The woman quickly packed twenty bags of salt into a plastic bag and handed it to Lin Xiaoman, adding, “You’re from the film shoot at the park, right? Why are you still wearing your costumes out here?”
“We haven’t had time to change,” Lin Xiaoman said vaguely.
So those people earlier had been acting out a scene about refugees fleeing famine, she thought. This theater troupe must be incredibly wealthy—they threw away over three hundred steamed buns just for one performance.
She made a mental note to earn some more money and buy a set of clothes from this side later. Otherwise, it was inconvenient to have people ask about it every time they ran into someone.
Squeezing out of the crowd, the siblings ducked into a corner to examine the salt in the bag.
It was fine salt—whiter than even the best salt they’d ever had!
She weighed it in her hand. It wasn’t quite a full catty by their standards, but the money they’d just earned in such a short time could buy two hundred bags of salt like this. Things here were so cheap!
Lin Erhu summed it up: “Sis, I think one yuan here is about the same as one wen back home. But things are cheap here, and money’s easy to earn. From now on, whenever we’re free, we should come here to earn money and buy stuff.”
Lin Xiaoman agreed. “When we first came over, I saw quite a few people carrying baskets selling wild goods. Let’s go up the mountain later and see what we can find to sell. Too bad selling private salt is forbidden back home—you can get thrown in jail for it. But other things we can buy here and sell back home to make money.”
Lin Erhu grinned. “A few days ago when I was cutting firewood up the mountain, I spotted a patch of ginseng. Remember how Dad used to buy ginseng for Mom to make soup? A few taels of silver for just one root. I remember where it is. We can dig some up and try selling them here.”
“That works. Let’s buy a few catties of sugar and rice, then head back. We won’t have to worry about going hungry this winter.”
“I want to eat meat!”
“I’ll buy you some!”
With that, the siblings headed straight for Yijia Supermarket, the one with the cheapest salt. If their salt was so cheap, other things probably wouldn’t be expensive either!
The supermarket was packed. Every counter was crowded with people. The siblings squeezed their way toward the meat section.
They were surrounded by middle-aged aunties, older women, and elderly men. One shouted, “I want two catties of ribs!”
Another called out, “Weigh out three catties of pork belly for me!”
“I’ll take that piece of pork shoulder and that tenderloin.”
The siblings were astounded. These people were buying meat like it cost nothing!
When they finally pushed through the crowd, they saw a row of open-top coolers filled with neatly arranged strips of meat, cold air wafting out.
“Sis, so much meat!” Lin Erhu tugged at Lin Xiaoman’s hand. “Let’s buy some. Even just one strip is fine.”
Lin Xiaoman looked around. The meat here was leaner than what was sold in the county town back home, which she found disappointing.
Fatty meat tasted so much better. The big slabs of fat could be rendered into lard, which made cooking and noodle soups incredibly fragrant.
The crispy cracklings left after rendering lard were perfect for stews or as filling for buns. Sprinkled with a bit of salt and eaten plain, they were so delicious they’d knock you off your feet.
But back home, fatty meat was expensive and in high demand. Her father always had to go out at dawn to get any.
And the bones here—though they had more meat on them than what was sold in the county town—why were they more expensive than the meat itself?
How strange. When there was perfectly good meat to eat, why would people pay more for bones with so little meat on them? Did a donkey kick them in the head?
Lin Xiaoman gave the selection a critical once-over, then her eyes lit up. She pointed at a pile of pure fat in the corner and asked, “Auntie, how much is that?”
She had assumed fatty pork belly would be the most expensive, and that pure fat with no lean meat at all would cost even more. But to her surprise, the woman at the counter glanced at the pile and said, “That’s the trimmings left over after cutting the lean. Five ninety a catty. How much do you want?”
There was another phrase she’d never heard before!
Lin Xiaoman didn’t know what “five ninety” meant. She handed over her last twenty-yuan bill and asked cautiously, “How much can I get for twenty yuan?”
