Chapter 28 The child is good in every way, except he doesn't seem like a human being...
The room that Wang Yuelan vacated was originally used for storing miscellaneous items. It was a long room with windows facing the river. Lin Xiushui dusted off the dust, opened the lattice window, and saw the river flowing gently outside, with sunlight streaming in, making it very bright.
Unlike the narrow courtyard, it has some width, enough to fit at least a long table and two wooden cabinets.
“I was thinking that you’ll be making clothes for people eventually. It’s not very convenient to move the wooden planks around all the time without a spacious place. You need a room so people will know you’re a proper tailor,” Wang Yuelan said, walking back and forth, making the cedar floorboards creak. She added, “We need to have someone fix it.”
“I know you got a raise. Be careful with your spending; your expenses as a tailor are still quite high.”
Just as Lin Xiushui was about to speak, Wang Yuelan told her to stop, "Don't say anything. I know I'm a good aunt. You'll have to be more filial to me in the future."
Having her words cut off, Lin Xiushui could only say, "May I be struck by lightning if I am disrespectful to my aunt."
"You little rascal," Wang Yuelan slapped her, "Stop telling everyone what's going on."
Lin Xiushui shut her mouth in grievance, hissed in a muffled voice, and went out with Wang Yuelan to clean up the junk.
The yard was full of all sorts of things, and Lin Xiushui sometimes wondered if her aunt had picked up things that others didn't want.
Wearing long linen gloves, she squatted among the pile of objects, picked up a broken bamboo broom, and asked, "Auntie, let's throw this bamboo broom away."
"Why throw it away? I'll tie it up again later and sweep it up," Wang Yuelan snatched it away and leaned it against the wall. A new one would cost three coins.
Lin Xiushui shook the bamboo chair with a broken leg next to her again and asked, "What about this? Why don't we break it and use it as firewood? Bamboo burns very quickly."
"Don't even think about it. I bought it for twenty coins before. I'll take it next door and ask Zhang the carpenter to fix it for me. I'll put it in your room for you to sit on. It's just a matter of changing your legs."
Wang Yuelan picked up a chair and piled up the insect-eaten rush mat, old door curtains, old canopies, and broken oil-paper umbrellas next to Lin Xiushui. She clapped her hands and said, "It's just the right time for our own family. You can mend them all. If you mend them, we can still use them. It's better to burn them than throw them away. I can't bear to burn them."
Lin Xiushui's vision went black. Her aunt said she was going to throw some things out, but after a whole day of cleaning, she found that there were only two things she wouldn't throw away: this and that.
Don't throw away the cracked bowl. Put it by the courtyard and plant some grass in it. Don't throw away the small pots, pans, and stove either. Even if the bottom is badly broken, Wang Yuelan said she would find a pot mender to fix it and put it in the back door. Who knows, Xiao He might catch a fish someday and keep it there.
“But I can’t catch any fish,” Xiaohe said, holding up her two dark hands and playing with two old hemp ropes.
"Let's talk about it when you can catch it, maybe ten or eight years."
And those items that were bought at a high price are even more difficult to throw away. No matter how many reasons you find, you can only say that you spent a lot of money to buy them, and throwing them away now would be a waste of money.
Lin Xiushui slapped her forehead, looked around, and saw that everything was in a mess. She tidied up most of it, leaving some aside before throwing them away.
Since the monthly wage had increased, she insisted on taking Wang Yuelan to the general store at night to buy a pair of paper lanterns, two candles, and three rolls of thin cotton paper, which cost about a hundred coins.
Wang Yuelan had no way to deal with her. "You've already bought them, but you must hang them inside the house to prevent them from being stolen. Last year, a lantern thief stole all the lanterns that people on the front street had hung in front of their doors. What a despicable thing to do."
"Don't hang it in front of the door, buy Xiaohe something to play with," Lin Xiushui put the candle and thin paper in the bamboo basket. Upon hearing this, Xiaohe's eyes lit up and she said quickly, "I want a kite."
