Chapter 5: Going to the Morning Market
The next morning at four o’clock, the alarm clock was turned off after a single ring. Xu An quietly turned his head to look beside him. The two little ones were fast asleep, not looking the least bit disturbed.
He got out of bed as quietly as he could and washed up in the courtyard. Hearing the sound of someone turning over in his grandma’s room, he went in to find that she was already awake.
"Grandma, why don’t you turn on the light since you’re awake? This bulb could stay on all day and barely use any electricity."
Xu An reached out and pulled the string by the head of the bed, and the lightbulb cast a soft, yellow glow.
"The moonlight is so bright, I can see just fine. Don’t waste electricity." Granny Xu reached up, tugged the string, and the light went out.
Since his grandma didn’t want the light on, Xu An didn’t insist. He helped her sit up and lean against the wall, using the moonlight to see.
"I’m going to the vegetable garden in a bit to pick some vegetables to sell at the market. I won’t be back until eight or nine. Yesterday afternoon, they had nightmares while they were sleeping, saying I was abandoning them. I’m worried they’ll wake up, not see me, and start crying again."
"I don’t know why, but those two have gotten so clingy to you lately." Granny Xu’s face was full of smiles. "Maybe they know you’re about to leave for university. Once you go, you’ll be gone for half a year. They’ll definitely be crying then."
His hands, in the middle of wringing out a towel, paused for a moment. Then, with a sudden, forceful twist, he squeezed all the water out and handed the wrung-dry towel to Granny Xu.
Granny Xu took the towel and carefully wiped her face and neck.
Xu An stared blankly at the ripples in the washbasin.
’If I go off to college, that’ll leave an elderly woman who has trouble getting around and two four-year-olds who are still wobbly on their feet. How are they going to manage?’
’It would have been better if I’d been reborn before the college entrance exams. I wouldn’t have remembered anything, my scores would’ve been too low for university for sure, and I’d have a perfectly good reason not to go.’
Granny Xu tried to hand the towel back to Xu An several times, but he didn’t take it. She turned her head and saw him staring into space, assuming he was worried about tuition fees.
"I asked the other families in the village who have kids in university. Tuition for a public university is a few thousand yuan a year. We may be a bit poor, and my leg has cost us a lot, but we can still afford that."
"I’m not worried about tuition. The government has student loans and grants for the poor."
"Loans? You mean borrowing money from the government?"
"Yeah, but there’s no interest. You pay it back after you graduate. You just repay what you borrowed."
"That’s a good policy."
After Granny Xu finished washing up, Xu An carried the basin out of the room and dumped the water in the courtyard. Staring at the moon reflected in the puddle, he felt like the world was a bit screwed up.
’If I choose to go to college, my aunt will most likely take my brother and sister away, even if I object. But if I choose not to go, I’ll never hear the end of it from Grandma. She’d definitely think she and my siblings were holding me back and might even send the kids away behind my back.’
’After all, to Grandma, no matter how acerbic and harsh our aunt is, she’s still family, blood relatives. The two kids might not have a great life at our aunt’s house, but at least they’d have food to eat and warm clothes to wear.’
Xu An rubbed his face hard.
’I can’t think about this now. The first step is to keep my brother and sister here so my aunt can’t take them. I’ll figure out the rest later.’
The night before, Xu An had already prepared everything he needed for the morning: two large baskets, a carrying pole, and inside the baskets, a small knife, a flashlight, a small wooden stool, and a few other odds and ends.
He balanced the carrying pole on his left shoulder, a basket tied to each end. With his left hand steadying the pole, he turned on the flashlight with his right and headed toward the vegetable garden.
Xu An was trying to make it to the town’s morning market, which started at 5:30 AM and wrapped up around 7:30 AM. After 8:00 AM, the city inspectors would come on patrol. If you wanted to keep selling, you had to pay a five-yuan stall fee.
To save that five-yuan fee, people like Xu An, who sold their homegrown vegetables, would always aim for the early morning market.
As he walked, he could see people in several other vegetable gardens, picking produce by flashlight. Some looked up and greeted him as he passed.
Xu An quickened his pace and got to work in his own garden.
The garden had a good yield today. Tomatoes were the most plentiful; he picked over twenty of them, conservatively estimating about seven or eight pounds. Next were the green chili peppers, about five pounds. There were also two bitter melons and three eggplants. The leftover space in the corners was planted with leafy greens, just enough for the family to eat.
By the time he reached the market, the sky was already starting to brighten. A dozen or so small stalls were already set up in the open space in front of the market entrance.
As Xu An was looking for an empty spot, someone waved him over. It was Xu Guoqiang, whom he had to call Second Uncle according to the village hierarchy.
"You’re a bit late today! Any later and you would’ve had no spot left but some hidden corner nobody can see."
"I got held up picking vegetables. Lucky for me you came to the market today too, Second Uncle."
"Well, it just so happened my cabbages and green beans were all ready at the same time. We can’t eat them all ourselves, and in two more days they’ll be too old. So I figured I’d just bring them to the market."
With that, Xu Guoqiang picked up a head of cabbage and held it in front of Xu An, saying smugly, "What do you think? Fresh, huh?"
Every last person from Xu Family Village was a master farmer. The vegetables they grew were a cut above those from other villages—fresher and better tasting.
"It’s great. This cabbage looks so vibrant. It’ll definitely be delicious."
Hearing Xu An’s praise, Xu Guoqiang was finally satisfied. He placed the cabbage back on his stall, picked up his spray bottle, and spritzed the vegetables, making the cabbage’s sheen even more enticing.
