Shopping at the Market

Su Yuhe was still weighing whether to buy a cheaper ink stick. The ones at home were all left over from copying work for regular clients and were very expensive; even selling them would bring in a fair amount. Using fine ink to earn half a tael of silver wasn't worth it.

"Shopkeeper, give me your cheapest ink stick."

Shopkeeper Liu handed it to her and teased, "This ink doesn't do your handwriting justice. Why not buy a good one?"

"My new house was only recently finished. I don't have any spare money."

After paying, she headed outside, and the two behind her started arguing again.

Shopkeeper Liu's point was that Li Wenxiu wasn't putting her heart into it. Her handwriting grew sloppier toward the end, and he wasn't willing to give her more work.

Li Wenxiu refused to accept this. She felt the pay was low, there were too many characters, and she had to supply her own brush and ink. The price he offered only warranted handwriting like hers, but she still wanted the work.

Su Yuhe returned to the clothing shop, where all three had changed into their new clothes. Lu Mingyi gave her the remaining money. "We spent three mace and got seven mace back."

She took the three of them around the market and bought some rice and flour. Pork cost thirty copper coins a catty, and she bought five catties, spending three mace altogether.

"Here, take this. Buy whatever we're missing." Su Yuhe pressed four mace into Lu Mingyi's hand.

She had adapted fairly quickly and had already accepted the fact that she had three male consorts. Now she handed household management over to the one who seemed most reliable.

Lu Mingyi accepted it. He had never managed such a tiny sum before. In the past, even a single bag of spices for his bath had cost more than this.

Su Yuhe stopped at a stall. "Let's buy some bowls and chopsticks."

Lu Mingyi didn't know how to choose them or how to ask the prices. In the past, he had lived in the inner quarters and rarely met outsiders, much less women.

The stallholder smiled at her. "Young lady, you're blessed with good fortune. Every one of your husbands is handsome. Such handsome men ought to have porcelain bowls."

She asked, "How much?"

"Eight copper coins each. Buy five, and I'll throw in a pair of lacquered chopsticks."

"Then I'll take five porcelain bowls. How much are the earthenware ones?"

"Two copper coins each. Buy five of those, and I'll also throw in a pair of bamboo chopsticks."

"All right, five of each."

With more mouths in the household, there weren't enough bowls and chopsticks.

Lu Mingyi paid in silence. Fifty copper coins were gone in one go, leaving only three hundred and fifty in his hands.

It simply wasn't enough.

Bamboo-handled, pig-bristle toothbrushes cost twenty copper coins each-sixty for three.

Three brass basins at a hundred copper coins each, and three hundred coins were gone.

His heart felt as though it were being cut by a knife. When Su Yuhe walked into a shop that fluffed cotton and made quilts, he caught hold of her. "Wife, don't buy any more."

"I'm just asking the price."

"Thick cotton quilts are two taels of silver each. Thin ones are one tael and five mace each."

Two taels of silver-one-sixth of everything she owned.

She turned and left without hesitation, then browsed elsewhere in the market.

Only fifty copper coins remained of the money she had given Lu Mingyi, and they still hadn't bought everything they needed. She quickened her pace, and by the time she had finished buying things, dusk was falling.

"Let's go. Time to head back."

Lu Mingyi and Meng Zhixian walked ahead, carrying packages large and small. Lu Mingxi was about to fall behind, so she slowed her steps and followed his gaze. "Want some?"

She went over and asked, "How much for a skewer?"

"Five copper coins a skewer."

Lu Mingyi turned to look at his youngest brother, his gaze sharp and cold. "You can't have any."

Ten copper coins would buy a bowl of plain noodles to fill one's stomach. Spending five on candied hawthorns was far too extravagant for them in their current circumstances.

She counted the fruit on a skewer. There were a full eight; each of them could have two to satisfy their craving.

"One skewer, then." She took five copper coins from her purse.

The woman selling them handed the candied hawthorns to Lu Mingxi and said with a smile, "Young husband, your wife treats you so well."

His eyes sparkled, and his innocent expression made the seller pause. Holding the candied hawthorns, he linked his arm through Su Yuhe's. "Wife, you're so good to me."

A single skewer of candied hawthorns had won him over. He really was a child.

Su Yuhe urged him, "Eat them when we get home. It's almost dark."

Once they boarded the ox cart, Meng Zhixian was panting with exhaustion, holding five catties of pork in his left hand and the dirty clothes the three of them had changed out of in his right.

Across from him, Lu Mingxi kept looking at that skewer of candied hawthorns.

He frowned, beginning to feel irritated with Lu Mingxi, who still had no grasp of their situation.

Their wife was already so poor, yet he still pestered her to buy this and that and wouldn't even carry the things she bought. Their wife was carrying bowls and chopsticks herself, while his hands were otherwise empty.

Candied hawthorns, candied hawthorns. Once we can't afford food, he'll behave.

He thought viciously to himself that someone so stupid would sooner or later be despised and abandoned by their wife.

The ox cart suddenly stopped. A middle-aged man said breathlessly to Li Sanjie, who was driving, "Sanjie, have a heart. Give my daughter and me a ride."

The man glanced toward the back, and Su Yuhe happened to meet his calculating eyes.

Li Sanjie had intended to refuse. After all, she had accepted payment, and those sitting in the back were her passengers. What would they think if she picked people up for free?

But seeing Li Wenxiu in her wheelchair softened her heart. This child had once been the pride of Reed Flower Village.

At eighteen, she had passed both the county and prefectural examinations. Had she not been disabled, she would have passed the academy examination before long. Once she passed that, she would be a licentiate-a licentiate who wouldn't even have to kneel before the county magistrate.

Even if she couldn't pursue scholarly honors, she was still one of the few educated people in Reed Flower Village. Even in a wheelchair, her ability to earn money was no worse than that of an able-bodied, uneducated woman like herself.

The refusal changed course on her tongue. "That's not for me to decide. Ask my passengers in the back."

Liu Xiaobo's eyes darted around. He rushed to the back and grabbed Su Yuhe's hand, speaking as though performing an opera. "Young lady, have a heart and give us a ride. My daughter and I will serve as your ox and horse to repay you."

Li Wenxiu wheeled herself forward. Her father was utterly embarrassing.

She had suggested taking an ox cart home, but her father had adamantly refused, pushing her toward Reed Flower Village all the way from the afternoon until nearly dark. He had kept saying he had a way to get them home by ox cart. She hadn't expected this to be his method.

Su Yuhe agreed readily. "Sure."

"Young women are the sensible ones after all. Young men have no compassion. He saw my daughter in a wheelchair and didn't even know to get down and help lift her aboard." Liu Xiaobo shot a venomous look at Lu Mingxi, who was holding his candied hawthorns. "You mustn't spoil young men. Spoil them until their hearts run wild, and it'll hardly be worth it when they run off with someone else."

She had originally pitied Li Wenxiu in her wheelchair and intended to give her a ride, only for her father to inexplicably lay into her family. How could she put up with that?

Su Yuhe interrupted him. "My ox cart only has room for one."

Liu Xiaobo froze, then immediately began cursing. "You're no good either, young woman! I just gave you advice out of kindness, yet you deceive me like this, lying with your eyes wide open! There's so much room back here, two more people would be no problem. Must you insist on making things difficult for my daughter and me?"

After his tirade that turned black into white, Su Yuhe felt she was still too kind. He had been so unreasonable, yet she had still wanted to do a good deed and take Li Wenxiu along.

With a father like him, whether Li Wenxiu was innocent no longer mattered.