Before locking the door, Lu Liu was still whispering to his brother. “The county is quieter, and everything’s more convenient, but it really eats up money. Eating, drinking, using the toilet—everything costs silver. Just saving enough for a shopfront isn’t enough; you have to keep extra cash on hand too. That’s the only way to live.”
Lu Yang agreed. “Exactly. I was chatting with Boss Ding from the wine shop a while back. You look at him running a winery—really profitable. He can make over two hundred taels a year. But when he talks about daily expenses, his head hurts just the same.”
Talking as they went, they locked up. The two carts rolled out of the alley and headed off in different directions.
Lu Yang asked Zhao Peilan, “Mom, did we disturb you last night?”
Zhao Peilan shook her head. “No. I slept very deeply and didn’t hear a thing.”
She used to be unable to tolerate noise—any little sound would wake her.
Even after opening the shop, it was the same. A lot of people in Shangxi Village knew where the shop was. Even though she’d won the lawsuit, deep down she was still afraid someone would come looking for trouble.
After moving, she could finally sleep straight through till morning—soundly.
So Lu Yang told her about the wheat tea. “I’ve heard people say before that when someone’s pregnant suddenly craves something and gets painfully hungry, if you don’t let them eat, they’ll cry and feel terribly wronged. Looks like it’s true.”
Zhao Peilan thought back. “It is. When I was pregnant with A-Yan, it was the same.”
The two brothers had gotten married on the same day, and now the younger one was already expecting. She was afraid Lu Yang might feel disappointed, so she said to him, “You’re still young. There’s no rush to have children. Don’t be anxious—focus on getting your health back first.”
Lu Yang curved his lips in a smile. “I know, Mom. I’m heading back to Lu Family Village today. I want to bring over a couple of relatives to help out at the shop. Once that’s settled, the two of us will be freed up. We can take care of the house and look after A-Yan properly. I’ll still keep busy with the mountain goods business too. You won’t have to work so hard anymore.”
He knew Zhao Peilan’s temperament. After years of hardship, she knew how hard it was to earn money. She’d rather work as an extra hand in the shop herself than hire one more person. He’d already prepared all the reasons to persuade her.
“Didn’t we get a lot of fabric this year? After the Dragon Boat Festival, it’ll suddenly get hot. Ready-made clothes are expensive and never fit that well anyway. It’s better to make our own—really saves money. Stitch by stitch, we can sew summer clothes, then make padded jackets and cotton coats. Shoes are even more work. I haven’t made shoes for A-Yan yet. When the time comes, you can teach me.”
Xie Yan’s feet were well-proportioned, with neither a high nor low instep. He’d been taught a scholar’s posture since childhood, walked properly, and didn’t travel long distances daily, so his shoes wore slowly. Feet like that were the easiest to make shoes for.
But Lu Yang had noticed that Xie Yan’s toes were on the longer side. Instead of tapering shorter like a fan, all five lined up nearly the same length, pressing straight against the toe of the shoe. For him, flat-topped shoes were best—they’d be more comfortable.
Flat-topped shoes weren’t as pretty as rounded ones, but Zhao Peilan had been making shoe patterns for years and knew exactly how to handle it so they’d be both good-looking and well-fitting.
She mentally went through the family’s clothes and shoes. This was indeed an important matter, so she agreed.
Lu Yang then brought up another thing. “Mom, I also want to fix up my dad’s house a bit. That little rundown place hasn’t been repaired in who knows how many years. Every rainy season he has to climb up and add grass to the roof himself. That’s no way to go on. The rainy season’s coming again this year. I still have some silver here and want to get it done. My younger brother and I will split the cost, half each.”
Zhao Peilan nodded as well. “All right.”
She thought about how their business was taking off now—they were better off than the people in the mountain stronghold—and said to Lu Yang, “You can put in a bit more too.”
Lu Yang understood. By the time they reached the shop, business out front was already bustling.
Ever since Wu Pingzhi had introduced business their way, their steamed buns had been selling in large quantities.
They needed to hurry and hire people to build a stove just for steaming buns. Another stove was needed out front too—the small furnace couldn’t handle the growing number of steamers. If someone bumped into it and knocked it over, the consequences would be terrible.
Before heading out, Lu Yang went over to help as well.
—
On the other side, Lu Liu and Li Feng took Shun-ge’er to buy rouge.
Shun-ge’er confirmed several times, “Do you really have the money?”
They’d talked a lot yesterday, but the goods hadn’t even been shipped out yet.
Li Feng just told him to hurry and choose. “If you keep dawdling, I’m not buying you anything.”