The woman took the money, picked out several pieces of fat from the cooler, and placed them on an electronic scale. “Nineteen fifty! The bag’s twenty cents, so that’s nineteen seventy total. Here’s your change—thirty cents. Keep your receipt.”
Now Lin Xiaoman understood: “five ninety” meant five yuan and ninety cents. Why did people here keep switching up how they said things?
But why was fat sold so cheaply here? Did people here not like fatty meat?
Taking the meat, the receipt, and three even smaller silver coins the woman handed over, the siblings couldn’t stop grinning.
Lin Erhu pulled the green bill from Lin Xiaoman’s hand and held it out. “Auntie, use this all to buy fat.”
The woman looked at Lin Erhu in surprise. “Fifty yuan worth of fat? Can your family finish all that? Won’t your parents get mad if you buy this much?”
Lin Xiaoman quickly explained with a smile, “Our elders told us to buy it to render into lard. Auntie, please just sell it to us.”
Lin Xiaoman guessed that “parents” in this context meant the elders of the household—though she wasn’t sure if they meant her actual parents or her grandparents.
The woman didn’t ask any more questions and quickly weighed out the meat. The siblings spent an extra thirty cents on a large plastic bag to carry the fat.
This plastic bag was thicker and sturdier than the one that had held the buns. Once they got home, they could clean it with plant ash and then wash it with water. They’d be able to reuse it for shopping later, so spending the extra money didn’t sting too much.
They went to the grain section and bought a bag of white sugar and rice worth ninety yuan. With the few silver coins they had left, they also bought a bag of round things that, they were told, were called potatoes.
They’d never eaten them before. They’d try them when they got home and see if they were good.
When they came out of Yijia Supermarket, there was a row of colorful little carts outside. Small children sat on them, swaying back and forth. A pleasant children’s song drifted out: “Your father’s father is called grandpa, your father’s mother is called grandma…”
The siblings stood there for a while, processing it: father meant dad, mother meant mom.
Back home, they shut the door and took out everything they’d bought, examining it again and again before carefully hiding each item away.
Lin Xiaoman sent Lin Erhu to scrub the wok, light the stove, and fetch some water from the well to heat up. Meanwhile, she sliced the fat into pieces.
Over twenty catties of fat—even if the scale had been a little short, the rendered lard would still last them well into next year.
While the lard was rendering, the siblings also washed a wooden board and laid it on the floor. They set aside a few buns to eat over the next few days and sliced the rest into thick pieces to dry on the board.
Fortunately, there were hardly any families left on the west side of the village. The few who hadn’t moved away lived far off, and any breeze would carry the scent of the rendering lard away before it reached them.
After the lard was rendered, they added a bit of salt and stored it in a clay jar. The jar couldn’t hold it all, so they filled a large bowl with the rest.
Using the oil left in the wok, they sliced up some potatoes and stewed them. When they ate, Lin Erhu was practically intoxicated by the flavor. “Sis, this is so good! From now on, will we eat this well every day? The only thing is, the skin doesn’t taste great. Next time we stew them, we should peel it off.”
“Yeah, we will!”
Lin Xiaoman’s eyes crinkled into crescents as she smiled. Their good days were just beginning.
After finishing the meal with their bellies round and full, the siblings lay on their bed, too content to move. Lin Erhu murmured, “These things called potatoes are really good. Next year, let’s plant some in our fields.”
“Alright. We just need to figure out how to grow them. We can ask someone over there. And we should see if there are any other things they have that we don’t—plant those too.”
Early the next morning, Lin Xiaoman pan-fried a few bun slices in lard. Using the oil left in the wok, she made a savory congee, sprinkling in some scallions and cracklings before serving. Each of them drank over half a basin of it along with the bun slices.
With their bellies full, they packed a few buns, each shouldered a large basket filled with several cloth bags, and headed out.