The more night fell, the livelier the pedestrian street became. The surrounding shops turned on their lights, and the street vendors each had their own ways of illuminating their stalls, hanging up sparkling string lights.
Chen Qiaoyu felt that even watching a movie couldn’t be this exciting.
Back when her mother was still alive, she had taken her to the county town to see a movie once. And that movie was even in black and white!
Chen Qiaoyu walked past a barbecue stall, a braised meat stall, a fried noodle and rice stall, a jelly dessert stall, a fruit mix stall… interspersed with stalls selling toys, clothes, and bags.
Although the fonts and names were different from what she was used to, after seeing enough of them, she could roughly understand the meaning.
Chen Qiaoyu stopped in front of a clothing stall.
Two racks of clothes hung from metal poles, with a large piece of cardboard at the front bearing the words “100% Cotton T-shirts – 3 for 100” written in thick black marker.
Even though she didn’t know what a “T-shirt” was, anyone with eyes could guess just by looking at the clothes hanging on the metal racks.
The stall owner was a young woman in her early twenties, wearing a particularly eye-catching waist-revealing short skirt.
Chen Qiaoyu sneaked a few glances at her, feeling a bit uneasy, and couldn’t help thinking to herself: Why is this top so short? And the skirt is short too… her entire waist is exposed… But still, it was kind of pretty.
Chen Qiaoyu looked down at her own clothes.
Everyone she had met today had, to some extent, shown surprise at her attire.
Because of her poverty, she stood out all the more.
Chen Qiaoyu instinctively touched her faded, frayed cuffs and thought about the patches scattered here and there on the few pieces of clothing she and Qing Yang owned…
“Excuse me, can this be any cheaper?” Chen Qiaoyu asked while feeling the fabric.
The young female stall owner didn’t even look up from her phone. “No can do. Three for a hundred is already cheap.”
Chen Qiaoyu hesitated back and forth, but ultimately felt it was still too expensive and had to give up.
Her first solo shopping attempt: a failure.
But Chen Qiaoyu quickly found a second stall—at the entrance of an unremarkable alley branching off the pedestrian street, where an elderly couple had set up a stall using two wooden planks.
Spread out on the stall were various socks, underwear, insoles, vests, and a small number of pajamas.
Everything on the pedestrian street felt new and strange to Chen Qiaoyu, but only the items on this stall gave her a sense of familiarity.
They looked so much like the things sold at the supply and marketing cooperative in their town—only a bit nicer!
Passersby who glanced at the elderly couple’s stall out of the corner of their eyes were somewhat curious.
The stall was technically at the entrance of a small alley, but in reality, the pedestrian street was so packed that no one would even look toward the side alleys.
The elderly couple’s stall was completely blocked by a barbecue stall and a pancake stall, leaving only small gaps to glimpse through.
And even if someone did catch a glimpse, they’d quickly look away—everything on the stall was in garish reds and greens, the kind of thing only their grandparents’ generation would like. Just one look was enough to hurt the eyes.
Yet, at that moment, anyone passing by could see a slender, graceful young figure bent over the stall, picking through the items.
Chen Qiaoyu already had three pairs of socks clutched in one hand, while her other hand continued to rummage and select.
She asked the elderly couple in disbelief, “Uncle, Auntie, are these socks really ten yuan for five pairs?”
The old man nodded, swatting mosquitoes on his leg with a palm-leaf fan. “Men’s socks and women’s socks, both ten yuan for five pairs.”
Chen Qiaoyu was so happy she could jump for joy—new nylon socks at their county town’s supply and marketing cooperative cost one yuan and twenty cents per pair, and here they were only two yuan!
If that was the case, the 150 yuan she had earned was worth so much!
She could buy over a hundred pairs of nylon socks!
Chen Qiaoyu hadn’t planned on taking any money back with her, so she picked freely—five pairs of men’s socks and five pairs of women’s socks. That would be enough for her and Qing Yang, with a couple of pairs left to give to her uncle’s family.
The elderly couple was also very happy.
The items on their stall were old-fashioned and tacky, and young people these days didn’t like them.
Some items had been sitting there for two or three years—can’t return them, can’t sell them.
Day after day, they could only watch as the goods got weathered by sun and wind, growing more worn-out by the day.
Although Chen Qiaoyu didn’t buy much, for the old couple, it was an unprecedented sale.
Because of this, the old man and woman were very warm-hearted. They pulled out a large plastic bag from under the horizontal wooden board and insisted on stuffing two more pairs of socks for Chen Qiaoyu.
“These socks are old samples. They’ve faded from being in the sun too long, and the elasticity isn’t great anymore, but they’re still wearable. Do you want them?” The elderly couple sounded a bit embarrassed.
Usually, when they offered these to neighbors, no one wanted them, so they kept them to wear themselves.
But the two of them, no matter how much they wore, could never get through such a large bag.
The old man and woman handed the socks to Chen Qiaoyu. She took them and was pleasantly surprised: “These are still new!”
The problems the couple mentioned didn’t seem like problems to Chen Qiaoyu at all. So what if the color was a bit lighter? People here might not like it, but back where she came from, whose clothes weren’t washed until faded and then patched up again?
As for the elasticity, that was even easier to explain.
Back in the 1970s, nylon socks were popular precisely because they had stretch, while ordinary cotton and fabric socks weren’t as comfortable to wear. That’s why people were willing to spend one yuan and twenty cents on a pair of socks.
Especially when it was trendy to wear sandals over socks—people practically wanted to shove their feet in nylon socks right under everyone’s noses.
The socks the old couple brought out had even better elasticity than any nylon socks Chen Qiaoyu had ever seen.
She was overjoyed and held the socks gratefully: “Uncle, Auntie, thank you so much.”
Seeing the genuine joy and gratitude on the young woman’s face, the elderly couple couldn’t help themselves and asked, “You really like these socks?”
“I love them. I really do.” Chen Qiaoyu hugged the socks and didn’t want to let go, even in the middle of summer.
The old woman and old man exchanged a glance, reached an unspoken agreement, and said, “Then take some more! They won’t sell anyway, and they’re useless to us just sitting here.”
Every year, they had to go through their belongings at home, clear out old, damaged socks, and throw them away. It pained the old folks to do so.
With that, they pulled out another big handful—about ten more pairs.
Chen Qiaoyu quickly said, “No, no, I can’t take any more. That wouldn’t be right.”
She insisted on paying, calculated how much money she had left, and took the initiative to say, “How about I buy them for fifty cents a pair?”
But the old man and woman firmly refused: “Child, we can tell you don’t have much either… If you were well-off, you wouldn’t be dressed like this. Take them. If they stay here with us, they’ll just rot, get moldy, and be thrown away. What a shame.”
The old couple meant well. They felt sorry for the socks, and they were also happy that they had finally made a sale today.
Even happier that Chen Qiaoyu was willing to chat with them.
“Our children are all married and have families of their own. They’re about to become grandparents themselves, so they don’t come back often. We old folks aren’t running this stall to make money—we just want to set it up and at least hear some voices, feel a bit of liveliness.”
Chen Qiaoyu nodded. No longer shy or hesitant, she happily accepted the socks.
Then she looked over the small selection of clothes nearby and decided to buy some more.