Chapter 8: The Street Chess Club
When Grandma Guo and Guo Xiaohua arrived, they could see from afar that the chess club stall was surrounded by a large crowd, three layers deep.
She could hear the people chatting around her. Even if Grandma Guo didn't want to listen, she could. Those people had probably been standing there for a long time, talking all at once. She roughly pieced it together in her mind and realized that someone had won many games of chess.
Before she left, she gave each of them five coins. She had thought that since it was a rare opportunity to go to the market, she had some spare money and didn't want to restrict her two children so that they could only look but not buy anything.
But when Guo Xiaohua came over and told her that Guo Baiwen had gone to the chess stall, she hadn't expected it...
Old Master Guo used to enjoy playing chess quite a bit, and he had played many games before, but he lost more often than he won, which she often scolded him for.
Unexpectedly, now that his son can no longer play chess, his grandson has started playing again.
She only gave each of them five coins. By the time Xiao Hua went to find her, the two of them had come looking for her together. At least half an hour had passed, and she didn't know how much money Guo Baiwen had lost.
Grandma Guo felt a little flustered no matter what she thought about it. She pushed her way forward and was told a few things by the people in front of her. When she turned around, she saw an old lady with a little girl.
He then stopped talking, stepped aside slightly to let them push him to the front.
She struggled forward and immediately spotted her beloved grandson. Just as she was about to call out to him, she heard the chess stall owner, his face flushed with excitement, bang heavily on the gong beside him—
"Five consecutive wins! This young man Guo has won five games in a row! Is there anyone else who wants to challenge him?!"
And the five-time winner he was pointing at, who else could it be but her beloved grandson Guo Baiwen?
Grandma Guo's mouth gaped open in surprise, and she saw that Guo Baiwen had also looked up and seen her. He immediately waved to her, carefully put away the winnings from the side, and then came over despite the chess stall owner's reluctant pleas for her to stay.
"Grandma, I lost track of time while playing chess. You didn't have to wait too long, did you?"
"No, it wasn't long." Grandma Guo couldn't help but blink, and when she saw the copper coins he had tucked into the front of his clothes, her voice finally came back to her.
She wondered if she was still dreaming. As she helped him stuff the bag, her voice trembled as she asked, "This—this is all what you just won?"
Before Guo Baiwen could answer, the people who had been watching the game for a long time began to explain to the old lady.
Amidst the praise and exclamations, Guo Baiwen felt his ears turning red. Ignoring the chess stall owner's attempts to persuade him to stay, he grabbed two people and squeezed through the crowd.
He only had five coins, two coins for a game of chess, and he couldn't bear to spend the money on tea. He bet all three coins he had on winning the game.
The player opposite him saw that he had only bet three coins and that he was young and unfamiliar, so he assumed that the player knew he was not good at chess and had little chance of winning, and was just spending a little money to try out a game. So he bet ten coins on himself to win.
As a result, Guo Baiwen's initial five coins turned into thirteen coins in return.
With the outcome decided, some spectators couldn't resist joining in for a game, each paying two coins to the stall owner. Guo Baiwen, however, bet three coins on himself.
The person opposite him thought he was too young and that the previous game was just because the other player wasn't good at chess, so he bet ten coins on himself to win this game.
At the end of the game, Guo Baiwen's thirteen coins became twenty-one coins.
More people around him were skeptical, but seeing that he had already won two rounds in a row, they didn't dare to bet all of their money at once, and only bet two or five coins more than him.
After winning five consecutive games, more and more people gathered around the chess stall to watch the excitement. A few people got itchy fingers and spent two coins to play a game themselves. Seeing that business was booming, the stall owner was happy and gave them a pot of tea for free.
The five coins he originally had suddenly turned into thirty-two coins.
Guo Xiaohua looked at the bag full of copper coins in her brother's hand, and then at the pair of light red silk flowers she had exchanged for five coins.
The hair accessory that I initially thought was quite pretty suddenly doesn't look so good anymore.
Seeing that Guo Xiaohua seemed a little eager to join in, Grandma Guo quickly pulled her back, "Don't be fooled by how much money your brother just won; he still needs to know how to play chess. Ask yourself, do you even know how?"
Upon hearing this, the little girl immediately wilted, "—I can't."
Seeing this, Grandma Guo felt a little relieved. She then turned to Guo Baiwen and said, "Wenzi, your father used to play this too, but he lost more than he won. Maybe you were lucky this time because it was your first time. But life is long. Some things are best left unseen. Don't think you'll be lucky forever!"
She was afraid that if Guo Baiwen got a taste of success this time, he would think that this was a quick way to make money and then stop doing his proper job.
This money does come quickly, but it can also be lost quickly.
Guo Baiwen understood this principle. Although he made some money this time, he didn't intend to continue playing this game.
"Grandma, I know."