Since they were already out shopping at the night market, Wang Yuelan didn't stop them: "I'll pay for it for her."
Xiaohe jumped up, almost bumping into someone's tray stand, and chose a paper kite shaped like a swallow. Lin Xiushui bought her a hexagonal windmill from the peddler.
Holding a kite in one hand and a windmill in the other, Xiaohe skipped forward, saying, "I really wish my older sister could get a raise every day."
"If it goes up, you'll eat it all," Wang Yuelan said irritably, carrying a bag of flour.
Xiao He pouted, "Even if it went into my mouth, I didn't lose money. I ate it all."
Wang Yuelan said that she had a lot of fallacies, but Lin Xiushui just laughed.
After returning home, Wang Yuelan hung the red lanterns under the eaves without lighting any candles. She just left them there for the sake of celebration and to make a show of things. She would light them when she had more money to buy a couple more candles.
She lit another candle, and the candlelight shone from the table onto the wooden wall in the room. Wang Yuelan said, "This candle is brighter than an oil lamp, and it costs about twenty coins more."
Lin Xiushui replied, "That's right."
By candlelight, after washing up, Lin Xiushui lay in bed at night, her heart pounding. She tossed and turned, unable to sleep. She went downstairs and counted the money. Then, holding the oil lamp, she tiptoed downstairs like a cat, circled the room that had been cleared out for her to do chores, thinking about what to buy, before going back upstairs to sleep peacefully.
She got up early and pasted cotton paper on all the cleaned windows. This cotton paper was relatively cheap, made from waste silk, and it was even brighter than oiled paper. At least the room wasn't as dark as nighttime during the day.
Lin Xiushui discussed with Zhang the carpenter about the cabinets they wanted to build and a row of cable trays. Wang Yuelan interjected, "Let's also make a wide table, without a tabletop. Use some cheap mixed wood; we can't keep moving that tabletop around all day."
“I’ll go to the lumberyard and get some good materials. The scraps are cheap too. I’ll put together a decent table for the young lady for eighty coins,” Zhang the carpenter said, measuring with a long wooden ruler in the room. He pointed to the wall and added, “Your room is high, so it’s not cost-effective to build two cabinets. You can make a low table out of miscellaneous wood, add a crossbar and apron, and it will be very stable. Then you can put the cabinets on top. That will only cost a maximum of one hundred and fifty coins. If you want to build a large cabinet, it will cost four or five hundred coins.”
Carpenter Zhang also received business from Lin Xiushui, so he naturally calculated the costs carefully for her. Whether it was making cloth hanging racks or embroidery frames, these were very cheap to make with wooden strips, costing around twenty coins each. The bulk of the cost came from cabinets, tables, and chairs, which added up to three hundred and fifty coins. There was also a seventy-five-coin charge for cleaning the wooden boards, bringing the total to just over six hundred coins.
Lin Xiushui paid half of the deposit, refusing to let Wang Yuelan pay any more. She was glad that she had a relatively stable job and a monthly income, and that it was better to spend her own money.
She also told Zhang the carpenter behind Wang Yuelan's back that she would ask him to repair the stairs, tables and chairs in the house, and that she would pay him separately.
After finishing her work, Lin Xiushui took some time to use the scraps of cloth Chen Dajin had given her to make the Hundred Families Clothes. She found various green or slightly greenish scraps of cloth, measured the width and length of the door with a cloth ruler, and sat in the courtyard to sew two curtains.
In the past, even if her aunt didn't suggest replacing it, she would just pretend not to see it. Finally, she was able to hang the old curtain down, and it looked much better hanging by the door.
Just as Lin Xiushui finished making the door curtain and was taking the old one down and throwing it aside, preparing to wash it and cut it into a mop, there was an urgent shout from outside the door, "Young Lady Lin, are you home? I have something to mend."
