Chapter 15 The Strange List [Part 1]
Lin Xiushui did not agree immediately.
She earned five coins for two hours, and then paid two more coins in the morning. In the end, she didn't earn much in a day, and all she earned was taxes paid to the government.
Besides, it also depends on the location and who's doing business nearby. She's not afraid of running into competitors, but she's afraid of stealing their business and then they'll come after her.
She went to take a look with Li Xunlan and was inevitably disappointed. The location wasn't exactly remote, but to the left of that place was a place that sold medicated plasters, which were freshly made. A small pot was bubbling with black, sticky plaster.
The one on the right is even better. It shows a craftsman who repairs iron pots. He has a pot-repairing pole in front of him. The craftsman takes out a hammer and smashes it hard at the crack in the pot, sending shards flying everywhere.
Lin Xiushui silently removed the shavings from her face, which were black and stuck to her fingers. She asked Li Xunlan earnestly, "Where in this place is suitable for a mending business?"
Li Xunlan had his own way of doing things. He first pointed to the person selling plasters and said, "This is for treating illnesses."
He then turned to the blacksmith, saying, "This is for fixing pots."
Finally, he nodded to Lin Xiushui, "This is for mending clothes."
“This is called the Three Treatments, but what’s wrong with it?”
That makes a lot of sense, but Lin Xiushui wouldn't listen.
In reality, all the good spots in the southern goods market had already been taken, leaving no room for anyone else. The remaining spots were either too remote or had few visitors. After searching around, Li Xunlan found that this was the only place that was acceptable.
“Thanks for the patrol’s help, but this place,” Lin Xiushui said, stroking her chin, “you need to find a small broker who can sharpen scissors and knives. This way you can sharpen scissors for the people cutting plasters next door, and sharpen hammers for the people next door. What a great business.”
Li Xunlan thought it made a lot of sense and seemed to be deep in thought.
Lin Xiushui decided to find one herself, not believing there wouldn't be an empty space, but after walking for a while, good heavens, there really wasn't a single empty bed.
Unable to find a place, she carefully examined the signs on each stall. Her stall also had a sign, but it was just a few pieces of cloth and there was nothing particularly interesting about it.
Every trade has its own signboard, most of which are blank and easy for anyone to understand. For example, a perfume shop hangs a large jug in front of its door, a shop that makes steamed buns and cakes hangs various fancy steamed buns on a pole, and a shoe shop makes boots and shoes out of wooden boards and hangs them on the eaves so that anyone who wants to buy shoes can tell at a glance.
Lin Xiushui could see it clearly: the shop selling hemp thread had several bundles of various colored hemp threads hanging down from the doorway, while the shop selling woolen thread used several colorful bamboo baskets as signs. These baskets were woven from bamboo strips and had a fancy design. All the woolen thread sellers on the street used these kinds of baskets.
Not to mention that a scissor seller would only need to display a few scissors, while a cloth seller would only need to display a bolt of cloth. Clothing shops would be best off with fashionable spring clothes, but most tailors would also display ready-made or semi-finished garments, making her clothing mending shop seem particularly shabby.
Not only that, she doesn't have a loud voice, her shouts aren't loud enough, and she can't sing.
Especially in the area from the southern goods market to the southern wharf, there are small brokers everywhere, each with their own skills, especially in singing, also known as chanting. Most of them do not set up a signboard and rely entirely on their good voices.
The fortune teller shouted: "When your time comes, buy farmland and get married."
The flower seller called out, "Red ones, yellow ones, fresh forsythia and apricot blossoms to adorn your hair..."
Or they used percussion instruments, such as shaking small drums, striking small cymbals, hitting iron bars, or playing musical instruments, each employing their own unique methods.
Lin Xiushui felt that she was able to do business only because there were few people in Sangshukou. Tailoring was a troublesome and low-paying job; otherwise, no one would have paid any attention to her here.
She wandered around for a while, and after returning home, she made a decision: since she couldn't change the location, she would change the signboard; it was a change in the end.
Lin Xiushui was a little reluctant to replace her tattered cloth banner, because the cloth was cut from her own old clothes.
