Chapter 5: Beans and Potatoes Stew
"Jian Li, are you looking for a fight?"
Wang Mengmei hadn't sold many steamed buns in the morning and was already filled with anger. Then when she saw Jian Li put out her pickled duck eggs, she immediately found an outlet to vent her anger.
Jian Li chuckled. In her previous life, she would have definitely gone back to her bed and cried. But now that she had started over again, she had already seen clearly the arrogance behind Wang Mengmei's aggressive behavior.
Wang Mengmei may curse as she pleases, but she will never resort to violence.
This is a rare thing in the entire compound. You have to know that there are few parents in the compound who don't beat their children. If they beat their children a lot, they will be praised for their "strict parenting" and "sensible children."
But Wang Mengmei never raised a finger despite the loud scolding she received from childhood to adulthood.
In her words, "If the injury is serious, you still have to go to the doctor, which is a waste of money."
This motherly love was so subtle that Jian Li only gradually discovered it after she was 25 years old.
now……
Jian Li hugged her mother's arm and began to act coquettishly in a voice that made her teeth ache: "Mom, the salted duck eggs you made are so - delicious! Let's try selling them..."
Wang Mengmei's Achilles' heel in life is that she only responds to soft tactics and not to hard ones. When Jian Li used this tactic of pestering her, she had no idea how to react.
In fact, Jian Li also felt uncomfortable because of the stickiness, but she felt that if she felt uncomfortable, Wang Mengmei would definitely feel even more uncomfortable.
Sure enough, Wang Mengmei felt so uncomfortable that she pulled her hand away, so that she could no longer see it and feel at ease.
"Get out of here, do whatever you want, don't bother with me!"
Anyway, only a fool would buy a salted duck egg at three cents.
Calculating the time again, the medicine is almost finished. I will take her to the hospital for a check-up in two days. If everything is fine, I will send her to the countryside to spend the summer vacation. It is better than just eating and sleeping at home every day without doing any summer homework.
Wang Mengmei calculated it clearly, but Jian Li cheered in her heart.
The reason why she acted first and asked for permission later was because her mother was too stubborn.
In her grandmother's words, she is a donkey who always sticks to her own opinions on everything.
Jian Li wanted her mother to change stall locations, but it would be strange if her mother believed her.
So Jian Li planned to add items for her mother first, and then stay at the stall. When the market management office came to register, she would make her mother move there.
Unfortunately, Jian Li waited for a whole morning, but only a few people came.
Wang Mengmei felt worried when looking at the baked pancakes.
The weather is too hot. These hanging stove pancakes were made yesterday and baked again today. It would be a bit unreasonable to leave them for tomorrow.
At noon, Wang Mengmei asked Jian Li to go to the cafeteria to get some food, and the mother and daughter ate two steamed buns with the food. Jian Li made two packets of soy milk powder, which was barely enough to supplement her protein.
Jian Li poked at the stewed potatoes with beans in her iron lunch box and said, "Mom, the food in the cafeteria is getting worse and worse."
Even when making fried green beans, people are reluctant to use lard. They taste watery and you can tell at a glance that they have been stewed for too long with water.
Since the poor performance in the past few years, the cafeteria has changed the most obviously.
Jian Li recalled that when she was in elementary school, she could eat braised pork with rich red sauce, chicken legs and pig trotters with just the right amount of brine, and a variety of vegetarian dishes that tasted just as good as those in small restaurants.
But the cafeteria now either serves steamed noodles for the sake of convenience, or cafeteria dishes that lack oil and salt, which makes Jian Li, who is used to Wang Mengmei's cooking, really unbearable.
She broke open a steamed bun, put a salted duck egg inside, added a few chopsticks to the tasteless cafeteria food, and then took a bite. Finally, it tasted a bit good.
Wang Mengmei was so angry that she laughed: "If you think it tastes bad, just eat less."
Jian Li narrowed her eyes: "I won't!"
