Phi-Fic Chapter 11 Market
Chapter 11 Market
After entering the town gate, Tang Luwu would secretly glance at Li Taohua from time to time.
She thought she was hiding it well, but every time she looked at Li Taohua with those deer-like eyes, she would shrink back when Li Taohua looked over. The latter was not blind, so how could she not feel it?
"What are you looking at?" Li Taohua rolled her eyes.
It is also very beautiful when a beautiful woman rolls her eyes.
"Sister, that's a look of admiration." Qin Huiyin said, "Mom, you're so smart. We saved another two cents."
"How is that clever?" Li Taohua was in high spirits after receiving her daughter's praise. "It's just that I'm too poor, so I save as much as I can. If I had money, I wouldn't be so stingy about these two cents. Huiyin, you have to remember that women shouldn't be obsessed with love all the time. Without money, everything is useless. Without money, even the most beautiful girl will become a shrew. Women are flowers, they must be pampered. If you take good care of them, even wild flowers can bloom. If you don't take good care of them, even peonies will turn into wasteland."
"Mom is right. I want to learn from you."
"Don't follow my mother's example..." The light in Li Taohua's eyes disappeared and became dim. "You should live a better life than my mother."
Li Taohua took the two girls into the pawnshop.
The pawnshop clerk picked up the silver hairpin, looked at it, and said, "This hairpin is a bit old, not worth much, only one or two ounces of silver."
"One tael of silver?" Li Taohua frowned. "Okay, this bachelor sold it to me half a month ago with all his confidence, saying it was a solid silver hairpin, worth three taels. I said I was cheated by him. Let's go and settle the score with him."
Wang Laowu was the jewellery dealer next door, and he was the owner's uncle. One sold jewellery, the other ran a pawnshop, and no one would believe there wasn't some intrigue between them.
When the clerk heard that it was related to Wang Laowu next door, he quickly stopped Li Taohua and said, "Wait a minute, let me see if there is something wrong with this scale."
"Hurry up and weigh it. If it's not right, I'll go find Wang Laowu. Little brother, you have to help me testify later and let everyone know that Wang Laowu is not honest."
The clerk usually serves honest people who have pawned their belongings because they are in urgent need of money. Generally speaking, such people dare not offend the pawnshop and will pay whatever the price says. Even if they want to bargain, they will be polite, unlike Li Taohua who shouts so loudly that even passers-by are startled.
The clerk took a closer look and said reluctantly, "It is indeed three taels of silver."
In fact, it was less than three taels. However, since it was Wang Laowu who sold it to her, if she said it was less than three taels, and she ran to the other side to make a scene, affecting the business there, the shopkeeper was determined to tear him apart.
Li Taohua patted her chest, feeling relieved. "I'm glad I didn't get cheated. Several girls in the village are getting married and will need jewelry. I'll introduce them to Wang Laowu to buy them."
The guy's face looked better after hearing her say that.
"By the way, these clothes are out of date and I don't like wearing them anymore. Let's pawn them together!" Li Taohua stuffed the bag into the pawn shop counter.
The clerk opened it and took a look. There were six sets of clothes in total. The fabric was medium-quality, there were no patches, and the tailoring was mediocre. A new set of clothes on the market would only cost one hundred coins.
He was just about to say twenty, but when he saw Li Taohua's bright eyes, he suddenly felt that this woman had seen the world and would not be easy to cheat, so he said forty.
"Okay, then we'll all die."
A silver hairpin cost three taels of silver, and six sets of clothes cost two hundred and forty coins in total, so they earned three taels of silver and two hundred and forty coins.
After leaving the pawnshop, Qin Huiyin asked, "Mom, did you really buy that silver hairpin from across the street?"
"No!" Li Taohua answered casually, "I deceived that boy on purpose. Luckily he was guarding the store today. If the shopkeeper was here, it would be hard to deceive him."
Li Taohua came over and said to Qin Huiyin, "I was shopping once and saw the pawnshop owner secretly giving their pawned items to Wang Laowu. It seemed that he was making the old items into new ones and selling them again. This uncle and nephew are both profiteers. Since there is a chance to take advantage of them, we must not miss it."
Tang Luwu followed Li Taohua and Qin Huiyin with a backpack on her back, her eyes full of admiration for Li Taohua.
The villagers often talked about Li Taohua as restless, flirting with different men, and being a reincarnated vixen. They also said that women from good families wouldn't be constantly acting like sluts, and that Hunter Song and her father were bewitched by a vixen, sucking its essence away, which was why they got into trouble one after another.
She also disliked Li Taohua, not only because of the villagers' comments, but also because her father spent most of his earnings on her. After her father's accident, she scolded him all day long, showing no sympathy for him at all. As a stepmother, she had a difficult relationship with her stepson and stepdaughter, and had never considered how to integrate into the family.
When Wang Juhua's stepmother first married into the village, she pretended to please the siblings for half a year, only to reveal her true colors after she had her own child. Li Taohua had no such understanding. As soon as she married into the family, she had the final say in the entire Tang family, and everyone in the Tang family, big and small, had to look to her for her favor.
No matter from which perspective, she is not a good woman, let alone a good wife or stepmother.
But now, she felt that Li Taohua had an indescribable charm. She was radiant, and this was something she didn't have.
"Sister Luwu..." Qin Huiyin turned around and waved in front of Tang Luwu, "Why are you daydreaming? I've called you several times."
Tang Luwu came back to her senses and asked blankly, "What's wrong?"
"We're going to the pharmacy now," Qin Huiyin said again, "Did you bring the prescription?"
"Bring it."
When he came out of the pharmacy, there was one or two taels of silver less in his purse, but twenty more bags of medicinal herbs in his backpack.
Tang Luwu was worried that Li Taohua would be angry, but Li Taohua didn't say a word from beginning to end. She paid the money when she was required to and took the medicine when she was required to.
"Don't look at me like that. I promised Huiyin to buy medicine for your brother, and I will keep my word. You don't have to thank me, thank Huiyin instead!"
"Thank you, Auntie. Thank you, Yinyin."
Qin Huiyin held Tang Luwu's hand.
Tang Luwu blushed and retracted her hand.
Her hands were rough and calloused, while Qin Huiyin's skin was delicate and her palms were as soft as tofu.
"We're a family from now on, and it's only natural for family members to take care of each other. Let's go buy some rice and flour."
The main purpose of this trip was to buy rice and flour. First, her family was out of food. If she didn't find a way to save herself, she didn't know what would happen to the others. She was going to become a wild vegetable spirit anyway. Her dreams were filled with eating wild vegetables, and even her saliva smelled of them. Second, they couldn't just sit there and wait for death, least of all her. She had to make money.
Coarse flour was five coins per pound, and fine flour was eight coins per pound. Qin Huiyin decisively chose the coarse flour to save money.
Rice comes in several different qualities. First, there's broken rice mixed with stones, a bit yellowish, clearly damaged for unknown reasons, perhaps getting soaked in water during transportation and then not dried enough afterward, leaving it in this awful state. This kind of rice is inexpensive, costing four wen per pound.
The second kind is also broken rice, but without stones and not yellow. It costs six cents.
The third type is refined rice, with each grain being plump, and this also costs eight cents.