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Ger Yu licked the corner of his mouth. His hands were propped on the small stool as he looked at Ger Yan. Ger Yan was peeling beans. The beans fell one by one in the wicker basket. When Lin Lixuan pushed the door open, he saw this scene.
“Ger Yu came to play?”
“Mn.” The cute boy hurriedly nodded and obediently sat on the small stool. Traces of the black tar left on the rusty candlestick was on the square table beside him. The light in the room wasn’t bright. Ger Yu’s shining eyes looked like a pool of glistening water in the dim light.
He looked very cute and well-behaved. He wondered if Ger Yan also looked like this when he was young?
Lin Lixuan couldn’t help but pat Ger Yu’s head, then glanced at Ger Yan. Ger Yan’s hair was a bit messy on his forehead. The red mole between his eyebrows looked darker in the dim light. Sensing Lin Lixuan’s gaze, Ger Yan raised his head and smiled.
Lin Lixuan also smiled. After transmigrating here, the days were hard, but compared to before, his heart felt steadier. In the past, he was busy all the time, and his business grew everyday, but after earning a certain amount of money, he’d become indifferent and numb to the numbers that swelled up like bubbles. When he returned home, he faced an empty living room. And when he stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window and faced the blue sky, everything looked boring.
Everything was at his fingertips, and he no longer cared about his success or failure.
Now that he was so poor that he couldn’t even have a meal with meat. He had to make money selling tofu. Lin Lixuan thought bitterly, “Ger Yan could be considered the ancient world’s queen of tofu, but what about him?
Wouldn’t he be the tofu world’s…
Forget it. He shouldn’t think about things like this.
He counted the copper coins he’d earned during this time. He must be playing real life Monopoly…
When Ger Yu returned from the Lin residence, it was just in time for the Ji family’s meal. When Li Yue’e saw him at the door, she quickly called him in, reprimanded him a bit, then asked where he went.
Liu Yufeng, who was holding a ladle made from a melon to feed the chickens, also added, “How can a little Shuang’er’s run around all day like the boys from the village? Be careful that no man will want you in the future.”
Ger Yu took a few steps back and muttered aggrievedly behind his mother’s back, “I went to Ger Yan’s place…”
Li Yue’e paused, then said to Ger Yu, “How is Ger Yan doing?”
In these past few days, Li Yue’e had been so anxious about her son’s wife that she hadn’t had time to think about her Shuang’er who’d married. Since she heard Ji Yu mention Ji Yan, she asked about him.
“Very good.” Two pimples appeared on Ger Yu’s little face, then he whispered coquettishly, “Mother, I drank delicious soy milk at my brother’s place.”
Li Yue’e nodded, then brought him to eat. All the members of the Ji family were there today. Ji Shu, Eldest Ji’s oldest son who worked in the county town, had also come back. After learning these past couple days that Zhao Qingqing was pregnant and their Ji family would gain another child, they added a large table of dishes. In order to prepare all these dishes, Old Lady Ji and the few wives spent all day on it.
Speaking of this made Li Yue’e’s head hurt. Zhao Qingqing was a delicate Shuang’er, and his parents probably spoiled him at home too. He didn’t normally like working, but in a farmer’s family, the Shuang’ers, women, and men all worked. Now that he was pregnant, he used his child as an excuse to complain everyday about being uncomfortable. In any case, it was like raising a little ancestor who stayed at home all day doing nothing.
When her daughter-in-law, Song Qiao’er, saw this, she learned from him and wouldn’t listen to anyone.
Li Yue’e really regretted finding such a lazy daughter-in-law for her son. But on the other hand, Ji Qian didn’t get involved with disciplining Song Qiao’er either. This had her head hurting even more.
After the meal, Second Ji and the others lit a candle in their room.
Liu Yufeng sewed clothes while telling her daughter-in-law, Zhao Qingqing, to pay attention to her body. She didn’t stop talking, and saliva splashed on the clothes in her hands. Zhao Qingqing listened to her words without much thought. They went in one ear and out the other.
Liu Yufeng squinted her eyes, lowered her head and bit off the thread that was pulled taut. She happened to see her son, Ji Shu, walking by the door. As if remembering something, she called him to stop.
“I heard these past few days Ger Yan and Xiucai Lin have gone to the county town everyday to sell something called ‘tofu pudding’?” These days, many people in the village talked about this matter. Their Ji family also heard about this, saying they could earn 100 wen a day. They would always have a heavy string of copper coins in their hands. However, Liu Yufeng guessed that not many people believed this news. Everyone was suspicious. After all, they only heard it from others from the villages. They didn’t see them seeing tofu pudding or seeing the white silver money either. So how could they believe in someone’s exaggeration?
When Ji Shu heard his mother talking about this, he had also wanted to talk to Liu Yufeng about this matter.
“I’ve seen their stall in the county town. Several of my coworkers have gone to buy tofu pudding from them.”
