The chicken coop next to the wooden house has been built, and the leaves of the bamboo fence are still green, unlike outside where they would turn withered yellow after being exposed to wind and rain.
Last time I went to town, I didn't meet anyone selling chickens and ducks. There were people in the village who were hatching chicks, but if I bought them myself and didn't raise them outside, it would arouse suspicion from other people, so Wang Shuning still wanted to buy them somewhere else.
In the morning, a fried dough stick, a poached egg and a steamed sweet potato are enough for breakfast.
No one in Dafeng Village fries dough sticks, and you won’t see it even in Yihe Town. Frying dough sticks consumes a lot of oil, and even if you have wheat flour, it’s more cost-effective to use it for pancakes than for dough sticks.
Carrying an empty bamboo basket, I walked on the loess road leading to Yihe Town. Four-wheeled vehicles were relatively rare in that era, and there was not a single one in the entire Yihe Town. Otherwise, with such road conditions, dust would have been kicked up all the way.
After washing her face, Guo Jingyi saw that Zhang Meili was still not getting up, so she frowned and asked, "Aren't you going to town to buy meat? Why aren't you getting up yet?"
Guo Jingyi is going to the educated youth camp to cook this afternoon. Liu Sicun asked her to go up the mountain to pick mushrooms with the village aunties this morning, so she will not go to the town.
Zhang Meili turned over and continued to sleep. She only had one day off every two weeks, and she really didn't want to open her eyes. "Shuning went to the town to buy something today, so I asked her to bring it back for me. It's only half a pound of pork anyway, not heavy."
"Would you like to go up the mountain to pick mushrooms?"
"No."
It was still early when he arrived in town, so Wang Shuning first went to the supply and marketing cooperative to buy salt and pork, then turned around and put them in the space, otherwise it would be a waste of energy to carry several kilograms of things.
When they were almost at the black market, Wang Shuning walked to a corner and took out a small mirror. This was a piece she took off from a broken full-length mirror when she left the Wang family.
She smeared several handfuls of soot on her face in front of the mirror. Her originally white face had turned black and had several large moles on it. She looked like a hard-working country girl. She had no makeup on her hands, so she could only use soot instead. Otherwise, let alone the black spots, she would have to change her face.
He placed the bamboo basket on the ground, lifted a corner of the gray cloth, reached in, and transferred ten kilograms of brown sugar, five kilograms of rice, and five kilograms of wheat flour that had been placed in the wooden house in advance into the bamboo basket.
There were more of these things in the wooden house, but Wang Shuning couldn't carry too many of them, so he could only move some of them first and sell them while taking them.
It is morning now and there are more people in the black market than the last time I came.
"What are you selling?" The forty-year-old woman carrying a basket, wearing a navy blue scarf with white dots on her head, saw that Wang Shuning's bamboo basket seemed to be filled with a lot of things, so she stopped to ask.
Wang Shuning replied: "Rice, wheat flour and brown sugar."
The woman's eyes sparkled and she immediately squatted down to lift the gray cloth on the bamboo basket.
The brown sugar was wrapped in newspaper and its quality could not be seen, so Wang Shuning picked up a piece and opened it to show the woman.
Tiny bubbles can still be seen in the reddish-brown block of brown sugar. "It was just brewed two days ago. It's very fresh, very concentrated, and very sweet."
"How much does this piece weigh?"
"I haven't weighed it, but it must be two taels. Here are some broken pieces. Auntie, you can try them first."
Wang Shuning did not throw away the crumbs that fell off after the meat was cut into pieces after solidification, but kept them specifically to give them to buyers for tasting.
The woman took the largest one from the residue and put it in her mouth. Maybe it was too concentrated and the sweetness was too strong for her throat, but it was a good deal this way.
The woman asked, "How much is one piece?"
Wang Shuning replied: "One dime and a half is one yuan. Buy seven yuan and it's one yuan."
Thinking of her pregnant daughter-in-law, the woman placed the order without hesitation, "Give me fourteen yuan. How much is a pound of wheat flour?"
Wang Shuning answered without thinking, "50 cents a pound. The rice and wheat flour I sell are of better quality than other stores. I won't bargain."
"Two pounds of wheat flour."
He put the brown sugar and wheat flour into the other person's bamboo basket and pocketed the three dollars. It was his first order and a great success.
Then a few more people stopped to ask, brown sugar sells the fastest and most of the buyers are women.
After selling out the bamboo basket, he would cover it with gray cloth and directly transfer a dozen or twenty pieces from the space to continue selling. An hour later, Wang Shuning carried the empty bamboo basket and moved to the next black market.
After putting the things back in place, the bamboo basket was full again.
When no one was visiting, Wang Shuning focused his attention on the old lady squatting on his right. Looking at her clothes and the eggs in the basket, they seemed to be from a nearby village.
"Grandma, do you have chicks at home when you sell eggs?"
The wrinkled old lady also noticed Wang Shuning squatting on her left. He looked quite young, but his skin was as dark as a coal ball. "It's hatched. It just broke out of the shell less than half a month ago."
"These eggs were laid by other hens."
The old lady specifically said this at the end because she was afraid that Wang Shuning would misunderstand that she was selling eggs that had failed to hatch and had not cracked.
"Grandma, are you selling your chicks and hens?" Newly born chicks have to be taken care of by the hens. There are no weasels in the space, and no other animals will steal the food. Wang Shuning plans to buy more to avoid having to buy more after eating them all.
The old lady had not expected Wang Shuning to come up with this idea. "Sell them. The weather is getting colder. I'm afraid it won't work if we incubate them again. So the price is higher. We can't tell the gender of the chicks yet. If you pick a rooster, it won't be mine."
Wang Shuning nodded. The rooster was fine. The braised chicken tasted good too.
After the old lady sold the eggs in the basket, she took Wang Shuning to her home.
The old lady lives in Hongtaiyang Village, next to Dafeng Village, and it takes her half an hour to walk back.
It was already noon, and Wang Shuning bought two buns at a state-owned restaurant to eat on the way.
I picked out ten chicks, one male and one female, and two adult chickens, put them in a bamboo cage and a bamboo basket, for a total of eight dollars.
After leaving Red Sun Village, Wang Shuning moved the bamboo cage into the space, and then carried the bamboo basket to the black market in the town again.
A tall and strong man directly took all the brown sugar in Wang Shuning's bamboo basket, a total of 32 pieces, and said, "Next time, if there is any brown sugar left, send it to the yard with a big stone in front of the northwest corner."
Wang Shuning nodded. There was still brown sugar in the wooden house, but the bamboo basket could not hold it all. This man seemed to be well off. He also bought the remaining three kilograms of rice and two kilograms of wheat flour. He could become a regular customer.
The sun was about fifty degrees from the horizon. It was estimated to be around three o'clock in the afternoon. Wang Shuning bought a dozen transparent plastic bottles, which were to be used to store rapeseed oil and soybean oil.
In the bamboo basket were two pounds of meat, a bag of salt, and some snacks that Wang Shuning bought from the supply and marketing cooperative.
She quickened her pace and hurried back, otherwise she would miss the dinner at the educated youth center.
"Get out of the way, get out of the way." A sharp female voice came from far away.
Wang Shuning looked up instinctively and saw a bicycle rushing down the slope. The rider was a girl in a white shirt. She had a loud voice and looked very panicked and a little hideous.
Seeing that the bicycle was about to hit him, Wang Shuning reacted quickly and leaned in the opposite direction. The bicycle, which could not stop its tires, passed by him and rushed straight from the road into the ditch on the side of the road, turning both the man and the bicycle upside down.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
