Chapter 11: Two orders that require additional payment...
As darkness fell after she finished mending the umbrella, Lin Xiushui took tung oil into the house.
Xiao He was playing a game of tag, holding a small stick with a rope attached. With a flick of her wrist, the sharp end of the stick flew everywhere.
"A new toy?" Lin Xiushui avoided the spinning object and placed the tung oil on the table by the door.
Xiaohe played even more enthusiastically. She squatted down and said loudly, "Mom took me to the pharmacy and said she bought it for me because I was a good girl."
“Nonsense, once I went into that pharmacy, I couldn’t be pulled away,” Wang Yuelan was always good at exposing others. “I had no choice but to take three coins to buy this stuff, so I went in. After the doctor examined me, he told me to go to the Taiping Huimin Bureau to get some cooked medicine to treat the heat accumulation.”
Lin Xiushui was relieved. While there was still some light in the sky, she took out the oilcloth gloves she had sewn a couple of days ago, piled them in a bamboo basket, moved a small table to the courtyard, sat down, and then took a small brush, dipped it in tung oil, and applied it to the seams of the gloves.
She was still not satisfied with the two coats of persimmon lacquer she had already applied. Upon closer inspection of the lacquer she had given to her aunt, she found a lot of blue-green stains on the back.
My aunt said she only used it for two or three days, which shows that persimmon lacquer is not waterproof. This stuff is better for dyeing cloth.
As she was carefully applying tung oil, Wang Yuelan took out some spoiled rice to feed the chickens, so she stopped and said, "Aunt, tomorrow you should take twenty pairs of shoes to the dye shop and have the ladies try them out. If they leak or are hard to grip, return them and I'll fix them."
Lin Xiushui had been working on this job for several days, but due to a lack of tung oil, she hadn't paid for it even though she had finished sewing it; she had to be responsible to the other party.
After all, no matter how good the tarpaulin was, it could not replace the later plastics.
This single layer of oilcloth is not yet well made, and Lin Xiushui is already thinking about pasting paper inside in the future. She has heard that there is a kind of Qingjiang paper that is particularly tough and can be made into paper tiles to cover the roof and keep out the rain.
However, she was still too poor. Paper was much more expensive than tung oil. Of the 120 households in Sangqiao Ferry, only about ten could afford to use paper to cover their windows.
Selling oilcloth gloves can only be done step by step.
Wang Yuelan walked over, picked up the gloves, and examined them. She pinched the front of the gloves and found them a bit stiff. She wondered if soaking them in hot soup would help. She would have someone try them out tomorrow.
Lin Xiushui had been pondering Zhang Niangzi's words the whole way, and now she said, "Aunt, Zhang Niangzi said that I should go to the east end of the South Goods Market tomorrow morning and ask her to give me some of the space she occupies."
"What? She said to go to the South Goods Market?" Wang Yuelan asked twice, then continued to herself, "That's a good place, but it's not easy to get by there."
"I remember the place where she set up her stall wasn't very big, and it wouldn't be very convenient if it were crowded. You agreed?"
"No, I just said I'd go check it out myself first."
Lin Xiushui had her own considerations. Her business in Sangshukou wasn't doing very well at the moment, so she wanted to occupy this place first and then go to the Nanhuofang to see if the location was suitable.
As for setting up a stall next to Zhang Niangzi, she didn't agree, mainly because Zhang Niangzi sold sweet porridge, and the food was really not compatible with her mending clothes.
When people light their stoves, add charcoal, and take charcoal, some ash will inevitably fall to the side. While she can manage mending clothes, if she were mending umbrellas, the smell of tung oil would overpower the smell of people's sweet porridge, and something bad would happen sooner or later.
Wang Yuelan knew that she was shrewd and didn't say much. Even though they were relatives, it was better to say less gossip and advice.
After eating, Lin Xiushui went to sleep, but she couldn't fall asleep and woke up early.
Lin Xiushui was squatting by the back door washing her face and brushing her teeth when the monk who announces the dawn came from the bridge, knocked on the iron plate, announced the fifth watch of the night, and then shouted, "The sky is overcast."
Today is a cloudy day, and cloudy days are bound to be foggy.
The fog was so thick at Sangqiao Ferry that even the shadows of boats on the stream were barely visible. But when we reached the area of Nanhuofang, the fog was much thinner, even though it was still early morning.
Lin Xiushui felt that there were too many people here, and they were inhaling all the fog.
Sangshukou is supposed to be quiet, with only the occasional bark of cats and dogs at dawn. But here, stalls set up early to sell their wares. East of the bridge is the Southern Goods Market, where vendors sell silkworm trays and silkworm excrement. In February, when it rains, they spread silkworm excrement and tie mulberry trees with ropes. In January, mulberry seedlings are planted, and now it's time to prune them, so there are also vendors selling mulberry shears.
