knife, then gutted the fish, took out the internal organs with one stroke, and quickly and neatly scraped off pieces of silver light from the head to the tail.
Then he opened the fish's lid, took out the pink gills, and threw them to the ground without changing his expression.
Then, she placed the cleaned fish in a nearby bucket of water, dunked it, and shook it up and down a few times. The blood stains on the fish were washed away, and Bei Bitang's delicate white hands regained their original color.
Bei Bitang tossed the fish into the basket a customer handed her with a sullen expression. Feeling her soaked shoes, wet, cold, and sticky, she resolved to wear waders tomorrow. Even if a pair of plastic rain boots cost more than a dozen yuan, she would wear them to work despite Miao Xiuxiu's objections.
After finishing the busy period at the front, Bei Bitang took a deep breath and was able to take a break.
Customers no longer have to wait in line; they can just tell us what kind of fish they want when they arrive.
A smiling old lady walked past Bei Bitang and came to Jin Jianghai. She said familiarly, "Master Jin, which fish is the best today?"
Jin Jianghai suddenly became very patient and said, "Grandma Su, that's not the case. The fish we sell are all good. Whether the fish is cooked well or not depends entirely on the cooking skills of each family. If the whole family praises the fish, then it is naturally the best."
After hearing this, Grandma Su looked hesitant.
Jin Jianghai sighed and asked, "Grandma Su, how many people are eating at home today? How would you like to cook the fish?"
Grandma Su spoke slowly. She said, "Today, only my granddaughter and I are eating at home. Nannan said she wanted to eat braised food."
Jin Jianghai glanced at the pond and quickly grabbed a bream weighing just over a pound. He showed it to Grandma Su and said, "Let's have this one. It's the perfect size, enough for two people. Bream are flat and wide, so they're easy to fry thoroughly, saving oil and coal."
Jin Jianghai offered some advice, but Grandma Su still hesitated and said, "Brave has a lot of bones. My daughter doesn't know how to pick bones."
Jin Jianghai was about to put the fish down when an auntie waiting nearby said, "Grandma Su, your granddaughter is already 24 years old, and you're still afraid of getting pricked by a fishbone? You still treat her like a child. Nowadays, even three or four-year-olds can suck on small fish. If all else fails, go to the hospital and have the fishbone removed. It won't take much effort, and if it's not stuck deep, the doctor won't charge you. I think this bream that Master Jin picked out for you is perfect. If you don't want it, I'll take it!"
Seeing someone trying to snatch the fish from her, Grandma Su got anxious and said quickly, "I want this fish! Please, Master Jin, clean it for me so I can put it in the pot when I get home."
Shortly after the aunt spoke, Jin Jianghai put the fish on the chopping board.
Although this happens every time Grandma Su comes, and everyone is used to it, they still watch this interesting scene with a smile.
The aunt asked, "Master Jin, which fish are from Zhoushan today?"
Seeing that Jin Jianghai was busy, Bei Bitang moved her lips and wanted to answer. She couldn't let Master Jin do the work alone, but she found that she didn't know which fish came from Zhoushan.
Bei Bitang closed her mouth and thought to herself that from tomorrow on, she must pay more attention and observe more.
While scraping the scales off a fish by the Jinjiang River, he replied, "Hairtail, horse mackerel, yellow croaker... they're all from Zhoushan."
This aunt is also an old acquaintance. She only likes to eat local fish and fish from Zhoushan. She thinks Zhoushan is closer to Shanghai and the fish there is fresher than the fish in Dalian.
Auntie said, "Pick me a hairtail fish and chop it into small pieces. I want to make a pan-fried hairtail fish."
Bei Bitang said, "Auntie, let me pick it for you."
Auntie frowned and said, "No need for you. I don't trust young people like you. Master Jin is more experienced."
Bei Bitang stood there awkwardly, at a loss. She noticed that the crowd had dwindled. Everyone had chosen something and were heading towards Master Jin, leaving almost no one on her side.
If someone wanted to be lazy, they would probably be overjoyed at this moment, as they could do much less work. But Bei Bitang was not like that. She just felt that she was not capable enough and was not trusted by the customers.
Jin Jianghai listened, but did not speak up for his disciple Bei Bitang. He killed the fish in silence.
However, the aunt saw the pitiful look on Bei Bitang's face and couldn't bear it. She said to Bei Bitang, "Then pick one for me. Pick a better one for me."
Bei Bitang immediately smiled, her mood like a roller coaster, and said, "Don't worry, Auntie, I will carefully pick a good one for you."
Jin Jianghai, who was standing next to her, saw Grandma Su off and put a recently dead prawn into Auntie's vegetable basket.
Auntie raised her eyebrows and asked in confusion, "What is this?"
Jin Jianghai said: "To pay tuition to my apprentice."
The rules of the wet market are very strict. Today, only live shrimp are available. Even if dead shrimp are sold at the live price, they will be sold at the live price. Otherwise, it will be difficult to account. How can you sell dead shrimp at the live price? In the end, it still benefits the people in the wet market. This is the unspoken rule.
Bei Bitang was a temporary worker, a new colleague on her first day who hadn't yet blended in with the others. She didn't have any of these benefits, so Jin Jianghai was essentially giving away his own stuff.
Bei Bitang excitedly chopped the long hairtail fish and handed it to her aunt. Before leaving, her aunt said to her, "Learn well from your master."
Bei Bitang was stunned and confused, but she quickly smiled and nodded.
Half an hour passed and still no one came to buy fish.
Jin Jianghai asked the people next to him to help take a look, and then took Bei Bitang to the boiler room to heat up the food.
At this time, Bei Bitang was so hungry that she no longer felt hungry.
Bei Bitang took out her aluminum lunch box and placed it in the boiler room's furnace for two or three minutes. After it heated up, she followed the others outside the boiler room, standing, squatting, sitting on the ground, or finding a stool to eat, holding her lunch box.
Jin Jianghai was among the men. Bei Bitang, his apprentice, took a look and then looked away, standing next to the group of women. Jin Jianghai did not greet her.
As Bei Bitang ate, she couldn't help but glance at everyone else's lunch boxes. It seemed like everyone was eating better than her. Of course, those who had eaten the best had already taken their lunch boxes back to the office and were sitting down to eat slowly, out of the sun.
The saleswoman closest to Bei Bitang finished chewing the fish bones and looked at the boiled rice and pickles in Bei Bitang's lunch box. She said, "Bring better food next time, or we won't be able to handle it. For those of us who work here, we have to eat one meal as if it were two."
Bei Bitang smiled and said, "Well, it's my first day at work, so I have no experience."
For this job, she has to get up at around four o'clock. Miao Xiuxiu and the others don't get up until six o'clock at the latest. If she wants to bring some good food, won't she have to wake up the whole family?
If she brought the prepared meal to the restaurant after four o'clock every day, not only would her family members be very dissatisfied, but people upstairs and downstairs would also be dissatisfied.
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