A follow-up visit to Chapter 55 is fine, but the rest are unnecessary...
On a good day for mending, Lin Xiushui was still cleaning up the mess at the tailor shop.
Replace the obviously damaged parts first. Make a note of the parts that are only slightly damaged and still usable, and replace them later when you have more manpower.
Just changing the curtains takes half a month of back and forth. In most rooms, the clothes, skirts, and other fabrics that have been made are piled up and cannot be exposed to direct sunlight. However, cutting and sewing require good lighting, so basically half of the curtains are made of bamboo and the other half of them are made of cloth.
In rooms where clothes are scented, bamboo or cloth curtains are not usually used; coarse gauze curtains are used instead. The scenting process turns the gauze yellow, but new gauze is still required because it is said to be more attractive and breathable. The fabric is cut according to the pattern shown earlier.
Being in charge is good, but the time spent in charge can be short or long, and when faced with a multitude of trivial and miscellaneous tasks, Lin Xiushui sometimes has the thought that it would be better to do needlework instead.
At least it's drawnwork, it's drawnwork. I don't need to listen to Manager Lin. The chairs in my room have been gnawed by rats, and they've also chewed two or three holes in several pieces of clothing. What should I do?
What can we do? Change the chair, mend the clothes.
At least an embroidery pattern is an embroidery pattern. You don't have to leave the house and then a woman comes running over, shouting, "Manager Lin, come quick! Help!" When she gets there, it's because she was checking on the ironing of the cloth when some charcoal flew out and burned a small hole, leaving a bunch of people standing there helplessly.
What could she do? She'd mend it if she could. With her bag on her back, she sat down, took out tweezers and scissors, and began to mend the hole with thread. To everyone's amazement, she mended it flawlessly.
I came to the tailor shop to do this and that, but what I'm most comfortable doing is still my old profession.
Those who had witnessed her sewing skills all called her "Manager Lin" with complete respect.
Just like having connections in the imperial court makes things easier for her, all the mending work went smoothly, at least without any obstacles. What needed repairing was repaired, and what needed patching was patched.
As the weather gradually warmed up, the house became stuffy. In the middle of the afternoon, Xiaochun'e's mother brought over some boiled water from Lianggan.
Boiled water was a popular way for people to quench their thirst. Lianggan boiled water was made by boiling dried rice, adding sugar and a little honey, and it was very sweet.
Her mother said with a smile, "If you like it, I'll bring you more. There's also boiled water made with perilla and cardamom. It's on your way. You live close to our kitchen, so you can come and get it yourself. We've prepared everything for you. The ladies in the other rooms all have it, so don't worry."
Lin Xiushui didn't refuse anymore and saw her out. Then the woman took out a bottle of thirst water from her basket, which was made from boiled bayberries. She told Lin Xiushui to take it back, scoop a spoonful, add some hot water, and then drink it.
"I told Xiao Chun'e that she's so lucky to have a friend like you. Don't overwork yourself, go back now, it's so sunny. I'm leaving now, remember to drink something to cool down."
Xiao Chun'e's mother carried a basket and held an umbrella as she walked forward, leaving Lin Xiushui to watch her back. The water in her hand was icy cold, probably because she loved the house because of the person she loved.
She watched for a while, then turned and went inside. After finishing her work, she put the whole bag of yellowed gauze on the boat. Sang Ying came from the rice shop to pick her up, brought out a bowl of chilled rice balls she had bought, and called out, "Come and eat, they're going to melt."
"Eat, eat, eat," Lin Xiushui quickly took it, "Why did you buy this?"
“I saw someone selling rice. I was so hot carrying it back. I thought you must be hot too, so I bought a bowl and had a bite. It cost me ten coins. Why haven’t I received my monthly salary yet?”
Sang Ying touched her sweaty hair and said while rowing the boat, "I was reluctant to buy it, but I thought about how hard I've been learning to read these days. I should buy a bowl to try."
"Then you'll give it to me?"
“You’re having a harder time than me, let’s both go through this together, and I’ll get through this.”
The boat was moored by the bridge, and two people squatted at the bow eating a bowl of small rice balls, which were no longer cold but lukewarm.
