Back to 1984: Hunting in the Mountains

Chapter 27 Find a Place to Set Up a Stall
Because it was still early, the snack street was not particularly busy.

There were sparse stalls on both sides of the road, but they were not fully occupied yet. Some of the people who had come were setting out the things they wanted to sell, while others were standing on the street chatting or smoking without even untying the ropes of their bags or baskets.

Anyway, it just occupies the space. If no one buys it, it will just gather dust if you open it too early.

People in Rongcheng don't eat three meals a day like people in the south.

People here have always maintained the habit of having two meals a day, that is, eating one meal around 9 am and another meal around 4 pm.

This time is basically determined based on the time spent working in the fields.

Because the sun rises late here, in the autumn, it is still dark after seven in the morning, and people have nothing to do when they get up, so they simply don't get up. Over thousands of years, this habit has been formed, and people have simply skipped breakfast.

Although some people say that skipping breakfast is bad for health, especially causing problems like stomach problems and cholecystitis, in fact, very few people here have this problem, and everyone lives a long life.

Even in later generations, there are many longevity villages widely known in the Sanqin area.

If they don't eat breakfast, they will have to eat lunch at home before coming here. The customers who really come early to buy things are some teachers in the town, employees of state-owned stores, government officials, and some people who live in the town.

They would go to the market early in the morning to buy some necessary things, then go home to pack up and go to work or open a business.

But there are relatively few such people. The main force of buyers are still the local people, and they come very late.

Therefore, the snack street early in the morning is still in the warm-up stage before opening.

Yu Qiutang looked around and chose to put down the basket next to a small stall selling tea eggs and twisted dough sticks.

He felt that his magical tofu was more suitable for these two snacks.

The man selling fried dough twists was a middle-aged man in his forties with a silly smile and wrinkles all over his face. Time had cut countless fine lines on his face. Perhaps because he had to smile when seeing people in his business, his fine lines looked more than those of ordinary people.

Selling fried dough twists requires a special cart with a stove on it. The oil pan on the stove has been heated for a long time. Three fried dough twists are rolling in the pan, and the rich aroma of fried dough twists fills the air.

There was a small stove on the ground next to him, and in the basin above the stove was a bowl of tea eggs, which smelled very good.

Seeing Yu Qiutang, a half-grown boy, followed by two even younger children who were also not well dressed, the uncle smiled at them and said, "Put it here. There's no one here. There will be more people soon."

"Then I'll put it here."

Yu Qiutang responded with a smile, put down the basket, and after pulling out the shoulder pole, he suddenly looked troubled. It would be better if he could find a wooden board that could be placed on the two baskets to form a small chopping board.

Now the tofu is all in the basket. It is not convenient to take it out and outsiders cannot see it, so it is really inconvenient to display.

Just as he was hesitating, a board more than one meter long and half a meter wide was handed to him. It turned out to be an uncle. He was indeed an old hand in the street stall business. He could see Yu Qiutang's embarrassment at a glance and enthusiastically took it out of the car and gave it to him.

"That's exactly what I needed. Thank you so much."

Yu Qiutang took the wooden board and found it was quite heavy and the surface was polished. It was probably used as a chopping board.

"Nothing, I'm just sitting around doing nothing anyway," the uncle smiled and asked, "Is this your first time selling things? Why are you bringing two children with you?"

"It's my first time, I don't know how to do it yet. Uncle, please teach me more about what I don't understand. I want to make something and sell it to earn some money to support my family."

Yu Qiutang's answer was evasive and he did not elaborate.

The uncle laughed and said, "It's a small matter. You will learn it after a few times. Doing business is nothing more than being sincere. I don't know what you sell, but for people like me who come here every day to set up a stall to sell things, I focus on the long term. As long as my food tastes good and I don't mess around, and people gradually get used to it, then I will have established myself."

Yu Qiutang tried to stabilize the basket, but found that if he took out the washbasin, the basket was too light and would shake no matter how he placed it. He looked around and found a few stones on the side of the road behind him. He simply picked them up and put them in the basket to weigh it down. Finally, it became much more stable.

After the chopping board is fixed, put the washbasin on it.

At this time, more and more people came, including those selling fried cakes, noodles, candied haws, sesame cakes, hawthorn rolls, etc. There were also some people selling vegetables and old tobacco leaves.

The streets become lively as more people come.

Many people know each other or are familiar with each other. When they meet early in the morning, they will inevitably have a conversation about where they went to the market yesterday, how much money they made, how prices have risen again, how their children are going to get married soon, etc.

The sounds rise and fall, mixed together, like the beginning of a special reverberation concert.

Yu Qiutang also felt it was noisy at first, but after careful listening, he realized that he was now very sensitive to sound. As long as he paid attention, he could separate all the voices and randomly determine the sounds he wanted to hear.

That's very convenient.

After putting his things in place, he saw that there were only vendors setting up stalls on the street and there were no customers for the time being, so he asked the two children to watch over the cat and not to move, while he carried the civet to the wild animal market.

After walking a few dozen meters, he remembered that human traffickers were rampant in this era, so he hurried back and reminded the two again that no matter what happened, they must not leave the stall and be careful of bad people cheating them.

After the two of them were sure they understood and agreed, he asked the uncle next to him to take care of the child and then hurried to the wild market.

The snack street is on South Street, and the wild market is to the west, about a mile apart.

Yu Qiutang traveled lightly, carrying only a dozen pounds of things, almost without any weight. Without two "burdens" holding him back, he walked very fast and reached the Wild Animal Market in just a few minutes.

It is called a wild market, but in fact it is just a piece of wild grass.

There used to be a big pit here, which was full of trees. Later, the trees were gradually cut down and the pit was left, overgrown with weeds year after year.

The reason why it is called a wild animal market is that it is a convention among people who sell things. The government has not planned that this is the place for trading wild animals. Everyone is used to buying and selling here, and gradually a market is formed spontaneously.

When Yu Qiutang was still a few dozen meters away from the wild animal market, someone immediately came up to him and asked what was in his bag. The road was full of wild animal dealers carrying beam scales and trying to intercept people.

"Brother, are you selling something?"

A peddler in his thirties grabbed Yu Qiutang's bag, weighed it calmly, and showed great interest.

"Sell."

"Brother, what's in your bag? Whether it's a rabbit, a pheasant, or a weasel, I'll take it all. Let's take a look at the goods over there." Another dealer of similar age immediately came over and pulled at the other side of the bag.

This is the norm in the wild animal market. Not to mention selling wild animals, even selling a chicken will be fought over.

(End of this chapter)