Fengtian, inner city wall, Xiaonanmen
Under the old city wall, shacks and tile-roofed houses are connected together in black paint. The yellow mud streets are covered with snowflakes, like snow-white fishing nets dividing this shabby land into pieces. The streets and alleys are dotted together. If it weren’t for the With the smoke floating in the air, I never thought there would be so many people living there!
The poor man who had his head shaved was rubbing his hands in the cold wind and hawking along the street with steam coming from his mouth. His old and turbid voice was like a wild mouse crawling into the bellows, making his voice hoarse and squeaking.
Yue Guanchao and the others got out of the car and stepped into the muddy puddles. The melted mud mixed with dirty snow was wrapped into the uppers of their shoes. At first, they hid a little, but later they saw that there were more and more puddles, so they didn't care and let their feet go. Walk forward with your feet in the mud.
As soon as he walked into the streets under the city wall, he was immediately surrounded by several dirty little beggars. They were talking about uncles and aunts and wanted some copper coins. When they saw Yue Guanchao, they looked at him fiercely, like a chicken cub meeting a weasel. The birds and beasts dispersed.
"Hey, don't scare them away. I plan to give them copper coins~"
Song Siyuan saw that as soon as she took out her money bag, Yue Guanchao drove everyone away, her face showing displeasure.
Yue Guanchao greeted the people around him and teased: "Song Qianjin has been to the tomb so many times, and she still looks like a female Bodhisattva. These children don't look very naive. As long as you dare to give money, you will definitely give them the money bag." You're gone."
"We're not here to give alms, so there's no need to provoke them~"
While they were talking, they had already arrived at the street under the south gate city wall!
There are two walls in Fengtian, one is the inner city wall, and the other is the outer wall.
Few poor people in Fengtian live in the inner city. Most of them live near the outer gate and the inner city wall. They are distributed along the large and small side gates. There are not many formal courtyards, but more temporary shacks and mixed courtyards. They are spread over several miles. There are no telephone poles, so we still use firewood for cooking and candles for lighting.
Xiaonanmen Street is a place where poor people trade. Of course, you need money to buy things here. If you are really short of money, you can also barter, as long as the shopkeeper is willing to exchange. There are few valuables. For sale, they are mostly living items such as needles, thread, and grain meal.
Now, it's time for the morning market, and it's crowded and noisy.
What I saw were poor people with sallow faces and hunched shoulders. They were wearing thick cotton-padded jackets. They were either standing in front of the stalls buying rice or noodles, cutting cloth and repairing shoes, or walking along the street with baskets, often with colorful cloth flags. Women were walking around wearing coarse cloth hats, and their thick wooden soles made a clattering sound.
That beautiful and charming red color made the man who got up early to go to work look sideways and smile crookedly.
They didn't mind either. They flicked their hands and rolled their eyes away.
Looking further ahead, the high-profile fortune-telling guise comes into view!
It's washed white and patched, and there's a sentence etched on the left and right sides of the fabric.
"Don't forget that God doesn't open his eyes. The fate of heaven and earth can be calculated in the palm of your hand. The fortune-telling passed down from ancestors~covers the sky~"
Yue Guanchao and the others looked at Sun Daqiao among the crowd.
This person is wearing a heavy cotton jacket, a light gray cotton robe, black cotton boots on his feet, the edges of the shoes are full of black mud, a bald forehead with a flip-up melon hat, his hands are kicked into the sleeves, his muddy old eyes are shrewd and alert , his hair has long been gray, and he looks scheming, not like a good person.
Yue Guanchao signaled to everyone, and they quietly dispersed to other streets and alleys, leaving him alone to gradually approach the fortune-telling stall.
When he got close, he knew that the evil spirits were very careful, so he was not in a hurry to alert the snake, so he simply sat at the braised pork stall next to him, ordered a bowl of Zheluo vegetables and pretended to eat them. The sitting position happened to be near the window of the shack. With the black briquettes on the stove, it is neither cold nor hot, which is just right.
The so-called folding basket is also called folding basket rice and folding basket vegetables. In the old society, it was something that the lower class people would only eat as a sacrifice.
Most of this kind of stuff comes from nearby restaurants. In the past, the rich and wealthy would order a table full of delicacies, mostly for the sake of conversation, and they would only eat a few bites of food on a table. For people who spend a lot of money, most of the food on the table would be like this. Didn't move.
The banquet has been sold, and it cannot be resold to other families. If word spreads, it will ruin the sign, but it is a pity to lose such a good thing. With the shopkeeper who cherishes food, he will probably sell braised pork. Vendors are called in and sell to these small businesses at the lowest price.
They used these leftovers and cooked nothing else. They just set up a pot, poured in the chicken, duck, fish, meat and vegetables, mixed them well, and cooked them until they were simmering and fragrant. There were dozens of meat and fish dishes. Confusing each other, the soup is red in color, the meat is rotten, and the flavor is rich. The smell makes your nose sore and your mouth watering!
I can't compliment the taste. After all, it's leftover rotten rice. However, compared to the half bowls of rotten vegetables and leaves that poor people eat, it's already considered a delicacy for an old man.
Many poor people from all walks of life from all walks of life came to patronize it. Since the sesame cakes only cost a copper penny, why not come here to make a toothpaste with bowls and baskets of vegetables?
A copper coin is a bowl, and if you are not full, you can also get two vegetable buns folded in a basket. If you add a few taels of multi-grain noodles, mix them a little and make fried noodles.
Yue Guanchao folded the basket of vegetables and stared carefully at the fortune-telling stall not far away. When Zhetian saw a lady with oily hair and pink face passing by, he smiled so much that his face spread. He pricked up his ears and listened carefully to the conversation between the two.
Zhe Tianyan pulled up the sleeper and asked the lady to put her hand on it. He touched the palm with his rough old hands and said happily with a smile on his face: "Oh, madam, you are destined to be the wife of the chief minister."
When this noble lady heard what Zhe Tianyan said, no matter whether it was accurate or not, the auspiciousness alone made people happy, and her voice rose an octave:
"Hey, Mrs. Chief? Master, are you accurate in this calculation? My old man is still a deputy, and he can't even get promoted until his beard is almost white."