Then Lin Xiushui took over rowing the boat. Sang Ying was going to Sizhen's place to learn to write, and she picked up Xiao He from school.
Someone pushed a cart past, and she dodged it without paying attention. Then she saw Xiaohe step over the threshold with a bulging bag in front of her. She wiped her sweat and casually asked, "What did you bring this time?"
Then, Xiaoye's head popped out of the bag—a huge cat head! It startled her.
Xiaohe looked up and said, "I said last time that I would take it to see Sister Sizhen."
"Cat Xiaoye said she wanted to eat the steamed fish from Sister Wang's house at the bridgehead."
"Did it tell you this in a dream?" Lin Xiushui asked.
Xiaohe nodded. "I dreamt about it. In my dream, it kept barking, and I thought it wanted to eat this fish."
Lin Xiushui was speechless; she could talk even more nonsense than Lin Xiushui.
However, she still bought it. Wang Yuelan didn't allow her to spoil Xiaohe every day, so she bought it and secretly took Xiaohe to the house she rented in front of her to eat.
Her house was bigger, so she wasn't worried about Xiaohe wandering around. The cat Xiaoye was too lazy to move at all, so Xiaohe got a writing desk and her own little chair, but she wasn't allowed to eat.
Usually, she would draw paper patterns and alter clothes, while Zhou Niangzi would sew things on the side, and Xiao He would be writing and drawing with her head down. Sometimes she would play with Zhou Niangzi's little baby.
That day, Lin Xiushui cut up some gauze she had taken from the tailor shop. This kind of yellowish cloth could not be washed clean and could not be sold. She cut it up and sewed it up to make nets for Xiaohe and a few other children. With a bamboo cover, they could catch fish and fireflies.
At this time of night, there are many stars in the sky, and many fireflies near the mulberry trees at the river mouth.
She didn't always need to make money; she would go out at night, carrying a lantern, watching a group of children catching cicadas and fireflies, capturing them and releasing them.
There are not as many fireflies in Sangqiao Ferry as in Shanglintang. When she used to catch them with Chen Jiuchuan, they were everywhere in the fields. They would catch them and stuff them into empty duck eggshells so they would glow in the light.
Whoever you want can come.
"Not busy anymore?" Chen Jiuchuan walked up from the riverbank, carrying a bag in his hand.
Lin Xiushui waved to him, "No, I'm always busy. I cut gauze covers and am watching the kids play."
"What did you bring this time?"
Chen Jiuchuan handed over the package, which smelled delicious; it was a bag of locust flowers.
"Today, when we changed boats at Qinghewu, someone came from Shanglintang to sell locust flowers, so I bought a bag."
May is the season for locust flowers to bloom. Sangqing Town does not plant locust trees, but Shanglintang has many locust groves. In May, the locust flowers bloom in small, numerous, and very fragrant flowers. She would pick the locust flowers to make sachets.
Lin Xiushui hadn't seen anyone selling locust flowers throughout May, so she was pleasantly surprised. She gently approached him, handed him the lantern, and took the locust flowers to hug her arms. "You really gave them to me?"
Chen Jiuchuan held the lantern, his hands suddenly feeling wet and sticky, and turned his head to look at the child chasing fireflies.
"Locust flowers make fragrant sachets, I'll make one for you."
Chen Jiuchuan spoke faster than he thought, and said, "Okay."
Lin Xiushui added, "We should give these to Sang Ying, Xiao Chun'e, Si Zhen... Is Zhang Shu here too? We can give one to him as well."
“Not really,” Chen Jiuchuan raised an eyebrow after hearing the first few names, but when he heard this one, he firmly objected. “Giving it to Zhang Shu would be too much of a loss. Have you forgotten that when he was thirteen, he was still greedy and stole your pastries?”
"Don't give it to this kind of person."
Lin Xiushui gave him a strange look and asked, "Did Zhang Shu offend you again?"
They can even bring up things that happened two years ago.
Chen Jiuchuan said without blushing, "He also stole my food."