While browsing the market, he initially took a liking to several storage cabinets, all of them ordinary styles, mostly made of elm or pine, without any carvings or lacquer, which he thought would be perfect for storing things. However, when he asked the shopkeeper, he found out that the smallest one cost two hundred coins, not to mention the medium-sized cabinet he had his eye on, which could be used as a wardrobe and storage cabinet, costing at least five hundred coins.
Too expensive, so I had to settle for a wicker basket that could hold just as much stuff.
Depending on size, these baskets ranged in price from twenty to one hundred coins. He looked through the pile for a long time before finally choosing a wicker basket that was about half a person's height and had a lid.
The stall owner said that in the county town, a rattan basket of this size would cost at least eighty coins. However, rattan is not scarce in the mountains, and this rattan basket was woven by himself. If he really wanted it, he could sell it to him for fifty coins.
But let alone fifty coins, he only had five coins on him.
So when I passed by a chess stall, I had the idea of playing a couple of games to win some money.
Even after winning five rounds, he still didn't have enough money to buy the basket. Hearing this, Grandma Guo immediately took her grandchildren to the wicker basket stall and began haggling with the stall owner, finally settling on a price of forty coins.
Not only did they get the large rattan basket that Guo Baiwen had been longing for, but they also gave him a slightly deformed small sewing basket as a bonus.
Grandma Guo truly is a seasoned bargain hunter.
As for the extra eight coins, Grandma Guo took them out of her purse and paid for them herself.
For dinner, the three of them ate at a small stall in the market, and each of them had a bowl of wonton noodles.
These are all food stalls set up by villagers from the surrounding area. Their skills aren't very good. They make slightly flat and round noodles with dark flour, and serve them with a few green vegetables they picked themselves and a handful of bean sprouts. The colors are a mix of yellow and green. A bowl contains six wontons in addition to the noodles. That's about what you'd expect.
But once you pick up a mouthful of noodles and put it in your mouth, you realize that this bowl of noodles is still a little lacking. The dough wasn't kneaded properly, and the dark flour is inherently quite coarse, so it's not quite right for hand-pulled noodles; it's not smooth enough.
The wontons were filled with sauerkraut and contained no meat at all. The vendor said that lard was added, but Guo Baiwen couldn't taste it. He asked Xiaohua, who smacked her lips as she ate, and said she couldn't taste it either.
The wrappers were a bit thick, making them more like dumplings than wontons, but the owner's homemade chili sauce was really generous. Adding a spoonful not only made the otherwise ordinary wonton noodles much tastier, but also made them smell incredibly fragrant.
A bowl costs five coins, which is much cheaper than the clear soup noodles he ate in the county town last time.
The chili sauce tasted just right for Grandma Guo. While eating her own, Xiao Hua added two more spoonfuls for herself, not afraid of the spiciness. When she got up from the stall, Grandma Guo even bought another jar of chili sauce from the owner to take home.
After it snows, the weather will be damp and cold, and all that's missing is this taste.
This chili sauce is very flavorful; it makes you sweat, and a bowl of it will warm you up from head to toe. Even if you don't use it to cook noodles, it would be great as a dipping sauce for a hot pot.
After finishing their wonton noodles, the three of them were all covered in a light sweat.
In this kind of weather, I feel warm all over and have the strength to keep walking with the increasingly heavy basket on my back.
Guo Baiwen's current body is fifteen years old, but he is much shorter than he was at fifteen in his previous life. It's unclear whether this is because he lives in the mountains and often has to carry heavy baskets back and forth, or because his daily diet lacks meat, eggs, and dairy, leading to malnutrition.
He compared his height to the crowd at the market today, roughly estimating his own height in his mind. He realized that this might be due to the regional and historical characteristics of the area, as people here were generally not very tall compared to where he had lived in his previous life.
The average height is between 1.5 and 1.6 meters, and girls are even shorter. It's rare to see one or two people over 1.7 meters tall, who would stand out from the crowd.
Although he had transmigrated, Guo Baiwen didn't want his height to shrink too much.
After all, he easily grew to 1.83 meters tall in his previous life. Now, even if he doesn't necessarily have to break 1.8 meters, he can't not even reach 1.75 meters.
Fortunately, my body isn't too old yet. With more nutrition and more exercise, I should be able to grow taller.
As he was thinking, he couldn't help but sigh heavily. Grandma Guo heard him and thought the basket on his shoulder was too heavy, so she took a large portion of it from his basket and put it into her own.
The burden on his shoulders suddenly felt much lighter. Looking at Grandma Guo walking ahead, her back bent under the weight of the basket, Guo Baiwen suddenly felt a pang of sadness.
A note from the author:
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Chess clubs were a special type of profitable business in ancient times, and they usually had special operating permits from the government.
Of course, this kind of format is definitely not allowed in modern times, so just take a look.
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