Zhou Jiuzhen opened the envelope.
Inside were the birth dates and times of Ling Huanwu and Zhao Ergou.
The document also contains a marriage certificate jointly written by the elders of the Ling and Zhao families.
Zhou Jiuzhen took a deep breath, his fingers gripping the yellowed letter paper tightly, his fingertips turning white.
"Huanwu is now my wife. She went ashore to do some shopping and probably won't be back for another month. I'll ask her what happened when she gets back, okay?"
"Isn't she on the island?"
Qin Jinshen felt a little disappointed. He had been nervous about seeing her again, but now that his expectations had been dashed and he had to wait another month, he couldn't help but feel sad.
Seeing that his goal of staying on the island had been achieved, he nodded honestly, "Okay, bro, then can you help me and my brothers arrange accommodations?"
Zhou Jiuzhen looked the disheveled man up and down again. He felt that the man looked silly and simple-minded, but his eyes looked strange and he felt that he had seen him somewhere before.
He was extremely annoyed and didn't want to say anything more, so he called Xiao Wang to arrange accommodations for Zhao Ergou and his companion.
All night long, Zhou Jiuzhen folded and refolded the few sets of clothes Ling Huanwu had left behind, washed and rewashed the dishes she had eaten from, and finally lay on her pillow, smelling the lingering fragrance on it until dawn.
*
The bustling street.
Ling Huanwu and Lin Xiaoqin split up to buy and sell again.
Every time she goes shopping, she feels like someone is following her.
Just in case, she again took several detours to shake off the little tail behind her.
These days, after taking Er Ya to her acupuncture session and returning to the guesthouse, she goes out to buy supplies.
She asked many vegetable farmers in the market and learned that the local produce was mostly loofah and water spinach.
Although planting in early September will slow down growth, the climate here is different from that in the north, so it is still possible to plant here.
The elderly people from the commune were very welcoming when they heard she came from the island. They taught her a lot of vegetable growing techniques and told her that it would be even better if she could grow vegetables on the island in September, because the summer typhoons would be almost over and the crops would not be damaged.
So, Ling Huanwu took notes of the elderly people's experiences in her notebook and spent twenty yuan to buy a lot of seeds and seedlings.
For vegetables, she bought loofah seeds, spinach seeds which are high in zinc, and some side dish seeds such as celery and green onions.
For fruits, she chose apples, which are relatively easy to grow and contain zinc.
For rice varieties, she chose the Pearl Dwarf variety, which was successfully bred last year and is resistant to lodging and fertilizer.
She bought a lot of organic fertilizer, chemical fertilizer, and bio-fertilizer.
Following the soil improvement methods he had learned in his previous life, he purchased a large quantity of fertilizers such as ammonium sulfate and superphosphate to improve the soil.
She had her shop employees deliver the goods to the warehouse she had rented in advance, and then she packed these large items into the warehouse one by one.
Commissar Hao said that the relevant experts would not be able to come to the island until next year. Ling Huanwu wanted to try out the feasibility of the method for improving soil alkalinity that the expert she had seen on TV in her previous life had mentioned.
After buying these, she also prepared several large baskets of vegetables that can be stored, such as pumpkin and cabbage, as well as some fruits that can be stored for a certain period of time, such as apples, pears, and citrus fruits.
In the wholesale market, the people in charge of the unified sales in the city from the rural communes all thought she was a state-employed person who came out to make purchases, and they were all overjoyed and gave her very favorable prices.
Later, she took a stack of meat coupons from her dowry and bought about 100 jin of cured meat at the food station.
Looking at the fresh pork in the factory, she felt a pang of regret, wishing the space could be kept fresh like a refrigerator.
Time flies.
Er Ya also completed a course of acupuncture treatment on her legs and feet, and now she is clearly able to stand up.
The doctor advised that with more massage and training, and by eating more nutritious food, it would be very likely that the patient could walk.
Ling Huanwu checked off all the items on her shopping list.
On their last day in this coastal town, Lin Xiaoqin took Ling Huanwu and the three children to enjoy the local cuisine.
At the state-run restaurant, she ate oyster pancakes, something she had never eaten in her previous life or this one.
Lin Xiaoqin broke the flatbread in half, sandwiched the oyster pancake inside, and took a bite, making a satisfying crunch.
Ling Huanwu bit into the crispy crust of the oyster pancake, revealing a filling of cabbage and seaweed, infused with the fresh flavors of dried shrimp and oysters. The aroma lingered on her lips and teeth, whetting her appetite and making her want to eat one bite after another.
There were also seaweed cakes, which looked just like flatbreads, filled with seaweed and meat. Ling Huanwu ate three in one go, and choked so much that she quickly drank a whole bowl of peanut soup.
Thinking that her mother-in-law and Zhou Jiuzhen probably hadn't tried these local snacks before, she used some food coupons to pack about ten oyster cakes and seaweed cakes and carefully put them away one by one.
When passing by the clothing cooperative, Ling Huanwu saw the children gazing at the colorful and beautiful clothes in the shop window, so she used her remaining fabric coupons to buy several more sets of clothes for the children and also picked out a few sets to give to Lin Xiaoqin.
Lin Xiaoqin refused to accept it, so she secretly bought it to give to her when she got back.
Ling Huanwu picked out several more outfits for her mother-in-law, but she ran into trouble when it came to choosing clothes for Zhou Jiuzhen.
Zhou Jiuzhen is tall and big, and there are very few ready-made clothes that fit his size.
Especially the bitter tea cakes he wore, which seemed to have been made by his mother-in-law, were enormous.
No one knows how many years he wore it; the bitter tea leaves were covered in patches.
Ling Huanwu had no choice but to pay more money to have the tailors alter the sizes, and it took her some time to finally get those few well-fitting large clothes and large bottles of bitter tea.
She carefully folded and put away her clothes and pants, thinking that this man was usually as taciturn as a gourd with no expression, and only when he was in bed would his eyes turn red and he would pant softly. That restrained and controlled expression was still unforgettable to think about.
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