Liu Xiaohong is very good-looking, with big eyes and is very smart, everyone on the street likes her.
This is already the end of East Street, where there are fewer shops and houses. A larger shop is a sauce shop facing south. This shop sells a kind of wine called Buddha's Hand wine. There is a large square glass tank, in which several Buddha's Hands are soaked in white wine, which is slightly yellow in color, and it seems that the fragrance of the wine can be smelled from outside the glass tank. There is a kind of sauce in the sauce shop, namely, sea bamboo. It is not expensive, and you can buy a small pile for two pieces of fried bread, wrapped in lotus leaves. Sea bamboo is crispy, semi-transparent, not very salty, and can be eaten without chewing. Children buy it and eat it while walking, and by the time they get home, they have almost finished it.
Across the courtyard is Zhou Ma Zi's fruit stall. In fact, there is nothing expensive, just sugarcane (peeled and cut into sections), water chestnuts (peeled, threaded with bamboo skewers, soaked in clear water), and lotus roots, yam.
Across the street from Zhou Ma Zi's fruit stand was the Yang family incense shop.
Across from Yangjiaxiang Store, separated by two households, is Zhoujianan Commodity Store, also known as a grocery store. This store sells a variety of things. Red candle. A master dipped the candle wick into a pot one by one and hung it in rows on the rafters to dry. Candles come in different sizes, with the larger one weighing one pound each, known as "Big Eight"; The small ones are only as thick as fingers and are called 'little teeth'. Paper money. A master used a wooden mallet to chisel holes in a stack of yellowed "hairy paper" to burn copper coins to the dead. Alum. This place eats river water, which is muddy and needs to be clarified with alum. Fried deep-fried dough sticks can't be short of alum. Alkali block. This place uses alkali to wash large clothes and blankets, only soap for small ones. The dough used for making clothes is made by grinding and drying the water chestnuts. In addition, there are white sugar, brown sugar, rock sugar, jujube, red date, honey date, kumquat cake, longan, dried lychee, hawthorn cake in the small jar... The boss can only say a few words a day and rarely interacts with people, rarely greeting them, which is a bit inhumane. He lives frugally, making green vegetables and tofu soup every day. Some guests (he also has some business guests) came, didn't offer cigarettes, didn't serve Dim sum, didn't even buy a bag of tea, just a cup of boiled water. Therefore, someone took four characters from "The Hundred Family Surnames" and gave them their nickname: "Bai Shui Dou Zhang." Bai Shui Dou Zhang did nothing else besides doing business and keeping accounts. Not watching plays, not listening to storytelling, not playing cards. Just use a pair of dominoes to 'clear the level' in a dayHolding a very fat tortoiseshell cat. He did not like cats. It was a cat to keep the mice away, he kept cats for fear of mice stealing the candle oil. After finishing the level, he stretched, walked to the door and idle looked. He watched the passersby, watched the dogs, watched the mules and horses that had been to the haymaking, watched the water buffaloes driven by the country people to rest on the west side of the lake, watched the customers buying things in the shop opposite.
Across from the Zhou family's Nanhu Store was a yarn shop, run by Liu Xiaohong's family. The yarn shop sold silk threads, lace, ribbons, and a kind of narrow, starched gauze called“loach bones”, which was used to tie things. The yarn shop did not measure these items with a ruler, but instead carved grooves along the counter and stretched the items to compare them against the grooves. Liu Xiaohong's father spent his days comparing these grooves, calling out the measurements as he went:“one foot, two feet, three feet…”The yarn shop also sold hair oil, hair shreds (for smoothing hair), and snow cream. There was also a very fine copper wire, used for threading beads, called“flower wire”. Every semester, when Liu Xiaohong decorated the classroom with paper flowers, she would bring a coil of flower wire from home.
Mr. and Mrs. Liu only have one daughter, who is indulged to the point of being spoiled. They give her everything she wants and are very generous with her pocket money. Xiao Hong has always loved snacks since she was little, and she has tried all the snacks on this street.
But her favorite is cooked lotus root.
Opposite Liu's Woolen Shop is a Land God Temple. The side room of the temple is where old Wang lives, selling cooked lotus roots. Old Wang has no children, no wife, and has been selling cooked lotus roots all his life. The only person in the whole city who sells cooked lotus roots is him. If anyone wants to eat cooked lotus roots, they have to come and buy them from old Wang. It takes a long time to cook lotus roots, and a pot of lotus roots needs to be cooked over a low fire for seven or eight hours to be fully cooked and to taste full of lotus root fragrance. Old Wang cooks lotus roots at night and sells them during the day, getting very little sleep. His stove for cooking lotus roots is set up on the right side of the door of Liu's Woolen Shop.
Xiao Hong really likes Wang Lao's cooked lotus root, and she almost buys one section every day when she goes to school, eating it as she walks.
Xiao Hong was eleven years old when she contracted typhoid fever, and no matter how much medicine she took, it didn't work. She lay in bed for more than twenty days, and all the neighbors came to visit her. She couldn't eat anything. Wang Lao went to the South Goods Store to buy honeyed dates, mandarin orange cakes, and mountain cherry cakes for her, but she didn't eat them and shook her head. Lying in bed for more than twenty days, her little face had become thin and尖, and her mother was very heartbroken. One day, she suddenly called her mother:
“Mom! I'm hungry, I want to eat something.”
Mom quickly asked:
“What do you want to eat?Here is a bowl of dumpling noodles for you.”
Xiao Hong shook her head.
“Make a bowl of crispines!”
Xiao Hong shook her head.
“Make a bowl of thin porridge, with what?”
Xiao Hong shook her head.
“What do you want to eat?”
“Roasted lotus root.”
That's no problem! Xiao Hong's mom took a big bowl and went to find Wang Lao, who said:
“Roasted lotus root? Sure! Her illness is better!”
Wang Lao picked two sections of thoroughly cooked thick lotus root and sent them to Xiao Hong. Xiao Hong ate a section in a few bites, and her mother quickly said:“Slowly! Slowly! Don't eat so quickly!”
Xiao Hong ate the cooked lotus root, lay down, and fell asleep. She sweated profusely and felt relaxed all over.
The little kid recovered quickly, took a week off, and then hopped to school, still holding a piece of cooked lotus root.
Time flies, and before you know it, Xiao Hong is twenty and married.
My mother-in-law's family name is Qu, and they also run a woolen shop. The Qu family's woolen shop is located in Beishi Kou. Beishi Kou is a bustling place, and the Qu family's business is very good. My husband was originally Xiao Hong's elementary school classmate, and they were also deskmates for two years, and he was also very good to Xiao Hong.
Beishikou is not far from Dongjie, Xiao Hong goes to her mother's house to visit every few days, and helps Wang Lao to wash and dry the clothes.
Wang Lao whispered to Xiao Hong:
“Do you have it?”
Little red blushed and said:“Yes.”
“Surely it will be a chubby boy!”
“Thank you!”
King old died.
Those who came to buy cooked lotus roots in the morning saw a pot of cooked lotus roots, still warm, but there was no sign of old Wang to do business. They pushed the door open to see that old Wang had passed away at some point.
Xiao Hong is in the postpartum period and can't come. She asked her husband to go to the Zhou family's South Goods Store to buy a pair of ""Dali Ba", and to the Yang family's Incense Shop ""to burn" three sticks of incense, and asked him to light them in front of Wang Lao Ling, and to bow three times to Wang Lao, as a way of burning for her.
Wang Lao is dead, and there is no second person in the city who sells cooked lotus roots.
But the fragrance of cooked lotus root is always there.
Original published in the sixth issue of "Changjiang Literature" in 1995.
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