"This is terrible," Lin Xiushui thought. Two people who are almost thirty years old combined are fighting over food.
That night, she secretly brought the locust blossoms into the house and placed them by her pillow. She slept very well, dreaming of the fragrance of locust blossoms. Locust blossoms were truly the best flowers in the world. She wanted to go to Qinghewu to buy some more so that she could share one with everyone.
The next day the weather cleared up, and she woke up early. Early in the morning, the people from the mulberry shop brought ladders to the mulberry tree to prune the mulberry trees.
When visiting during the Qingming Festival, one always recites the following line: "Qingming Sparrow's Mouth, watch the Silkworm Goddess clap her hands," meaning that the mulberry leaves are green during Qingming, indicating that the mulberry trees are growing well.
This time, they went all out with the pruning. The people who prune mulberry trees say that filial piety means planting bamboo, while disobedience means pruning mulberry trees; the more you prune, the better the bamboo will grow.
Lin Xiushui loved the old mulberry tree. Its branches and leaves were lush and the tree was cool when she set up her stall in the morning. As a result, she pruned it into a boy's hair bun with a tuft of hair in the front and smooth hair in the back, and she said that it was called "bearing fruit".
She had originally planned to go back down to set up her stall; she hadn't been under the old mulberry tree in a long time and missed it terribly. But after cutting it like this, she wondered if she could go to the government office to beat the drum and appeal for justice for the old mulberry tree.
She had no choice but to carry the table a few more steps to the opposite awning. She hadn't set up her stall for several mornings, as she had been busy with tailoring. Today, she had gotten up especially early.
As a result, a crowd had gathered under the covered walkway so early in the morning.
Lin Xiushui glanced at the fortune-telling sign and realized that the old fortune teller had returned to his stall after the rainy season.
If there were a street full of mending shops in Sangshukou, and there were a shop that could put up a sign saying who would be doing the mending that day, people would ask those with money to support them financially, and those without money to support them by showing their presence.
So Lin Xiushui's stall was a money-gathering place where people would crowd together to give money, while the old fortune teller's stall was a people-gathering place where people would come to listen even if they didn't give money.
The two were born in Sangshukou, but they were actually a pair of oddballs who should have been hanging out in Nanwazi and talking nonsense.
Lin Xiushui didn't even bother setting up her own stall anymore. She put the table next to a pillar, hung a sachet of locust blossoms on it, and strolled off to listen to the old fortune teller's nonsense.
The old fortune teller wasn't blind; his hair and beard were white. He liked to set up a small table, string a line across it, and hang a few small pieces of paper with black writing on a white background. On them were written divine lessons, physiognomy, supplementing the five elements and eight characters, and resolving doubts.
The first person to come for a fortune telling was an old woman with a thick neck. She sat on the small stool with a worried look on her face and said, "Master, these days I've been eating and drinking well, but as soon as I lie down, I feel sticky and uncomfortable all over, and my legs and feet are uncomfortable everywhere."
“I thought to myself,” the old woman said nervously and mysteriously, “maybe I accidentally kicked over the incense burner when it was raining earlier, and three incense sticks fell off. I quickly put them back in, but I still feel uneasy about it.”
"Master, do you think I might have offended the Bodhisattva?"
Under the astonished gazes of a dozen or so curious faces, the old fortune teller said, "It really happened."
He closed his eyes and calculated with his fingers, then slowly said, "You've run into the plum rain season."
"Huh? Huh?"
The old fortune teller said without changing his expression, "I've already calculated it for you. It's raining that day, so the Bodhisattva won't be working. The Dragon King will be working instead. What are you afraid of?"
"Here's a prescription for you: a stove, two ounces of incense charcoal, and then go to the paper horse shop at the east end to buy a 'pointing the sun' paper horse and burn it. After the rain stops and the sun shines, this matter will be over."
"Keep burning for ten days. Before burning, you must boil wheat soup and drink it. Use Huai wheat, rice, and dates. Remember to stew it and drink it for ten days. If it doesn't work, just come find me."
Upon hearing this, the old woman's shoulders immediately relaxed, she breathed a sigh of relief, and left happily.
