Yan Xi heard this and could only say all right. They were used to being frugal at home, and if she forced her sister-in-law into a tavern she probably wouldn’t be able to swallow a thing. Better to do as her sister-in-law said and go and try the wontons first, next time she came she would certainly take them to a tavern for a taste.
Walking on, they came to Guixiang Zhai, and here Yan Xi would not be talked out of taking two boxes of pastries home. Seeing she couldn’t stop her, Feng Yue could only go in with her.
“Have a look, honored customers, what would you like? We also have snowflake crisps and flower cakes fresh out of the oven. Would you like a portion?”
The two of them had barely come in when the shop boy spoke up warmly, and afraid they didn’t know the kinds of pastry, he followed the two of them about explaining. Yan Xi looked at each in turn, and in the end took a box of mung bean cakes and one of lotus pastries. The flower cakes could be sold singly, so Yan Xi bought one for each person at home, choosing the rose and the purple sweet potato kinds. It came to 83 wen in all.
“Mind your step, customers!”
Feng Yue still hadn’t come to herself. That little bit of pastry cost 83 wen and wouldn’t even fill you up, spent on grain it would have fed them for several days. It really was a precious thing.
Seeing a bun shop, Yan Xi went up and bought twenty big meat buns, gave Feng Yue one and ate one herself, and put the rest in the back basket. The buns were two wen each and one was as big as half of Yan Xi’s head, with a solid meat filling, though the flavor was a bit flat, probably the seller grudged the seasoning.
The two of them wandered another quarter of an hour and bought a full set of the seasonings used at home: salt, vinegar, brown sugar, and a little ginger and Sichuan pepper. They also had a jar of sweet potato wine drawn for Yan Xi’s father, it wasn’t strong, and Yan Xi’s father could have a cup when he rested.
Sweet potato wine wasn’t expensive in the Tianqi dynasty. Basically every household grew sweet potatoes and potatoes. Potatoes were all right, but too many sweet potatoes gave you heartburn, and some households planted rather a lot of them and took what they couldn’t eat to the south market to sell, where there were people who bought it specially to brew wine.
Seeing it was getting late, the sister-in-law and sister planned to go and eat a bowl of wontons and buy some rice and flour, then go outside the town and wait for the ox cart. Generally Yan Cheng only waited till noon, and anyone who hadn’t arrived by then had to walk back on their own.
At the rice shop Yan Xi bought a dou of brown rice, twenty catties in all, and a dou of coarse flour, and five sheng each of mung beans and soybeans. More than that they couldn’t carry back.
Brown rice was three wen a catty, so a dou was 60 wen. Coarse flour was four wen a catty, so a dou was 80 wen. The soybeans and mung beans came to 60 wen together. Yan Xi had meant to buy a little white flour too, but on asking, the price was ten wen a catty, more than twice as much, for one catty of white flour you could buy two and a half catties of coarse flour.
There were a lot of mouths at home and one meal took five or six catties. Working it out, they were still poor.
Once everything was bought and they found nothing was lacking, the two of them hurried out of town together, and when they got there they found everyone else had arrived and only the two of them were missing.
Yan Cheng saw everyone had come and raised his whip to head back.
“What did you two buy? I see both back baskets are pretty full.” Zhang Zhaodi, who had gotten on the cart first, spoke, and as she spoke her hand reached toward Yan Xi’s back basket. One look and you could tell she meant to lift the cloth cover laid over the top.
Yan Xi’s eye was quick and her hand quicker, she caught Zhang Zhaodi’s hand. “What are you doing? Who said you could go through my basket? What business is it of yours what I bought?”
Zhang Zhaodi heard this and pursed her lips. “We’re all from the same village, what’s wrong with having a look? Who knows where that money came from.”
At once everyone on the cart looked at Yan Xi with a strange expression, and there were some who liked a scene and didn’t mind making it worse.
“Just let her have a look. As it happens we’d like to know what you two bought as well. We all waited here this long before you came, so you must have bought something good.”