Shun-ge’er had never bought rouge before. You couldn’t really tell by looking—every box was covered with a lid.
Lu Liu had a box of rouge himself. He found the same kind of box and pointed it out to Shun-ge’er.
“This is the kind Da Feng bought for me.”
Identical boxes were lined up in a row.
The shop assistant behind the counter said, “You’ve got a good eye. This is the best-selling rouge in our shop. Don’t be fooled by the small amount—how many times a year do you really apply it? Buy it once and it lasts a long time. Open the lid and you can smell the flowers right away. The color’s true. Just a dab on your fingertip can cover half your face. It’s durable and looks great. Don’t be misled by the bigger boxes—when you use them, they’re really not as good as this one.”
Lu Liu asked, “Can we see the color inside?”
The assistant opened one for them. The items displayed at the front could be opened if the customer genuinely wanted to buy. If you were dressed well enough, not only could you look—you could even try it on.
The shopkeeper wasn’t there today. Seeing that Lu Liu already owned this rouge, and that the couple had clearly agreed to buy one for the younger brother, the assistant even dabbed a bit onto someone’s hand so they could see the color.
Since it was for Shun-ge’er, he dabbed it onto Shun-ge’er’s hand.
The rouge was very red, but once spread out, the color softened.
Thinking that he lived with his sister-in-law, Shun-ge’er felt it would be a waste to buy the exact same shade. He chose one that spread into a peach-tip pink.
Holding it in his hand, he examined it closely and recognized the pattern carved on the wooden box—a peach blossom.
Peach-blossom rouge. He liked it.
Li Feng then had Lu Liu pick out a box of lip balm.
Lu Liu felt a flutter of anticipation, but once he started choosing, he hesitated.
He’d hardly ever dressed himself up. He had no idea what kind of lip balm suited him.
The assistant glanced at Li Feng and brought over a good lip balm.
“This one’s edible!”
Lu Liu: “…?”
The assistant explained, “It looks great on the lips—brightens your complexion and makes you pretty. You can even eat it. If you can’t bear to wipe it off, just eat it.”
As for how to eat it, or who would be doing the eating, he didn’t say.
But to Lu Liu’s ears, it sounded like: if you can’t bear to wipe it off, then just kiss it away.
Lu Liu: “…”
What an indecent lip balm.
Li Feng paid for it anyway.
Shun-ge’er blinked, looking back and forth between the two of them. The couple didn’t blush at all, but he, the young lad, turned red.
Lip balm was a bit more expensive than rouge. A small box cost seventy copper coins. Edible things were different, after all.
Lu Liu had money on him too. Like Shun-ge’er, he worked at home, and his mother let him keep some private money on him.
He didn’t feel right using the family’s money, so he spent his own—buying whatever he wanted.
He had little to spend on in the mountains and had three qian of silver on him.
He bought rouge and lip balm for his brother as well. He’d noticed his brother never really dressed up either; the last time they’d gone to the stronghold, when he took out the rouge, his brother hadn’t even known how to use it.
This part cost one hundred and twenty copper coins. He also wanted to buy a pig stomach for his mother to eat. He’d promised her before that once he saved up money, he’d buy her pig stomach. Since they were in the county now, he decided to do it.
After calculating it all, he still had over a hundred copper coins left.
His brother was going to Lu Family Village later. He hadn’t been home in a long time, and the family there probably wouldn’t bear to buy fresh meat. After thinking it over, he realized the two fathers hadn’t eaten pig stomach either, so he decided to buy one for them too.
That would leave him with twenty or thirty copper coins in hand.
He asked Li Feng, “Da Feng, what do you want to eat? Is there anything you want? I’ll buy it for you.”
Li Feng said, “Buy me a salted duck egg.”
Lu Liu choked. “Don’t sulk. Isn’t it just that the eggs haven’t been divided yet? What else do you want?”
Li Feng didn’t want anything else and took him to the preserved fruit shop.
Lu Liu had finished his sour plums, and the pickled radish was nearly gone too. He used hawthorn now to satisfy his cravings, but being pregnant, he couldn’t eat too much hawthorn. He restrained himself, chewing one slice of dried hawthorn for a long time—truly pitiful.
Today, he bought more sour plums. Seeing that there were also jujube sour cakes, he bought three jin of those as well.
Li Feng had been to the preserved fruit shop before. He’d brought his two younger brothers there once.
Back then, their family was poor. Neither of his brothers had ever eaten sweet snacks. He’d said they were there to buy candy, but once inside the shop, the copper coins on him couldn’t even buy two liang of sugar.