Xu An took a clean red-white-and-blue tarp from his basket and spread it on the ground. He neatly arranged his vegetables on top of it. After setting up, he took out his own spray bottle and gave his produce a good spray. The bright red tomatoes, purple eggplants, and vibrant green chili peppers and bitter melons were all soon covered in tiny droplets of water.
The sky brightens early in the summer. It wasn’t even six o’clock, but it was already broad daylight. The market had gotten much busier, and the air was filled with a cacophony of vendors hawking their wares, people arguing, and the sounds of haggling.
The early morning shoppers included elderly folks who couldn’t sleep and woke up early, homemakers wanting the freshest produce, and construction workers on their way to their worksites.
The economy had developed rapidly in recent years, and all sorts of construction projects, big and small, had started up in the city. With so many projects, there weren’t enough workers to go around, so the wages went up. This attracted many of the strong men and women from the town to work on the construction sites.
Skilled workers earned more, maybe two or three hundred yuan a day. Those without skills but with plenty of muscle earned less, but still one or two hundred. People with no skills and not much strength could find a master to apprentice under and still make eighty yuan.
The construction sites weren’t far from town, mostly reachable within half an hour. No matter how good the lodging and food at the sites were, it was never as good as home. As long as they could, everyone chose to go home and cook for themselves.
These people would come to the morning market to buy vegetables and leave them at home, then cook dinner after getting off work in the evening.
"Your eggplants look fresh. They weren’t just sprayed with pesticides, were they?" A sturdy woman in a dirty hard hat squatted in front of Xu An’s stall, pointing a thick finger at the piles of vegetables. "How much a pound?"
"Eggplants and tomatoes are two-fifty, green peppers are two, and bitter melon is three. These are all homegrown for my family to eat; we just sell the extra. You’re lucky you ran into me today. In a few days, after we eat this batch, there won’t be any more."
Xu An understood that she wasn’t actually complaining about the vegetables; it was just a haggling tactic.
’In business, it’s better to be agreeable. No need to start a confrontation.’ He simply stated his prices and gave a brief explanation.
To put the woman at ease, Xu An picked up a smaller tomato, gave it a casual wipe on his shirt, and popped it into his mouth. He bit down, and juice burst out, some of it dripping down his arm to the ground.
"Look at this tomato, so juicy and sweet. Smell it, isn’t that the smell of a real tomato? These are homegrown, not like the big, pretty ones from the supermarket that have no taste at all. Once you leave this market, it won’t be easy to find tomatoes like these again."
The woman in the hard hat had intended to find some fault to press the price down, but she was dazed by Xu An’s spiel. Seeing the bitten tomato in his hand, which was indeed giving off a rich aroma, she was now a little tempted.
Xu An continued to pitch his other vegetables to the woman.
"Look at this eggplant, the flower on the bottom hasn’t even withered off yet. It’s incredibly tender. Just yesterday, I used one of these to make minced pork with eggplant. My two four-year-olds ate two big bowls of rice with just that dish."
"Minced pork with eggplant?"
Hearing her question, Xu An couldn’t help but slap his forehead.
’Stir-frying eggplant uses a lot of oil. Around here, people usually steam it, not fry it. An oil-heavy dish like minced pork with eggplant is something you’d normally only see in restaurants. Ordinary families wouldn’t know how to make it.’
Xu An immediately launched into an enthusiastic explanation of how to make minced pork with eggplant. He even attracted a few other listeners, who nodded along as they listened, clearly taking it all in.
When Xu An finished, someone behind the woman reached out and grabbed an eggplant and a few green peppers, obviously planning to try the recipe he’d just described.
He only had three eggplants in total, and seeing this, several others behind her looked like they wanted to buy them too.
The woman in the hard hat did a quick mental calculation. ’The price isn’t high, and the vendor even threw in the recipe. It’d be a shame not to buy it now.’
Snatching them up before anyone else could, the woman grabbed the remaining two eggplants and handed them to Xu An to be weighed. She said teasingly, "If this recipe isn’t any good, I’m coming back for a refund tomorrow."
Xu An chuckled at that. "And if it’s delicious," he laughed, "you’ll have to buy more next time you see me."
The small group of three or five people attracted others. Seeing that someone had made a purchase, and noting that the vegetables looked good and were something they needed, others started buying from Xu An as well.
Xu An was a smooth talker. The woman in the hard hat had originally only wanted one eggplant, but now she had not only bought two, but also added a pound of green peppers and two pounds of tomatoes to her purchase.
One pound of tomatoes to scramble with eggs, and one pound to eat as fruit.
The woman alone bought a third of his vegetables. The rest sold out in a flash as a few other people each took a little.
Xu Guoqiang watched from the side, dumbfounded. Xu An had barely set up for twenty minutes and had already sold everything. ’This kid really has what it takes.’
The last two people in the back, having heard Xu An’s recipe, had wanted to buy something too. But to their surprise, everything on the stall was sold out in a flash. They were about to look elsewhere when Xu An called out to them.
"This is my Second Uncle, from my own village. He’s widely known as a master farmer. Just look how fresh and crisp his vegetables are!"
Thanks to Xu An’s powerful sales pitch, the two who were about to leave each walked away from Xu Guoqiang’s stall with a bag of cabbage and several other vegetables.
After the two customers left, Xu Guoqiang thanked Xu An, but Xu An waved his hands dismissively.
"It was nothing, really. The villagers have helped me out a lot, too."
With that, Xu An rolled up his red-white-and-blue tarp and put it in his basket. "Second Uncle, I’m going to take a walk around the market. Could you watch my baskets for me? I’ll be back in a little bit."
"Sure, go ahead."
Xu An had just helped him get customers; watching his baskets was a small favor in comparison, so Xu Guoqiang agreed immediately.