Lin Xiushui asked curiously, "Is drinking wheat soup before a fever really effective?"
"How silly," the old fortune teller glanced at her. "Jujubes nourish the blood and calm the mind, while wheat treats restlessness. She must not have aired her quilts in the rainy weather before, so she was cold while sleeping. Burn some charcoal to drive away the cold. My method is called external and internal supplementation."
They're practically following the same path as Lin Xiushui, using empty promises to convince people whether something is good or not, whether it's feasible or not.
Then came a scholar wearing a Dongpo scarf and a gray-white long gown, looking dejected. He began to say, "Alas, they say life is full of ups and downs, but why can't I rise? I keep failing the imperial examinations."
"Do you sleep at night?" the old fortune teller asked slowly, taking a sip of tea.
The scholar was surprised, "Of course, why would you call someone if you're not sleeping?"
"You're asleep? Do you ever get out of bed during the day?"
The scholar angrily replied, "Why shouldn't I get up? I can still sit here even if I don't get up."
"Then how can you say you can't afford to live? Getting up isn't the same as getting up."
Before he could get angry enough to kill himself, the old fortune teller said, "Alright, here's a prescription for you: sleep with your head facing east, hang a landscape painting next to you, and I'll make a talisman with cinnabar and write your name on it. This is called 'making a comeback and being on the list of successful people.'"
The scholar was skeptical. "Really?"
The old fortune teller said, "If you don't believe me, draw a fortune stick. If you draw a red one, that's the best fortune for a top scholar. Ah Qiao, where's your fortune stick?"
The scholar indeed drew a red lot and was overjoyed. "Master, Master, it seems I'm sure I'll pass next year!"
The others were shocked and sincerely congratulated him. The scholar was beaming. Lin Xiushui didn't even want to tell him that she had faked it; the jar was full of red tags.
Because everyone always came to her to draw lots for good luck, they were happy to draw red, saying it was a lucky draw, and they were happy to draw blue, saying it was like drawing water in a bamboo basket and getting nothing in return. What could she do? She changed them all to red.
Only the old fortune teller knew about this. He admired Lin Xiushui for her decisiveness in deceiving people and for saying the right thing to the right person.
She also loves to give Lin Xiushui jobs, such as drawing crab patterns on paper today. Crab patterns are indeed popular here, and there are also printed crab patterns on fabrics. The kind where you first draw the round navel on the back, then draw the four curved legs on both sides, and then draw a pair of big pincers waving.
She was genuinely curious, "Why are you drawing this?"
"Do you understand the twelve zodiac signs?" The old fortune teller stroked his long beard. "An ancient saying goes: 'The summer solstice, in the middle of the fifth month, enters the Cancer sign six days later, and its spirit brings minor good fortune.'"
"Tomorrow is the summer solstice. I'll get some crab patterns from you early, have them engraved, and share some of the money with you. When May arrives at the Crab Palace, there's a bunch of people who believe in the twelve constellations. They say the Crab God brings good fortune every day, so I'll sell them all to them."
Lin Xiushui clicked her tongue twice. She didn't really care about the twelve constellations, but she knew that she was born in January, which is the Pisces constellation, meaning she was like a fish in water.
Aside from sewing, she hasn't had much mending work lately, so she's happy to draw crab patterns on the old fortune teller's paper. Her thank-you gift is a lucky charm for wealth, whether it works or not, she just loves to believe in it.
As the others arrived at work, they saw the two of them and said, "No wonder, I could see a bunch of people from afar. I always said that as long as the two of you are here, there will always be more people coming and more excitement to watch."
“Then the two of us will be in charge of recruiting people, and you guys will be in charge of the work,” Lin Xiushui said with a smile. No one responded; there was just too much work to do.
Of course, as soon as she set up the table, people came. They were from Dog City, coming to buy paper patterns for dog cloaks and oilcloths from her, not to buy them outright.
It was a couple who said they raised over twenty dogs in the city, but business was so-so. They thought that making oilcloths might be a way out. No matter how hot or cold it was, it would always rain, and the dogs couldn't stay still and would run outside, so selling this would be suitable.
