The village market was already bustling with people by a little past six in the morning. They had delayed their journey, so when they finally stood at the entrance of the market, it was already eight o’clock.
At this hour, the crowd was at its peak. Passersby turned their necks to stare at their gear, finding it quite a novelty since very few people still pushed flatbed carts and drove oxen to the market nowadays.
When they originally arrived, they had talked about grabbing a good spot so that they could sell their pomegranates quickly and at a higher price, earning around two hundred yuan to bring back a bag of rice while leaving plenty left over to improve their diet later on.
However, plans had now changed. The prime spots in the market were all occupied, forcing them to squeeze into obscure, out-of-the-way corners and even then, finding a spot wasn’t guaranteed.
The old man called out to them from the front just as the two of them hopped off the flatbed cart.
“It’s too crowded ahead…” Chu Minghe stopped midway, his expression turning difficult as he paused and glanced at Zhao Xingjian.
His legs had gone numb. For the latter half of the journey, Zhao Xingjian had kept him enclosed within his arms, and not daring to move around too much while sitting cross-legged the entire way had cut off circulation to both of his feet.
Zhao Xingjian hesitated beside him, eventually reaching out as if to offer support. However, Chu Minghe didn’t notice, enduring the pinprick-like numbness as he turned around to grab his basket of pomegranates.
“It’s too crowded ahead, and it’s not very convenient for the cart and ox to go in,” he said, dragging the basket over to himself. “Old man, let’s find a shady spot around here to wait for a bit.”
The old man looked ahead, saw that it truly was impassable, and shouted his agreement.
Chu Minghe wanted to lower the basket to the ground, but before he could move, Zhao Xingjian dragged the basket over to his own side.
Pausing, Chu Minghe saw Zhao Xingjian preparing to hoist it onto his shoulder and quickly called a halt, pulling out the bag of potatoes and the water bottles from inside to lighten the load for him.
Once he finished clearing them out, Zhao Xingjian applied a bit of strength and heaved the basket onto his shoulder.
The old man turned his ox around and headed off. The two of them stood there together, still drawing plenty of curious gazes, so they stepped closer to the side of the road.
They hadn’t worn their recording devices on the way here, but now that they had arrived at their destination, official filming was about to begin. Chu Minghe took out a microphone and helped clip it onto the collar of Zhao Xingjian’s shirt, then looked up at him. “Shall I turn it on?”
Zhao Xingjian looked down at him. “Turn it on.”
The accompanying cameraman, hugging the base of the wall, maintained a rather covert tracking path that didn’t cause much of a commotion.
Because Zhao Xingjian was carrying the basket of pomegranates, Chu Minghe walked alongside the side where he was carrying the load to help shield him, swiftly scouting for a stall space where they could wedge themselves in.
Foot traffic around this crossroads was heavy, and heading any further inward wouldn’t work. Weaving through the crowd of people, Chu Minghe finally spotted a fruit stall that didn’t happen to have any pomegranates displayed.
Paving a path for Zhao Xingjian, he squeezed in between the fruit vendor’s stall and a snack-and-biscuits stall, first steadying the basket so Zhao Xingjian could put it down before turning to look at the vendor.
The female vendor looked a bit fierce and was staring straight at them.
Chu Minghe put the bag of potatoes and water inside the basket before turning to negotiate, leaving Zhao Xingjian behind to watch over the pomegranates.
The vendor’s stall was long, and standing where he was, Chu Minghe couldn’t even clearly hear what they were discussing, but judging by the vendor’s expression, things didn’t look too promising.
Just as he was thinking of walking over to check, an older woman walked up to their stall and picked up a couple of pomegranates to inspect them, finding them quite decent.
“Are you selling these?”
Only then did Zhao Xingjian pull his gaze away from Chu Minghe. Seeing that the woman had picked out two of the largest, roundest, and reddest pomegranates, he answered, “Selling.” But having been completely focused on Chu Minghe earlier, he had completely forgotten the price the production team had specified.
Suspecting something because the seller looked so handsome and stood so straight, the woman asked dubiously, “How much?”
Zhao Xingjian paused, searching hard in his memory before scraping together a number.
“Eight yuan each.”
“Eight yuan?” The woman was shocked. “Eight yuan for a single pomegranate? You’re selling them individually?”
“Yes.”
Zhao Xingjian stated the price with the gravitas of pricing a product during a corporate board meeting, leaving no room for bargaining in his tone.
“What kind of pomegranates are these to be this expensive? They’re even more expensive than the ones in the fruit shop.”
Zhao Xingjian: “Grown ourselves.”
“Grown yourselves?” The woman’s tone softened a bit as she picked through the basket again. “How did you grow them to be this big, and are they sweet?”
“Grown in our own backyard,” Zhao Xingjian said. Recalling how he had watched Chu Minghe pick them, he added, “Manually harvested.”
