Chapter 30: Going to the Market
She welcomed Gao Mingcheng to live in her house, but she also didn't want Gao Mingcheng to have too much trouble with the family, otherwise she wouldn't get much when the family split up.
She did this for Gao Mingcheng's own good, and Gao Mingcheng could feel it.
In his previous life, his father only worked on the railway for half a month. He did say that it was very tiring, but he stopped doing it after that. It wasn’t because he was tired, but because people started asking him to distill wine.
Compared to working on the railway, distilling wine is easier and the money is also better.
"I understand." Gao Mingcheng threw the wild rabbit on the ground, then washed all the mountain mulberries he brought back and grabbed a handful for his grandmother to eat.
After eating a small handful, grandma smiled and said she didn't want to eat anymore.
"I'm old and my stomach is not in good condition. I can't eat too much of this mountain twister, otherwise it will be difficult for me to go to the toilet."
The mountain yam itself is a medicinal material with astringent and antidiarrheal effects. Once you eat too much, it will be easy to have difficulty defecating. However, the main effect of mountain yam wine is to replenish blood, replenish deficiency, and at the same time dispel wind and activate collaterals.
Therefore, villagers eat less fresh fruit and drink fruit wine more often.
Gao Mingcheng did not try to persuade her, but simply said, "I put the mountain twisted rice in the kitchen. If you want to eat some, go get it yourself. I'll go to the old market in Junling later. Where's Gao Zhuang? Hasn't he gotten up yet?"
"No, I called him just now. Oh, Mingcheng, there are a few pheasant eggs cooked in the pot. They are the ones you brought back yesterday. You and Gao Zhuang can eat them together later." Grandma gave some instructions, then went out with a bucket of dirty clothes.
Gao Mingcheng was already starving, so he went into the kitchen and got a big bowl of porridge. He saw four pheasant eggs in the pot, so he took two and ate them.
Pheasant eggs are not big, one pheasant egg is about the size of two quail eggs, and he ate them one in one bite.
After eating a bowl of porridge and two eggs, Gao Mingcheng was only half full, but he did not continue eating. Instead, he prepared to go out to the old market in Junling.
Before leaving, he called Gao Zhuang again and told him to stay at Niuweiling after eating porridge, and to inform him if he saw any strangers entering the mountain.
Gao Zhuang had woken up but was not fully awake yet. After hearing Gao Mingcheng's words, he responded vaguely with "OK".
Gao Mingcheng picked up the bag that contained the snakes yesterday, took the bottled honey in a bamboo basket, and went out to Junling Old Market.
Nowadays, if you want to buy or sell something, you can't just go to the street at any time, but you have to go to the market on a certain day. On the 1st, 4th, and 7th of each day, there is an old market in Junling, and on the 2nd, 6th, and 8th of each day, there is the market in the county town.
Today is September 1st, so it is the old market day in Junling.
Junling was four or five miles away from them. For others, it would take a long time to walk there, but for Gao Mingcheng, this distance was quite easy to walk.
When there were people on the road, he would deliberately walk slowly, and when there was no one, he would speed up. As a result, he arrived at Junling Old Market in just ten minutes.
People from several nearby villages come here to buy and sell things. Under a century-old camphor tree, there is a long row of makeshift stalls selling vegetables, meat, cakes and snacks, and even rat poison.
Some people were shouting, some were negotiating prices, and some were smiling and saying auspicious words. The whole market was unusually lively.
Gao Mingcheng was not in a hurry to set up his stall, but looked here and there. For him, this kind of market scene was something deep in his memory.
He smelled a strong fragrance, which attracted him and he kept looking towards the place where the fragrance came from. Then he saw a big oil pan with fried dough sticks in it, making a sizzling sound. As the dough sticks were fried, a strong fragrance spread from far away.
A group of children were surrounding the oil wok, some of them already had fried dough sticks in their mouths, some had greed in their eyes, and some ran away for a moment and pestered the adults to give them money to buy more.
Some people took the money and ran back quickly, proudly asking the boss to give them a fried dough stick. Some people didn't get the money and were scolded by the adults. They looked aggrieved and stared at the fried dough sticks, reluctant to leave.
Not only the children were greedy, but even the adults were greedy. Those who came to the market, whether they were selling things or buying things, all took out money and bought a fried dough stick to eat.
Gao Mingcheng naturally would not miss it. Last time he sold a rabbit and a pheasant to Gao Shouwang and got eleven dollars. Now the money is still in his pocket.
Others buy one fried dough stick to satisfy their cravings, but Gao Mingcheng directly buys two fried dough sticks. In addition to the fried dough sticks, he also bought two vegetable buns. Only after eating everything did he feel full.
Seeing that there were many people at the food place, he found an empty seat, put his bamboo basket and bag on the ground, and started shouting at the top of his voice.
"Honey for sale! Wild honey from the mountains, sweet and nutritious!"
His voice was very loud. As soon as he opened his mouth, everyone in the market could hear him, and people who wanted to join in the fun gathered around him.
There were a total of eight bottles of honey in the bamboo basket, all in canning bottles, each weighing about two kilograms.
A middle-aged man in good clothes pointed at the honey in the bamboo basket and asked, "How much is this honey per pound? Can I have a taste?"
"Seven dollars, it's worth a try." Gao Mingcheng didn't actually bring any bowls or chopsticks with him, but he was smart enough to borrow a bowl and a spoon from the tofu pudding seller next to him.
He opened a bottle of honey and poured some sticky honey into the bowl. In the sunlight, the honey was amber in color and exuded a rich sweet smell, which was extremely tempting.
"Come on, you can have a taste!"
As soon as he finished speaking, the middle-aged man tasted it first.
He took a small spoonful of the honey, and the sweet taste instantly burst into his mouth. This overbearing and rich sweetness is something that people of this era rarely taste.
Compared to the price of honey, white sugar now only costs 90 cents per pound. However, even white sugar is not something that everyone can eat in large mouthfuls.
"Hmm, this is the taste!" The middle-aged man was very satisfied with the quality of the honey. He pointed at the jars and asked, "How much does a bottle weigh?"
"It's about two pounds. I didn't weigh it. If you want, I can borrow someone's scale to weigh it."
"Okay, go borrow a scale. I want to buy a bottle, and you have to take away the weight of the bottle!"
"Of course!"
Most of the people at Junling Old Market were from surrounding villages, and most of them knew Gao Mingcheng, so he quickly borrowed a scale.
I weighed it on the scale and it was two pounds and three ounces in total.
The weight of a jar of honey was determined, but how heavy was the can? How should it be weighed? Gao Mingcheng was a little embarrassed for a moment.
At this time, an elderly man said, "I have weighed this can, it weighs seven taels, you can calculate according to this, and you won't make any mistakes."
(End of this chapter)
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