Chapter 167
Recently, more and more goods have been found in the city center. The small market was originally just a corner of the square, but with the increase of stalls, the small square is almost full. Compared with the past when most of the goods were second-hand goods or some handicrafts, the small market now has a lot of newer-looking things.
For example, some clothes that were a little worn but still had the tags on, toys that were missing some limbs but could still be played with, various daily chemical products that were a little dirty on the surface but still had their plastic seals intact, and some toiletries were all very popular items. Mu Nan even saw razors on a stall. These things were not available at the small market before.
Because there are more stalls and more varieties of goods on sale, more people come to the market. In addition, there is a police station next to this small square, and it is full of cameras. The security can be said to be the best in this market. Many people who do not live nearby will specially take a car to come here to visit.
The flow of people was sparse before, but now it is not so crowded, but it is so dense that people will touch each other when passing by each other. This made Mu Nan want to retreat as soon as he entered the market.
It's a hot day and everyone smells bad, especially now that water use is restricted. The sour smell is simply unbearable. Mu Nan had already made preparations before going out. He wore a mask with odor-removing beads inside, but the smell could only be blocked a little, and friction between people was inevitable.
This time Mu Nan couldn't bear it anymore and he backed out before he even went in.
Qin Huai stood beside him and watched him and smiled. He had expected this reaction. Mu Nan was much better now than before. He had made great improvements in many aspects. His tolerance for dirty environment was a little stronger than he had expected. But for him to be in the crowd and rub against all the sweaty people, not to mention Mu Nan, even he found it difficult to accept.
When Mu Nan was a child and still ignorant, he was two or three years old, which was the age when he hated cats and dogs and was full of curiosity about everything he saw. He was also quite active. Sometimes when the adults in the family wanted to cook or have something to do, they would take off Mu Nan's shoes and socks and put him on a foam mat to watch over him.
Mu Nan would never get out of bed unless he was wearing shoes and socks. So no matter how active he was, he would be trapped on the mat for a whole day. This worked every time. He seemed to be very germaphobic at such a young age.
Maybe it’s because I didn’t enjoy the fun of running barefoot on the ground when I was a child, so the older I get, the more I like to run barefoot.
Mu Nan was struggling over whether to find an entrance with fewer people in. When he turned around and saw Qin Huai's frowning face, he stretched out his hand and pinched him: "Are you laughing at me? Don't think I don't know because you are wearing a mask!"
Qin Huai grabbed the hand that was pinching his waist and took him to another entrance: "Go over there and look at the gold, silver and jade first. There are fewer people over there."
Mu Nan didn't mind the heat and stuck to Qin Huai. Following Qin Huai's lead, he chose an entrance with fewer people. However, it was only slightly less crowded, not as crowded as without anyone bumping into him.
There are some second-hand stalls here, mostly second-hand winter clothes, both for adults and children, and some miscellaneous items that look like copper antiques and large jade pieces. At first glance, you would think you have come to an antique city. A little further in, the stalls are a little cleaner. I guess they are afraid of being robbed, so they don't put the goods directly, but only put signs with the product names.
Mu Nan walked along the way and found a mother-daughter stall that caught his eye. The sign above said they were selling gold jewelry, so he walked over and asked, "How much are your items?"
The short-haired woman first looked at them carefully. She probably saw that they were wearing clean and refreshing clothes, and they must have money to buy them. She quickly took out the small bag she had been holding and said, "Here, these, look at them. You can use them for food or money."
There were quite a lot of items in that small bag. There were necklaces, earrings, and six or seven thick bracelets. In addition to gold jewelry, there were also some diamond jewelry, big diamond rings, and diamond necklaces. Mu Nan also saw a few branded goods among the things poured out by the woman, such as a Cartier full of diamonds. Although they were all girls' jewelry, Mu Nan recognized them. After all, there were quite a few purchasing agents on his WeChat account.
