dognovel Chapter 98 Taking My Wife to the Market
Chapter 98 Taking My Wife to the Market
Chapter 99 Taking My Wife to the Market
The next day, around 5 a.m., the sky was still overcast.
On the road leading to Wuzhen.
Four people and two horses, carrying several hundred kilograms of wild boar meat and pig bones, walked slowly and sluggishly.
The surroundings were deathly silent.
Li Xiangyang and Li Xiangdong led the horses in front, while Liu Xiulan and Zhao Lijuan followed behind.
The snow on both sides of the road had already piled up to thigh height the day before yesterday, leaving only a narrow path less than two meters wide in the middle that could be walked on.
Even so, some sections of the road still require wading through snow, and every now and then a blizzard can last for hours.
Traffic in Inner Mongolia is basically paralyzed right now.
Even a single horse-drawn carriage couldn't make it across; carrying loads by a single horse over long distances would be extremely difficult.
"Xiangyang, shall we just keep walking like this all the way to Wuzhen?!"
Zhao Lijuan frowned and asked, what she really wanted to say was whether she could ride the horse occasionally, as walking through the snow was tiring for her.
But seeing that everyone else was walking, she felt embarrassed to say it directly.
"Otherwise what?"
Li Xiangyang countered with a question.
He understood Zhao Lijuan's meaning, but the chestnut horse was already carrying over two hundred pounds of meat. Adding her weight would surely make the horse sick.
He will not agree.
"Forehead----.?"
Looking at the endless expanse of white snow in front of her, Zhao Lijuan suddenly regretted agreeing to go to Wuzhen with Li Xiangyang and the others last night.
"How much longer do we have to walk to get to Wuzhen?"
"It depends. The roads are slippery now, and some sections have thick snow. It should take at least three and a half to four hours to walk."
"This trip alone will take three or four hours? And that includes the return trip—."
Liu Xiulan was shocked by the number and muttered to herself, "I should have just not gone—"
In fact, people of their generation basically travel on foot, and can easily walk for three or four hours on flat ground.
But with the heavy snow and slippery roads, having to wade through the snow every now and then made it quite difficult.
"Why don't you go back? You haven't gone very far."
Li Xiangdong saw that they were saying these things as soon as they left the house, and he was worried that they wouldn't be able to walk that far.
But he underestimated women's determination to be beautiful.
"No!"
"don't want!"
Zhao Lijuan and Liu Xiulan said in unison.
They've already come out, so there's no reason for them to go back.
Moreover, a new batch of fabrics arrived at the department store, and they all wanted to go and see them, even if they weren't for sale, just to have a look.
Li Xiangyang smiled.
"Let's go then. Let's save our energy and talk less; we still have a long way to go! I'll treat you to a meal when we get to Wuzhen!"
"Eating out?" Zhao Lijuan's interest was piqued, and she asked, "What kind of food do they have there? I haven't been to Wuzhen in ages."
"Wouldn't that be too wasteful of money?"
As Liu Xiulan spoke, she patted the cloth bag behind her: "I even brought some cornbread buns with me, thinking we could eat them when we get hungry later."
"It doesn't matter, it won't cost us much to have a meal together."
"It's rare for you to come all this way to the market, so I'll treat you to a nice meal."
Li Xiangyang said with a smile.
Thinking to himself, he was glad he married his wife, who was so frugal: "As for what good food there is, I don't know. There's been a snow disaster recently, and I heard that the state-run restaurants have been closed for the past two days. I'll go check it out after I sell the pork."
"Hmm, it's okay. If you have it, you have it. If you don't, consider it saving money."
Liu Xiulan nodded. She was fine with anything. It was rare that she didn't have to take care of the child today and could even go to the market in Wuzhen. She was already very content.
Since giving birth to Li Doudou over a year ago, she hasn't had a single day of such leisure; she even has to get up four or five times a night.
Whether he needed to pee or was hungry, Li Xiangyang, who used to hang out with Donkey Egg and the others every day, never helped them.
