farmhouse ditty

Chapter 44 Dialogue with profiteers (revised)
After leaving a small medicine shop, Xiu Niang carried a bamboo basket and walked towards the gate of the town. The sun was shining at noon, so she stood under the wall and hid in a dark place to enjoy the shade.

She put a bamboo basket by her feet, and did a quick calculation. In addition to the one just now, she asked her to go around a dozen drugstores, big and small, on the front street, but none of them was good. as she wishes.

Xiu Niang sighed and smiled, as the old saying goes, you are not afraid of comparing goods, but you are afraid of not knowing the goods, come on, that's all for today, let's just wait here and wait for Chu Ge.

This time, a hunchback old man passed by a while ago, carrying a wooden stick and yelling. He tied a lot of hay on the top of the stick, and tied several thin ropes, but the hoops were tightly bound. .

Then put more than a dozen strings of hawthorn gourds on it, each string has a dozen big red fruits, each fruit is dipped in icy icing, and a bamboo stick is crooked. , walking up and down, can be greedy.

Xiu Niang stared at her eyes, why don't you go to town once and bring some back for Xiao Xiang'er and Chu An to satisfy their greed, it's a good thing they didn't come in vain.

She took a few steps to catch up, "Old man, please wait for a while."

The hunchback old man looked old, but his ears were very good. He heard the call, he responded to the call, pressed the wooden stick with his hand and poked it to the ground, and then pushed it up again.

The old man turned the wooden stick and turned around, and saw a person standing behind him, who was looking at a pretty little daughter-in-law.

He grinned, "Sister-in-law, I want candied haws, the candied haws made by my old man, the sugar coating is crunchy, and it doesn't stick to the teeth when you eat it. .”

Xiu Niang smiled after hearing this, "Old man, I listened to what you just yelled, how much money do you have?"

The old man smiled, stretched out his hand in front of Xiuniang, raised his thumb and little finger, "It's not expensive, it's a string of six pennies."

Xiu Niang counted and said, "Old man, can you bring me four skewers, and I'll give you twenty Wen?"

The old man frowned, and didn't think about it. Xiu Niang said honestly, "Old man, you have a string of six Wen, and four strings are 24 Wen in total. I have a lot more, and you have four Wen less." money's."

The old man laughed when he heard it, "Sure, my sister-in-law is good at counting, and I'm easy to talk about, twenty cents is twenty cents." As he spoke, he took a sheet from the large pile of oil paper on the wooden stick. , Xiuniang saw it earlier, and thought that Ren'er was tied up for shoulder pads.

Xiu Niang touched the copper in her sleeve, and smiled, "Old man, you pick four big red fruits, thick sugar-coated ones."

The old man spread oiled paper on his hands, looked up at the dozens of bunches of hawthorn and gourds, and laughed, "Sure, I'll pick the big one with more sugar."

Waiting for Xiuniang to count the money, the old man also wrapped the four bunches of hawthorn and gourd tightly, and she handed the money over, "Old man, this is twenty Wen, you have to go through it."

The old man wrapped a thin rope around the bamboo stick, and tied a ring at the back so that Xiu Niang could carry it, "Sister-in-law, you put it here... Hey, sister-in-law, you are the one on the wall." Is it your basket?"

Xiu Niang took the oiled paper bag, and when she heard what the old man said, she looked back and saw a man in front of her, who was squatting on the ground and fiddled with her bamboo basket. The old man said, "Hey, that's me...you take the money first, old man."

While shouting, the old man counted the money, "Hey, what are you counting? You don't have much money, sister-in-law, hurry up, don't let the thief run away."

Xiu Niang trotted over with her dress in hand, but she slowed down as she waited for her to approach. She saw that the man was dressed in a long gown, dressed like a rich man, but he was not a thief. Picking up my own bamboo basket is not to leave, but to stand outside and look carefully.

The man held the bamboo basket and put it under the sun to look around, and when he saw Xiu Niang, he smiled, "I'm sorry, my sister-in-law, please excuse me, this basket of herbs belongs to you?"

