CH 30

Chapter 30 – In The City (2)

“Sure………shall we paste a couplet on Little Sister Yue’s face too?”

Li Jing’er could not help but laugh when she thought of the little girl’s pink face stuck with a couplet written with the character  ‘prosperity’ on her little face.

Little Sister Yue did not know what a Spring Festival couplet looked like but she still clapped her hands as she shouted with glee and pointed to her brother and sister and said that they should also have couplets pasted on their faces.  Then she giggled to herself.

Li Jing’er did not buy anything and brought the children to a fur shop first.  Then she took out the tanned fur and handed them to the boss of the shop.

“Madam Li, why didn’t your man come with you this time?!”

Li Jing’er’s eyelids twitched as soon as she heard the words ‘your man’.

“That is not my man but the children’s father.”

That Xiao Jingfeng is truly a lingering soul.  He had only come with her once and was able to make friends with almost everyone who knew her.  He even told the people to show her more care and said that her man had returned.  She would no longer be alone and he is her support.

“What is the difference between being your man and father of the children?  Madam Li, don’t be shy.  Your man takes good care of you and he looks like a good man.”

Marriage is the most important to a woman and her man came to look for her, so why make a fuss over it?

Yes, he’s good………so good that she is thinking of accepting him!  She can reluctantly accept him for the time being but………one doesn’t know a person’s heart by just looking at his appearance and although a person may look human he can still possess the heart of a beast.

As soon as she thought of Xiao Jingfeng’s family members, she could not help but shrink back.  Being relatives with that Xiao Family is no different from cutting one’s flesh to feed the tigers.  Sooner or later, one would be eaten without a single bone left.

“Really?”

The doubtful boss showed a dry smile and picked up the fur to check if it was whole.

“Based on the previous prices, one piece of rabbit skin is 800 coins and 10 pieces are 8 taels.  2 pieces of fox fur……..one piece is a tael and a half…….that will be 3 taels, and these 12 pieces of squirrel skin……..altogether the total is……..”

After calculating with an abacus, the boss gave her a price that both parties were satisfied with.

“Madam Li, when will you be coming again?  The snow rabbit skins that you brought over last year were very popular.  I hope there will be more this year.”

The sales of snow rabbit skin were good.

“Probably in spring next year.  I won’t be entering the city again at the end of the year and today is the last time as I have to clean the house.  Anyway, the snow rabbits won’t come out until it snows and this winter’s snow has yet to fall.  So maybe, the number of snow rabbits will be lesser………”

In the mountains lives a kind of gray rabbit that changes according to the environment.  When the snow falls from the sky, the color of their fur change.  The original gray fur will turn as white as snow and when they come out to forage for food, they blend into the snow making it impossible to differentiate them from snow.

Li Jing’er would not look for the rabbits but for their trails which are very obvious in the snow.  She would then dig up the snow and insert a bamboo basket along the path the rabbits would pass through.  After putting the cover back on the bamboo basket, she would cover it up with a little snow and arrange a layer of hay over it.

The snow rabbit is very fat in winter and the bamboo basket cover cannot bear its weight.  As soon as the snow rabbit eats the hay, it will fall into the bamboo basket and then the cover will bounce back to its original position.  The snow rabbit would not be unable to jump back up.

She caught more than a hundred snow rabbits with this method last year.  She sold half of them and kept half of them for her own use.  The fur mattress inside the stone house is made with rabbit fur and there are even rabbit fur slippers, rabbit fur shoes, and even rabbit skin boots.  There are many uses for rabbit fur and skin.

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Because of those snow rabbits, they were able to survive through the harsh winter.

“That’s such a long time!”

What a pity.  He would not be able to make some money before the year ends.  Everyone is willing to spend money for the New Year and rabbit fur and skin are in short supply.

“I’m not short of money.”  She was speaking the truth.

The money in hand is a lot more this year as compared to last year.  With sufficient money and food in hand, she need not have to worry.

The boss replied with an ‘Oh’ and then asked.  “Is your man here?”

What has this to do with her man?  This is really baffling.  The money she has is all earned by herself and she had never used a single coin from that man.  She felt annoyed but refused to talk more about this.  If she is misunderstood, so be it!  It’s alright as long as she is aware of this but she would definitely not come with Xiao Jingfeng when she enters the city again.

Next, she went to the medical shop.  Winter was approaching so the snakes had started to hibernate.  She picked up 5 pieces of skin that the snakes shed which was also a kind of medicine but it was not easy to collect them.  A piece of snakeskin measuring 2 feet long was worth one tael and 5 pieces would fetch 10 silver taels.

The shopkeeper in the medical shop was very nice and gave the children a packet of hawthorn slices each.  The hawthorn slices tasted sweet and sour and could quench thirst which made the children very happy.

“Didn’t your man come with you?”

It is the same sentence again!

Li Jing’er who nearly lost her cool upon hearing this pretended to be sad and said.  “My man ran off with another woman.”

