"Hua Hua?!" Tan Yuan looked at Hua Jin in surprise. They had received several high-priced custom orders recently. Just embroidering these already required overtime work. Now they had to embroider such large items. How would they have enough time?
The middle-aged man saw that Tan Yuan looked strange and guessed that the other party might not want to do business with him. He bent his shoulders and rubbed his hands, and whispered: "I, I am willing to pay more, can I..."
"Let me show you the album." Hua Jin handed the album to the man. She did not give a quote, but carefully explained to the man the different embroidery methods and how much time it would take.
The man listened carefully. He looked through the album and the photos, hesitated for a long time, and chose an embroidery method that could be completed in about a month.
When paying the deposit, the man took out a dirty old wallet with a large Shanzhai brand printed on it from his jacket pocket. He counted the money and said a little embarrassedly, "I don't know how to pay with my phone. I heard there are many viruses on the Internet, and the money in my phone can be stolen if I'm not careful."
I heard that young people in big cities now like to pay with mobile phones. Even when buying snacks on the roadside, they use their mobile phones to scan. His old-fashioned way of payment may not be liked by others.
"Cash is good. It feels better in my hand." Hua Jin handed the man a deposit receipt. "My colleague and I have our cell phone numbers on it. If you need anything, you can contact us."
"Thank you, thank you, thank you." The man said thank you three times in a row. He put the receipt into the pocket of his wallet and quickly disappeared out the door.
"Huahua." After the man walked away, Tan Yuan said distressedly, "Last time someone offered you three times the money but you refused to hurry up. This time, you asked for less money but still wanted to embroider a big piece. Could it be that he is really your fellow villager?"
"Even if you're from the same hometown, it's not worth it for you to work so hard. Do you know that staying up late is the main killer of disfigurement?" He took the opportunity to touch Hua Jin's face, "It's a pity for such a beautiful face that even women would be tempted by."
"Thanks for the compliment, but I won't like you. Give up." Hua Jin slapped Tan Yuan's claws away and stuffed the brewed teacup into Tan Yuan's hand. "Go and make your painted jewelry box. Kneel down and say hello."
"Okay, Your Majesty." Tan Yuan smiled and shrank back to her workbench. She had no talent for embroidery. Her mother said that she had learned embroidery for nearly ten years, but the things she embroidered were not spiritual at all. If it were in the past, she would have been only an embroiderer for her whole life and would never become a master. Huahua was different from her. She started learning Shu embroidery from her mother at the age of nineteen. In just five or six years, the things she embroidered were lifelike, and her mother called them spiritual and talented.
Tan Yuan was very happy about this, as her mother's craft finally had a successor. She herself liked making lacquerware more, so she started to make lacquerware with her father in the past few years.
Whether it is lacquerware or embroidery, they are all traditional skills. They have something in common in art, but also many differences. The biggest problem in the traditional skills industry is that the skilled masters are getting old, and the younger generation of skilled talents have not been trained, resulting in a lack of successors, and many embroidery techniques have even been lost.
Therefore, in the eyes of Tan Yuan's mother Gao Shulan, Hua Jin is the spark of traditional art, the hope for the future of Shu embroidery, and her legitimate successor. She is not her biological daughter, but she is better than her biological daughter.
This allowed Hua Jin to have more time to finish her embroidery. Tan Yuan spent most of the day greeting customers. After closing the store at night, Hua Jin went to Tan Yuan's house for a midnight snack before slowly walking out.
Tan Qing and Gao Shulan wanted to let Hua Jin stay at their house overnight, but Hua Jin didn't want to trouble their family and was even more afraid that Aunt Gao would urge her to get married, so she made an excuse to slip away.
Although it was already past 10:30 at night, this bustling city was still very lively. Hua Jin walked on the street, looked up at the lights on the buildings, and felt the liveliness unique to a bustling city.
After walking for a while, she bent down and rubbed her aching knees, then took out her phone from her bag and checked the time. At this time, she didn't want to wait for the bus anymore, so she simply booked a car online.
This period of time was not rush hour, so a driver quickly accepted the order and the map on the phone showed that the driver would arrive in about five minutes.
Putting down her phone, Hua Jin found herself standing at the edge of the sidewalk and took a few steps back. Seeing countless cars whizzing past on the road, and being far enough away from them to keep safe, she hummed a song in a good mood.
A few drunk men came over with their arms around each other. When they saw Hua Jin, they whistled a few times in a drunken courageous manner.
Hua Jin did not yell or curse, nor did she retreat timidly. She just looked at them quietly, reached into her bag, and then continued to play with her phone.
Seeing that Hua Jin didn't react, and there were other pedestrians on the roadside, the drunks thought it was meaningless and staggered away.
After they walked away, Hua Jin deleted the three numbers 110 on her cell phone's dial-up page and put the alarm and antique hairpin in her right hand back into her bag.
After living alone for so many years, who doesn’t have some tricks to deal with hooligans?
