Chang Jinhua roughly understood what her son meant, so she gradually began to take Meng Wan out, either to pick wild vegetables at the foot of the mountain or to wash clothes by the stream.
When she met the villagers, she only said that he was from her sister-in-law’s maternal family and that his parents had passed away, so he came to seek refuge with her. Chang Jinhua had given Song Laoliu Fulang[1]6th brother’s wife jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2778093_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2778093_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); two pieces of candy as a token of her respect. She and Song Laoliu Fulang were both honest people and had never said anything gossipy since they returned from town. After accepting the candy from Chang Jinhua, they were even more protective of her family when people gossiped in the village.
In short, regardless of whether others believe it or not, the story has been spread, and no one has the guts or the time to check his household registration with the government.
”Dalang will be back from town by noon tomorrow. I’ll lock the door in a bit, and you and I will go to the market to buy two pounds of pork.”
Chang Jinhua picked up the copper lock and beckoned Meng Wan to go out with him.
Meng Wan happily picked up a bamboo basket. This was his first time stepping out of the small mountain village. The market was spontaneously organized by several nearby villages and was held once a month on the 7th, 17th, and 27th. There were three markets a month, and today was August 27th.
He walked along the road with Chang Jinhua. After the start of autumn, the weather began to cool down. It was still early, and those who weren’t going to the market were just getting up to cook. Wisps of smoke rose from the chimneys in the village. The further out of the village they went, the more people they saw carrying baskets and hurrying along.
Meng Wan’s face was too eye-catching, and since there was no man with her and her Ge’er, Chang Jinhua found a cloth for him to wrap around his face, covering the lower half of his face.
”Sister-in-law, wait for me.” Just as I stepped out of the village, a voice called out from behind.
Chang Jinhua turned her head and saw that it really was Song Laoliu’s wife.
”With all this stuff, what are you going to buy?”
The sixth brother’s wife was carrying two baskets, one in each hand. One basket contained eggs, which she was going to sell at the market. The other basket contained two small jars, which looked like she was going to buy some sesame oil or something similar.
She couldn’t stop smiling. “My son’s marriage is settled. That’s why I went to the market to buy some things. It’s cheaper than in town.”
“Of course, it can save a lot of money,” Chang Jinhua agreed, glancing at Meng Wan who was looking around.
”Why is your Wan-ge wearing a cloth?” Lao Liu’s wife followed her gaze and looked at Meng Wan.
“The market is full of hooligans and street thugs. He’s an unmarried young man, and Tingzhou isn’t here. It’s always better to be careful. Talk to your sixth aunt.” Her last sentence was teaching Meng Wan how to recognize people.
Chang Jinhua didn’t hide it from Lao Liu’s wife; she knew that she bought Meng Wan with the intention of making him Tingzhou’s wife.
”Sixth Aunt,” Meng Wan greeted her.
”Sigh, this child is really polite, unlike Tian Laoda’s granddaughter-in-law, who is like a mute and doesn’t say a word to anyone.”
”You mean his eldest grandson’s wife?”
”That’s right. He’s been married in for a few years now. Although it’s difficult for ge’er to have children, most of them can still have a son or daughter. But he hasn’t had any signs of pregnancy. He doesn’t like to talk to people, and his mother-in-law doesn’t take him out for walks. Now she’s taking care of the younger one.” The younger one that the sixth sister-in-law was referring to was the newly married granddaughter-in-law. She was sweet-talking and loved to talk. Aunt Tian liked this younger daughter-in-law very much, and therefore disliked her older daughter-in-law.
Meng Wan listened to the two women chatting about everyday matters. Even though Chang Jinhua had experienced life in town and knew the benefits of education, she had ultimately been trapped in the village for half her life. In their eyes, all they saw were these trivial things. Such was their perspective and environment.
Meng Wan wondered to himself, would he be like that in the future? Maybe even have two kids.