She ate mouthful by mouthful with relish, which whetted the appetite of Wang Mengmei, who originally had little appetite.
Wang Mengmei stood up, took a salted duck egg, and put it into the hot pancake. It tasted really good.
The two of them ate hot flatbreads and stewed potatoes with green beans, and the meal was finally quite satisfying.
It was almost noon and people were having lunch at the surrounding stalls. Since stoves were not allowed in the market, everyone went to the cafeteria to order some food and then had a few bites of steamed buns.
Seeing Wang Mengmei and Jian Li, mother and daughter, eating a salted duck egg, many people were tempted.
"Sister Mei, are you eating?"
This person is just trying to make conversation. It's obvious that he has something to say.
Before Wang Mengmei could exchange a few words of greeting, the man changed the subject of the salted duck eggs.
"Sister Mei, how did you pickle the duck eggs? You seemed to be enjoying them just now."
Wang Mengmei laughed happily: "How else can it be pickled? Just add red mud and salt, put some pepper and bay leaves, and finally spray some wine..."
Jian Li didn't stop her mother from telling her how to cook. No one could make the dish the same way as her mother did.
But when Wang Mengmei finished, she interrupted and said, "Auntie, do you want to buy salted duck eggs? 30 cents each, 50 cents for two."
The other party smiled awkwardly. She had originally approached him thinking of asking for food for free. After all, salted duck eggs were not worth much. A few years ago, a duck farm opened in the city to produce duck down, which brought a lot of duck eggs to the market. This made the price of local duck eggs cheap, with each duck egg costing more than 10 cents. Sometimes, you could even buy one for less than 10 cents.
Although three cents a piece is not expensive, people these days prefer to make their own rather than buy it outside. She watched Jian Li fail to sell a single piece in the morning, and thought she could get a bargain. But she actually got the upper hand.
It won’t look good if you don’t buy it now.
"Give me two, then."
She and her husband each have one.
Jian Li responded quickly: "Auntie, I picked out the two biggest ones for you."
As he spoke, he took out the two smallest ones.
Wang Mengmei's face turned red and she started arguing with the woman who wanted to pay.
"Kid, I'm just kidding. I don't really want your money. It's just two duck eggs. Take them back and eat them..."
"Don't say that. Xiaoli is very good at business. We agreed on two. I'll give you fifty cents!"
Wang Mengmei held the fifty cents in her hand, stared in amazement, and then she grabbed Jian Li.
"Jane Pear!"
Jian Li shrank her neck in fear when she heard his full name.
Wang Mengmei was furious. She had just arrived at the market, and most of the people around her were laid-off workers from the cotton textile factory like her. Who knew how many years they would have to spend together? How could they maintain their relationship in the future when they were asked to pay for duck eggs worth a few cents?
Wang Mengmei was very disappointed that the relationship could not be fulfilled. If she gave the money to the other party, the other party would definitely not accept it. If Jian Li went, the other party would probably accept it.
"Send the money over!"
Jian Li turned aside and said, "I'm not going."
That woman had been selling vegetables all her life, and she had a stall next to her mother, and they had quarreled many times over occupying the road. The life of a small stall vendor was not so glamorous, and the two families next to Wang Mengmei were particularly difficult to deal with. They always started trouble first, relying on their husbands. Many times, Wang Mengmei went home crying out of anger.
Seeing that Wang Mengmei was about to explode, Jian Li quickly grabbed her duck eggs and said, "I'm not going! I'll go sell duck eggs somewhere else!"
Most of the people in this market are her mother's acquaintances. If no one wants to pay, what else can she sell?
Jian Li ran away after saying this.
Wang Mengmei stomped her feet in anger behind him.
Jian Li carried her twenty or thirty salted duck eggs and went to each stall to ask if they wanted some.
Some of the stall owners knew her and would give her candy or snacks with a smile, which she would accept generously and then say a lot of good things to them.
