Chapter 88

Chapter 88

After finding the two dogs playing with a rattan ball, Jiang Yunsui sighed.

“Your fur really is growing back so slowly.”

A little had grown in, but not much. They were still ugly.

With nothing else to do, Jiang Yunsui decided to go browse the market.

She wanted to see what she could buy today.

Jiang Yunsui went inside and took out her little embroidered pouch. Inside were some copper coins, silver ingots, and gold mushrooms.

She had hidden away the bulk of the rewards Ji Yan’an had given her in a wooden chest.

After gathering her things, Jiang Yunsui set off on her short little legs, hopping and skipping out like a small rabbit.

The two dogs, already almost as tall as she was but still ugly and furless, guarded her on either side.

Mm. Those two dogs really were too eye-catching. Along the way, quite a few people looked over in her direction.

Nanny Zhou had styled Jiang Yunsui’s hair into something like two rabbit ears, with two little pom-poms as decoration. She wore a pale pink dress, and her whole person radiated a sweet, soft, endearingly silly cuteness.

“Grandpa, how much is this?”

She had spotted an old man selling woven grass goods, mostly vine baskets.

But Jiang Yunsui had her eye on a little grass-woven rabbit and puppy tucked away in the corner.

“Little noble one, these small toys were just something I made to amuse my grandson at home. If you like them, then three copper coins each.”

“I’ll take them all.”

“Grandpa, can you weave anything else?”

Jiang Yunsui, tiny as she was, squatted in front of the old man’s stall and lifted her little face, asking in a soft, milky voice.

A fair, plump little child like this looked especially blessed.

The old man felt envious. If only the children in his family could be raised so fair and chubby too.

“I can.”

“Then can you weave me a fox, and also a Little Mushroom?”

Jiang Yunsui described what the Little Mushroom should look like.

As for the fox, the old man could weave one without her saying anything.

“It has to be a pretty fox.”

The reason she emphasized this was because there was a kind of square-faced, ugly fox around here. Jiang Yunsui truly had never seen such an ugly fox before.

She had seen one at the market last time and had even thought it was a dog.

Mm… Even dogs were not as ugly as that.

The old man nodded in understanding.

Seeing Jiang Yunsui squatting there, he felt a little embarrassed and wanted to offer her his stool.

Jiang Yunsui shook her head and refused. She did not feel her legs going weak when she squatted. She could squat for as long as she wanted.

The old man held grass stalks that had already been prepared. Jiang Yunsui stared without blinking as those ordinary grass stalks gradually turned in his hands into a plump Little Mushroom.

The whole mushroom was as large as his palm. Afraid that it would be hollow inside and easily flattened, he stuffed it with some shredded grass fibers.

Jiang Yunsui’s eyes shone brightly. Pretty. She liked it.

Humans really were amazing. They could make so many magical things.

After the Little Mushroom was woven, the little fox soon took shape in his hands as well.

Perhaps because Jiang Yunsui was squatting there, quite a few people gathered around to watch.

At first, it was because Jiang Yunsui was such a fair, plump, pretty little child. Dressed like that, she really looked like a soft little rabbit. Even just looking at her from behind was somehow adorable, making people unable to resist coming over for a look.

After they came over, they were drawn in by the woven things in the old man’s hands.

“Old man, how much are these little things of yours? Can we ask you to weave something specific?”

The old man nodded again and again. “Yes, I can weave most things I’ve seen before.”

“Then weave me a little tiger. I’ll bring it home for my son.”

“Old man, weave me a little horse. How much for one?”

The old man was just about to say three copper coins when Jiang Yunsui spoke up in her soft little voice.
“That’ll be five wen.”

As she spoke, she handed ten wen to the old man.

“Grandpa, this is for mine.”

Five wen wasn’t much.

Anyone who truly wanted to spend money on one of these wouldn’t care about one or two extra wen.

As for those who were truly poor, they wouldn’t even come asking about a straw weaving that wasn’t very useful and could only amuse children.

Of course, Jiang Yunsui simply felt that the old man had spent a great deal of time sitting here, and his work was so pretty too. It was even custom-made. Five wen really wasn’t expensive.

“This…”

“Five wen? That’s acceptable. Weave my tiger a little bigger.”

“My little horse too.”

Hearing that, the old man nodded again and again. “All right, all right…”

His weathered face was full of smiles.

He thought to himself that the pretty little doll really was a lucky child.

He had been sitting here all morning and had only sold one winnowing basket. Who would have thought that, because of that little girl, these little toys he made to amuse his grandson would unexpectedly sell, and people were even specifically asking him to weave them.

By the time the old man looked up again, Jiang Yunsui and the two dogs had already left.

Jiang Yunsui held the little straw-woven puppy up for the two dogs to see.

“Look, this is your companion.”

She had originally wanted to ask the old man to weave two doggies, but after looking at Zuozuo and Youyou, she decided against it.

Their faces, swollen from the hornet stings, still hadn’t fully gone down, and the fur on their bodies was all patchy and bare.

Better to wait until their fur grew back.

As Jiang Yunsui strolled along, she suddenly spotted tiny red fruits hanging from a plant.

Tomatoes!

They were the very small kind, though, only a little bigger than quail eggs.

The tomatoes she had seen in her previous life, the ones cultivated by humans, were huge-about the size of a person’s fist.

But there were wild tomatoes in the mountains too, the tiny kind.

Tart and sweet, and rather tasty.

“Honored customer, see anything you like?”

This was a traveling merchant selling flowers and plants.

On his stall were some flowers commonly seen around these parts, as well as orchids and peonies, the more delicate varieties.

Of course, their prices were delicate too.

There were two tomato plants, both planted in clay pots. Since the tomato vines were long and had no support, the merchant had cleverly made frames for them, winding the vines around the supports.

Seeing her staring at the red fruits, the peddler immediately began his smooth-tongued introduction.

“These are foreign persimmons from beyond the borders. Since they look like persimmons, all red and bright, they’re very auspicious…”

The peddler praised them at great length, mostly talking about how lucky they were and how good their symbolism was, but he didn’t say a word about how they tasted.

So Jiang Yunsui asked, “Can I try one?”

That made the merchant freeze up on the spot.

“What?”

“I want to eat one and see.”

“No, no, honored customer, these can’t be eaten.”

“Why not?”

Jiang Yunsui was bewildered. If they weren’t for eating, then what were they for?

“Th-this can’t be eaten. I’ve never seen anyone eat this thing before.”

Jiang Yunsui scratched her head and gave an “oh.”

“Then give me both pots. I also want that one.”

She pointed at a pot of cotton.

It was right when cotton was in bloom. Compared with the other flowers, the cotton plant looked rather plain.

But the merchant could still praise it as if it were a rare blossom.

“Your eye is truly excellent. Don’t look at how ordinary this flower seems now. Later, it will bloom once more, and that flower is unlike any other. A small, fluffy cluster, just like a white cloud in the heavens. It’s very beautiful too…”

Jiang Yunsui slowly listened to him finish praising it, then paid.

The two pots of tomatoes came to fifty wen in total, and the cotton plant was twenty wen.

Jiang Yunsui couldn’t carry them herself, so she had him deliver them to the Ji Mansion.