Chapter 70 - Orders Surge!
On the first half of the day of the Weaving Skills Gathering, as noon approached, weaving skills enthusiasts and knot enthusiasts gradually dispersed, leaving the academy and greeting each other.
"Come on over, let's have dinner at my house."
"We're not going home for lunch today, how about we go get some cold water?"
A group of people were pulling and tugging at each other on the road, while some shouted from the bow of the boat, "Sister, don't you like paper cutting? I have a lot of paper scraps at home, wait for me and I'll bring them to you."
Two doctors were walking and talking. One of them said, "What are you looking at? Is it 'The Complete Book of Prescriptions for Women'? It talks about transverse delivery, breech delivery, unilateral delivery, and childbirth, as well as injuries to the fetus from falls, etc. I don't quite understand it yet."
Another said, "I've seen some, and I'm thinking of going to Shaoxing recently. Isn't their Qian family's gynecology clinic very famous? When the capital was located there, many imperial concubines received treatment there. I think the gynecology clinic in our town is not as good as theirs."
"Is it the Stone Threshold? I heard that the treatment there is divided by the Stone Threshold. You can see the doctor inside the threshold, but not the one outside. The gynecology department there is good, and the trauma clinic at No. 369 is also famous."
"You also listen to orthopedics? That's more difficult. I've been to see a specialist who treats bones."
The two chatted as they walked, and even said they wanted to read "100 Questions on Gynecology" together. These days, female doctors are a minority, and those who can see patients independently are already in their thirties or forties. It's really not easy to find someone with the same interests.
Young women walked behind them in twos and threes, tilting their heads to listen intently. One of them said, "When I get this age, I wonder if I'll be able to find a profession."
“Go ask Auntie Ya, I’ll become Auntie Ya from now on,” another young woman said, fiddling with her hair tie. “I used to think people were greedy, but now I think about it, it’s really rare to be able to send someone into a trade and have a job to make a living.”
“Yes, in the room we’re sitting in, there’s a woman who works at the bookstore near Dahepeng Bridge. She said she couldn’t read a single character before she turned thirty, but after she turned thirty, she insisted on learning and recognizing characters. In just two years, she can now carve books. I’m half her age, and I think I should learn too.”
"Learn what? I'll go learn something too."
The group chatted and joked with each other, exchanging clever nets. They stood by the boat for a long time, talking for quite a while, before finally boarding their own boats.
Lin Xiushui walked a few steps, saw everyone out, took the paper crafts and net crafts that someone had stuffed into her hand, hugged them with her left hand, and waved to the crowd with her right hand.
Then, facing the seven women who hadn't left yet, she gathered her things in her arms and said, "Let's go to the tailor's shop to eat first. We'll have to start work tomorrow."
"Young lady, are you really going to let us work inside? Two strings of cash a month?" asked a woman with a mole on her left cheek. She ran several steps to Lin Xiushui and said, "I used to mend fish baskets at the fish market, but I'm not doing it anymore. Will there be any work for me if I go there?"
Another woman came out and asked in a low voice, "My business has little to do with tailoring. I used to make crowns."
Lin Xiushui understood everyone's concerns. She smiled, turned around and took a few steps back, and then said, "There will definitely be work to do. The first three will go to the drawnwork embroidery department, and the last four will go to the sewing department. We'll eat and talk about it tomorrow."
This was something she and Madam Gu had agreed upon long ago. If they could weave a net well, then the common point was that they could definitely do a good job of wrapping and binding the yarn on the fabric after the yarn had been pulled out.
The other four were there because the sewing department was short-handed, and most of them were fabric cutters.
The Tent Design Bureau had a new batch of work, originally intended for the White Clothes Shop, but Lin Xiushui took it over. This work used only white cloth for making painted tents. The cloth was cut to size, mounted on wooden frames, and used by poets to write poems or by painters to lay it out for painting.
The mending only requires sewing the four edges, but the dimensions are strictly required and the cut must be straight.
Lin Xiushui told the seven women to come back to work the next day. They thanked her again and again, still feeling like they were in an unreal dream.
Even as you walk outside, you can hear them asking each other, "It's not fake, is it?"
"I don't know, my mind is foggy."
No one is working today. After watching the weaving competition, Madam Gu left, saying that even the most important matters can wait until tomorrow. She wanted to go to West Lake for a visit and asked Lin Xiushui if she wanted to go, and if there was still room on the boat.
Lin Xiushui, of course, wouldn't go. She wouldn't worship the moon, pray for skill, or thread needles. As for spiders, considering that Shadai was making money recently, she would cover her eyes tightly and pretend she couldn't see them.