However, items that used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars may not be as popular as gold bracelets that used to cost only tens of thousands of dollars at most. After all, one is the brand that is valuable, and the other is the item itself.
Mu Nan looked back at Qin Huai, who said, "Buy it if you like it."
After hearing what Qin Huai said, Mu Nan reached out and picked out all the gold jewelry from the pile.
When Qin Huai said buy it if you like it, he meant buy those branded goods if he likes them. When he was abroad, after he broke up with his biological father, he was no longer as cautious and secretive as before. He bought Mu Nan a lot of trendy clothes, some trendy shoes that boys would like very much, or limited edition game consoles that can only be bought abroad, and some accessories of luxury brands.
But now thinking about it, those things probably never came into Mu Nan's hands. Before, at home, he deliberately looked at Mu Nan's wardrobe. The winter clothes were all unknown brands that he had never seen before, and the summer clothes looked like the kind that cost three pieces for a hundred yuan. However, when he became capable, he no longer had the time to let Mu Nan enjoy this kind of simple material happiness.
In the early years, Qin Huai had been working hard to make money. After Uncle Mu passed away, he had been planning their future. His grandmother was old, and it was only a matter of time before she left. At that time, he was very clear about his future path. He must go to the best university in the country, but Mu Nan had average grades since childhood and could not sit still and study, so he had been saving money. Even though he made a lot of money every month by selling study materials in high school, he did not spend money on Mu Nan indiscriminately.
According to his plan, when he went to college, he would transfer Mu Nan to live with him, buy a house in advance, or spend money to send Mu Nan to an art school. Considering the expenses in the capital and the lives of the two of them, he didn't want Mu Nan to live a hard life with him in the future, so when planning for the future, he didn't let Mu Nan live a life where he could buy whatever he wanted.
Of course, there are regrets now, because I had planned too much and forgot that things in the world are unpredictable and can never be controlled by people. Although it has been a long time late, Qin Huai still hopes to make up for what he missed for Mu Nan.
Seeing Mu Nan looking at the former luxury items, Qin Huai whispered, "Don't you want those?"
Mu Nan quickly shook his head: "No, they're not valuable." They were all women's products and had been used by others. Why would he want them? He couldn't eat or drink from them and they just took up space.
The last three kilograms of rice, plus ten packs of relief biscuits distributed by the government, made the pack of multi-grain biscuits weigh almost half a kilogram. Ten packs were quite impressive. With twenty yuan, he bought all the gold ornaments on the stall. Mu Nan weighed it and said, "It feels like at least one kilogram."
Qin Huai put the things he bought into his bag, and Mu Nan was still there sighing: "I never thought that one day, I could buy gold by the pound, haha."
As expected, these things still have to be bought in troubled times. How much would a pound of gold cost in the past? Now, they can be exchanged for some supplies. Mu Nan thinks that when he sees someone selling gold jewelry in the future, he should buy them and save them up. These are assets that can appreciate in value in the future.
Mu Nan was afraid that buying too much gold would attract attention, so he walked along the way and only bought a little at a stall from a distance. In addition to gold, he also bought some cookbooks, comic books, and romance novels. There was nothing else he liked. They were either broken or second-hand. He didn't want to use things that had been used by others.
He also saw some stalls selling resources. They probably found some discs before, or were lucky enough to save the electronic devices that had downloaded movies and TV series, and now they just copied and sold them. You can scan the code to watch online by paying money. Unless you use another device to record, you can't download and save it directly. In this way, the resource sellers can keep selling without worrying about being sold second-hand or third-hand.
Mu Nan took a look and found that some movies and TV series were on his computer.
When the stall owner saw him looking over, he quickly said, "For two dollars, you can watch it for a week, and you can watch all the movies and TV series in your account!"
Mu Nan waved his hand and quickly pulled Qin Huai away. After walking a little further away, he said, "Their program is amazing. You can watch it with an account, and it's time-limited. You can't download it, and it limits the number of people who can use an account."