He shuddered. My God, I almost forgot he can have babies now!
”Are you cold?” Chang Jinhua glanced at him a couple of times while chatting.
”It’s not cold.” Meng Wan shook his head. He was still young and could withstand the cold. It was early autumn, so it wasn’t cold at all.
”I’ll buy two pieces of cloth at the market later; you should get a padded jacket made.”
Chang Jinhua pondered that Meng Wan had always been wearing clothes altered from Song Tingzhou’s, which were still acceptable for now, but they couldn’t be allowed to get colder. There wasn’t any extra cotton at home, so they had to buy some.
The sixth son’s wife understood immediately. This Sister-in-law Song was quite kind to the daughter-in-law she had bought, so she figured they would get married soon.
“When is your family’s happy occasion?”
”Next spring.” In April of the following year, Song Tingzhou will go to Guyang County to take the county examination. Regardless of the outcome, he should get married.
”When is Zhu Zi’s wedding date set?”
”Let’s hold the feast on the eighth day of the tenth month, after the grain harvest is finished. We’ll have some free time then. Come to Aunt Liu’s house for a drink then, Wan-ge’er!”
Chang Jinhua laughed and said, “Why would a little kid like him drink alcohol? Let him go to the kitchen and help serve the dishes.”
”Oh, that really helped me a lot. Sister-in-law, you should come early too, and help me out.”
”You don’t need to tell me, definitely.”
While listening to their casual conversation, Meng Wan estimated that it took him about 15 minutes, or about half an hour, to reach the outskirts of another village.
Looking into the distance, you can see houses of varying heights, some with smoke still billowing from their chimneys, and villagers walking towards the market.
They were standing just outside the village entrance, where large swathes of farmland had been trampled flat. Crowds thronged around various stalls, and trees stood all around. At the entrance was a stone tablet inscribed with: “Hongmiao Village Chronicle”.
Besides the large characters “Hongmiao Village,” there were two lines of smaller characters that Meng Wan could roughly understand. They meant that a hundred years ago, a scholar who had passed the imperial examinations came from this village and built a temple, so later generations renamed it Hongmiao Village.
Meng Wan looked around and saw that there seemed to be a building on a low hill not far away, but it was only the size of two rooms.
”Wan-ge’er, come over quickly.”
While he was looking at the stone tablet, Chang Jinhua had already walked a distance away.
”Aunt Song, this Hongmiao Village seems to be bigger than our village.”
”This village used to be similar to our village, but then a scholar who passed the imperial examination came out and a clan school was built, which led to a gradual increase in population.”
After Chang Jinhua finished speaking, she realized, “How did you know this place is called Hongmiao Village?”
Meng Wan pointed to the stone tablet at the village entrance, “It says on it.”
Chang Jinhua’s brow lines smoothed out, and she said nostalgically, “I was very good at reading. When Tingzhou’s father was alive, he taught me, but I didn’t recognize many characters, only two or three.”
”I don’t know many characters either.” Meng Wan thought to himself that he had only guessed because some of the characters looked similar to simplified characters. He was worried that Chang Jinhua would not be satisfied with this answer, but he didn’t want to lie to her that he really knew them.
To everyone’s surprise, Chang Jinhua said with satisfaction, “It’s already pretty good.”
Meng Wan breathed a sigh of relief.
The market in Hongmiao Village is set up in four short streets, with square stones piled up underneath and cloths laid on top. This is quite convenient, as you don’t need to move tables or put them directly on the ground.
The stalls sell cloth, meat, snacks, homegrown fruits and vegetables… It brings together vendors from all the nearby villages, and shop owners in town also have their employees bring some loose goods to sell.
Shuiquan Town comprises nearly forty villages of varying sizes. The Song family’s village, Sanquan, and this village, Hongmiao, are both located in the eastern part of the town. More than ten nearby villages come to Hongmiao Village for the market. The crowd is large and bustling, with even more people still on their way.