She hadn't had any fabric before, so she just cut whatever she could find. Now that she had scraps of fabric in various colors, she planned to sew the less-than-ideal scraps together to make a jacket.
Because the beizi is not only for women to wear, men also wear beizi, but the styles are different. There are straight collar front openings, diagonal collar front openings, and round collar front openings. Of course, she still follows the women's style.
The jacket used as a signboard had different colors on the front, back, and collar: green, blue, red, and white. It was definitely not something an ordinary person could wear out in public.
Each piece of fabric has its own purpose. For example, on the lower left side of the fabric, Lin Xiushui plans to sew various stitches and patterns, such as the simplest straight stitch, as well as more novel ones like chain stitch, serrated stitch, wrapped stitch, and cross stitch.
As for embroidery patterns, they can be simple, such as leaves, flowers, butterflies, etc.
So, for the first piece, which had holes or cracks, she planned to use patching techniques on the second piece, including pasting, embroidery, weaving, and padding.
After Lin Xiushui mended the kite for Chuanbulang, she felt that what she did could not be called patchwork embroidery, but should be called appliqué embroidery. She pondered at night that there was another way to mend the hole.
She first took a piece of rag and cut out a cat's head according to her imagination. After getting a feel for it, she searched for yellowish linen, cut out the cat's head, sewed a circle of edges to prevent it from fraying, and then embroidered the eyes and whiskers with black thread.
This is very simple, and Xiaohe especially likes it. She said she wanted to sew it onto her pants, but Lin Xiushui felt that it should be sewn onto an embroidery hoop. It would be better to embroider and sew it on. The appearance is not very good either, so she needs to think about it again.
Early in the morning, Lin Xiushui was piecing together scraps of cloth, trying to make a unique and original signboard. Then she realized that she didn't have any good thread, only hemp thread.
Yarn is another big expense. Lin Xiushui touched the bag and sighed. The more she saved, the less money she could keep. The main reason was that she was poor.
She had no choice but to go to work first. At the oilclothing workshop, she gave the pair of tiger-head shoes, which were as big as her palm, to Yu Liu Niang, which she had promised to make for Yu Liu Niang's daughter who was almost a year old.
The moment Yu Liu Niang saw them, she picked them up. The shoes were so small and delicate, maroon in color, with a little tiger's head embroidered on the front in orange-yellow thread, complete with eyes, nose, and whiskers. They also had round ears sewn on separately that extended beyond the shoe's surface, as well as a long, upturned little tail on the heel, all stuffed with silk floss.
"How did you get such skillful hands?" Yu Liu Niang asked, puzzled and envious. "How come your hands are so skillful?"
Yu Liu Niang turned her gaze back to the tiger-head shoes, looking at them again and again, touching them again and again, and finally couldn't help but say, "Why can't I wear any of these shoes? If I could, I would wear a short jacket over my pants, tuck the cuffs in, and walk around with these shoes open."
Lin Xiushui said, "That's easy. If you want to wear it, just give me a piece of paper, and I'll draw a pattern for you. You can just follow it."
What paper pattern?
"These shoes look quite clever, Sixth Sister. Let me see something new and interesting. They're much better looking than the ones made in our town. The colors are so well matched."
"Yeah, and it even has a tail."
A group of women stopped sewing and gathered around to look at the shoes, which displeased Yu Liu Niang, but she kept quiet. Everyone's interest grew even higher. After all, sewing and mending clothes every day was extremely boring, and it was rare to see something unusual, so everyone wanted to join in the fun.
Lin Xiushui has to finish mending the oilcloths tomorrow. Gu Niangzi's batch of oilcloths is almost finished, and she needs to go back to iron them.
When the time came, Lin Xiushui smiled and agreed to the ladies' requests. "Okay, give me paper and pen, and I'll draw a pattern for you during my lunch break. I'll draw something different, like rabbit head shoes, dog head shoes, or cat head shoes. What do you think?"
One of the women said, "That's not good. You draw one, and we'll take it over and copy it."
