Chapter 195
After the table and wooden racks were finished, Shen Xuanqing didn’t let Wang Chengzi deliver them to the house. Instead, he hitched the mule cart and went with Shen Yaoqing to Wang Mutou’s place. Since the table and racks were to be hauled to Jixing Town, there was no need to make an extra trip to their home first.
As soon as they entered the yard, they saw the four wooden racks placed inside. The legs stood firmly on the ground, looking sturdy.
Wang Mutou was planing wood when he saw them arrive. He set down the plane and said, "The other two will be ready in a couple of days. Should I leave them here in the yard?"
Shen Xuanqing patted the racks to check their stability and replied, "Please deliver those two to our house. These four will be enough for now."
"Alright." Wang Mutou nodded. Once they were satisfied with the items, he helped them load the racks and table onto the mule cart.
Wang Chengzi also came out to help. Together with Shen Yaoqing, he used a long hemp rope to tie down the items on the cart tightly so they wouldn’t fall off during the journey.
The four racks were stacked and barely secured, along with a table and two butcher blocks. The loaded cart was quite heavy.
Shen Xuanqing and Shen Yaoqing sat at the front of the cart, one on each side. With a crack of the whip in the air, the mule started moving forward.
"It’s been running a lot lately. Once we finish these tasks in a couple of days, let it rest for a while," Shen Yaoqing said with a laugh.
The mule they had bought was tall, strong, and capable of heavy labor. In the eyes of villagers, such livestock were born to pull carts and turn millstones. Once driven, it would plod forward without complaint.
"Exactly," Shen Xuanqing chuckled from the other side. "Later, we’ll feed it more fine fodder. We still have plenty of sweet taro roots at home, chop them up and mix them with bran, chaff, and bean meal. We should take good care of it."
At home, they mostly fed the mule high-quality fodder and never mistreated it. A beast of burden that worked hard for the family naturally had to be well cared for. If it fell sick and weak, it’d be useless. It needed to be kept strong and sturdy.
"Of course," Shen Yaoqing nodded in agreement.
When they arrived in Jixing Town, it was the busiest time of the morning. The street in front of their shop was bustling with people. Some curious passersby peeked inside, wondering what was being sold.
The brothers unloaded and moved things inside, keeping busy for quite a while. To the west of their shop was a noodle restaurant that also sold sesame-topped griddle cakes in the morning - locally called ma bingzi, as well as thin porridge and thick millet gruel.
The noodle shop was run by an elderly couple. Their establishment had been around for years, and the old lady and her husband were still in charge. Their son and daughter-in-law worked in the back kitchen every day, while two hired hands served and called out orders.
Recently, Shen Xuanqing and Shen Yaoqing had been frequenting Jixing Town. When they were too busy to eat at the Yang family’s place, they would have a bowl of noodles at the neighbor’s shop - convenient since it was so close.
To the east was a fortune-teller’s shop, with a banner at the entrance listing services like dream interpretation and divination. But in all the days Shen Xuanqing had been coming to the shop, he had never once seen the eastern neighbor open for business. According to Granny Zhao from the noodle shop, the fortune-teller had gone traveling and it was unclear when he’d return.
The shop had already been cleaned up. They set up the table at the entrance and moved the four racks inside, placing two on each side to leave a walkway in the middle. In the future, meat would be hung on these racks - rabbits, chickens, ducks, and such. After slaughtering, there was no need for iron hooks, braided hemp ropes would suffice.
Shen Xuanqing looked around inside and out. The once-empty shop was gradually filling up. After a moment of consideration, he smiled and said, "This’ll do."
The table at the entrance was longer than usual, blocking most of the path. But that wasn’t an issue, they’d be standing inside to chop meat, so as long as there was space to walk, it was fine.
Though he wasn’t holding a knife, he still raised his hand to test the height. Without saying anything, he mentally confirmed that this would be the setup for chopping meat later. Then he placed the butcher block on the table to test it.
Shen Yaoqing adjusted the racks to make sure they were steady. When Hu Ping had run his sundry goods shop, he had paved the floor with bricks, making it fairly level. Once the racks were in place, they didn’t wobble. "Fits just right," he said with a smile.
Hearing this, Shen Xuanqing turned around, a smile on his face as well. Since they weren’t open for business today, he moved the table back against the wall.
"Eldest Brother, stay here and keep an eye on things. I’m going to the blacksmith’s. When I come back, we’ll each have a bowl of noodles next door," he said, heading out.
Shen Yaoqing agreed. Seeing the mule snorting and panting at the entrance, he walked through the inner gate to the backyard, grabbed a bundle of dry grass from the haystack, and picked up two buckets - one old, one new, from beside the wall in the passageway.
There was no hitching post or trough in front of the butcher shop, but between their shop and the eastern neighbor was a waist-high bluestone platform, square and of moderate size. According to Hu Ping, his mother and wife used to sit there to sort threads or pick vegetables, just a multipurpose spot.
He unhitched the cart, placed the hay on the bluestone, and greeted Granny Zhao from the noodle shop next door before heading to the street corner with the new bucket to fetch water.
It was just past lunchtime, so the noodle shop had few customers. Granny Zhao, wearing a green headband with chrysanthemum patterns, was pounding dried peppercorns at the entrance and readily agreed when he spoke to her.
Earlier, when Shen Xuanqing passed by her door, he had greeted her, and she was still smiling, the corners of her eyes crinkling.
It wasn’t just young men who appreciated good looks, older women also enjoyed chatting with handsome, well-spoken young fellows.
This had nothing to do with anything else. People were just like that, when they saw good-looking men or women, most would take a second glance.
Shen Xuanqing was tall and handsome, and Shen Yaoqing wasn’t bad either. In fact, he was even more sociable than Shen Xuanqing. Lately, the two had been getting familiar with the neighbors.
No comments:
Post a Comment