She hurriedly took a few steps, wiped her hands, and called out, "Coming!" She lowered the door latch and saw a young man with an unfamiliar face, carrying a pair of silk dolls.
"You need to mend this thing, right? Wait for me to get the needle and thread," Lin Xiushui went to get the needle and thread, and then asked, "Why are you mending it so early? You can mend this kind of thing later."
The young man sighed and shook his head helplessly, "If I could have waited until the afternoon, I wouldn't have rushed here so early in the morning. It's really hard to explain."
“I have twin daughters. When they were born, I was just happy. They were well-behaved and didn’t make a fuss. They were much better than my son.”
"When they turned two, they could recognize things and talk, which was really amazing. If the two sisters' things were even slightly different, they would cry and make a fuss until they got the exact same thing."
The young man was truly heartbroken. Holding up the two silk dolls in his hands, he said, "Last night I took them to Nanwazi to play. A peddler was selling silk dolls, and since it was dark, we could only see them clearly. Each of them was happy with one. But this morning, the eldest daughter woke up early and started playing. When she turned around, she realized that her doll was different from the second daughter's, and she burst into tears. My mother and wife both scolded me for being nosy. I had no choice but to get up early and come over, hoping you could fix it for me."
"Young lady, please save me, otherwise I won't be able to go home."
Lin Xiushui was amused and said with a smile, "Let me see it and see what's different."
She washed her hands and took the pair of silk dolls. They were rather crudely made, about the length of her palm. They were made of silk cloth and had two little girls with their hair tied in double buns. They had hands and feet, and she guessed that they were only stuffed with silk floss. They were soft and flimsy. Their clothes were made of floral fabric appliquéd on, not real undergarments.
The difference between these two silk children lies in their floral print clothes; the patterns are the same, but the colors are different.
Lin Xiushui chuckled and pointed to the patchwork garment. "There are two ways. One is to take the patch off and cut a new piece to sew on. The second way is to make two sets of small garments that can be worn and taken off."
"I'll make undergarments, I'll pay any price," the young man was overjoyed to hear that he could wear and take them off. He felt that he was saved and would no longer be chased and beaten by his wife with a bamboo broom.
"Two of these scraps of cloth are cheaper, sixteen coins each; if you want something better, it'll cost twenty-two coins."
Lin Xiushui let people choose from two different fabric scraps: one was a plain scrap without many patterns, and the other was a scrap she had taken from Gu Niangzi, with superior weaving patterns and colors.
In the end, the young man chose a piece of ordinary cloth, blue silk, without any patterns, for fear that if the pattern was different, he would become a sinner again.
Lin Xiushui used a bamboo ruler to measure the length of the silk doll. She calculated that the piece of cloth was large enough to make two tops and skirts.
In fact, in Lin Xiushui's memories of her previous life, she knew how to make silk dolls. Not the crude silk dolls of this kind, but the human-shaped skeletons made of iron wire or lead wire, covered with cotton, with silk cloth as the skin, and made with makeup, real hair as the hair, with various hairstyles, and all kinds of clothes.
But she's not very good at it yet; she can only make small clothes.
She took some cloth, drew lines, and cut two narrow-sleeved short jackets. The collars were made of pure white cloth, and the bottoms were light apricot-colored short skirts with ribbons on both sides for tying.
After finishing, Lin Xiushui carefully tied the clothes on Xiaoxin and presented them to the young man. He took them and looked at them over and over, even checking the inside of the clothes to make sure they were the same. He then breathed a long sigh of relief.
"Thank you so much, young lady. Otherwise, I would have had to hide the silk child again. I've already hidden stools, tables, bowls, chopsticks, and kites at home. It's a long story. I'll leave the money here and hurry back. If it works out, I'll come back next time. I have many other different things at home."
The young man put down sixteen coins, hid the silk child in his cloth bag, and hurried home. He was sure he could walk into his house with his head held high this time.
After he left, Wang Yuelan clicked her tongue twice, "Luckily, Xiaohe isn't that difficult to handle. It's really a wonder they were so interested."
