Chapter 26
"Of course you can. This is a snack for you and Xiao An. You can decide for yourself."
Old Mrs. Chen said that Huihui was not allowed to bring anything over, and Sang Luo really didn't plan to bring anything over this time, but since they were just children, it was natural for the children to make the decision themselves.
When Shen Ning heard that his sister-in-law agreed, he happily went to get the small bamboo tube and put two pieces in it. After thinking about it, he put two more pieces in. He probably felt that he took a little too much, so he carefully explained to Sang Luo and Shen An: "Bring two pieces for Brother Ershan as well."
Ershan is Chen Jia Erlang, Xiaoyaer’s second brother.
Of course Chen An had no objection, so the brother and sister both looked at Sang Luo.
Sang Luo smiled and said, "Just make your own decisions. However, please take two more pieces. You and Xiao An can't just sit there and watch Er Shan and Xiao Ya eat."
It means that the brother and sister can have another piece later.
Shen An and Shen Ning both laughed, not because they could have an extra piece, but because Ershan and Xiaoya always shared their food with them in the past, and this time they could share food with their friends too. The two kids were so excited.
Although he was excited, Shen An still stayed to look after the house. All the belongings in the house were now his treasures.
So Chen Ning only took five pieces of oil residue in her small bamboo tube. She took her own small bamboo tube and followed Sang Luo to Chen's house.
…
The sun in August was too strong, and it was not a good time to do farm work. Most men who worked in the morning were still working, while the women took a short break and then got up, spinning hemp or weaving cloth.
The same is true for the Chen family.
When Sang Luo brought Chen Ning to Chen's house, Chen Ning greeted Old Lady Chen and quickly joined the little maids on the side to chat in a whisper. After a while, the two little girls ran out.
Sang Luo didn't care. When Old Lady Chen was preparing to move a chair for her, she directly pulled the old lady to the main room and told her the purpose of their visit.
Mrs. Chen was stunned for a long time without reacting, thinking there was something wrong with her ears.
"Help you sell the tofu?"
"Yes, whether it's you or my aunt who sells it, I'll give you half a cent for every piece you sell. How about that?"
Need I ask how this works? This is pie in the sky.
But Mrs. Chen didn't understand.
"It only takes five days to make one set. Can't you just sell it yourself? That way you don't have to share anything with others."
Sang Luo shook her head: "I'm not asking you for help to sell at the market. Let's go to the county town. Your family will send someone and I will go too. It's like having one more stall and selling separately."
Mrs. Chen understood instantly. She had tested the market over the past two days and thought it was doing well, so she wanted to expand the business.
This Sang family...
Mrs. Chen looked at her and said, "You have to pay an entrance fee to enter the city. If you expand your stall, will you be unable to sell your products?"
Sang Luo patted her chest and said, "It's mine. I'll pay for the entrance fee, too."
The cost of making the tofu was almost nothing for her, so she said this without any pressure. However, she thought of another thing and straightened her face and said, "Of course, if we want to set up a stall in the county, we have to find the head of the village to get a permit. This will cost five cents, but you have to pay for it yourself."
A guosuo is equivalent to a letter of introduction in the 1970s and 1980s. At that time, the population flow was strictly controlled. If you wanted to enter the city or pass the checkpoint, you had to have a public certificate that could prove your identity. People of different classes used different public certificates, and the one used by ordinary people was called a guosuo.
To enter the county seat, the pass must be signed by the village head, and then sent to the county lieutenant for verification and stamp before it is issued.
If you are going to another county or state, it will be more complicated, and you will need to report to the Household Affairs Office of the state government before you can get approval.
Five cents was not a small amount of money that the common people could waste casually, but fortunately, the validity period was three months. Mrs. Chen gritted her teeth and nodded.
She doesn't have the nerve to do that. No one will give you a job to make money, help pay the entrance fee to the city, and spend money to get you a license.
Having made up her mind, Mrs. Chen said, "Of course, we can find the head of the village to handle it after a while. Let's go there today, and it will probably be done tomorrow afternoon. Would you like to go to the head of the village with me later?"
Sang Luo was a little hesitant, not for any other reason, but because she had spent all the money she earned that day.
"Tomorrow."
Mrs. Chen looked at her and asked, "Are you short of money?"
Sang Luo nodded: "I bought some things with the money I earned today."