In Sangqing Town, sericulture is a top priority. By March, it is the silkworm season, and there are many silkworm-related products for sale. The southern goods market does not open until Chenshi (7-9 AM).
To the west of the bridge is Nanwazi, also called Washe, a place where the townspeople gather for entertainment. It is a grand place with teahouses, taverns, brothels, food stalls, and entertainment venues, as well as various variety shows, football, sumo wrestling, storytelling, and other performances.
Lin Xiushui couldn't afford to pay to watch, but the ground outside, the main road in front of the theater, was called "public land" because there were no people to pay taxes there. Those who couldn't get into the theater and those who traveled around could only perform in this kind of land.
The puppet shows and variety shows attracted people so early in the morning that they skipped meals to gather around and watch. Despite the early hour, Lin Xiushui was unable to squeeze in.
As for the place Zhang Niangzi mentioned, it was really too small for Lin Xiushui to move around freely. She looked around and saw that the entire open space was filled with floating stalls, sheds, and street vendors. There wasn't even a place for her to squeeze in.
Even the paths on the street meant for donkeys and cows were completely blocked off for goods. They weren't afraid of encroaching on the street; at worst, they would just have to pay a fee for encroaching on the street.
The southern goods market was so large that it couldn't possibly accommodate her.
Lin Xiushui slunk back to Sangshukou. When she saw Li Xunlan, who had come to collect commercial taxes, she was still a little unwilling. "Li Xunlan, is there any open space near the southern goods market and the entertainment district where I can set up a stall?"
“Well,” Li Xunlan shook his head, “there’s nowhere to find that right now. Places are in high demand. I promise I’ll keep a close eye out for you.”
"Yes, I have a tricky job to do and I'd like to ask for your help."
Lin Xiushui laughed and said, "Just tell me what you're saying, Xunlan."
Li Xunlan coughed lightly, "Wait a minute, wait until I finish collecting this area and get the things."
While waiting for him, Lin Xiushui took on two jobs: mending pants for a child who couldn't walk properly, turning a perfectly good pair of pants into open-crotch pants.
The child, wrapped in half a strip of cloth and bare-legged, ran around the mulberry tree. His mother chased after him, hitting him with a mulberry branch, saying, "If you mess with my pants again, I'll send you to a sumo wrestling ring, where you won't even need pants."
“Okay,” the child climbed up the tree, grinning, “I just don’t want to wear pants anyway.”
His mother was furious, which amused Lin Xiushui.
Finally, after the pants were mended, she earned a penny and had some fun. The child had lost his pants, and his mother had fulfilled his wish, so he went home barefoot.
Around dawn, after Lin Xiushui finished mending a garment, Li Xunlan arrived, but unfortunately, Chen Guihua also came with her entourage.
Chen Guihua called out, "Ah Qiao, this boatman needs to patch the hole in the kite. You patched it for me last time and it turned out pretty well. I thought, 'Hey, you can definitely patch this one too.'"
Two groups of people approached the stall. Lin Xiushui stood up and said, "Who wants to speak first?"
Li Xunlan lowered his head and said, "Let him speak first."
The stranger turned his face and said, "Let's talk about it first, Patrolman."
Both of them declined, but Lin Xiushui saw through their ruse and said, "Why don't you two say it together?"
The two of them breathed a sigh of relief and started talking one after the other, their voices very soft.
Lin Xiushui listened for a while, then said to Li Xunlan in silence, "If you want to mend this jacket that's been scratched by the tabby cat, you'd better replace it with a new piece of fabric and have the silk floss refurbished."
Actually, she realized that the coat belonged to his wife, but it had been torn by his pet tabby cat, and he wanted to make amends (by destroying the evidence to avoid being beaten).
She then asked the new boatman, "Do you want to mend this silk kite, preferably to make it look brand new?"
Lin Xiushui only heard that the kite she brought for her daughter from Mingzhou had several holes in it because of the fabric. She thought she could just make do with it, since children don't have such sharp eyes that they can't tell the difference between good and bad.
The two asked in unison, "Can you fix it?"
Lin Xiushui hesitated, faced with two troublesome orders. One required disassembling the entire piece of silk floss and then quilting it before patching the back piece. The other could not be patched at all; it required embroidery, which was different from embroidery patching.
She said, "It can be repaired, but it will cost extra."
A note from the author:
I'm taking a day off tomorrow and won't be updating. The update time will still be Thursday morning. Sorry [pity][facepalm and crying emoji]. There will be a red envelope as compensation. I should be able to update normally after that [heart emoji][heart emoji]
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
