With the cloth bag on her back, Shi Yin found it inconvenient to linger on the street and headed straight back to the inn.
As soon as she stepped inside, the innkeeper came forward with a beaming smile:
“The guest is back? What would you like to eat today?”
Shi Yin said gently, “Trouble you to prepare three bowls of *helu* noodles for us.”
Both *helu* noodles and *wowo* noodles were cheap wheat-based flour dishes made from buckwheat.
This left the innkeeper somewhat disappointed, but he quickly resigned himself to it—well, what kind of household could afford such extravagance every single day as they had yesterday?
“Coming right up, please wait a moment, I’ll bring it right to your room.”
Just as the innkeeper finished speaking and turned to head back to the kitchen, Shi Yin quickly called out to him:
“Ah, wait a moment.”
“Does the guest have any other instructions?”
“Later, could you prepare a bucket of water and some hot water for us?”
Having traveled all the way here, Shi Yin had not yet had a chance to properly wash and freshen up, and by now she felt a bit sour all over.
In a while, when the weather turned cold, there would be even less opportunity to wash, so she might as well have a thorough bath today.
“Alright, just wait in your room.”
After eating in the evening, the innkeeper prepared the hot water for them.
The two children washed first. Ronger soaked comfortably in the water bucket for a good while; the warm water washed away the fatigue of the past few days.
Chengzhou still had wounds on his body, so Shi Yin carefully wiped him down, leaving him somewhat cleaner as well.
After playing around for a bit, the two children crawled under the covers and fell soundly asleep once they were completely dry.
The quilts provided by the inn were stuffed with ramie and rags, with oily black edges exuding a strange odor, though they were still better than straw.
Shi Yin spread her own sheepskin on top, insulated from the inn’s quilt; it was clean and soft, and they slept extremely comfortably.
Once the children were asleep, she added more hot water and soaked for a while herself. Her aching feet and tense back completely relaxed at that moment.
She used the locust pods to work up a sticky, soapy lather, scrubbing and washing her dirty and greasy hair as well.
However, her hair was simply too long, and where it had tangled, she could not comb it out no matter what, forming a clump against her back that pulled and annoyed her somewhat.
Just as Shi Yin was feeling irritated, her gaze caught the pair of scissors in her luggage, and a mischievous smile curved the corners of her mouth.
With a crisp and decisive “snip,” she neatly cut away the tangled hair.
The trimmed hair scattered across her back, falling just past her shoulder blades.
Looking at the messy hair floating on the surface of the water, she suddenly recalled her father’s exasperated expression from her youth: “The body, skin, and hair are received from one’s parents! You are simply daring and reckless!”
That was the look of anger on her father’s face the first time she cut her long hair.
“Pfft.”
Shi Yin could not help but laugh out loud.
Thinking back on it now, a father as rigid and conservative as that probably had nothing left in his heart but helpless exasperation when faced with her occasional deviations from the path.
Rising to dry her body, she used a fire starter to ignite the clump of cut, messy hair, burning it to ashes, and casually scattered them out the window.
A gust of wind blew by, dispersing them without a trace.
The next day still offered a day of leisure. The three of them snuggled together on the bed for half the morning, lingering until hunger gripped their stomachs before slowly getting up, by which time it was already close to noon.
Only then did Shi Yin remember her appointment with the blacksmith. Fearing she might miss the hour, she hurriedly washed up, pinned her hair into a simple bun wrapped with a headscarf, and hurried toward the blacksmith shop with the children.
Before even reaching the shop, she spotted the blacksmith standing in the street with a dark face, craning his neck and looking anxiously toward her direction.
The moment he caught sight of Shi Yin, visible relief washed over him.
“Apologies for coming a bit late, I am truly sorry.”
Shi Yin repeatedly apologized to the blacksmith.
Seeing that she had arrived, the blacksmith’s expression finally softened: “As long as you’ve made it.”
With that, he handed over the forged iron shovel and wood-cutting knife.
Shi Yin took them to inspect closely: the weight was solid, the iron back was thick, and the blade had already been sharpened, flashing with a chilling glare that showed at a glance they were crafted by an expert hand.
The blacksmith’s craftsmanship was indeed top-notch, but he looked truly fierce, so Shi Yin did not dare try to bargain with him; she paid the silver and left.
“Mother, yesterday you bargained so fiercely with the grain shop, why were you so straightforward today?”
As soon as they stepped outside, Chengzhou slung the wood-cutting knife onto his back and asked his mother with a puzzled expression.