Xiu Niang saw that this man was only in his thirties, with a dignified appearance, and his words had a bit of culture, she presumed he was a businessman, she didn't answer, she just asked, "Brother, what's the matter with you? "

Seeing Xiuniang's indifferent attitude, the man just smiled, "Sister-in-law, no doubt, I used to be the shopkeeper of Tairen Pharmacy. My surname is Tian. I just came back from outside. I just passed by and saw that your basket of dry goods is good, so I wanted to ask details."

What Xiuniang thought about, Tairan Pharmacy?Isn't that the one she went to first? After that, the boy gave her a bag of ointment. She looked at the man and asked, "What does the shopkeeper want to ask?"

Shopkeeper Tian returned the basket to her first, and asked first, "Listen to my sister-in-law's voice, but she came from Shangyang Village, I remember, there are no such good dry goods over there."

Listening to Shangyang Village, Xiuniang quickly remembered the trouble she had with Chuge's parents in the morning, and she said straight, "I came from Xiayang Village, so don't make contact with Shangyang Village."

Shopkeeper Tian said with a smile, "Oh, it used to be from Xiayang Village, which is quite remote."

Xiu Niang said, "That's not the case. Hire a cattle trailer. It will take a long time to go back and forth."

Shopkeeper Tian looked at her, "Yes, it's not tiring to have a car, that little sister-in-law, your basket of dried cauliflower..."

Seeing Shopkeeper Tian's long voice, Xiu Niang seemed unable to pronounce her full name, "Dried cauliflower? Do you mean day lily?"

Shopkeeper Tian smiled, "Yes, I can't say the name on my lips, little sister-in-law, you day lily, do you want to sell it for a very high price?"

Xiu Niang listened for a while, sniffed her little nose, and looked at the man in front of her. You can't smell the medicine all over your body.

Besides, he is the shopkeeper of a pharmacy. If he has more than ten years of experience, he can't afford the boss of a pharmacy.

After thinking about it for a while, Xiu Niang smiled. She put a bamboo basket on her arm, and supported her hair bun with her hand. Yes, because he wanted to fool her and sell the medicinal herb for the price of dry goods, but he was a profiteer.

She looked at the man and smiled, "The shopkeeper Tian told me to use day lily to stew the soup, it's sour and appetizing."

Shopkeeper Tian heard that there was a sign of it, and echoed from the side, "Yes, this daylily can relieve food and dampness, and has the effect of improving eyesight and calming the nerves. It can be served with chicken, duck, and fish soup."

Xiu Niang said with a smile, "But people in your town can eat it. Fortunately, shopkeeper Tian, ​​my basket of dry goods happens to be one catty and one tael high. Without the dozen or so eggs, the total is five taels. money's."

Shopkeeper Tian paused for a while, then smiled, "Little sister-in-law is joking, I can't quite understand it."

Xiu Niang said with a smile, "I'm just kidding, this basket of dry goods was weighed in your shop earlier, and it's because your assistant is illiterate and doesn't recognize the good goods, so he just put them in the medicine pile and polished them. It's been a year, but I don't know what I am, and I insist on saying that a good herb for clearing away heat and detoxification is a vegetable ingredient for soup, isn't it ridiculous?"

In fact, the boy from Tairen Drug Store called it for her. They asked her how much to sell it for, and she said that it would be a whole catty to settle accounts, and it would be [-] taels of silver. I didn't expect to ask someone to invite me out.

After that, she went to the next few houses like this. There was one house where she only wanted three liang of silver, but no one wanted it. Now that she thinks about it, she gets angry. It will take a lot of effort to collect a basket full of these things. With a big heart, she immediately added one or two.

Now the shopkeeper Ren'er personally asked the question. Ren'er's store is big and full of medicinal herbs, and the business must be extensive. The shopkeeper in Tian looks young, but he has sharp eyes. He can definitely See good and bad.

As for the previous one, she also went to the pharmacies all over the street to look for the price. The price she was asking for now was not expensive.

The shopkeeper of the field listened, first looked at her carefully, and then said with a smile, "This is my rudeness, then send this basket of herbs to my Tairen Pharmacy at the price of my sister-in-law. "

(End of this chapter)