While everyone else was out enjoying the holiday, Lin Xiushui was organizing a thick stack of documents from the morning, containing the hobbies, wishes, and addresses of hundreds of women who had posted them on the Qiaowang website. The tailor had about ten women help her write them down.
Lin Xiushui glanced through them and found some of them quite interesting. She pressed the paper, flipping through it back and forth, but couldn't find it. She searched again and finally pulled out a piece of paper.
It says that I have a pair of shadow puppets that I really like. I often use them to amuse other children during festivals, but they are torn and can't be repaired.
The writer was from Sangdaokou Alley, named Li Xiaoniang. Lin Xiushui walked past so many hanging nets in the morning and glanced at them several times, but it was too noisy and crowded at the time, so she couldn't find her.
Xiangxiang took the sewing kit, put in the tweezers, needle and thread, scissors, measuring tape and other tools, and called out to the side, "Xiaochun'e, want to come with me to mend something?"
"Heavens!" Xiao Chun'e poked her head out of the window, "Aren't you tired? Aren't you going for a walk?"
"Are you coming or not?"
"Come on," Xiao Chun'e said, hands on her hips, "I just love following you around."
Lin Xiushui stepped out and laughed, "Don't talk like you're a puppy."
"I love eating bones, so how can I not be a puppy?"
After Xiao Chun'e finished speaking, she opened her oil-paper umbrella and said, "Wherever you go, I know it well. I'll be your boatman."
"Yao, boatman, I need to go to Sangdaokou."
The river was crowded in the afternoon, with occasional breezes and dark clouds that came and went. Xiao Chun'e rowed the boat, and Lin Xiushui sang her a tune recently composed by the Little Puppet Theater Troupe, which was a mess and out of tune.
Xiao Chun'e held back for a while, but she couldn't help but say, "Anyone who doesn't know the situation would think that there are ducks, a calf, and a bird that keeps chirping on the boat."
"Are you insulting me indirectly?" Lin Xiushui snorted.
“I’m speaking openly and honestly, Lin Xiaoniu.”
Lin Xiushui mooed.
As a result, the people on the two adjacent boats all stuck their heads out to see which boat was hiding the cow.
Xiao Chun'e laughed loudly.
Sangdaokou has a famous snow foam skin-shrinking drink, which is made with cardamom, dried plum flesh, roasted licorice root, etc. The two bought two bowls, ate them in the shop, and then went to ask someone for directions.
Li Xiaoniang's house was located at the entrance of the alley, a house with two lanterns hanging on it. The people in this alley made a living by washing felt and cleaning wells. The area to the east was inhabited by people who had come from Tokyo before. Many of them still retained the custom of laying felt on the ground in winter and washing the felt in summer.
Every household has many wells. The river here often accumulates a lot of yellow mud, and the wells become dry. Someone has to go down into the well to clear the silt. This is called "cleaning the well".
Water was spilled everywhere in the alley, scattered here and there, covered in white foam, accumulating in uneven places. When the two of them arrived, Li Xiaoniang was showing her younger sister the intricate netting she had woven, and there were many felt mats in the courtyard.
"Oh," Li Xiaoniang exclaimed in surprise. She quickly grabbed a stool. "Miss Lin, no, Steward Lin, what brings you here? Are you here to get the Qiaowang?"
Xiao Chun'e poked her head out from behind Lin Xiushui and shook her head. "We're here to repair your shadow puppets. It's not me, it's her who's coming to visit."
"You said there are shadow puppets that can't be repaired. I'm the best at mending. I'll come over and take a look. Just call me Ah Qiao. Calling me Manager Lin sounds too formal."
After Lin Xiushui finished speaking, she moved her bag to the front. This was the first time she had ever run so far. Before, everyone would bring it to her, whether it was at Sangshukou or on both sides of the river. Even if it was further away, Sun Da and Song Sanniang would bring it over.
Li Xiaoniang was shocked again. Her sister had the same expression, her eyes wide open and her mouth agape. Then she came to her senses and quickly ran into the house to get the broken shadow puppet.
It wasn't made of paper. Lin Xiushui stretched out her hand. She was quite certain it was made of sheepskin. After mending the cuju for so long, she could tell it was sheepskin just by touching it.
Xiao Chun'e helped Li Xiaoniang piece together the shadow puppets. When put together, they formed a pair: one was a woman with her hair tied in a high bun, wearing clothes in red, black, and blue with many patterns; the other was a man wearing a tall hat and a green robe.
Li Xiaoniang sighed, "It's just torn. I used to make it out of white paper, but it broke in less than a month. This one is made from sheepskin, which I saved up for a year to buy."