Now I often have to go fishing and selling fish, and hunting, which is very tiring. Every night, I either have to be intimate with her or lie down and fall asleep, so I can't help her take care of the baby.
By the time they arrived in Wuzhen, it was already 8:30 in the morning, and the sky was completely bright. Because the number of people setting up stalls at the black market had decreased by more than half recently, there were also far fewer people coming to the black market to buy things.
However, when Li Xiangyang and Li Xiangdong displayed the wild boar meat, it immediately attracted a large crowd.
During this period, the supply and marketing cooperatives basically had no meat for sale; even with coupons and money, it was impossible to buy meat.
"Young man, what kind of meat are you selling, and how much is it?"
An old woman in a plaid dress asked.
"It's wild boar meat, we just caught it yesterday, six—."
Li Xiangdong blurted out, intending to say six cents a pound, but Li Xiangyang covered his mouth.
He recognized the woman; she was the same woman who had tried to bargain with him about the price of crucian carp when he first came to the black market to sell fish.
Li Xiangyang said with a smile, "Auntie, wild boar meat is nine cents a pound."
"Ninety cents a pound? This pork is only one dollar a pound. You're overcharging, young man."
Sure enough, the old woman habitually started haggling.
But this time, Li Xiangyang didn't intend to do as she wished.
I thought to myself, "You said there wouldn't be many people waiting, so why don't you try to negotiate the price with me privately? You didn't buy that many anyway, so I'll lower the price and sell it to you."
But now, with so many people watching, if he lowers the price to sell it to her, then everyone else will have to sell it at a lower price too.
How much less money will he earn?
It's true that pork at the supply and marketing cooperative is one yuan per jin, but there's basically no meat for sale there right now. They just put up a price, and you still need a ration coupon.
The others also wanted to see what Li Xiangyang would say; a discount would be the best outcome.
"Wild boar meat is 90 cents a pound, and pork bones are 50 cents a pound. We brought 50 pounds of pork and 40 pounds of pork bones today. Once we sell them all, that's it. We definitely won't be coming back to sell them again."
Li Xiangyang refused to budge an inch, adopting an attitude of "take it or leave it."
Even with the snow disaster, they transported wild boar meat from afar and sold it for only nine cents a pound, which is not expensive at all.
His deliberate underestimation of the weight was a tactic he learned from later generations of scarcity marketing.
Sure enough, when the older woman who was standing at the back heard that Li Xiangyang hadn't brought much pork and that no one else was coming, she immediately became restless.
He squeezed his way to the front row and said excitedly, "Young comrade, give me a pound first, no, two pounds, I want two pounds of fatty pork."
"Okay, I'll cut it for you now."
"What's wrong with you? Young man, I was here first, and I also want two pounds of fatty pork."
"Me too, me too."
"Don't push, I was here first."
Everyone started talking at once, scrambling to buy the meat.
In no time, the forty catties of wild boar meat that had just been put out were all sold out, and the people in the front row who had bought the pork squeezed out.
People in the back squeezed in and saw Li Xiangyang taking pork out of the sack again, so naturally they didn't say anything.
Everyone's scrambling for meat right now. As long as they can buy some, who cares whether Li Xiangyang brought forty or eighty pounds of meat?
The woman in the plaid shirt, who had been squeezed to the side, was now furious.
That young man is dishonest!
They actually lied to me, saying they only brought forty pounds of meat, but they've already sold at least seventy pounds of meat, and they're still taking meat out.
The woman in the plaid dress grew angrier the more she thought about it, and couldn't stand it any longer.
next second.
"Pork seller, give me two pounds, the fatty kind."
Li Xiangyang smiled wryly, thinking that the woman in the plaid dress was trying to do something aggressive.
"Auntie, the fatty ones are sold out. Would you like some fatty ones?"
"you----.
'
"The older women have sold out of the fatty ones, do you want the lean ones?"
"Yes, yes, I want the skinny ones too, quickly cut me two pounds."
"Hey, don't push! Move aside, move aside! I was here first!"
A moment later, after paying, the woman in the plaid shirt left grumbling.