The woman gave him a strange look, though she didn’t dwell on his somewhat disconnected response. “They look as round as pearls and the size is great… If they’re not sweet, I’m bringing them back to you.”
Bringing them back meant returning empty-handed, coming back the exact same way, and splitting the basket of pomegranates among themselves to finish them off before the recording ended.
Zhao Xingjian agreed without hesitation.
The woman only picked three of the best-looking ones; she didn’t dare take too many of such expensive fruit, mainly because she needed them as offerings for the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival, where looking bright red and pretty took top priority.
“Got a bag? Give me a bag to put them in.”
Zhao Xingjian turned his head to look at Chu Minghe. They hadn’t finished negotiating yet, so hearing the woman speak, he replied, “None.”
The woman laughed in disbelief. “What kind of business are you running? You don’t have bags, you expect people to carry them in their pockets?”
Only then did Zhao Xingjian snap back to reality. Noticing the two grocery bags the woman was already holding, he said, “I’ll help you hold them, you can put them together with your vegetables.”
The woman: “…”
Zhao Xingjian emphasized, “Environmental protection is advocated nowadays; plastic bags pollute the environment, and these two bags are enough.”
Unable to find a counterargument, the woman handed over twenty-four yuan and walked away.
However, she didn’t go far, heading instead to pick out fruit at the female vendor’s stall right next to them.
At that moment, Chu Minghe was discussing the typical pricing of local fruit with the vendor. Seeing someone approach, he consciously stepped aside to let her do business first.
The woman had her eyes on a bunch of bananas a whole bunch, which also looked exceptionally pretty. “How much are these?”
“Three yuan a catty.”
This bunch of bananas weighed around four or five catties. The vendor placed them on the digital scale and announced, “Seventeen.”
The woman let out an “Oh,” saying, “That’s several yuan cheaper than the three pomegranates I just bought. Wrap them up.”
Chu Minghe froze, subconsciously looking over toward Zhao Xingjian first, his gaze locking directly onto Zhao Xingjian watching him.
The woman’s voice drifted over again: “Young people these days really know how to make money. They hike up the prices using gimmicks like artificial cultivation and manual harvesting, and you have no choice but to buy them. With the Mid-Autumn Festival right around the corner, these pomegranates happen to look the best for display. Who knows if they sprayed pesticide on them, but since I want them to look good for table presentation, I just buy them anyway.”
Chu Minghe snapped back to reality. Glancing at the three pomegranates inside the woman’s plastic bag, the words hovering on the tip of his tongue his intention to ask how much those had cost—were swallowed back down. Instead, he said, “Our pomegranates are pesticide-free, and they really are manually harvested.”
All of this had undoubtedly come from Zhao Xingjian. Though “manual harvesting” sounded a bit absurd presumably no pomegranates were ever knocked down with bamboo poles two people doing business had to keep their stories straight. He couldn’t possibly change the price Zhao Xingjian had set; otherwise, if one group bought them at that price while another group bought them at a different one, people would tear the ground apart to dig the two of them out for an explanation.
The woman was startled upon hearing him speak. Turning to look at the two of them, she asked in surprise, “You two are from the same family?”
Chu Minghe smiled. “We’re family. Our family grows great pomegranates; you won’t find a second source like this.”
“We only have this small basket in total; once they’re sold out, there are no more.”
Looking slightly awkward, the woman chuckled twice and chimed in, “They are quite nice—fresher and prettier than the ones in the store.”
The female vendor was dawdling nearby, fiddling with plastic bags while watching the show.
To smooth over the awkwardness and change the subject, the woman asked with a smile, “You two brothers aren’t locals, are you?”
Chu Minghe shook his head. “No, your guess is spot on.”
The woman finally lit up. This one looked much more obedient than the other, like a good person, and her talkative streak opened up.
“That’s easy to tell. You don’t have the local accent when you speak. Are you two brothers starting a business selling pomegranates?”
[Brothers have turned into a pair of brothers]
[Who has it worse than President Zhao? One second he’s a wife, the next second he loses both his wife and his company thanks to an auntie’s single sentence]
Chu Minghe smiled. “No, we don’t even have an orchard, so it doesn’t count as starting a business.”
The woman kept nodding along until the vendor finally handed over the bananas, letting her leave.
Now they didn’t even need to ask about prices; they just needed to cozy up to the female vendor and mention they were selling pomegranates right beside her.
Even better, though the vendor looked fierce, she was actually quite kind-hearted, clearing out a small corner of her own stall for them to display their goods.
That suited them even better. Expressing his thanks, Chu Minghe turned around and called out to Zhao Xingjian, “Ge, come over here.”
Standing right where he was, Zhao Xingjian found it momentarily impossible to adapt to this title. The very first thing that flashed through his mind afterward were the few instances where Chu Minghe had called him “husband.” Comparing the two, he managed to puzzle out a slightly different nuance.
A trace of sympathy gradually surfaced in the female vendor’s eyes: “What’s wrong? Is your older brother hard of hearing?”