When Liu Yufeng heard her son say this, she couldn’t help but be curious. “Can they really earn money with that?”
“Yes. I estimate they can earn 300 to 400 wen a day.”
300 to 400 wen a day. That meant they would have about one tael in three days. Then wouldn’t that mean in a month, they would have…
After hearing this, Liu Yufeng’s mind turned. She was originally very clever and good at cheating others. Ger Yan married Liu Yufeng, so that meant they were relatives with the Lin family. If their family also learned this recipe, couldn’t they have Ji Shu and Ji Ya set up a stall in the county town and make a lot of money as well? Wouldn’t their family strike gold?
The next day, Liu Yufeng ran to Li Yue’e and spoke to her.
As soon as she arrived, he enthusiastically grabbed her hand and smiled like a weasel getting a chicken on new years. “Your Ger Yan has good luck…”
…
Li Yue’e frowned. “Let me go ask Ger Yan about the recipe, okay?”
“That’s great. Even if he married someone else, he still came from your stomach. If you ask him for it, he’ll definitely tell you. Besides, what’s wrong with helping your own family? There’s so many people in the county town, and there are many stalls. Even if we started selling it too, the Lin family wouldn’t lose any money…”
Li Yue’e hesitated. “Well…”
“What’s there to think about? Isn’t your family’s Ji Qian free at home? Isn’t this perfect? Have Ger Yan help his biological brother.”
As soon as her eldest son was mentioned, Li Yue’e’s heart couldn’t help but be moved. “I’ll wait a few days then go ask Ger Yan.”
Liu Yufeng squeezed her eyes, then urged her, “Why wait a few days? I think you can head over in a bit.”
The money they earned these past few days, after deducting expenses, there was only three taels left. Lin Lixuan estimated that he could head to the county town to buy livestock to grind the beans. He told Ger Yan his plan. He didn’t take Uncle Liu’s ox cart, choosing to walk by himself. Since they usually rode the ox cart, he now knew the route to the county town. After buying a donkey or buffalo, he could ride it back.
Who knew that after walking for less than an hour, Lin Lixuan sat on a stone at the side of the road, huffing. He had really overestimated his physical strength.
A thin man couldn’t become robust so soon.
Similarly, a weak scholar couldn’t become a strong man just by pushing the grinding plate for a few days. It was delusional for him to want to walk such a long distance.
He heard Ger Yan walked to the county town a few times before. A thin youth could persist, so how could he, an adult man, get tired already? Since he rode the ox cart to the county town everyday, he thought it wouldn’t take long to walk to the county town. Who knew the roads and distance would be so harsh.
As he rested, he casually pulled the leaves off a shrub, then crumpled them in his hand.
Lin Lixuan stood, patted the dust off his butt, then continued to walk toward the county town. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the gates to the county town. He had finally arrived.
As soon as he arrived in the county town, he first knocked on the door of a certain family to borrow some water from their well. After drinking several sips in a row to relieve himself, he went straight to his destination and asked passersby where they usually sold livestock.
Before he reached the market, he was stopped halfway.
Lin Lixuan looked back and saw a square-faced man wearing a green robe. That square-faced person looked upright. There was the smell of books on his body. He didn’t know why he was stopped.
That square-faced man looked at him. He smiled as if gaining something lucky. “I finally ran into you.”
“Do you know me?” Lin Lixuan asked.
“Why haven’t you come to Songyun Bookstore these days? I’m waiting for the rest of your manuscript.” Chu Zihang looked up and down, confirming that he had the right person. This was the person he’d seen in the bookstore that day.
“Manuscript?” Lin Lixuan blinked. He had been so busy selling tofu pudding these days that he’d almost forgotten about this matter.
“That’s right. Our boss wants to meet you.”
Lin Lixuan asked, “Who are you?”
Chu Zihang rubbed the back of his head and smiled widely. “I also work at Songyun Bookstore. I saw you when you came in that day, but you didn’t see me. The bookshelves were blocking me…I’ve read your manuscript. It’s pretty good. Did you finish writing it?”
Chu Zihang had been thinking about this matter for a while. It was just a story, and no matter how good a story was, he should have forgotten about it after a while. But he kept thinking about this one.
Neither he nor the shop assistant knew Lin Lixuan. They didn’t know his name either, so they didn’t know how to find him. The academy in the county town never heard about such a person either. He had wanted to wait for him to come back and inquire, but he waited, and waited, and nobody showed up.
He’d searched all the places scholars frequented, but he didn’t know that Lin Lixuan had been selling food in the county town these days. He was like the other ordinary businessmen and hawkers. Who would think someone like that was a Xiucai and could write books? It just so happened that on his way home today, he’d encountered Lin Lixuan. Although the county town was small, it wasn’t a place where you could easily find the person you wanted.
Suddenly seeing Lin Lixuan here today was like a blind cat meeting a dead mouse.