Lin Xiushui's shoes are simple in design and quite different from ordinary shoes; they are unique, small, and beautiful.
They were all tailors, and they understood the pattern as soon as they saw it. They couldn't just ask Lin Xiushui for nothing, so they taught her the techniques of embroidery, including the cross stitch, straight stitch, and chain stitch. They also asked her to look at their own embroidered shoes and draw a pattern for each of them if she liked it.
Yu Liuniang sighed to herself, "I have nothing more to teach you."
She laughed again and said, "Come to my house tomorrow, and I'll throw you a big feast and have my daughter recognize you as her godfather."
"It's not impossible, but I'll think about it in three to five years," Lin Xiushui said, deciding to skip it.
As for going to Yu Liu Niang's house, she had previously planned to go and offer her congratulations, but upon hearing that she was going to Sanglinpo, she immediately gave up on the idea.
The families with mulberry groves are usually located on Sanglinpo at the east end of Sangqing Town, which is also where the most silkworm farmers are produced. However, to get there from the town, one must first take a boat from the main river to the west to the government office, then leave the town to Qinghewu, and continue eastward, which takes most of the day.
In this time, she could have traveled all the way back to Shanglintang from Sangqing Town; she did indeed want to go to Shanglintang.
Lin Xiushui politely declined Yu Liuniang's offer, which disappointed Yu Liuniang. "You haven't seen my daughter yet. She's beautiful..."
As she spoke, Yu Liuniang glanced at Lin Xiushui and then said with certainty, "She's fatter than you, and her face is round, just like mine."
Lin Xiushui was puzzled. Was there any real need to compare them?
However, since Yu Liuniang won't be coming tomorrow, and Lin Xiushui is leaving the oilclothing workshop, she gave Yu Liuniang a sachet embroidered with camellias after work today.
"Take this to store the camellias."
Yu Liu Niang liked it very much, and she immediately hung it in the most conspicuous place on her waist so that everyone could see it.
She asked, "What kind of flowers do you like? I'll make some and send them to you next time."
Lin Xiushui replied quickly, "I like locust flowers."
The locust flower is the best flower in the world.
Yu Liuniang shook her sachet and laughed, "Locust flowers can be used for dyeing, these flowers are good."
"No, that's not it," Lin Xiushui shook her head with a smile. "My mother's name is Huaihua."
Then, inappropriately, she remembered that her aunt used to be named Lan Hua (Orchid).
The two talked for a while. Before leaving, she waved to Yu Liuniang and stood at the edge of the river. Yu Liuniang waved to Lin Xiushui from inside the boat, telling her to go first.
Lin Xiushui stood against the wind for a while longer before leaving. She was going to buy yarn. Here, yarn wasn't fluffy, but rather cooked silk yarn, which was made from raw silk that had been boiled, making it smoother, shinier, and easier to dye.
They were extremely expensive. When Lin Xiushui heard the price was several hundred guan, she immediately turned around and left, unable to afford a single one.
With her current savings of 100 coins, she could only afford one roll. In the end, after going around in circles, she bought some dyed silk from an old woman in the southern goods market. The color was so-so, but it was cheap.
She spent an entire night using this thread, and then got up again at dawn the next day to finish the jacket-style banner.
As soon as it was taken out, Wang Yuelan came out to empty the chamber pot. She was leaning back to take it in when she almost lost her grip. "What, what are you up to now?"
"Madam Wang, hurry up, the next household is urging us on," the boatman at the back gate said urgently.
Wang Yuelan hurriedly took it out, washed it, and then came back, saying, "You made such a mess of a perfectly good piece of cloth. Are you wasting things?"
“I don’t have any,” Lin Xiushui held up the blue, green and red jacket high and pointed to the stitching marks on it. “You can tell at a glance that I do mending work. I hung it under the mulberry tree.”
Wang Yuelan washed her hands and face, nodding as she passed by, "Yes, with such a strange sign, everyone would have to stay and take a look."
"I've already cleared the stall for you, so hurry up and go somewhere far away, it's annoying to look at."