Since it was decided that they would sell things to Sang Luo, it was natural that they should do it sooner rather than later. The sooner they could make money, the sooner they could get their money back. Mrs. Chen was also generous: "I will advance the money to you, and you can give me the money later when you have more money. Otherwise, we will have to delay it for another day."
She mentioned it like that, and it wasn't something she couldn't pay back. After a day's work, Sang Luo didn't hesitate: "Okay, then I'll go home and get the books and come to see you later."
Mrs. Chen nodded and asked, "Besides providing people, what else do you need? If you need buckets and basins, I can take them out first. Can you see if you are missing anything? If we have some at home, we can lend them to you first."
In fact, this is no longer just a simple loan to Sang Luo. The two families are combining their interests. The more Sang Luo can make the magic tofu, the more they help sell it and the more money they can earn.
After all, if she went to help set up a stall, she would be paid by the piece, and if she sold two more pieces, she could get an extra penny.
Mrs. Chen has figured this out very clearly. This is no longer about helping Sang Luo, but about helping herself!
Thinking that Sang Luo could sell for more than 30 yuan in an hour at the Sanli Village market, Mrs. Chen's enthusiasm instantly increased.
The old lady's willingness to support these things was naturally a good thing for Sang Luo. She smiled and said, "Even if you didn't mention it, I would have come to borrow it. A pair of buckets. If you have a smaller basket, you can lend me two baskets and a shoulder pole. I have two pottery basins at home now. If I am alone, I can't carry two pottery basins with a basket. It should be better to carry them with a pole."
Seeing that she had a clear plan, Mrs. Chen nodded and said, "Okay, we have all these. I'll ask your aunt to go with you and help you deliver the things."
As she spoke, she called her daughter-in-law over, but was interrupted by Sang Luo: "No need, grandma, this is not heavy, I can carry it back by myself. Let's see which day we are going to the county town. When it's dark in the morning, your family will decide whether you or your aunt will go with me to the county town. Then bring a shoulder pole and come to my house to carry the things."
He stacked the buckets and small baskets together, picked up the things, said goodbye to Old Mrs. Chen and left.
Qin Fangniang came out of the west room in a daze and saw Sang carrying her own bucket and basket out. Her mother-in-law escorted her out of the yard. When the old lady came back, she asked curiously, "Mother, who did you call me just now?"
What she actually wanted to ask was what Sang Luo was doing here at this time.
It wasn't the first time she had borrowed something, but her mother-in-law had never been so enthusiastic as to kick her out of the hospital.
Mrs. Chen smiled so much that her face was about to bloom: "Good news."
As he spoke, he walked inside. After entering the main hall, he said to his daughter-in-law who was following him, "Aren't you envious of Sang's ability to set up a stall and make money? In a few days, I'll let you follow her to set up a stall."
Qin Fangniang: ?????
Mrs. Chen smiled and said, "Come here and let us help her set up a stall in the county to sell the tofu. She will give us half a cent for every piece she sells."
Qin Fangniang's eyes widened slightly: "Selling one piece for half a cent? Mother, is this true?"
Mrs. Chen glanced at her and said, "I am just kidding you because I have nothing better to do?"
Qin Fangniang smiled with her eyes curved, "My daughter-in-law didn't mean that. I just didn't expect such a good thing to happen to us."
Thinking about how Sang sold more than 30 pieces in less than an hour at the market the day before yesterday, it was obvious that this thing would sell well in the county. Even if she didn't have Sang's eloquence, it would take a little longer to sell 30 pieces. She could earn more than ten cents a day.
Not to mention more than ten cents, even if you only make ten cents it's a good deal.
Nowadays, there are not many other ways for women to make money at home except raising chickens and weaving cloth. There is a limit to how many chickens they can raise because livestock also need food to feed.
The job given by Sang Luo was like a pie dropped from the sky, landing squarely on their home, making Qin Fangniang's heart burn with anger.
Seeing her daughter-in-law's smiling face, Mrs. Chen said, "If she hadn't been weak, she wouldn't have asked us for help. Go with her in a few days. You should be more sensible and carry the heavy things yourself. When we get to the county, you should sell as much as she gives you. Don't think that you have to sell what you carry. When she comes back and buys something, you should help her carry some."
Qin Fangniang: "Mother, I know this."
The old lady didn't say any more to her daughter-in-law after this. She turned around and went back to the house to unlock the door and get her daughter-in-law's household registration book out so that she could wait for Sang Luo to come and go to the village head to handle the matter together.