Hua Jin is good at embroidering landscapes elegantly, and good at fighting to scare off hooligans. She feels that she is a remarkable woman of the new era who is both civil and military.
Soon the car arrived. After Hua Jin sat in the back seat, the driver reminded her that there was water next to her and she could drink it if she was thirsty. Hua Jin thanked him but did not touch the bottle of water. Seeing that Hua Jin did not speak, the driver did not insist on talking to her and turned on the traffic broadcast.
The radio said that there was a car accident on a certain section of road causing traffic congestion, so pedestrians and vehicles are requested to avoid this section as much as possible.
"Luckily we went through the next intersection, otherwise we would have to take a long detour." The driver sighed, then remembered that the woman in the back seat didn't seem to like talking, so he shut up again. He had no other problems except that he liked to chat with people. A customer once gave him a bad review because he talked too much, so now he is calm and restrained.
"Well, luckily we are lucky." Hua Jin replied.
"That's not true." The driver was a little proud. "I've been lucky since I was a child. Even dogs like to wag their tails when they see me."
Hua Jin didn't know how to respond for a moment. The example given by the other party was too powerful.
The driver found that Hua Jin was not cold and indifferent, so he could not hold back his enthusiasm for chatting and talked about the new things he had encountered recently. Hua Jin found that these drivers who often took business outside were very well-informed. They knew some things that were not even known on the Internet, and they could tell the story in a dramatic and fascinating way.
When passing by the accident site, Hua Jin looked over there and heard the sounds of an ambulance and sirens, but could not hear anything else.
When they arrived outside the residential building, the driver poked his head out and looked outside. He found that the alley was narrow and small, and the road surface was bumpy. "Passenger, we have arrived at our destination. Please give me a five-star rating."
"Okay." Hua Jin pushed the door open and got out of the car. She walked a few steps and the alley was bright. She looked back and saw that the talkative driver did not drive away, but turned on the headlights of the car, illuminating the alley in front of her.
Stopping, Hua Jin thanked the driver.
The driver had the car doors and windows closed and couldn't hear what Hua Jin said. When he saw her turn around, he waved at her, signaling her to go home quickly.
It is not easy for young girls to work hard outside. If this kind of small thing can ensure the safety of girls, it can be considered as accumulating good deeds for yourself.
Walking in the dark corridor, Hua Jin heard Sister Qin's roar. Was she scolding the child again?
The building that Hua Jin rented was an old-style single-row house. It was only six stories high, with a kitchen and bathroom in a separate room, and a large balcony outside that connected the entire floor. Rumor has it that this place might be demolished, but the news has been circulating for two or three years without any movement. Most of the people living in this building are tenants from all over the world. They maintain superficial politeness with each other, but due to the high turnover among tenants, they are destined not to have a deep friendship.
After going upstairs, when Hua Jin was taking the key to the room, she heard the sound of bowls breaking from next door. She tilted her head and looked carefully, but there was no sound of a child crying.
She heard from Grandma Chen downstairs that Sister Qin was a local. Her husband gambled, cheated and beat people, so she divorced him and moved back to her parents' home with her child. Not long after, she moved out again because her brother's child bullied her son.
Perhaps because of the pressure of life, her temper is not very good, sometimes she can't help scolding the children, but I have never seen her hit the children. Hua Jin can't judge whether Sister Qin is right or wrong, and she is not qualified to judge.
After embroidering for a few minutes, the noise from next door had not stopped. Hua Jin sighed helplessly, got up and filled a small bowl of green dates from the refrigerator, walked out and knocked on Sister Qin's door.
"Sister Qin, I bought some fresh green dates yesterday. They taste good. You and the child can take some to try." After Sister Qin opened the door, Hua Jin did not enter the house. She looked inside the house and saw the little boy sitting quietly on the shabby sofa. There were no wounds on his body and his clothes were not messy.
"Thank you." Sister Qin glanced at Hua Jin, took the bowl from her hand, and quickly came out again. The green dates in the bowl were gone, and there were a few pieces of peeled pineapple: "This is the pineapple I just soaked today. It's quite sweet. You can take it back and eat it."
"Thank you." Hua Jin took a bite and found the pineapple sweet and delicious, without any astringency. When she returned to the house, there was no loud noise next door, and soon it was completely quiet.
The mother and son should be asleep.
She yawned, turned up the light, and began to embroider a bright red quilt with dragons and phoenixes.
Once you have agreed to something, you must finish it even if you have to stay up late.
An hour later, she got up and walked a few steps in the room. A media app on her mobile phone pushed a message with the title "His life makes you sympathize, but its life makes you cry."
I clicked on the title and read the content. It turned out to be about a rich man who took his pet to another place. He didn't want the pet to suffer during the shipment, so he took a private plane with the pet to the destination.
"writer of sensational headlines!"
The author has something to say: Hua Jin: I can embroider flowers with my literary skills and I can also act like a spoiled brat with my martial arts skills. I am who I am, a different kind of firework.
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