Chapter 16
Rush
When Mrs. Yang heard this, she couldn’t wait to start shopping immediately. She paused to consider for a split second and finally said, “Let’s gather at the entrance of the market when time is up. Watch your money closely. Don’t go too far and take note of the time.”
Xiaoguo promised Mrs. Yang that she would do exactly what she said. Mrs. Yang felt more assured and left.
Xiaoguo strolled around and followed a big group to the smaller stalls. There were some shops near the main entrance, and some had seeds for sale, but Xiaoguo felt that they would be expensive. She ventured further along and found a cluster of smaller stalls within the marketplace.
Xiaoguo shopped leisurely, going through each stall with care. She made sure to check the quality of the seeds, and also listened in on the conversations between stall owners and their potential customers. After gathering a ton of information, Xiaoguo eventually squatted down in front of an old lady’s stall.
Xiaoguo pointed at the bag of seeds in front of her. “Madam, how much are these eggplant seeds?”
“Young lady, you really know your stuff. These seeds are of excellent quality. They are different from the common eggplant types. Look, the seeds are firm and round… ”
Xiaoguo listened as she searched for the seeds she wanted. Finally she picked out six bags of seeds, all for the same price—fifty seeds for one copper coin. The seeds she selected were for leeks, eggplant, potatoes, cabbage, beans, and loofah.
After paying for her purchase, Xiaoguo didn’t leave immediately. She had inadvertently seen a sealed bag sitting in a corner, she asked curiously, “Madam, what’s in that bag?”
The old lady boss looked in the direction Xiaoguo was pointing to and sighed. “This is a new variety of corn that I just got. I bought it from the foreigners. It was for the novelty of the corn variant when I placed the order, but now it seems like I will be taking a loss.”
Xiaoguo pretended to be interested. “Why did you say that?”
“I had sold them previously to my customers, but when they planted the seeds, the corn harvested was too small. They tried cooking it, but the corn all became dregs in the pot after boiling.” Then, she gave another sigh. “Those who bought the seeds told me that these are not edible. It’s useless to plant them.”
After saying that, the old lady turned to look at Xiaoguo. “How about this, Miss? I’ll sell it to you cheaply. You just have to pay me the cost price of these seeds”
Xiaoguo pretended to look troubled, but she was overjoyed in her heart. She had been eying this bag of seeds. While walking around just now, she saw the old lady trying to sell the contents from this bag. The seeds inside were flint corn, which could be used to make popcorn.
Seeing no response from Xiaoguo, the lady boss slapped her thigh and made up her mind. She spoke with a pained expression, “That’s it. I’ll give you a copper coin for everything.” A copper coin was better off than a bag of rotten seeds.
Xiaoguo tried to suppress her excitement. She hesitated for a short while before finally handing over a copper coin. The old lady felt relieved upon seeing Xiaoguo fish out the money. She happily accepted the coin and handed the seeds over. Xiaoguo took the bag of seeds and left.
After carefully putting away the seeds, Xiaoguo continued to shop around. Once this corn was harvested, she would make popcorn in various flavors to sell.
Xiaoguo was done with her shopping. Seeing that it was still early, and she had nowhere else to go, she headed back to the main entrance intending to walk around the market again.
She had almost reached the market entrance when she heard someone speaking Mandarin in an odd accent.
Xiaoguo looked in the direction of the voice and saw a foreign man in tattered clothes being chased out of a shop. The shop owner shooed him away and said, “Go away, go away. Who wants your cows? They are so fancy. What’s the point of keeping them if they can’t work in the fields?”
The foreigner squatted down and protected the calves in his arms as he said to the shopkeeper, “Trust me, they can produce milk. You can drink its milk.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the onlookers who were gathered around, burst into laughter.