But now that I'm out, I can't go back empty-handed. Although the crowds in the mall are terrible, the stalls outside are okay, and the things they sell are not bad.
They don't have to worry about the ingredients. The helpers in the ancestral home will have annual leave during the Chinese New Year. The aunt in charge of purchasing has already taken people out to buy a lot of food. There is enough food left over for the whole house to eat and drink for a month.
Xu Manman came across a small stall selling couplets. They had red background with gold characters and gold patterns around them. They looked very gorgeous and festive. The window grilles on the stall also came in a variety of styles.
Anyway, there are many houses in the house, so Xu Manman bought a lot of things at one time. What’s more, she never bargains when buying things. The stall owner was happy to meet such a generous customer, and gave her a lot of blessing characters, red envelopes and window decorations with small lantern patterns.
Speaking of lanterns, Xu Manman bought twenty or thirty lanterns of various sizes at another stall. They would be used in her ancestral home and her small Western-style building. Wouldn't her courtyard also need to share in the joy?
I don’t know when it started, but it has become popular to put vases at home during the Spring Festival. At this time, people prefer cost-effective artificial flowers.
Xu Manman still preferred the fragrance of flowers, so she and Jin Zichu went to the flower, bird and fish market and bought a lot of potted flowers and green plants, and even brought a pot of goldfish home.
Although Xu Gang likes fishing, he is not interested in goldfish which are only for ornamental purposes.
"It would be nice to get a big tank and raise a few koi."
"I caught this goldfish with a trap." She wasn't very interested in raising ornamental fish. The fish raised in the pond in Jing City were all worthy of being on the dining table.
"Ring toss? Is there still such excitement these days?"
"That's right. Ten circles cost two yuan, and the biggest prize is a pager. Quite a few people are lining up to get in."
Xu Manman just wanted to try out her skills, but after struggling for ten circles, she finally managed to fit the small fish tank.
Only a few people can catch something like her. I don’t know how the boss does it, but most people can’t catch anything after ten circles.
But even so, with the pager hanging in front, there are still many people who buy the circle. Although the Xiaolingtong is becoming popular in coastal areas, the pager is still not out of fashion in the mainland, and one costs thousands of yuan.
Who doesn’t want to use two dollars to try to get a big one?
In the ten minutes that Xu Manman stayed there, the stall owner earned twenty or thirty dollars.
If you add up all the money you make in a day, it's equivalent to an average worker's monthly salary. So, never underestimate small businesses. Any business, as long as someone does it, will be profitable.
Xu Manman took the small fish tank home and forgot about it. The helpers would be on holiday in two days, so she and Jin Zichu had to arrange things for the New Year period in advance.
Anyway, Xu Gang, who said he was dissatisfied, would take care of those little goldfish every day. I don’t know where he got the stones and water plants from, but he made a landscape for the fish tank.
I was afraid that the weather would be too cold and the little goldfish would freeze to death, so every day I would either move it out to bask in the sun or put it on the kang to keep it warm.
"Dad, if you keep them hot and cold like this, they will die faster."
"I always keep the temperature constant, which is the most suitable temperature for goldfish to survive." For this, Xu Gang specially put a thermometer in the water to facilitate real-time monitoring.
Xu Manman was really impressed by his father's patience. No wonder he could succeed in everything he did.
However, the few little goldfish that Xu Gang had carefully cared for did not survive this year.
On the second day after Xu Jianguo and his friends returned to Hai City, all the fish in the small fish tank turned over.
Xu Gang looked at the fish tank, then looked at his eldest grandson who looked innocent, and took a deep breath. "Xuanxuan, what did you do?"
Xu Ruixuan blinked his eyes, not feeling the slightest bit of danger. "I was worried the fish were hungry, so I fed them some fish food."
"How much did you feed?"
"They never seemed full, so I added two more spoonfuls. Grandpa, is this how goldfish sleep?"
Although Xu Ruixuan knew the Three Character Classic and 300 Tang poems by heart, he was still a child after all and still lacked some common sense.
Could Xu Gang be angry at his kind-hearted grandson? Of course not. He held his grandson in his arms and said, "Little goldfish don't have stomachs. If you feed them too much food, they won't be able to digest it in time and will die from overeating."
Xu Ruixuan's face turned pale. "So, so Xiaohua and the others died? Because I fed them too much?"
"Well, Xuanxuan didn't know, and it wasn't intentional, but the little goldfish died because of you. Do you want to go with grandpa and bury them?"
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