Chang Jinhua had a clear goal: to buy meat first, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to get any fatty cuts if she was late. Lao Liu’s wife, on the other hand, went to sell eggs first, and the two agreed to meet at the cloth stall later.
There were three meat stalls, all located close together, so people looking to buy meat would head straight there. Chang Jinhua carefully selected the pork belly.
Meng Wan glanced around and saw that the meat stall and another food stall were the most crowded. This shows that no matter the era, the saying “food is the first necessity of the people” applies; nothing can be lacking except food.
Chang Jinhua haggled with the butcher for a long time, getting a discount of one coin to the pork belly that was sixteen coins a pound. She bought two pounds for a total of thirty coins. Lean meat was even cheaper, twelve coins a pound, and spare ribs were nine coins a pound. Fewest people bought those because the bones were too heavy and taking too long to stew was a waste of firewood.
After buying the meat, Meng Wan followed Chang Jinhua to the cloth stalls on another street to look at cloth. There were more cloth stalls than meat stalls, four in total. Some women even wove their own cloth, displaying it on the ground in small baskets. This cloth was cheaper than what the vendors sold, but the downside was that it had no color, just plain cloth. People who were holding funerals or were truly destitute and had no clothes to wear would buy this kind of cloth.
The cloth stalls were sparsely populated, unlike the meat stalls which were packed with people. Chang Jinhua didn’t look at the plain cloths laid out on the ground, but instead started examining the coarse cloths and cotton cloths.
”How much is this indigo blue one?” Chang Jinhua walked around several stalls, mostly selling coarse cloth, with only a few pieces of fine cotton cloth in bright red.
Coarse cloth is also woven from cotton silk, but it is thicker and more durable, and it is cheaper than fine cotton cloth. Therefore, most farmers buy coarse cloth to make clothes.
The vendor smiled ingratiatingly, “This piece is woven more tightly than the others, so it’s ten coins more expensive, one hundred and sixty coins.”
Chang Jinhua almost laughed in anger, “Other stalls charge 150 coins for coarse cloth, but you charge 10 coins more. I was going to buy some cotton, but now I think I’ll pass.”
Don’t be fooled by the fact that a bolt of cloth costs 150 coins; one bolt can make two sets of clothes. Cotton costs 80 coins per jin, and a cotton coat requires at least three jin of cotton to get through the winter.
Meng Wan pulled her aside, “Aunt Song, I saw the same thing on that fabric stall over there, let’s go take a look.”
”No, no, no, sister-in-law, don’t worry!”
”Feel this fabric, it’s really dense… Hey, okay, okay, it’s only 150 coins, take it.” The vendor hurriedly called out to Chang Jinhua and Meng Wan, afraid that they would go to other fabric stalls.
Chang Jinhua stopped in her tracks. “I still need to buy some cotton. Can you give me a discount?”
To save a penny or two, the two haggled for a while, and finally Chang Jinhua bought the indigo cloth for 150 coins. The cloth was indeed denser than what was sold at other cloth stalls. She also bought five catties of cotton at eighty coins per catty, spending a total of 550 coins at the stall, which was about half a tael of silver.
That vendor was very shrewd; she said her goods were so good she wouldn’t budge on the price, but she gave Chang Jinhua a few colorful scraps of cloth as a bonus.
”Hasn’t Lao Liu’s wife sold all her eggs yet?” Chang Jinhua muttered to herself. She had spent a lot of time buying meat and cloth, and Lao Liu’s wife should have arrived by now.
”Why don’t we go take a look, Aunt Song?” Meng Wan suggested, as he hadn’t had enough of shopping yet.
Chang Jinhua told him to hold her arm, saying that there were too many people around and he might get kidnapped.
The two walked toward the egg and poultry stall, but before they got there, they heard an argument.
”Isn’t that Aunt Liu’s voice? Is she arguing with someone?” Meng Wan asked in surprise.