Qin Huai: "It's a very simple little program. Just make a few more settings. It's not difficult to crack it. Do you want to make one too?"
Mu Nan quickly shook his head: "No, we don't need the money."
The copyrights of those movies and TV series are not his. He downloads so many of them purely for his own entertainment and to kill time. Forget about making money from other people's things. He doesn't need that. Maybe because he is an original comics, he cares more about this convenience.
He just didn't expect that he could make money this way.
After walking around the entire small market, Mu Nan was too hot to walk anymore, mainly because he was wearing a mask. When he left the small market, he could wring out a puddle of water when he took off the mask.
Mu Nan, who returned with a full load, couldn't stand the smell of other people's sweat on his body, so he went straight to the bathroom and took a serious shower. After the shower, he prepared water for Qin Huai and let him take a shower.
When Qin Huai finished washing and came out, he saw Mu Nan sitting on a small stool in the living room. Some of the things he had just bought from the market were piled on the ground, and the gold was piled on the coffee table.
Mu Nan looked at Qin Huai: "Can we do a second processing?"
Qin Huai walked over while wiping his hair: "What kind of work do you want?"
"Just melt all the gold and make it into gold bars, which are easier to store and trade."
Otherwise this pile of bracelets, chains and earrings would be too fragmented. In addition to the ones he had just bought, Mu Nan also put out some gold he had seen in the city before. It immediately piled up into a small gold mountain on the coffee table, which was quite spectacular.
Qin Huai thought for a moment and said, "Then we need to find a final mold."
It is not difficult to melt gold, a gun can do it, but to shape it, you need a mold.
Then Mu Nan took out a set of iron round plate molds directly from the space. They were about fifteen centimeters in diameter and had a pattern in the middle. There were exactly twelve in the set, the twelve zodiac signs.
Qin Huai looked at the thing in front of him, a little curious: "What do you plan to do with this?"
Mu Nan: "I bought it because it looked nice and delicate. When I went to sketch outside with my teacher, I visited a boutique and fell in love with this at first sight, but I couldn't find out what this mold could be used for. I couldn't use such a heavy thing to make small cookies, so I just put it aside. Is this okay? Will the high temperature of melting gold melt this?"
Qin Huai pinched his face and said, "I told you not to study hard when you were in school. Which one has a higher melting point, gold or iron?"
Mu Nan hesitated for a moment, uncertain: "...iron?" Gold is so soft and iron is so hard, it should be iron, right?
"The melting point of iron is higher than that of gold. Do you think liquid gold can dissolve iron?"
Mu Nan: “Can’t?”
Seeing that he wanted to try it right away, Qin Huai went to the kitchen and got him a porcelain bowl: "Try it first."
Mu Nan didn't dare to ask whether the musket would burn the bowl. He always felt that if he asked, Qin Huai would despise him for not studying hard and not learning well. Anyway, since Qin Huai gave him the bowl, it should not be burned.
The two of them toiled in the house for a long time. The first time they didn't grasp the timing well and burned the gold into a lump and had to rework it. Later on, they became more and more skilled and turned all the gold into round plaques. However, the burning and solidification took time. By the time they had roughly processed everything, they were exhausted and sweating.
"We are probably the only ones playing with fire in such hot weather."
Qin Huai used a clamp to pick out the gold medals that were still warm one by one: "Well done, your hands-on ability is indeed far better than your brain-power ability."
Mu Nan's hands were so sore that he didn't want to argue with him anymore. He could shut Qin Huai up with just one sentence: "Brother, I'm hungry, I want to eat."
What could Qin Huai do? Of course he went to cook for his ancestors.
The weather was too hot and I was tired after working outside, so although I was hungry, I couldn't muster an appetite. I had eaten cold noodles a few days ago, so Qinhuai made cold noodles and ice jelly for me today, which I could have as a midnight snack later. After eating a bowl of cold noodles and a bowl of sweet and refreshing mung bean soup, the remaining heat in my body dissipated and I felt cool.
