FH Chapter 40: 投缘
Hit it off [Find each other congenial]
The boss’s wife, dressed in short and lined coat or robe, surveyed the three people, looking at Li Jin Hu and Li Haitang’s remarkable resemblance, vaguely guessed the relationship between the three people, that is, the husband and wife brought their little brother-in-law (wife’s younger brother) to buy fabrics (cloth material).
“Mei Zi (Little Sister), my name is Chun Niang, I’m the boss lady of this cloth shop, what do you look at, I’ll count it cheaper for you.”
Chun Niang felt that Li Haitang’s temperament was in line with her, and felt very connected. Several years ago, her husband got seriously ill and became a pot of medicine (chronic invalid), lying sick in bed, always relying on her to take care of him.
The neighbors all said that Chun Niang was young and beautiful and could not guard or watch her husband, and every time she heard such words, she would go and have a big fight with those people.
Chun Niang and her husband are fleeing from the south to the north of the border city, when they first came here, her husband to do hard labor, get a little silver money, all to her to buy food and drink, preferring to starve themselves, and then the two couples rely on the bartering with Man Zu Tribe, accumulation of capital, only then they now have their family business.
“Anyway, whoever said my husband, I am going to fight that person risking my life. ”
Chun Niang smiled brightly, pointing to the fabrics next to her, “Haitang Mei Zi, these are the goods I got from the south, twill fine cotton cloth, to make the lining of the jacket, to block the wind, and comfortable to wear, you buy it even if it’s at cost price, twenty wen a foot.”
Ordinary coarse cloth, seven or eight wen, fine cotton cloth is a bit more expensive, twill fine cotton cloth, the purchase price is high, plus the north-south freight cost, the cloth shop will need at least thirty-five wen.
“Chun Niang, you’re opening a business, how can you not make money? Just give me the normal market price.”
Li Haitang had been to two cloth shops before she understood the approximate price, Chun Niang didn’t lie, asking for twenty wen a foot or one chi (a traditional unit of length, equivalent to 0.333 meter or 1.094 feet), indeed not making any silver.
“Little Sis Haitang, don’t refuse it.”
Chun Niang’s family shop is on the side of the street, it’s her own house, she lives in the backyard, her own house, no cost, if it’s not the fact that her husband at home has to take medication, and he needs a large amount of silver every month, she wants to give it away for nothing.
Li Haitang never met such businessman, she doesn’t love to take advantage of others, it’s rare that two people have something to say, she transmigrated over, her family relatives as ferocious as wolves and tigers; like cruel beasts of prey there is really no friends, met Chun Niang, the two are a bit of ‘feel like old friends at the first meeting; hit it off well right from the start.
People and people get along, it depends on their bond, having similar temperament, a great sense of regret for not having met earlier.
“Only one room in the inn? How can you live in it?”
The two said to be sisters, Chun Niang’s age, can be Li Haitang’s mother, because her husband’s health is not good, the two did not get a child, Chun Niang pulled Li Haitang’s hand, enthusiastically issued an invitation, “I still have two empty rooms in my house, a home is more comfortable than the inn, you first go to shop, I will close the shop early, come to my house to eat dinner.”
“Then that’s fine.”
Li Haitang agreed painfully, simply sent the fabrics to the cloth shop, just walked out the door, Li Jin Hu couldn’t hold it in, “Sister, why don’t you have a little bit of precautionary mentality, in case that Chun Niang is a bad person, what if she cheats away our cloths?”
Not only that, but also to go to a stranger’s house to stay overnight, Li Jin Hu really does not understand, just met people, completely unfamiliar, only through the statement of only one of the parties can they determine that the person has no good intentions?
Father used to go outside to work, not a lot of talk to him about the border city. This was the border zone between the two countries, fish and dragons mixed in together (idiom); fig. crooks mixed in with the honest folk: there were a lot of foreigners coming and going, and there were also bandits who robbed homes and roamed around after doing a job.
“Sister ah, you, be generous ba!”
Li Jin Hu’s head was aching, his sister and his mother, the same, not interested in, or out of touch with, mundane affairs; above worldly material attractions; detached,but thanks to Big Brother Xiao beside them, otherwise on the siblings, fell into other’s hands as if the green vegetables and carrots, at the mercy of others (cannot help but allow oneself to be trampled upon).