“Ah!  This………uh,  he looks trustworthy and honest but why is he so unsteady……..”

The shopkeeper could no longer hold on to his smile and did not know how to comfort her.

“People who don’t remain true to themselves are too many.  To believe in the sincerity of others, It’s better to believe in the reality of money.  Next year when I come to sell centipedes and scorpions, you’ll have to give me a good price.  You can’t cheat me as I need to raise my children……..”

She gave an exemplary display of misery without a man.

“Alright, I’ll definitely not cheat you of your money.  Oh right, only live scorpions are valuable and the price will drop if they’re dead but the centipedes can either be dead or alive.  We have a pharmacist to concoct them into medicine.”

So pitiful!  A cruel heart like iron!  Her man seemed kind but who would have known he is a heartless man!

After ruining Xiao Jingfeng’s reputation, Li Jing’er walked happily to the grocery shop and bought 5 catties of white cake, 3 catties of glutinous rice sticks, melon seeds, twist rolls, including some fried peanuts as well as brown sugar and next year’s rapeseed……..

“Mother……..those candied hawthorns…….can I have one?”  Shuangming licked his lips greedily.

At this moment, the hawker selling candied hawthorns was passing by the entrance of the grocery shop carrying a straw box on his back.  As he shouted aloud to advertise his goods, many children ran over and gathered around him to look at the brightly colored candied hawthorns.

“Each of you will get one skewer, Mother will buy them for you.”

Children grow up very quickly and the span of their childhood is very short.  Doting on them is only for a short period.

“Wa!  We can have candied hawthorns!”

“Mother is so nice, I like Mother the most……”

“Yueyue eats candied hawthorns, eat…….eat…….eat…….”

Looking at the happy smiles on the three little faces, Li Jing’er felt that all her hard work was worth it.  Their purest emotion was the best reward.

The three children each held a skewer of the bright red candied hawthorns.  Shuangming who had lost a tooth gnawed on it and soon finished one while Shuangzhen was very graceful.  First, she licked off the sugar coating and then ate the fruit.

However, Little Sister Yue could not eat anything.  She was too young to bite into the hard candy but she was still happy to suck on it.

When Li Jing’er thought of Shuangming and Shuangzhen, they seemed to have grown a little taller.  Li Jing’er walked into the cloth shop and pulled out a piece of azure-colored cloth, a piece of pear-flower yellow cloth, and another rouge-colored cloth.  The cloth should be enough for her and the children to make several sets of clothes……..

Suddenly, a sturdy figure flashed through her mind, and with a slightly red face, she pulled out a piece of navy blue cloth and hid it under the three pieces of cloth.

“Ah!  My dress……..Look Mother, my Hangzhou silk dress is ruined!  Wu, wu…….I don’t want!  I don’t want!  It’s my favorite dress!  It’s ruined, ruined…….it’s ruined!……..wu, wu……..”

A terrifying scream that almost pierced through people’s eardrums suddenly sounded and it was accompanied by a shrill cry that seemed to be torn from the throat.  The customers inside the cloth shop frowned and turned to look at the figure in pink and green.

It was a little girl around 10 years old.  She looked quite beautiful with a small cherry mouth, willow leaf eyebrows, a small nose, a fair complexion, and a pair of long slender phoenix eyes.

But she had an arrogant personality!  It made others afraid of her.  She just encountered a minor problem and erupted in front of everyone, crying and shouting without care.

As soon as the little pumpkin cried, a woman in a red embroidered Ruyi patterned dress rushed up angrily.  She was holding the hand of a seven-year-old boy who looked similar to the little girl and following behind her was a helpless little maid and a contemptuous old woman.

“Who is it?  Who did this?  Which family’s miserable wretch, good-for-nothing, goddamn bastard did this?  Step forward!  Who dares to ruin my daughter’s skirt, I’ll tear him to pieces!………”

This dress is very expensive!  It is Hangzhou silk that costs 22 taels of silver per foot and she had begged her brother for a long time before a few feet of the silk was bought.

Her heart did not ache for her daughter but for the piece of silk.

“Mother, it’s him!  Look, the evidence is still in his hand.”

The little pumpkin pointed angrily at the bewildered little boy standing at the side.

“You!  How dare a fatherless little bastard like you touch my Zhaohua’s skirt?!  Why don’t you look at your hands to see how dirty they are?  You’re born with the face of a beggar, your forehead brings disaster to your father, the back of your head gives bad luck to your mother, you’re born with disastrous eight characters, and your left foot steps on feces while your right foot steps on dung!  You have a lifetime of bad luck and whoever comes near you will meet with misfortune!”

“I’m not…….”  It was obvious that the little boy was frightened and his face had turned as white as paper.

“How dare you quibble?  It seems you’re a worthless bastard.  If your parents won’t teach you, let me do it.  You will only understand the rules after feeling the pain of a beating and if I don’t see blood today, I won’t be able to calm down………”

It’s a simple matter to kill this little bastard!