When she talked about shadow puppetry, her ordinary face also shone with a captivating light. Pointing to the connecting parts of the shadow puppet, she said, "This is the head, chest, abdomen, two legs, two arms, and the elbows on the arms. Below the elbows are the two hands. It is made up of eleven parts."
"Look at where the elbows and arms meet, there's a dark shadow showing through. That's called the bone seam. The middle part is the bone eye. You can make the whole shadow puppet stand up by threading catgut through the bone eye."
"To move, you can turn around by holding these three sticks in your hand, but you can't move right now."
The tears are located at the junction of the head and the clothing, and in the middle, but the edges are neat and there are no signs of stretching, making it look more like they were cut.
Lin Xiushui didn't ask any more questions. Li Xiaoniang lowered her head and fiddled with it. She said in a low, barely audible voice, "If it can't be mended, then forget it. I don't really like it anyway."
"I still prefer washing felt."
Lin Xiushui then took out her needle and thread, looked up at Li Xiaoniang, and said, "What if it's mended?"
Xiao Chun'e said, "It's fixed now. If it's fixed now, there will be one more happy person."
Li Xiaoniangzi's younger sister clapped her hands. She was only about five years old and held up three fingers, saying, "It's two."
“No, no, there are many, many more,” she said, spreading her hands wide.
Lin Xiushui was splitting fine thread. If the shadow puppet broke at the neck, the light would definitely show it, and the same would be true for the broken part at the belly. Lin Xiushui first used the fine thread to slowly sew the sheepskin. After she became rich, she bought an extremely fine embroidery needle for three hundred coins. The needle was good, and she mended a basket of footballs every three days, so mending leather was not a difficult task for her.
Stitch by stitch, quickly and steadily, the broken piece was suddenly pieced together perfectly from the gap, right before their eyes.
Unless held up to the sunlight, the damage is not very noticeable. Lin Xiushui's sewing skills have become increasingly exquisite after being honed through drawing thread work and various other experiences.
Even though it was hot and the wind was stuffy, she could sit there calmly and carefully sew up the broken shadow puppet. She also thought of the woman she had met who had her cleft lip sewn up before. She said that if she had the ability, she should do her best.
After finishing sewing, Lin Xiushui wiped her sweat and said, "I'll add another collar and a skirt ribbon so it won't be noticeable in photos."
Li Xiaoniang was already fiddling with the repaired shadow puppet. She stared blankly at the two fine repair marks under the scorching sun, wanting to cry but unable to, and just smiling.
“It’s alright, I know it’s broken, no need to cover it up, Manager Lin, no, no, Ah Qiao,” Li Xiaoniang said incoherently, touching her clothes up and down, trying to reach into her pocket to give money.
"No need to give it to me, just tell me about this shadow puppet show," Lin Xiushui said with a smile and shook her head. She put away her needles, threaded the needles, and waited for Li Xiaoniang to speak.
Li Xiaoniang's parents went to collect the felt and wouldn't be back until evening. They disapproved of Li Xiaoniang's hobby and were afraid she wouldn't wash the felt properly, so they cut it up.
But Li Xiaoniang really liked him.
“Our alley is a bit out of the way, and there are many children at the entrance. When I went to other alleys, I found that they would set up small screening rooms during festivals, and people would put on shadow plays there to keep the children from running around.”
“One or two children went missing in our alley. I thought that if there were shadow plays, they wouldn’t have gone missing. So I wanted to learn shadow puppetry and built a small viewing booth, which we set up at the entrance of the alley during festivals.”
Her sister said, "I really like it, everyone likes to watch it."
For several years, Li Xiaoniang would secretly display it. Her parents were always scolding and angry, so she would wait until everyone was asleep, then take it out and put it outside the window, arranging it by the moonlight.
She once wanted to be a shadow puppeteer, but now, facing the repaired shadow puppets, she wants to be a shadow puppeteer herself, so that if someone else cuts them badly again, she can make them again.
She hadn't had the courage before, but today, after hearing so much about the trade and how someone came to repair her shadow puppets, she suddenly made up her mind.
Lin Xiushui replied, "By the time you've saved up for a year to buy a shadow puppet, you already have one."
"Can the two of us take a look at your screening room?"
She and Xiao Chun'e watched Li Xiaoniang, who was dancing with shadow puppets in a simple white paper shed.
Before leaving, Lin Xiushui said, "I know a craftsman who sells sheepskins. If you want to make one, you can buy a sheepskin for twenty coins."
"Huh? Can it really be that cheap?" Li Xiaoniang exclaimed, her voice cracking.
"Really, being a shadow puppeteer suits you better than washing felt."
Before Li Xiaoniang decided to spend her life washing felt, she made a decision: she wanted to become a shadow puppeteer.
