Li Long looked at the people braving the bitter cold to line up in the courtyard and sighed.
He had wanted to take on less work over winter and have an easier time, preferably with nothing to do at all, giving himself a proper holiday.
He had never expected that simply coming over to tidy up the Purchasing Station courtyard would land him with such a big job!
For three days straight, Li Long had been clearing out the things piled inside the rooms that had never been taken away.
Some wooden shelving could be reused, but some of the remaining odds and ends were nothing but rubbish.
To keep people from coming to line up and sell things, he had even shut the big iron gates.
Unfortunately, closed iron gates could not dampen their enthusiasm for selling things. After all, Li Long had to install stoves.
During the Four-Nine Days, the daytime temperature outside was over twenty below zero. Without stoves, it would be just as cold indoors, so Li Long certainly had to set them up.
After a day of heating, the stove outside now burned well, as did the two inside.
Li Long had not known much about the interior of the Purchasing Station before, but now he could see its layout.
The Purchasing Station's single-story rooms formed a T. There were three rooms across the front: the middle one was the counter room Li Long and the others often visited, the eastern room was a temporary dormitory, and the western one was a storeroom.
Beyond the counter room was a corridor, with offices and storerooms to the east and a row of warehouses to the west.
Every office had a stove. The storerooms contained newspapers that had not been taken away, wooden shelving, old carrying frames,