CH 114

Xiaowang squeezed his towel, resting his head on Lin Lan’s waist. His little feet were on the window sill. Bit by bit, he muttered, “Mother’s voice is getting better and better.”

Then, he fell asleep.

…

When Lin Lan went to the market the next day, she found that there were six or seven women gathered in the Brigade as they had all asked for a day off and went to stock up together.

Shanzui Village was not far from the commune, but because everyone had to go to work and were unable to ask for leave casually, the commune was not so easy to get to.

Generally, unless there was no kerosene and salt at home, or they weren’t able to  borrow any from the neighbours, they wouldn’t purposely take a day off to go to the market.

When they saw that Lin Lan was also going to the market, someone greeted her, “Qingsong’s family, let’s go together.”

Lin Lan didn’t want to be with them. On the surface, they greeted her, but she didn’t have any friendship with them. The original owner used to have a bad relationship with many of them. Now, she was worried that with her drinking pesticides, a change of behaviour and a separated household, they merely wanted to know of the gossip occurring in her life.

She shook her head, “No, I’m in a hurry so I’m going to walk really fast.”

As she said that, she walked away like a gust of wind.

Two of the female members pouted, “Look at that kind of character, striding away once she has gotten money; I can’t believe Han Qingsong didn’t divorce her.”

“She has both sons and a daughter, how could he just divorce her, though?”

At first, they wanted to follow Lin Lan, but it was natural for them to speak slowly as it was their nature.

Not too long after that, they could no longer see Lin Lan’s figure.

Lin Lan was also suffering very much. Although it was only a few miles away, she was still very tired. She just didn’t want to go on the same path with those women, so she gritted her teeth and hurried.

Fortunately, when she reached the junction of the road, she came across a mule cart with five or six Brigade Commune members going to the market. When they saw her walking alone, they called her to join them.

Lin Lan quickly thanked them, not expecting herself to hitch a ride.

At the fair, Lin Lan said goodbye to the people. She stood at the entrance of the market, looking at the bustling crowd and seemingly a little confused.

The original owner had no money nor time. To be honest, she really hadn’t caught up with the fair. She didn’t have much information about the market itself from the original owner’s memories anyways.

She observed first and found that most of the collections were selling goods like ration food, ready-made food and handmade utensils.

Anyway, as long as it was something that required the use of tickets, unless there was a supply shortage, it wouldn’t be found here. If anyone had a way of obtaining the stock, they would have been robbed of it on the way to the market instead of selling it at the fair.

She strolled around, first quietly observing the price. When she knew what to do, she went to buy two large glazed jars to hold the grains and two small glazed urns for pickling pickles. There were also two or three medium-sized corrugated urns. One was a water tank, one was for sundries, and the other one would have a use for it at some point. She would also need to buy a few claypots and glazed pots as well.

Pots, tins and the like cost 30 cents per item, small jars 50 cents, medium jars 70 cents and large jars that were all glazed and heavy were more expensive than ordinary goods as it cost 1.21 Yuan.