Setting up stall

Lin Dashan slapped his forehead.

"Look at me! I got so caught up in being happy. Come on, come on, let's hurry, or we won't get a good spot."

Every month when their family went to market, they brought along the wooden buckets, baskets, sieves, and other things Old Master Lin made with Lin Xiao's elder cousin Lin Lei and Lin Yun, and sold them.

Old Master Lin kept part of the money, and the rest was divided equally between the two households.

The handcarts pushed by Lin Dashan and Lin Dayou were piled high with these wares.

Only a couple of jars of pickles that Lady Qin and Old Madam Lin had made together were tucked in among them.

On the way, Lin Xiao told them why he was going to town this time.

Then he said he wanted to ask Lin Dashan to serve as a demonstration for him when the time came.

Lin Dashan asked in surprise:

"Brother Xiao, you really can clean teeth?"

Lin Xiao bared his teeth at him, showing him his big white teeth.

Lin Dayou, who was pushing a cart ahead of them, also turned around and bared a matching set of big white teeth at him.

Lin Dashan: There's really no need for father and son to bare their teeth at me together.

Lady Qin saw this and was delighted. She clapped her hands at once and said:

"Oh! Brother Xiao, I'll be your plant!"

Lin Xiao smiled and said:

"That's wonderful. Once I've finished with Uncle, I won't have to worry about having no one to demonstrate on afterward."

On the bumpy, potholed path,

the four walked in the morning light, making their way to Emerald Peak Town.

Emerald Peak Town was neither a place of military importance nor particularly prosperous, so its walls were very low, and its gates were plain and unimposing.

Lin Xiao had only been to town once, accompanying Lin Dayou when he was six. After seeing Emerald Peak Town, which was not prosperous in the least and was even rather drab, he had never felt like coming back.

The little town had only a few thousand residents.

Its level of consumption was not much higher than that of the people living in their village, either.

Even if he had once thought of using modern methods to make money, it would have been unlikely to work.

At most, he could have earned a meager living through hard work.

But he had been young then and hadn't had much physical strength or labor to spare for earning that meager living.

And Lin Yun and Lin Dayou had been busy with work at home and in the fields. There was no way they could have paid attention to his constantly changing ideas, which sounded highly unreliable.

As a result, he now didn't have a single copper coin to his name.

Still, that also had to do with the fact that he had grown accustomed to his plain, impoverished life in Xiushui Village over the years and had never particularly wanted to pursue wealth and status.

Now, for the sake of the sect, he had no choice but to come out and ply his trade to make a living.

By the time the four arrived at Emerald Peak Town, a shichen had passed.

Although it was still around the spring equinox, they had spent a shichen on the road, and all four had worked up a light sweat.

Fortunately, there were advantages to setting out early.

At the entrance to the town, only twenty or thirty people were waiting in line to enter.

Lin Xiao and the other three got in after only a short wait.

There was no fee to enter town on market day, but on ordinary days, if a yamen runner was standing guard at the gate, visitors had to pay an entrance fee.

That was another reason the villagers didn't come to town lightly.

Emerald Peak Town had a plot of land set aside specifically for the monthly market.

When villagers came to set up stalls, that was where they did it.

The yamen runners marked out the spaces with stones beforehand. Each household got one, on a first-come, first-served basis.

Anyone who dared cause trouble was driven straight out.

But perhaps because the villagers had always feared the officers, trouble was rare.

Even when people occasionally started quarreling, the moment someone said, "The officers are coming," they would scatter, pretending nothing had happened, each looking downcast and perfectly well-behaved.

When they reached the marketplace, Lin Dashan hurried to claim a good spot, and Lin Dayou pushed the handcart over.

Lin Xiao helped unload the wares and arrange them one by one.

Lady Qin, meanwhile, went to buy salt, soybean oil, and other daily necessities for her own household and Lin Dayou's.

It was around seven or eight in the morning.

There still weren't many people at the market.

Lin Xiao decided to wait off to the side for a while. Once the crowd grew a little bigger, he would open his grand tooth-cleaning enterprise.

He looked around but didn't see Qin Jianghe.

Then he wandered around the entire market.

The market wasn't very big, and it took him less than fifteen minutes to make a circuit.

Still, he didn't see Qin Jianghe.

Since they had made an appointment yesterday, Jianghe surely would have set out early today and ought to have arrived by now.

But Lin Xiao had searched the whole market without seeing Qin Jianghe, or even his mother, Fourth Aunt Qin-his eldest aunt's cousin.

So he returned to his family's stall, found a corner against a wall, and huddled there with his hands tucked into his sleeves.

He had nothing else to do anyway.

He would watch how his father and uncle usually sold their wares and pick up a few pointers!

Then he saw that, once Lin Dashan and Lin Dayou had arranged everything, they too leaned against the wall beside the stall and squatted down with their hands tucked into their sleeves.

And there they stayed.

They neither greeted nor called out to the potential customers passing by one after another. Only when someone occasionally came up to ask a price did they offer a word or two in reply.

When someone haggled, they only shook their heads. When a customer thought the price too high and started to leave, they said nothing.

And so, after nearly half a shichen had passed and the crowd at the market had gradually grown, they had sold only two baskets at their stall.

Lin Xiao: Good grief, so this is how Uncle and Father sell things every month.

Wasn't this a terrible waste of Grandpa's woodworking skills? In their whole township, if he claimed to be second, no one would dare claim to be first!

If Lin Dayou and Lin Dashan had known what Lin Xiao was thinking, they surely would have snorted and said:

"Your grandpa's even worse at doing business than we are!

"When someone asks the price, he just gives them a number, and if they think it's too expensive, he'll chase them straight off!"

As a result, when Old Master Lin had come to sell things himself in the past, he had barely sold anything.

Later, Old Madam Lin had finally had enough and insisted that Lin Dashan and Lin Dayou take over selling, and only then had business improved a little.

Lin Xiao couldn't bear to watch any longer.

He looked at the sky again. It was getting late, and he reckoned the crowd should be at its biggest now.

So he patted his backside and stood up.

He went over and asked Lin Dayou the prices of the wares.

In truth, Old Master Lin's prices weren't high.

Large bamboo baskets were twenty-five copper coins each, sieves twenty, and wooden buckets eighty.

What was more, his wares were very well made and durable, so by rights, his prices were already quite a bargain.

Unfortunately, their sales methods were sorely lacking.

Lin Xiao said to Lin Dashan and Lin Dayou:

"Father, Uncle, I'm getting to work now."

The two nodded very shyly.

For some reason, Lin Xiao felt that ever since they had entered town, both men's whole bearing had changed.

They had become somewhat timid.

Yet in the village, they were such open, forthright farmhands.

Lin Xiao took a small folding stool over beside their stall and set it down in front of himself.