After eating and drinking, the gold medal had cooled down. Mu Nan held it in his hand and looked at it with great appreciation. This was made by him. Although it was made roughly, the edges were not round enough, and there were many sharp edges and thorns, the cartoon version of the twelve zodiac small round medals was still very cute.
Mu Nan weighed each piece carefully, and then put a label with the weight on the back: "When we are out of money in the future, this will be the universal currency. It's a pity that this mold is too big. I also want to make the golden melon seeds and beans like those in TV dramas. It's so convenient to buy things with a small golden melon seed."
"If it's really done, you won't be willing to use it. The Cai family wants to buy two rabbits from us."
Mu Nan: "Sell them. You decide the price. Anyway, Jian Chu has reserved those rabbits now. I saw them yesterday and they have grown a lot. They can be given to Jian Chu in the next two days. Then the Cai family can take two more. Then the room will be much more spacious. When the rabbits grow up, we can eat them slowly."
As for the price, Qin Huai thought about it. The Cai family had just bought the house and prepared a lot of winter supplies, so they must be short of money. So he gave them two rabbits first, one male and one female. When the Cai family raised the rabbits in the future, he would return the two rabbits to them.
Song Jia was still there sighing: "The Cai family also raises rabbits. It seems that the grass in my house is not enough to sell."
Mu Nan said with a smile: "The Cai family has no shortage of places to grow things now. Buy some soil and move the upstairs and downstairs. Last time I went to see them, they could even free up another floor to grow grass. It's just that soil is hard to buy now."
Song Jia said, "It doesn't matter whether the soil is good or not. What's important is that the Cai family doesn't have that much water for planting, and they can't come to our place to get water every time. If they live in the front and back buildings with us, we can find a way to open a back door and come quietly, but the problem is that there is a building between us. Even if we use something to cover it, we can still be conspicuous. It doesn't matter that the water station still has water, but I heard that the water there has become less. The water used to flow out in a rush, but now it flows out in a rush. The amount of water is at least one third less."
Mu Nan had never paid attention to the water output of the water station. Every time they went to fetch water, they didn't really check it. "Is it because the water output is low that people say the water station is dry?"
Song Jia shrugged: "I don't know either. Anyway, given the current situation, the Cai family won't come to our place to fetch water unless there is something else. Otherwise, there will really be no water in the future. Their actions will bring hidden dangers to us and themselves."
When it comes to water, both of them sighed deeply. It was not easy.
Song Jia asked again: "What were you doing yesterday? I asked you to come over to play Landlord but you didn't come."
Mu Nan showed Song Jia the photo of the small gold medal she made. "My brother and I went to the market and exchanged the multi-grain cakes we had distributed for some gold. I happened to have found an iron mold in the ruins, so I thought of making it into a medal. I didn't expect that I could actually make it successfully."
Song Jia quickly took the phone and looked at it carefully: "Okay, your craftsmanship is good. Is gold cheap outside now?"
Mu Nan: "It's not cheap. You can exchange more with food. If you want, you can save some eggs to exchange. It will be easier. Anyway, food is more scarce than these things now. It will not be a loss to save for the future."
Song Jia was a little moved when he heard this. His family still had some relief cakes that the government had distributed, but no one was eating them. He was worried that they would go bad if he kept them any longer. It would be worth it if he could exchange them for some gold.
When the two were chatting in the house, they heard the sound of the iron door outside, so they went to the balcony and looked out. They saw Jian Chu and Yu Zibai coming back. Song Jia waved at them from upstairs: "What did you buy?"
Yu Zibai was holding a bag of dried locusts: "Chicken feed."
When Yu Feng was avoiding locusts in their place, he caught several bags of them and then spread them on the first floor to dry in the sun. However, even if the locusts were dried, it was difficult to store too many of them, so he didn't keep many. The rest were sold to the farm by Yu Feng.