Lin Xiushui smiled and shook the scraps of cloth into the cloth basket. She had to go outside to set up her stall. She had spent a lot of money today and felt really bad about it.
As soon as the stall was set up, two women wearing aprons and waistbands came over and took three long-sleeved linen shirts, asking Lin Xiushui to alter the sleeves.
"Tighten the sleeves of this one, and shorten the sleeves of these two, preferably to the elbows."
Lin Xiushui first took it, then asked, "What chores are you two ladies going to do?"
The thinner woman said, "The one that needs to be altered to have narrow sleeves is my dress. I'm going to work as a helper in the rapeseed field, picking the tops of rapeseed. It will take quite a few days. Wearing wide sleeves or tying the shoulders would be troublesome. It's better to have narrower sleeves so I can work more easily."
Another short, plump woman laughed and said, "I don't know if you've heard of my job, young lady. I work as a fish catcher outside Qiantang Gate. Long sleeves are in the way when catching fish."
Lin Xiushui was touching her sleeve when she heard this and said, "I really didn't know, are you a fish farmer?"
"We raise goldfish," the plump woman said with a smile, "The best ones we raise, like the silver-white ones and the hawksbill ones, are sent to the fish ponds of wealthy families in Lin'an Prefecture for people to admire. Those kinds sell for a high price. The rest are mostly sent to the Liuhe Pagoda Release Bridge to be sold, so people can buy them and release them."
"I'm in charge of catching shrimp in the river to feed the fish. Unfortunately, my sleeves were too long, so I had to shorten them."
Lin Xiushui had never heard of the business of raising fish before. She thought they were raised to eat. She looked down at her sleeves and then talked to the two of them about sleeves and gloves. She thought that cloth sleeves would be suitable for a woman who was picking rapeseed tops. Narrow sleeves would not get dirty, while long oilcloth gloves would be more suitable for catching shrimp.
After she finished speaking, she brought out some things for the two of them to try, and they were both quite satisfied with them.
The skinny woman said, "There are bees when picking rapeseed, but if we use this trap, we won't be afraid of being stung."
The plump woman went to the river to test it out, scooped up a handful of water, and returned with wet gloves, saying, "Give me two pairs first, I'll try them on. The water's really cold right now, these will help."
Lin Xiushui accepted the money with a smile: three pairs of gloves for sixty coins, two pairs of linen sleeves for ten coins, and sleeve alterations for fifteen coins, totaling eighty-five coins.
The sleeves were altered quickly, especially shortened even faster, and before long, the two women who had to rush to Guandu to work were seen off.
Those who have built silkworm rearing rooms at home will call out, "Wait a minute, I'll buy a basket of silkworms."
Most people who buy cow dung use it to dry the silkworm rearing room, as it can dispel wind and encourage the silkworms to eat more mulberry leaves.
The people from Sangxing came to repair the mulberry trees along the roadside. Right now, the mulberry trees are bare, and they won't sprout green buds until around the time of Qingming Festival.
They built a ladder and climbed up to repair the old mulberry tree. Lin Xiushui then moved the table outside and stood outside, where she ran into a group of people from the street office carrying mops and other cleaning tools.
Someone ran over and said, "Young lady, this mop is really useful. We finally cleaned the stone steps leading up to Qianmen Pond today. There's a pottery factory there, and there's a lot of mud around. Every time someone walks there, there are yellow footprints that you can't sweep away, but this mop cleaned them really well."
"And that back alley of the familiar pharmacy, where they always dump medicine residue and leave marks. We cleaned it up with this mop, and people even praised us, saying that we didn't just put in the effort to sweep and they would say we were just wasting our time," another head chimed in with a grin.
Lin Xiushui also smiled and said, "It would be great if you could use it. If there's anything you don't like, you can tell me."
“What’s wrong with it? This bamboo tube isn’t very good. I’m tall, so it’s too short for me. I have to bend over to use it. Look at him, he’s short, so the bamboo tube is a bit longer.”