Before leaving, Lin Xiushui folded up the note that said the shadow puppet couldn't be repaired and went out with Xiao Chun'e.
Xiao Chun'e said, "It's over."
"What?"
Xiao Chun'e said excitedly, walking backwards, "How about you do sewing and mending work everywhere, and I'll carry your bag and follow you around? I'm really fascinated."
The joy of mending something makes the person doing it happy, and the person watching is both nervous and delighted.
She noticed that as soon as A-Qiao made a move, she was only focused on watching her hands.
"Not burning charcoal anymore?" Lin Xiushui chuckled and poked her shoulder. "Autumn has arrived, don't you want to go to the oil and candle shop in the fall? Who said I wanted to go to the oil and candle shop in town first, then go to Lin'an Prefecture, and become the manager, the most skilled person in burning incense and charcoal?"
"Is that Xiao Chun'e?"
“Of course,” Xiao Chun’e walked alongside her. “I think I can definitely do it. After all, no one would burn incense and wait for the night to cool off in the sweltering heat to watch from the sidelines, right?”
Xiao Chun'e walked slowly and said slowly, "I'm not suited for sewing. Autumn is coming, and it will cool down afterward. There will be more people to help with sewing. Ah Qiao, I think I should go back and burn incense."
The mending was done well. A-Qiao always took care of her. The two of them ate together, slept on the bed in the room at noon, and always had endless things to talk about.
Xiao Chun'e stepped into a puddle, turned her head and said, "After listening to what those women said today, I realize I can't be a very capable person. As long as I can burn charcoal well, I feel very at ease."
What was she doing on Qixi Festival last year? She must have been praying for skill and gazing at the moon. She was happy then. But this year, she's standing here, doing nothing, and she feels perfectly fine.
Lin Xiushui asked, "Are we going back tomorrow?"
"Yes, it's better to start making charcoal sooner rather than later. I'm almost forgetting what charcoal is like."
Lin Xiushui looked up at the sky. It gets dark slowly in the summer. Suddenly, she grabbed her sleeve and said, "Come on, I'll be your boatman. Let's go check out the oil and candle bureau."
"ah?"
Lin Xiushui pulled her along, her dress fluttering, "Oh, what? We've seen so many women today, so many good ones. Let's go see some better places."
Once on the boat, she told Xiao Chun'e to go to the back while she rowed from the front. She had traveled the road to the Tent Office many times, and on those many times, whenever she passed by the Oil and Candle Bureau, she would always think that it was a place Xiao Chun'e would come to in the future.
“We should go and see it,” Lin Xiushui said.
That afternoon, the two of them went to the Fourth Division and Sixth Bureau. Through Zhang Xiaosi's connections, they were able to take a look at the oil and candle bureau. Even in the town, the oil and candle bureau was quite large. There were workshops that specialized in making lanterns and lamp oil for banquets. One room had all kinds of exquisite candlesticks, candle holders, and standing lamp stands. There were also piles of charcoal, incense charcoal, animal charcoal, candles, and so on.
Everyone was dressed in the uniforms of the Four Offices and Six Bureaus, moving about in the various rooms in an orderly manner. Xiao Chun'e saw the Oil and Candle Bureau that others had mentioned, and heard about their duties of lighting lamps, lighting candles, repairing candles, illuminating lamps, pressing lamps, preparing banquets, setting up tables, handling lamps, bean stands, bamboo cages, lamp stands, setting up fire, and gathering charcoal.
She murmured to herself, "Will I really be able to come here someday?"
"sure."
It wasn't a question she asked herself; it was Lin Xiushui's firm answer.
Xiao Chun'e clutched her pounding heart. She never tired of these things, even if they were boring and tedious, she could always find some fun in them. Lin Xiushui yawned and squinted as she watched with her for most of the afternoon, asking her many questions.
When they came out, it was dusk, the sun was setting, and the two walked in sync, their shadows close together.
At that moment, Xiao Chun'e thought that if she ever suddenly felt tired and bored with burning charcoal, she would probably remember this afternoon when she stood in the oil and candle workshop, with someone by her side, like a reliable candlestick.
After this unforgettable Qixi Festival, the Beginning of Autumn arrived less than a day later. Xiao Chun'e packed her things and returned to the incense burner. She wanted to try entering the oil and candle workshop in mid-August.
Lin Xiushui looked at the generous gifts that Zhiqiao would bring after Qixi Festival.
She silently closed the thick sheet, rubbed her temples, and didn't want to tell Madam Gu that she herself also had a lot of work to do making clothes.
For the first time in my life, I experienced the meaning of three words: "orders exploded."
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