Now the dried locusts at home are almost finished. Their family is different from Mu Nan's family. Mu Nan has special chicken feed and rice, so they don't eat dried locusts every day. But Jian Chu's family keeps the rice for themselves. They had no choice before, but now they have a better choice. Of course, they feed dried locusts every day, so they are consumed quickly. Fortunately, they can still be sold outside.
Song Jia said: "Do you know that there will be seafood coming in a few days?"
Jian Chu, who was about to go home with Yu Zibai, stopped and looked up at Song Jia's balcony: "Seafood?"
Mu Nan was also curious: "Is there a convoy coming from a coastal city? But how can they be preserved at such a high temperature? Even if they put oxygen in water, they will probably be cooked when they are transported here at this temperature."
Jian Chu simply went to Song Jia's room and was sweating profusely every minute he stood outside.
"What's going on? Where did you hear the news?"
Song Jia chuckled, "Netizen, someone asked me to help edit a short video. The edited scene is a scene of fishing. It seems that there is a boss here who has set up a fleet of vehicles, and it is also cold chain transportation. It is the first time to test the waters, so I made a short video to warm up first. It will definitely sell well. We haven't eaten fish for a long time, but the price is very expensive."
"So the boss was worried that if the price suddenly skyrocketed, people would not want to buy. Given the current temperature, the goods have been shipped from so far away, and they are sea products that are very easy to spoil. If they are left for one more day, they don't know how much they will lose. So he wanted to preheat the market first, let people know that the goods are about to arrive, and have an idea of the price in advance. He wanted to use the video to entice people, and wait for them to hesitate for two or three days. The more they hesitate, the more they will miss the goods. When the goods arrive, they will rush to buy them."
Hearing this, Mu Nan couldn't help but want to applaud: "Otherwise, why is he the boss? He has an amazing ability to control people's hearts."
Song Jia: "Do you want to watch the video? They sent me the complete video. I edited a part of it, and there is another part that I haven't done yet. It includes the entire process, from catching the fish from the sea to freezing and sealing the boxes and loading them into the cold chain transport vehicle."
Jian Chu was more concerned about the price: "How much? Let me give up."
Song Jia: "I asked, a fish weighing about one pound might cost 20 to 30 yuan."
Jian Chu: "Okay, give up."
Yu Zibai's monthly salary is less than two hundred yuan, and this fish took up a quarter of it. How could he not give up? Their conditions were not bad, but they were not so extravagant as to eat like this. The salary looked high, but there were rent, water and electricity bills every month, and they also had to buy a week's worth of food for two people at one time, so just leave it at that and stop thinking about it.
Song Jia also thinks it is expensive, but it is fish. It has been a long time since he last ate fish, especially from the sea. In the current situation, so much effort is put into cold chain transportation. Overall, the price is not too expensive, but he definitely cannot afford to eat it.
Mu Nan didn't care, as he had no problem finding food. But seeing how much they wanted to eat, he said, "It's expensive if one person buys, but it won't be expensive if several people buy together. Let's buy together and cook some fish soup. Last time I went to the market with my brother, we saw someone selling tofu. Let's buy some tofu and make some tofu fish soup to satisfy our cravings."
This suggestion was very tempting. After all, it was not the first time they had a meal together. The key point was that they really could not afford a single fish.
Song Jia said: "Then I'll ask the girls if they want to come together and count the number of people. If there are a lot of people, we can buy more and confirm how many we want, and split the bill among everyone."
Jian Chu: "Then I'll ask Xu Ming."
As soon as he finished speaking, Xu Ming sent a message to the small group of just them: "Do you want to eat pork? If so, prepare the money."
Upon seeing this news, Jian Chu suddenly wailed in a complex manner. In that wailing, there was joy, surprise, desire, and the embarrassment of poverty: "What should I do? It's either so poor that I can't even eat a pig's hair, or I can't afford to eat pigs and fish together! "
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