This morning, I actually sold nine thousand seven hundred and eighty.
Jiang Tang handed over the two portions of seafood she had prepared earlier: "Brother Li, Brother Zhou, these are kept for you."
Each portion contained three jin of razor clams, two jin of Black Tiger Prawns, and twenty Large Oysters. She had also secretly tucked five hundred into each portion; if it weren't for the two of them helping, she would never have been able to handle it all.
"Xiao Tang, I will take this seafood, but you must accept the money." Li Hongyu put six hundred into her basket and walked away with the seafood, afraid that she would chase after him.
Zhou Chong'an was the same, putting the money into her basket: "Xiao Tang, if you don't take my money, you are not allowed to set up your stall here in the future."
He said it seriously, but the corner of his mouth was curled up.
Neither of them knew that Jiang Tang had tucked five hundred into the seafood bags, yet they both insisted that she take the money for the seafood.
"Brother Zhou, I have taken up your entrance and didn't even pay you rent, and now I'm taking your money—what kind of behavior is that?" Jiang Tang's eyes grew hot, as if something was about to spill out. She held it back, but in the end, her eyes still turned red.
In her previous life, she didn't meet any good people; she was bullied by classmates at school and ostracized by colleagues at work, so she worked very, very hard to be the best version of herself.
In this life, apart from Uncle's family, everyone she met was a good person.
"Why are you crying? Don't cry, don't cry. Brother Zhou will let you set up your stall here from now on. As long as I, Zhou Chong'an, am here, you will have a stall." Zhou Chong'an panicked, thinking his words from just now had frightened her.
"Brother Zhou, thank you both. If I hadn't met you and Brother Li, I'm afraid I wouldn't have found a place to set up my stall, but I cannot accept this money." Jiang Tang wiped her eyes and took the money out of the basket to return to him, even handing over the six hundred from Li Hongyu, "Please help me pass this money to Brother Li."
"Alright, I will try to pass it on, but if he doesn't accept it, I will have to return it to you. His temperament is as stubborn as yours." Zhou Chong'an helplessly took the money.
Jiang Tang packed up her things, leaving only one basket to carry, and stored the remaining wooden buckets, sacks, and extra baskets in her Space.
When passing by the steamed bun stall, she bought one hundred Meat Buns in one go.
She held two in her hand to eat while they were hot and divided the rest into three bags.
One bag was for herself, and the other two were for Song Jiuxi and Su Lianxue.
She then turned into the rice shop from yesterday and bought two twenty-jin bags of rice, also to bring to them.
After putting everything into her Space, she carried the seafood for the pork shop boss and walked toward the meat stall.
When she arrived at the pork shop, Boss Zhao was busy cutting meat for a customer.
Several customers were standing in front of the stall, and the business looked even more prosperous than yesterday.
Two more pieces of Pork Lard were hanging on the stall, white and shiny, looking thick and fleshy.
Jiang Tang did not go up to disturb him and stood quietly to the side to wait.
When the boss finished with the last customer, he looked up and saw her, greeting her with a smile: "Young girl, you're here?"
Although he had only seen her once, her patched clothes were too eye-catching, and the boss remembered her at a glance.
Jiang Tang walked up and handed over the seafood in her hand: "I saw you were busy, so I waited on the side for a while. This is what I gathered during Sea Gathering this morning; please take it and have a taste."
"Oh my, how could I be so embarrassed." The boss quickly waved his hands, "The things I give you are just scraps that others don't want, and yet you specially brought seafood..."
"Uncle, please just take it. This seafood is not a Rare item at the seaside; it's very common." Jiang Tang insisted on stuffing the bag into his hands.
The boss no longer declined and said heartily: "Then I will not be modest! My name is Zhao Fugui; you can just call me Uncle Zhao from now on."
"Alright, Uncle Zhao. My name is Jiang Tang." Jiang Tang also introduced herself.
"Then I'll call you Xiao Tang." Zhao Fugui smiled and agreed, turning around to get a bag to pack the meat, "Wait a moment, I'll pack it for you right now. By the way, you came early today. If you had come later, there would be more scraps."
"If you are not in a hurry to leave, why not come back and get it later? There are no customers right now, so I can trim off some more."
"I'm not in a hurry to leave; coming back later is fine." Jiang Tang nodded, her gaze falling on the two pieces of lard, "However, Uncle Zhao, please keep these two pieces of Pork Lard for me, and help me cut a piece of Pork Belly as well."
With money in her pocket, she wanted to eat something good. At the thought of the oily and shiny, tempting color of braised pork belly, she couldn't help but swallow her saliva.
Zhao Fugui was stunned and teased: "Xiao Tang, didn't you just buy two pieces of lard yesterday? Why do you want more today? This stuff won't be fresh if stored for too long. It's not too late to buy more after you finish it; I'll keep some for you then."
He thought Jiang Tang was buying it whenever she saw it because she wanted to hoard it to render oil.
"Uncle, you misunderstood." Jiang Tang quickly explained, "This is for people in the village. Our village is in the mountains, and it's not easy to come out, so I'm helping them bring some back."
"Oh, so that's how it is." Zhao Fugui suddenly realized and smiled somewhat embarrassedly, "It was Uncle who thought wrong. Alright, I'll keep this lard and pork belly for you. You go look around first and come back to get it later."
The Pork Lard was still five per jin, so ten jin was exactly fifty; that large piece of Pork Belly was a full ten jin, and at eleven per jin, it totaled one hundred and ten.
According to Jiang Tang's request, the pork belly was divided into three portions and packed.
After paying, she left the meat temporarily at Zhao Fugui's shop and headed to the agricultural wholesale market with her empty basket.
She was still thinking about whether she could find some vegetables. She was used to being frugal in her previous life, so even though she had money now, she wanted to save every penny she could.
Since she came early today, there were more discarded vegetables in the market than yesterday.
As soon as she entered, she saw that the trash cans at the first two stalls were full to the brim.
Jiang Tang headed straight to the nearest stall and saw quite a lot of potatoes, but the skins were a bit wilted and didn't look fresh.
She didn't mind at all and, using the basket as cover, quietly took a large sack out of her Space.
There were too many potatoes here, and one basket couldn't hold them all. As Jiang Tang picked them up, she secretly stored some into her Space.
These were all grain that could fill stomachs; bringing them back to the village could help quite a lot of people.
She thought of the situation in Ao Hai Village; it wasn't just her Father and Grandfather who had gone missing at sea.
There were many other elderly women in the village whose husbands or sons had not been able to return from the sea, and they had all become Widowed.
Usually, they relied on the villagers helping them with a mouthful here and a mouthful there to survive. Some couldn't hold on and passed away quietly.
Jiang Tang picked up a large sack full of potatoes, and her basket was also half-full, with another small pile in her Space.
The things thrown out by the next stall were all green onions and onions. These couldn't fill a stomach and could only be used as ingredients, so she picked a few good ones and didn't take much.
She carried the Hessian sack directly on her shoulder.
When she walked to the stall where she had picked up the Tender Pumpkin yesterday, the boss recognized her at a glance and greeted her with a smile: "Young girl, here to pick up vegetables again? Do you want cucumbers and eggplants?"
It was an unexpected surprise, and Jiang Tang nodded busily: "Yes, please! Thank you, boss!"
The boss seemed to know she was coming; he dragged a white foam box from under the stall table, which was filled with a box of cucumbers with broken skins and some wilted eggplants: "These couldn't be sold, and I was planning to throw them away, but I thought you might come, so I kept them."
"Thank you so much!" Jiang Tang thanked him sincerely and nimbly packed the cucumbers and eggplants into her basket.
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