"Thank you, uncle! I'm so lucky!"
"Auntie, you are so nice. Next time I buy rice krispie candies, I will come to you to buy them."
Facts have proven that people have no resistance to sweet talk.
Jian Li is fat, but her little face is pink and cute. She also received a lot of sincere kindness along the way.
Of course, there are also many people who buy duck eggs.
If Jian Li sees someone she knows, she will give them a discount of 10 or 2 cents. If she sees someone she doesn’t know, she will tell them where their stall is and offer them a discount next time they visit.
By the time all the duck eggs were sold, Jian Li had six yuan and eighty cents in her pocket.
She took the money and bought two red bean popsicles, eating a red bean one for herself and giving a green bean one to Wang Mengmei.
Wang Mengmei's face was originally gloomy, but when she saw that she had sold out all the duck eggs, a look of surprise appeared on her face: "All sold out?"
Sanmao's salted duck eggs were sold out just like that?
Jian Li sucked on her popsicle and said, "They're all sold."
Wang Mengmei was so shocked that it even broke through her previous anger.
“How come they are all sold out…”
Pickled duck eggs are not difficult to make. To Wang Mengmei, she would not buy them even if you only charge her 20 cents each.
How much does it cost to pickle it yourself?
Why spend lavishly when you can save money?
Jian Li hiccuped and looked at her mother, doubting her life.
Wang Mengmei used to think that people would only buy things that were filling, so she only sold steamed buns for three cents each.
I’m afraid that if it’s sold at a high price, no one will buy it.
As a result, her daughter earned more from selling salted duck eggs in one afternoon than she did from selling baked cakes in a whole day.
This is really...
Seeing that her mother had forgotten to settle the score with her, Jian Li quickly ran away secretly. She had already reached the required amount of exercise for today, so she wanted to go back and watch TV!
*****
In the evening, when Wang Mengmei saw her husband, she couldn't wait to tell her daughter about this incident.
Jian Feng: "...Xiao Li went to sell things?"
Jian Feng was a little worried. His daughter used to be known for her shyness, so how could she turn into such a "promiscuous" child overnight?
Wang Mengmei grabbed his arm and said, "I'm talking about salted duck eggs, pay attention!"
She kept talking about her misconceptions: "I originally thought that the consumption in our compound was not going to increase, so I thought about selling steamed cakes. Now it seems that everyone can still afford it. Xiaoli also said that when she went to sell salted duck eggs, several people took a bite and thought it tasted good, so they bought two more..."
"I was thinking about adding a few more items and selling them together."
Jian Feng: "I've said before that if you insist, it will definitely not be easy to sell. If it were you, you would definitely not spend a penny."
Wang Mengmei: "...Why do you and your daughter love to bring up the past so much? Am I wrong? Now we are just trying to sell it, but it is hard to say whether it will succeed!"
Jian Feng was speechless: "You are the one who said it would be successful, but you are also the one who said it might not be successful."
"You want to quarrel, don't you?"
Jian Feng certainly didn't want to, so he quickly changed the subject.
"The old lady will be buried tomorrow morning, and we will entertain guests tonight. I will go and help in a while, and I will come back tomorrow after sending the people away. You two don't have to wait for me."
Wang Mengmei: "Jian Li and I will go with you later. We just need to come back early in the evening."
Yesterday I didn’t want Liu Xiangdong and his wife to take advantage of me, but today is the last day, and I must repay my debt to the old lady.
As soon as Jian Li came out of the house, she heard her mother was going to take her to a funeral.
"Go and kowtow to your grandmother Liu, and we'll give her a gift."
Thinking about what happened today, Wang Mengmei suddenly regretted that she hadn't told her husband yet, so she warned her husband: "Don't say anything when you get there!"
Jian Li put her hands behind her back and tapped her feet: "Okay."
It just so happened that this family owed her money, and her parents were not coming back, so she had to give it a try.
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