Shi Yin had not expected Chengzhou to pick up on even such a minor detail, so she could not help patting his head and explaining:
“Lü, the proprietor of the grain shop, deals in reselling goods and profits from the price difference, where even if a trade falls through, the goodwill remains. But the blacksmith is different; he is a craftsman with a profound sense of pride in his own work. If you try to bargain, it shows a lack of appreciation for his craft. The two cannot be mentioned in the same breath.”
She paused, then added another sentence: “Besides, the blacksmith has a ferocious appearance, and I didn’t dare say too much nonsense. If we really got into an argument and he turned physical, the three of us women and children wouldn’t be his match.”
Chengzhou nodded with a look of half-understanding: “So it is just as the books say—tailoring the approach to the person?”
Shi Yin gave a vague, consenting hum, though in her heart she would never admit that what she had been doing was simply sizing up people to suit her treatment.
Afterward, the mother and children inquired around the market until they finally located a carpentry shop.
From there, she spent three taels of silver to purchase a two-wheeled cart.
Actually, a single-wheeled wheelbarrow was more nimble and only cost about one tael of silver.
However, Shi Yin had tried it before; a single-wheeled barrow was extremely difficult to balance, and pushing a hundred-jin load on one was even more exhausting than carrying it on her back.
Moreover, this two-wheeled cart had iron-rimmed wheels and handrails on both sides, making its load capacity and safety far superior to a single-wheeled barrow.
Steeling her heart, she bought it anyway, calculating in her mind that if she could acquire a draft animal to pull the cart in the future, it would save her even more effort.
“Alas, prices are rising far too quickly these days.”
Shi Yin calculated the little bit of silver she had left and felt a bit of regret for having left behind the pouch of silver her mother had given her.
“Had I known earlier, I should have held back more of Li Bi’s rations, and liquidated his books and writing brushes along with them. Who knows, by now I might have saved up a hundred taels of silver.”
Thinking of the confiscated classical texts and scrolls in Li Bi’s study, she only regretted that she had been overly cautious at the time.
“Ah—no use thinking about it anymore.” Shi Yin let out a mournful sigh, then turned a smiling face toward the two children:
“Chengzhou, come on, get in the cart. Mother will push you and Ronger.”
Shi Yin placed Ronger inside the cart, where she sat quite steadily holding onto the handles.
Chengzhou walked around the handcart twice before excitedly climbing in as well.
He tested the cart with his hands and found it was surprisingly much lighter than anticipated; the wheels rolled smoothly, and moving forward was quite steady.
Thus, Shi Yin pushed the children toward a livestock market on the outskirts of the city.
Presently she did not know the specific conditions on Heishan Island, but she figured that large livestock would not only be difficult to transport, but feeding them would likely pose no small challenge either. However, bringing just a single ewe should not be difficult.
Upon reaching the livestock trading area, foot traffic was sparse.
The moment Shi Yin stepped inside, peasants carrying their own chickens and ducks immediately swarmed around her: “Little lady, take a look! I’m selling these chickens cheap!”
“My ducks are quite a bargain, too!”
The poultry they were peddling were all elderly and molting.
As for fowl that could still lay eggs, no one could bear to part with them; selling off these older ones to exchange for a bit of grain was much more practical.
Shi Yin did not stop, calling out as she went:
“Make way, make way. Collisions aren’t my fault.”
She pushed the handcart straight toward the depths of the market.
The further inward she went, the larger the livestock became.
Cattle, donkeys, mules, and even camels were up for sale.
Yet there were many sellers and few buyers.
Frequently, clusters of merchants would anxiously surround a single buyer.
Shi Yin eyed the oxen and donkeys with covetous longing, but she truly did not dare make a move on them.
After wandering around for a few rounds, she finally located a long-haired little ewe.
At this time, sheep were mostly fat-tailed breeds, with their plump tails consisting entirely of grease.
Shi Yin wanted to bring a ewe onto the island not to slaughter it for meat, but for its wool.
The winters on Heishan Island were damp and bone-chillingly cold. Without cotton, she could only look to wool for a solution.
Unfortunately, there was no fine fleece like that of modern sheep; these were all coarse and stiff true hair, yet they were the absolute best material for making felt.
“Master, how much is this ewe?”
Shi Yin found the owner of the sheep and inquired about the price.
However, the old man merely kept his head held high, trying to wedge himself into a crowd of people nearby to reach a buyer who was surrounded by a tight ring of merchants, paying her not the slightest bit of attention.
“Hey, are you still doing business or not?”
Seeing that he ignored her, Shi Yin grew somewhat annoyed.
Chengzhou, standing beside her, quietly tugged at his mother’s sleeve and lowered his voice:
“Mother, when bargaining in the livestock market, you don’t speak plainly out in the open; you have to hide your hands inside your sleeves and gesture with your fingers.”