Lin Xiushui said, "Then let's modify it. Add a piece of wood to the top of the short one, and cut off a section of the long one. How about that?"
The clerk in the blue robe stepped forward and said, "That's alright, no need to cut it. The higher-ups said to make us thirty more mops first, and told us to come find you, young lady, to talk about this matter. The deposit is one hundred and fifty coins, plus some cloth."
Lin Xiushui accepted the instructions and wrote them down. The group then went down to the riverbank to retrieve things floating on the river. In the afternoon, they would dredge up the silt because the river was not rising and there was too much silt, making it impossible for boats to pass.
She watched them walk away. The mulberry tree was still being repaired. She went back to tell Wang Yuelan about it, handed over the money, and then hurriedly ran out again.
Just then, she saw Yu Liuniang walking from the bridgehead. She wondered if she was seeing things, blinked, and sure enough, it was her.
Lin Xiushui ran forward, "Hey, Sixth Sister!"
“Ah Qiao,” Yu Liu Niang slowly walked over, “The stall is doing quite well. I came to Sangqiao Ferry to check on the cow dung, and I was just thinking that you were here too, so I came over to take a look.”
Lin Xiushui noticed that she was walking while holding her back and asked, "Why are you walking like that?"
"Don't say anymore. It was raining heavily up ahead, and of all things, I went up to the mulberry grove to check on the mulberry seedlings," Yu Liu Niang took the chair from Lin Xiushui and sat down, holding onto the back of the chair. "But the mountain road was slippery, and I fell. Luckily, I'm fleshy, otherwise I would have broken my bones. Right now, I've just strained it, but I'll be fine in about ten days."
“You have to be careful going into the mountains, you’ve come all this way,” Lin Xiushui helped her up. “Why don’t you sit down at my place for a while and have some refreshing drinks?”
Yu Liuniang didn't agree, so Lin Xiushui asked again, "Have you checked the cow dung yet? If not, I know an old man whose cow dung is good. Wait for me to ask him."
"Stay a little later," Yu Liu Niang tugged at her clothes, "I'll just say a few words and then leave, so as not to delay your business. I heard your gloves aren't selling very well, is that right?"
“I went back yesterday and heard what the people in the tung oil workshop said. I thought to myself, you must be working hard on this stuff, buying oilcloth and tung oil. I figured making ordinary cloth gloves wouldn’t be too difficult, so I found you a way.”
"You, even though you're injured, you're still worried about me," Lin Xiushui said, adding a cloth pad behind her back.
Yu Liu Niang said, "Don't interrupt me about this inconvenient matter. The method I'm talking about is the one I told you about before, the one for mixing Guang lacquer, in the alley behind the tung oil workshop."
"The lacquer mixing is alright, but the lacquer boiling is bitter. The lacquer has to be boiled from raw lacquer into mature lacquer, but that lacquer bites. It's okay to wrap your head and face, but you can't wrap your hands. After boiling the lacquer, your hands will be itchy and swollen."
“I gave them the gloves you gave me earlier. Some people said they were good and really useful. Tell you to bring some oilcloth and linen gloves. Make them bigger and longer, preferably up to the armpits. They don’t need to be the best fabrics. Give me thirty-five pairs, fifteen pairs of oilcloth and twenty pairs of linen.”
Upon hearing this, Lin Xiushui first thanked Yu Liuniang, then insisted on taking her to her home, asking her to sit for a while. Wang Yuelan poured her a fragrant drink and offered her boiled eggs.
“You’ve really gone to a lot of trouble. I can definitely make them. These oilcloth gloves are sold at the laundry shop for twenty-one pairs, and the linen gloves are sold at the tung oil shop for ten coins a pair.”
"You helped me find this path, so I should share some with you,"
Yu Liu Niang waved her hand, "I feel a connection with you and consider you my own sister. Don't talk about money and be so calculating. Just help me find that cow dung seller. I'm counting on your connections."