Lin Xiushui sold cat toys for Xiao He so that she could earn some money. As for the dog oilcloth, she didn't sell it very well, and no dog came to her door every day.
She said, "Actually, if you buy one, you'll know how to make it once you open it up. You don't need to buy it from me at all."
“We two wouldn’t do something so dishonest. You put so much effort into making it, how could we possibly copy it so easily?”
The woman in the floral dress said, "Young lady, name your price, and we'll buy it if it's reasonable."
Lin Xiushui said, "Two strings of cash. This pattern is relatively simple, but you really need to think it through, because there aren't people buying it every day."
"Two strings? Just two strings?"
The other man was surprised. The couple exchanged glances, both of them thinking that Lin Xiushui would ask for an exorbitant amount and bring half of her wealth with her, after all, the little dog Youyi was quite unique.
You really overestimate Lin Xiushui. If these paper patterns could sell for a high price, she would have become rich long ago.
All she wanted was for every dog running in the rain to be as free as Huang Sanjin, and not to get wet.
Both the buyer and seller felt they had gotten a good deal, the transaction went very smoothly, and they even asked Lin Xiushui to go see the dogs they were raising.
Excited to have sold the oilcloth patterns, Lin Xiushui decided to write them down that night, reviewing the previous orders and recalling the other animal orders she had handled. She actually knew the current status of each one.
She called it a follow-up visit.
It wasn't her who returned the visits one by one; it was everyone who returned the visits to her.
For example, the stingy rooster; before the Dragon Boat Festival, Li Xixian even brought the stingy rooster over to give her a meat-filled rice dumpling.
But this chicken is not the same as the chicken of the past; it has feathers now.
It's normal for other chickens to have feathers, but for a stingy rooster to grow feathers is a great joy.
At least it's not like a chicken with its head stuck in a red candle, running around naked.
Even chickens covered in feathers need clothes. A big black fighting rooster is dressed in a bright red coat. Lin Xiushui said that besides tormenting her, she tormented the chickens.
However, the chicken got fat, and it lived a good life with people.
As for Abao the parrot, who once apprenticed under a master, he loves to learn bird calls. A while ago, he went on stage with his master, who can sing the calls of hundreds of birds. Now they are master and bird apprentice, and he sings a few songs during the day and has gained quite a bit of fame.
Speaking of Cuihua, who can mimic human speech, she recently took a liking to a myna bird. The myna bird always ignores her, and she feels deeply sorry for herself. She eats a lot of small pine needles and ramie seeds, until she gets so fat that she can't fit into her clothes.
While having new clothes made, he sighed and stood on Lin Xiushui's shoulder, saying, "Eat, keep eating." "Make, make some more."
The lame donkey, Laifu, went into the mountains. His leg wasn't so lame anymore. It was hot in the summer, and the donkey herder gave her two bags of wild fruit. Lin Xiushui counted them and there were exactly forty fruits. She still preferred to make an even number.
As for the three-colored cat, it currently likes two three-colored cats. It likes the ones in the cat pictures and the ones made by Lin Xiushui. It catches two mice every day. After catching the mice on the side, it has to go a long way to catch more mice.
She said she never complained about the hard work of catching mice every day.
The cat may not be big, but it has a big heart.
Humans can be fickle, and cats can be fickle; they can accommodate both.
She hadn't seen Huang Sanjin, the big dog who loves rainy days; it had been sunny these past few days, and it hadn't gone out at all.
But she knew that everyone was living their own lives. People live their lives, and so do cats, birds, dogs, and donkeys. In their short lives, they all had to leave a mark.
But as good as it is, Li Xixian is happy to introduce her to business, including fighting cocks on the ground, eagles and kites in the sky, and mandarin ducks and mallards in the water. As long as she wants, she can catch a few fish.
She thanked her, but said it wasn't necessary; she wasn't really considering switching careers to become a veterinarian.
Of course, this was their return visit to her. Lin Xiushui also took the time to return visits to other people who had patronized her business, such as Su Qiaoniang, who had asked her to be a puppeteer.
It's not easy being a person these days, and it's even harder being a puppet.
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