The next day, the snow stopped, but there was still some snow on the ground, which was wet.
The Chinese New Year is just a few days away, and Li Yuemei is in a hurry to buy New Year's goods. This year she wants to buy half a pig's leg so that she can put a pig's head on the table when offering sacrifices to her ancestors during the New Year to look more elegant.
"Son, come with me to buy New Year's goods. It will be more convenient if we go by donkey cart." Li Yuemei found Zhao Shiyun who was making tofu skin and instructed him.
They had just finished lunch and were back from a walk around town, perfect time to make dinner. Zhao Shiyun put down his chopsticks, tidied himself up, wrapped himself in an indigo cotton jacket, and followed his mother out.
The snow on the road hadn't melted, leaving two tracks where the wheels had run over it. Li Yuemei looked at the bare branches by the roadside and suddenly muttered, "Your father's finished his wine. Remember to go get some more later..." Before she finished her words, Zhao Shiyun interrupted, "I know. We'll go to the butcher's shop to buy some meat, then the pastry shop for some cakes, and also buy a few pounds of brown sugar and three bolts of flowered cloth to make new coats for the family."
Li Yuemei smiled when she heard this. This child remembered it better than she did.
The memorial archway at the town entrance gradually became clearer, and red lanterns had already been hung on the streetside shops. An old man selling candied haws rang his bell, and the hawthorns, coated in amber sugar, shone in the sunlight. A clerk in the cloth shop stood on tiptoe to paste red paper with the words "Year-End Sale" on the door lintel, the ink curling at the edges before it even dried in the cold wind. Li Yuemei, with her sharp eyes, noticed this and thought to herself that she would visit the cloth shop after buying some meat. Zhao Shiyun tied up the donkey cart, and the two of them, each carrying a backpack, began to stroll around.
After ordering half a pig's leg with the pig's head from the butcher and paying the money, and agreeing to pick it up on her way back in a donkey cart, Li Yuemei excitedly pulled Zhao Shiyun to the cloth shop.
"Hey, what kind of fabrics do you have in this big sale?" Li Yuemei looked at several types of fabrics and asked a clerk.
"Auntie, the fabrics on sale are here. Take a look. There are only a few pieces left."
They were all cotton fabrics in unusual colors, like dark purple, dark green, and dark yellow. These were difficult colors to make clothes out of, and wearing them outside would be a joke. Li Yuemei took a few glances and gave up, choosing other materials. Finally, she chose brown cotton fabric for Zhao Qiming and Zhao Shiyun. She chose a dark red one for herself, as she was too old to wear such a light color.
"Mom, buy this light green one, it looks good." Zhao Shiyun saw the light green cloth at a glance and imagined how it would look on Lin Yan, which should be particularly suitable.
Li Yuemei also liked it, so she made a cloak for Yan'er, wrapping the edges with rabbit fur to keep him warm. She also bought a moon-white one for Yu'er.
Having made some money this year, Li Yuemei wasted no time in buying New Year's goods. She bought four pieces of cloth at once, which made the shop assistants smile from ear to ear and gave them a lot of scraps of cloth and silk threads.
Next, I'll go to the grocery store and buy all the spices I need at home. I can also buy some sunflower seeds, walnuts, etc. I didn't make bacon this year and I'm not in the mood, so I might as well buy a few.
Li Yuemei's backpack was filled with cloth, while Zhao Shiyun's was used to carry odds and ends. It was gradually filled with melon seeds, walnuts, and a few strings of greasy bacon.
"Oh, remember to buy couplets, window decorations, and firecrackers later." Li Yuemei felt sympathetic. She would never forget that she forgot to buy firecrackers last year. Zhao Shiyun seemed to remember that incident as well, smirking.
They wandered around and bought things, and before they knew it, they had been shopping for over an hour. Seeing that they had bought almost everything, they decided to go to the wine shop to get some more wine, and then go to pick up the pork.
By the time the sun was setting, the donkey cart was completely filled. Li Yuemei even pulled a piece of oilcloth over it, to protect it from the rain and to block the villagers' sight.
The family bought land and built a wall. The villagers started to inquire about what business their family was doing to make so much money. Many people in the village knew that the Zhao family had opened a shop in the town, but they had no idea how the business was going. They thought it was a small shop that didn't make much money.
Besides the shop, he also made a lot of money from bean curd sheets. Before he could even launch bean curd skin, something happened at home. After that, the family lost interest and just made some for themselves. Lin Yan planned to start selling bean curd skin after the Chinese New Year; it couldn't be rushed.
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