Reborn in the 1980s: Recapture My Devoted Husband-Chapter 47 - 46: Looking for a Storefront

Winter in S City is rather cold, and the beds inside the house are all made of clay. There are two rooms, a living room and a bedroom. In the living room, there’s also a clay bed, but with a table on top.

Inside the house, there isn’t much—just a wardrobe by the side of the bed connected to a small kitchen. The courtyard isn’t big; the toilet is still an old-style squat toilet, but the kitchen has a faucet. There are some chopped firewood stored in a grass shed.

Liang Hongmei looked at it with wonder, marveling at when her village would get running water.

Lin Wan gave a mysterious smile and said nothing.

The next morning, bright and early, Liang Hongmei and Lin Wan had breakfast and went to check out the nearby early market.

The best part of the day is in the morning, and the morning air is fresh, lifting the spirits. People often like to get up early to buy fresh vegetables for the day.

The early market is crowded with people, no fewer than in the city center.

When there are many people, the air becomes mixed, with various smells blending, especially in the summer, which makes it quite unpleasant.

But that’s just how early markets are; if they were very clean and fresh, that wouldn’t be normal.

Liang Hongmei and Lin Wan looked around slowly, listening to the various hawkers and watching people by the roadside picking and bargaining.

The roadside stalls mostly sold meat and vegetables.

The variety of vegetables was quite limited, mostly seasonal local produce.

Looking at these vegetables, Lin Wan felt quite happy; people can’t live without eating, and eating in comfort is a kind of enjoyment.

The two of them went on to look at the grain vendors.

In front of the grain vendors were burlap sacks filled with various grains.

There was more rice, with several kinds of rice alone—long-grained, round-grained, some appearing white, some somewhat yellowish.

There was also some flour, but not much.

The flour was a bit dark, unlike the white flour that came later. It looked coarser too.

Additionally, there was millet, cornmeal, coarse grains, red beans, black beans, and other grains.

Although the variety wasn’t as complete as later, it wasn’t lacking either.

Besides vegetables, there were also clothes, shoes, fabrics, and threads for sale. Almost everything was cheaper than in shopping malls. The clothes were outdated, or end-of-stock with just one piece left, handled here.

To be honest, quite a lot was sold, after all, it was cheap. You didn’t even need coupons to buy.

Maybe that’s why the early market was particularly crowded.

There were also vendors selling shoes.

Selling woven baskets, creels, selling pots, bowls, and pans, selling woven pot stands.

At the early market, there were egg burgers, pancakes, grilled cold noodles, deep-fried oil cakes, deep-fried dough sticks, coarse grain porridge, and salty tofu pudding—all sorts of things.

The mother and daughter observed for a few days and found that the early market was busiest around six or seven o’clock, mostly people buying vegetables before rushing back to work.

The food at the early market was only busy for that brief period. After selling, the vendors would move elsewhere to sell.

Lin Wan felt this wasn’t enough; the time available for setting up a stall was too short. The two of them went to wander around the leather shoe factory.

The factory was surrounded by walls, with no storefronts at all. Most factories had dining halls; in 1979, there was no one leading private businesses, and not far nearby was a supply and marketing cooperative, likely due to the hot weather, not many people came at noon.

Lin Wan and Liang Hongmei went elsewhere to wander and finally discovered a restaurant, not big, its sign was white with two big red ink letters "Restaurant." The place wasn’t large, likely a family house, with a door dug out from the back wall, right facing the road. The place wasn’t large, just a little over ten square meters, with three tables inside. The pig-slaughtering dishes were made very authentically. Despite the small space, quite a few people came to eat at noon.