Just as Mrs. Chen took out the book, she heard a deafening wail outside.
She took a few quick steps out, and the little maid ran in. When she saw her grandmother, her eyes lit up, and she called for milk and ran towards Mrs. Chen.
"Slow down, why are you running so fast?"
Mrs. Chen said something hurriedly, but before she finished her words, the little maid had already come up to her and pulled her sleeve, asking her to bend down.
Mrs. Chen bent down subconsciously and was about to ask what was going on outside when she smelled a crispy fragrance and something was stuffed into her mouth by the maid.
There's no need to smash it, Mrs. Chen knows it's oil residue. This good stuff has already entered her mouth and is covered with saliva. She can't spit it out for the time being, but she can't bear to eat it either. She is so conflicted.
"Where did it come from?"
"Sister Aning gave it to me. My second brother asked me to bring it back for Grandma and Mom to try."
"Why don't you eat it yourself? Have you thanked your sister Aning?"
"Thank you. Sister Aning gave me four pieces. My second brother didn't eat any, so I saved one piece." As the little girl spoke, she turned around and ran to Qin Fang's mother, pulled her mother to bend down, and was about to stuff the oil residue into her mother's mouth.
Qin Fangniang quickly turned her head away and blocked it with her hand: "Mother doesn't want to eat it, you and your second brother can eat it by yourselves."
As the mother and daughter were pushing and shoving each other, the people next door started howling: "Chen Ning is eating lard residue, how can we not have it? Mother, when will we make lard?"
The hoarse voice could not be blocked by the two courtyard walls. This time, Mrs. Chen heard it clearly: it was Shen Jin.
Mrs. Chen looked at her granddaughter in confusion and asked, "Did he see you eating lard residue?"
The little girl shrank her neck, and when her grandmother looked at her, she said honestly, "I took Aning to find my second brother, and we didn't know he was playing in the reeds. He tried to steal the bamboo tube that Aning used to store oil residue, but my second brother pulled him away."
He added: "I didn't touch him, I just moved him away and didn't let him bully Sister Aning."
Lift it up with both hands.
Mrs. Chen could already imagine the scene.
Fortunately, Shen Jin was only thinking about eating, and he wasn't the type to make a fuss if he was touched, otherwise he would have to find another place to roll around.
Shen Jin was indeed only thinking about eating. He watched Shen Ning and Chen Er and Xiao Ya from the Chen family next door eating lard residue together, each holding a piece. If they stood a little closer, the smell would almost make him die.
He didn't take Chen Er's suggestion to heart at all, and just kept asking his mother to buy some meat and make some oil residue.
Shen Yin and Chen Tie, who were not even as tall as an adult's thigh and were following behind him, were also slurping and making a fuss.
"Are you sure that the oil residue belongs to Shen Ning? Not the Chen family?"
Li didn't quite believe it.
Shen Jin: "I heard it clearly, it was Shen Ning's!"
Six-year-old Shen Yin and five-year-old Shen Tie also echoed.
A look of doubt flashed across Li's eyes. After thinking about it carefully, she realized that she had indeed not smelled any smell of lard being boiled next door in the past two days.
She frowned and looked at Shen San: “Where do they get the money to buy pork?”
On the day when Shen Sanda was beaten, Sang Luo confronted him in front of all the neighbors, and his secret was exposed by Mrs. Chen next door. He has been feeling shameful these days and becomes annoyed when he hears about what is happening in the eldest house.
"You ask me, who should I ask? Who knows how she got the food? We don't have enough food to eat, let alone pork."
Li murmured, "You know what, I've been tough these past few days. The two little guys haven't come to ask for a bite of food."
Seeing that his parents were only busy talking about irrelevant things and didn't mention when they would go to cut pork, Shen Jin started crying again: "Mom, I want to eat meat, I want to eat fat residue!"
Mrs. Li was so annoyed that she turned around and shouted, "Alright, stop arguing. It's just lard residue. We can make oil from it later."
"When will we turn back? Anyway, we have to endure it, so you will endure it tomorrow."
Li was annoyed: "Who can boil lard just like that? In this hot weather, do you think it won't go bad?"
Then there was another round of ghost howlings over there, with the big ones bringing down the small ones, to the extent that the roof could be blown off.
Mrs. Chen: ...
Well, this is just the beginning. If I can even cry over a piece of lard, what will I do in the future?
Mrs. Chen chewed the oil residue in her mouth. Wow, it smells so good.
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