Chapter 12 Chapter 12 Buying and selling, spending money like water
Zhou took her to the salt shop. The price of salt was 40 wen per jin, which made her gasp. The shopkeeper said, "Our salt is all shipped from Shuzhong. The journey is long, and the transportation fee is not cheap. The salt is also of high quality."
Lin Chuntao, who had seen the snow-white fine salt, really didn't think that the high-quality salt was so good. Perhaps the current technology could only go so far.
"I'll buy one pound."
After she finished speaking, the shopkeeper reached out to her, only to realize that she needed a bag, which she didn't have. She could only say, "Shopkeeper, wait a moment." Then she pulled Zhou Shi over and said, "Fourth Aunt, let's go to the grocery store first. I'll buy a clay pot to store the salt."
Zhou followed beside him and sighed in her heart, saying that it was pitiful for the child because the mother passed away early. Now even the clay pot for salt had to be sold on the spot.
When I entered the grocery store, I saw a wide variety of small commodities, including clay basins, copper basins, pottery jars, copper jars, pottery bowls, burlap bags, and rouge. For sixty cents, I bought two clay jars, two clay basins, three large pottery bowls, and five small pottery bowls for eating.
Three or four items cost sixty cents. The salt cost forty cents per pound, and after putting it into the earthenware jar, it felt like just a little bit.
She carefully closed the lid and put it in the backpack.
When they arrived at the butcher's shop, they had sold out of pork fat, and the remaining fat was not cheap either. Zhou felt that it was not worth the money to make fat without pork fat. The butcher's wife looked at Lin Chuntao and said, "Miss, if you are used to eating large intestines, large intestine oil is also good and much cheaper."
Lin Chuntao likes to eat offal, but she can't stand the idea of refining pig intestines into oil, as all the dishes will taste like intestines. In the end, she decided to buy a pound of fat meat first.
The butcher's wife quoted a price: "Pure fat meat is thirty cents per pound."
Lin Chuntao nodded. The pound of meat was tied with straw and it was just a small lump. However, the sisters next to her stared at it with great greed.
After buying the meat, I went to the stall to look at the steamer, which came with a straw lid and a wooden lid, and the price was twenty cents.
Zhou bargained eloquently with the shopkeeper and finally bought it for eighteen cents. Lin Chuntao looked at the water buckets next to her and asked about the price, only to find out that two buckets and a shoulder pole would cost thirty-six cents.
The shopkeeper saw that they were complaining about the price and said, "Two buckets made by my family will last you a lifetime without leaking. My husband is a top-notch bucket maker. We even painted them with tung oil. They are definitely worth the price."
Lin Chuntao did the math and found that she only had thirty-nine copper coins left from selling mushrooms today.
No wonder Zhou said she would add more slowly in the future. She had much less money, so she had to save some to buy food. If she bought two more buckets, she would have no money left.
She thought for a moment and smiled, "Auntie, we'll come back another day to buy it."
When they were far away from the vendor, Zhou said, "Her buckets are indeed of very good quality, but they are expensive. Chuntao, you should save the money you earn to buy grain first." After saying this, Zhou asked her, "Do you know where the grain shop is? Do you want me to take you there to have a look?"
Lin Chuntao nodded, and Zhou took them to the grain shop in the market.
We have a complete range of rice, flour, wheat, paddy, soybeans, buckwheat and soba noodles.
The prices of white rice and noodles are relatively expensive, while paddy and wheat are relatively cheaper. However, Lin Chuntao calculated that there might be an extra labor cost between rice and paddy. She could buy paddy and pound it herself in the future. As for noodles, with the current tools, she might not be able to grind them as finely as others. After thinking about it, she asked the price of noodles.
"French noodles are 44 wen a dou, and buckwheat noodles are 32 wen a dou." The fine noodles the shopkeeper mentioned were wheat noodles, which were slightly yellow in color, but very white compared to buckwheat flour. Buckwheat noodles were a bit grayish white.
Lin Chuntao estimated that one dou weighed about twelve jin, which was not very expensive, but they were too poor.
"Shopkeeper, can I buy half a bucket?"
"Sure, what do you want?"
Lin Chuntao replied, "Half a bucket of buckwheat noodles."
Since she didn't bring any tools to store the grain, Lin Chuntao asked the shopkeeper to put it into her earthenware jars. One of the two jars was bigger than the other, as she had bought it to store oil in the future. It was just the right size, but it wasn't full even after she put six pounds of buckwheat noodles in it.
Zhou said to her, "Go home and ask someone in the village to make you two wooden boxes for the noodles. When you buy noodles, carry them on your back so they won't spill."
Lin Chuntao responded obediently, and the few of them left the grain shop and prepared to go back.
The market was bustling with the aroma of various food stalls. They were hungry since they went out in the middle of the night. The sisters stared at the food stalls as they passed by, but perhaps because they had spent too much money on shopping, even Lin Duoer was just greedy and didn't ask for anything to eat.
Lin Chuntao felt heartbroken because the money was too expensive, but when she heard the hawker calling out that a fried radish bun cost three cents, she could still buy one to fill her stomach.
Thinking about this, he said to Zhou: "Fourth Aunt, please help me look after my sister. I will be back soon."
As she spoke, she ran towards the direction of the hawking sound.
"How many would you like to buy, young lady?" the shopkeeper asked as he lifted the lid of the steamer. White steam rose from the steamer, and buns as big as a bowl came into view.
The shopkeeper introduced: "Our fried radish with lard residue is safe to buy, everyone who has tried it says it is delicious."