Lin Xiushui felt that her aunt didn't understand her good intentions at all. She thought that others outside would understand, so she happily hung the jacket under the mulberry tree, making sure that everyone would see it at a glance.
Indeed, she spotted it immediately. Zhang Niangzi was pushing her cart to sell sweet porridge. She even stopped banging on her bamboo clapper as she leaned closer to look. Then she laughed and said, "I thought someone's kite had landed in a tree. It was so long."
When Li Xunlan was collecting taxes, he looked at the clothes from afar and couldn't help but touch his stubble, wondering where he had seen such a color of clothing before. Then he suddenly clapped his hands and exclaimed that it looked just like the painted-face actors in the theater.
This short jacket, with its flashy colors, attracted everyone's attention like a flower, drawing them to gather around and examine it closely. Finally, they burst into laughter and scattered in all directions.
Even Chen Guihua's son, Wu Dabing, said, "That's really strange."
Lin Xiushui became more and more shameless after being laughed at so much, and she started to think that her signboard was uniquely beautiful.
Of course, there were also people attracted by this unique gimmick. One of them was a family of three visiting relatives. The little girl in the middle was crying. She had fallen on the stone steps at the mouth of the stream. Her pants were not torn, but the corner of her clothes was torn.
She sobbed as she said to Lin Xiushui, "I love this dress the most. It's torn, and you're going to prick it with a needle. It must hurt a lot."
“Don’t talk nonsense,” her mother patted the little girl.
Lin Xiushui smiled and said, "How about we put a 'pat' on it?"
She took out the modified fabric patches she had made, all of them in the shape of cat heads. She only had time to make these. There were chubby, fluffy, round-faced cats, black cats with big eyes, black and white cats, white cats with blue tinges, and so on.
Because the people of the Song Dynasty loved cats, cats were the most common animals on the streets. In Sangqing Town, there was even an alley called Cat Alley, where there were people who specialized in modifying cats and selling catfish.
Making cat head stickers is definitely the right choice; Lin Xiushui made several sizes, in different dimensions.
The little girl stopped crying when she saw the cat stickers. She looked at them one by one and finally chose the big round-faced cat. When Lin Xiushui carried her on her back to finish embroidering the clothes and took them out, the little girl jumped and begged her mother to buy her another one for two coins before she happily left.
They all went outside, but then ran back to ask Lin Xiushui, "What's the cat's name?"
"You'll have to get it for it."
"I'm going to call it Big Yellow-Faced Fat Cat."
Lin Xiushui agreed, saying it was a unique and wonderful name, just like her shop sign.
That morning, she took on several jobs under this guise, including patching, sewing, and fabric appliqué, earning about thirty coins.
I also saw Zhang Musheng, the youngest son of the carpenter next door.
Lin Xiushui remembered this man because he was dark-skinned and short, and liked to squat by the water's edge at the back gate to sharpen his knife.
The main thing is that he really likes to wear flowers in his hair, especially the dark-skinned one who wears a yellow forsythia flower, which makes it hard for Lin Xiushui not to remember.
Lin Xiushui found it strange; she saw him wandering around three times that morning, which made her feel uneasy.
“Hey,” Lin Xiushui beckoned, “Zhang the carpenter’s son, come here.”
Zhang Musheng seemed to have been waiting for her to say those words, and he ran over like a little black dog, if he hadn't been wearing the forsythia.
Lin Xiushui had wanted to ask for a long time: "Do you need me to fix your clothes?"
"No, no, something's wrong," Zhang Musheng looked around and made sure no one was there before letting out a sigh of relief. He scratched his head and said, "Do you know how to make leg warmers? Like those long soft boots, preferably with soles as thick as a door threshold."
He gestured with his hand, indicating that it was about the length of Lin Xiushui's head. He said very seriously, "If I were this taller, that would be a lot."
After listening, Lin Xiushui needed to carefully understand what he meant.
But she didn't understand: "Do you know what I do?"
"Tailor, my father says you are very skilled."
Lin Xiushui smiled and said, "I thought I had changed careers and become a Bodhisattva."
A note from the author:
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