Lin Xiushui, having stopped her from speaking, stopped being polite and took her to the family that sold cow dung. This family was located at the end of Sangqiao Ferry Alley, on the edge of Sanglin Slope, and owned twenty or thirty acres of land, raising twelve or thirteen cows.
His family's items were usually hard to come by, and they didn't come out to sell them. Ordinary people couldn't buy them even if they went there. Lin Xiushui took over the work at his family's house and mended an old wedding dress that had been worn for decades for his mother. The dress had been gnawed by rats in several places, which made the old lady so angry that she fell ill.
After taking the clothes to her, they were repaired, and there was no trace of the bite. When the old lady saw the clothes, her chest felt lighter, and her illness gradually improved. Now she is fully recovered.
She made the first move, and the other party readily agreed. Yu Liuniang came out and said with a smile, "I've benefited from your kindness."
Lin Xiushui said, "Let's skip the idea of borrowing light from above."
She hurriedly said goodbye to Yu Liu Niang again. If she didn't go to work soon, she would really be late. She ran all the way and stood at the door panting heavily. Gu Niangzi was afraid that she would collapse.
Lin Xiushui just thought that even the best-laid plans can fail sometimes, so she should leave earlier next time.
Today she started mending the yarn; having received a raise, she felt she had to put in a little more effort.
Da Chunling and Xiao Chun'e assisted her first, and the yarn could only be ironed after it was mended.
During the days of mending the yarn, Da Chunling received a knife sheath from Lin Xiushui, while Xiao Chun'e received a fire tongs sheath.
Lin Xiushui had really thought about it carefully. Da Chunling's favorite things were two knives. One was a very heavy and thick iron knife, which could even kill a pig without any problem. The other was relatively small. If a palm-sized knife is considered small, then it certainly is.
Xiao Chun'e's true love is burning charcoal, and her second love is her fire tongs. She says that without the fire tongs, there would be no Xiao Chun'e standing here burning charcoal today.
When giving gifts, one should cater to the recipient's preferences. Lin Xiushui felt that she had done enough, as she used some nice scraps of cloth to make a knife sheath and a fire tongs cover, showing great respect for the recipient's tastes.
Xiao Chun'e laughed heartily after receiving it, "Ah Qiao, you really are something, making such a fancy cover for the fire tongs. After you did that, I'll have to give my fire tongs a name next time."
Lin Xiushui snorted, "You have no idea what I'm trying to achieve. I'm not going to talk to you anymore. I'm leaving now."
She walked out of the courtyard, but could still hear Xiao Chun'e's wild laughter behind her. She covered her ears and continued walking.
She went to the tung oil workshop to deliver gloves, receiving over two hundred coins. She also gave Yu Liu Niang two backrest cushions filled with silk floss. She and her aunt had searched through the silk floss pouches they bought together.
"Take a rest and lean back. Put this under your back; it will make you feel much more comfortable."
Yu Liu Niang took it, took two steps and said, "Losing your back is more painful than giving birth. I've never been in this pain during my postpartum period. People who don't know might think I'm pregnant again."
“Then just treat it like you’re in postpartum confinement, so you don’t have to walk around every day,” Lin Xiushui joked.
Yu Liu Niang glanced at her and said, "You'd better hope I'm doing well. Only someone who's been through postpartum confinement knows. You'd better get going and not delay your business."
"Then the cushion can be tied around your waist. Your husband can come and get me. I'll be going now."
Lin Xiushui went ahead, and Zhang the carpenter said that he would wait for her to finish her work today, and if she could finish the things, he would ask her to come back and see how to arrange them.
These past few days, Zhang Musheng took over his father's job, nailing the warped edges of the floorboards back on, patching up any gaps, and applying a coat of tung oil to the floorboards and the wooden walls. The area near the river is most prone to dampness, and Lin Xiushui bought the tung oil herself.