Chang Jinhua frowned. “Let’s take a look from a distance and see if it’s her.”
She didn’t want to get involved, but Song Laoliu and her family were from the same village and clan, and as his sister-in-law, she couldn’t just abandon her.
Meng Wan is taller than Chang Jinhua, so this time he will lead the way so he can see further.
Meng Wan squeezed into the crowd of onlookers and actually made it to the front. He glanced around and saw that the person making the commotion in front of the stall was indeed Aunt Song Liu.
The stall was a tofu stall, and the tofu was sold by a middle-aged couple in their forties or fifties, or maybe even younger. After all, the villagers worked hard day and night and didn’t have the time or money to take care of themselves, so some of them looked older than the average person. When he first met Chang Jinhua, he thought she was at least forty-five or forty-six, but he only recently learned that she was only thirty-nine.
Chang Jinhua was not as agile as Meng Wan and was anxiously waiting outside, unable to get in. “Wan Ge’er, is this your sixth aunt? Don’t go any further, or you might run into her.”
Meng Wan shouted back, “It’s Sixth Aunt. They didn’t actually fight, they’re just making a fuss.”
The people around burst into laughter. They were just making a fuss. The couple selling tofu were afraid that Aunt Song would overturn their tofu stall, and Aunt Song, being alone, was afraid of being taken advantage of and beaten if they got into a fight. The two sides argued for a long time without reaching a conclusion, and remained deadlocked for a long time.
Meng Wan didn’t dare to rush forward. He first listened to the general outline, and then asked the uncles and aunts watching the commotion beside him.
It turned out that Aunt Song Liu had come to buy tofu. There were many people at the tofu stall, and people kept coming to buy tofu. Some pickpocket sneaked up and stole a handful of copper coins from the money box on the side. He also knocked over a piece of tofu, which was then stepped on and crushed to pieces by Aunt Song Liu, who was standing right in front of the stall.
The couple who ran the tofu stall didn’t see the pickpocket, but they lost money and a piece of tofu. So they kept accusing Aunt Song of stealing the money. Of course, Aunt Song refused to admit it, and that’s when the two sides started arguing.
”At least half of my money box is missing. You’d better return the money right now.”
”She’s at the age where she should be a mother and grandmother, yet she’s doing this kind of thing. She’s utterly shameless!”
The couple were eloquent, each spewing insults one after another, giving Aunt Song no chance to retort.
Only Aunt Song, with her loud voice, could occasionally manage to squeeze out a few words, such as, “You’re talking nonsense!” “I didn’t!” “It wasn’t me!”
Seeing that there was still a plate of tofu untouched and only half of the plate on top had been sold, the woman at the tofu stall finally couldn’t hold back any longer. She rushed over and started tearing at Aunt Song, while also reaching into the cloth bag in Aunt Song’s arms where she kept her money.
”You woman, return my family’s hard-earned money right now!”
Aunt Song struggled fiercely, pulling and cursing as she went: “You thieving woman! The money in your purse was clearly stolen from my money box. Everyone, come and judge for yourselves. My husband and I work hard to earn money, and this heartless thief just grabs a handful and even tramples on a piece of tofu in my house.”
Surrounded by neighbors, the ancients were simple and honest. Even though he had originally intended to mediate, he hesitated after hearing her words.
”It doesn’t look like it at all. How could someone do such a thing?”
”That couple works hard early in the morning, it’s not easy for them, stealing money is quick.”
”If my wife dared to embarrass me like that in public, I’d hang her up and beat her.”
”If your wife yells at you, would you bury your head in your pants and then hang yourself up and whip her?”
Some people criticized him, but many more laughed.
Seeing that she couldn’t succeed in the short term, the man at the tofu stall also pounced on her.
It’s a bit unreasonable for a couple to tear apart someone else’s life.
”Stop hitting them! Do you still want your money back?”
References[+]