"Pack five for me." She took out the money and handed it over. After the shopkeeper took the money, Lin Chuntao said, "Could you please cut two of them in half for me before packing them?"
The shopkeeper looked back at her and nodded readily: "Okay."
As she spoke, she took a knife, picked up two buns, cut them neatly in the middle, and wrapped them in oil paper.
Lin Chuntao took the buns, thanked with a smile, and returned with the hot buns.
She handed one to Zhou and Xu Tianzhu first, and said, "Thank you, Fourth Uncle and Fourth Auntie, for today."
The two of them hurriedly refused, and Zhou said, "You kid, why do you need to thank me for such a small thing? Why buy these buns? Your fourth uncle and I are not hungry, so you can eat them."
Lin Chuntao didn't allow them to refuse and stuffed it directly into their hands, "We bought some too. We still have a long walk back home, so just eat a little to fill our stomachs." She said and turned to share it with her sisters.
The couple looked at the buns in their hands. Zhou quickly wrapped the bun tightly and stuffed it into Lin Chuntao's backpack, saying, "Then your fourth uncle and I will have one, and you can carry this one back."
Lin Chuntao wanted to put down the backpack and take it out, but Zhou refused and held the backpack for her, not letting her put it down.
"If you continue like this, we won't eat this either."
Lin Chuntao had no choice but to give up. There were six people, and each of them ate half a radish bun.
The shopkeeper said that the filling was lard residue and radish. I didn’t taste the lard residue, but the radish was very juicy, so I could tell that some lard was added. Most importantly, it didn’t taste choking. I wonder how the shopkeeper processed the radish.
It was a long journey from the county town back to the village, and Zhou asked Xu Tianzhu to help them carry the backpack all the way.
When they parted, he returned the backpack to them and told his sisters that when they had time, they could come home to play with his cousins, who were all at home.
Lin Chuntao agreed repeatedly.
After they separated, Xu Tianzhu started complaining about the radish buns, "This girl, even in this state, she still doesn't know how to save money. She spent more than ten coins on a few radish buns, which could have bought half a bucket of buckwheat noodles."
Zhou glared at him angrily, "Even eating can't stop your rotten mouth. That's Chuntao, who was polite and knew how to behave. You should learn from her! Go back and tell Tianlin and the others. How can you let others bully you just because Xiuniang is gone? The Lin family is really capable of doing this. They don't care about their dignity, young or old!"
Xu Tianzhu sighed: "I have to tell them, but it depends on what Tianlin and the others say."
When Lin Chuntao and her friends arrived home, the doors and windows of the other room had also been completed. Looking at the two green bamboo doors and the old walls in the daytime, they did not match well, but at the same time, they were full of spring.
She walked closer and tried to push the door open, only to find that there was a lock on the outside of the house she had lived in last night.
Pei Ying was not at home. There were a lot of newly cut bamboos piled in the yard. Lin Chuntao thought he must have gone out to cut bamboos. She squatted down and put the backpack in the corner. She turned around and said to Chun Xing, "Chun Xing, take a look at the things. I'll go call your brother-in-law to come back and open the door."
Lin Chunxing nodded, and Lin Chuntao walked towards the bamboo forest.
Before she entered the woods, she heard the sound of a sickle chopping bamboo. She went straight into the woods and only saw Pei Ying's figure clearly when she got closer.
Pei Ying had just cut down a bamboo and was about to continue when he inadvertently saw Lin Chuntao behind him.
"You guys are back? Did you pick any mushrooms today?"
Lin Chuntao smiled and said, "I picked up a basket of pine mushrooms." Then she looked at the bamboo on the ground and asked, "Have you cut enough?"
Pei Ying thought of the locked door and nodded, "Almost done, let's carry it back first."
"Let me get some." Lin Chuntao said as she bent down to take it but was stopped by Pei Ying: "This bundle of bamboo is not heavy, I can carry it, you help me hold the sickle."
Lin Chuntao took the sickle, and Pei Ying bent down, picked up the bundle of bamboo with one hand, and dragged it out of the bamboo forest.
"Have you had breakfast?" Lin Chuntao asked.
Pei Ying said, "I'm not hungry yet."
Lin Chuntao frowned slightly. The door was already built and the bamboo had been cut. It seemed that the man had started working not long after they left.
They were hungry in the city, and Pei Ying said it would be strange if they were not hungry.
Lin Chuntao felt it from the first day that Pei Ying seemed to be a very sensible person.
The two walked side by side. Pei Ying didn't know what to say to her. Lin Chuntao took the initiative to talk about her encounter with Zhou and Xu Tianzhu today.
"I didn't expect it to be our cousin. When he heard we were kicked out, he took care of us all the way. My fourth aunt is a very kind-hearted person."
Pei Ying listened quietly. Lin Chuntao talked about buying mushrooms, what Zhou took them to buy, how much money they spent, and then they talked about buying radish buns.
"I brought you one. I don't know if it's still hot. If it's cold, I'll steam it in a steamer."
Pei Ying was a little surprised that he didn't go to Lin Chuntao to buy buns but brought one back for him.
"Thanks."
Lin Chuntao smiled and said, "We're all family, no need to thank me." Then he asked Pei Ying, "Is that lock on the door yours?"
"Well, there are only two keys. I'll give you one in a moment."
When the two men returned with the bamboo, the three sisters in front of the house turned around and called out, "Brother-in-law."
Lin Duoer said to Pei Ying as if to take credit: "Sister brought you some buns, they are delicious."
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