Carpenter Zhang then made the things she wanted. There weren't many items to begin with, and he finished them in a few days.
Lin Xiushui wanted to place the long table horizontally by the window, where it was the brightest spot and wide enough to fit everything. The low table and cabinet would be placed near the door, while the embroidery frame and long cloth rack would be placed in front of the table.
There were only a few things on the left and right, and they were all roughly the same no matter how they were arranged. However, once the things were put in, the room became cramped.
Although it was just a matter of applying tung oil and having a few more pieces of belongings, Lin Xiushui was very satisfied. She now had a proper place to have clothes made, and she could take on some big jobs, such as making curtains, quilts, and duvet covers, without having to refuse others anymore.
Lin Xiushui's scraps of cloth also found a place to go. Instead of folding them in a basket, she made a cloth rack. It was a rectangular rack made of bamboo and wood, with two bamboo poles standing upright and twelve or thirteen bamboo planks laid horizontally on top. It was very tall, about the same height as her, and had two layers in total.
She then sorted the various colored fabric scraps by color and arranged them one by one on the shelf, from light to dark. This way, when mending clothes for others, she could quickly find the fabric she needed. Gradually, the entire shelf was filled with colorful fabric scraps of different lengths.
A cloth bag, which she made herself, hung on the wall to the left of the table. It had many small pockets, with a new wooden ruler inside and a long cloth ruler hanging from it. The rest of the bag was empty for now, as she wanted to buy some better needles, thread, and scissors.
Regardless, Lin Xiushui sat contentedly in her room, enjoying the gentle breeze from the river, and using the bright light from the window to take out blue yarn and sew her blue jacket.
She sat there, feeling at ease and her vision clear; all those chaotic thoughts gradually disappeared as she worked on the needle and thread.
Occasionally, a boat would pass by and stop by the window, asking what she was mending. Someone would say, "That's great! Next time I'll put what I need mending on the boat, and when I see your window open, I'll put it over there. I won't have to walk those twenty or thirty stone steps to the mulberry tree entrance anymore."
Lin Xiushui was easy for everyone to do; they could go anywhere to have her mend their clothes.
When she came out of the house, she closed the door. Wang Yuelan was cutting up the old curtain in the yard, saying, "I'm going to sell this mop to the dye shop. The ground there is always full of puddles, and you can't get it clean even with a bamboo broom. I'll just leave it there even if they don't buy it."
"Wait a minute," Wang Yuelan exclaimed, "I've been so busy I forgot. Which lady was calling you just now? Go out and see. I invited her over, but she didn't come in. She's been wandering around outside and hasn't left."
The sky was dark and ominous, as if it were about to rain, so Lin Xiushui didn't go out. She pondered her sachet, thinking that a lady was calling her, probably Lady Yao, and hurriedly stepped over the threshold to go out.
It wasn't Madam Yao, but a stranger dressed in the flamboyant clothes of the people of Nanwazi Road, with her head full of flowers, and holding something in her arms. In the dim light, Lin Xiushui couldn't see it clearly.
He took only two steps before stepping forward and asking, "Wife, have you come to me for mending something?"
"No, I'm here to have clothes made," the woman said as she stepped forward, covering the things she was carrying with a cloth.
Lin Xiushui glanced at it and asked, "Who is it for? A baby or for you? I don't have that much fabric for myself."
"These are for my kids, they're all small, so they don't need much fabric."
Lin Xiushui asked curiously, "Where's the child? I need to take his measurements."
The woman handed over the things she was carrying, saying softly, "They're all here. Thank you for your help, young lady."
These words made Lin Xiushui a little uneasy. She mustered up her courage, took the paper, and closed her eyes briefly.
The child is good in every way, but when she looks at herself from left to right, up to down, she doesn't quite look like a human being.
However, she had even seen people treat chickens like babies before, and this cloth puppet, after all, had hands, feet, and a cloth face, so it could be considered a person in a way...
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
