Mrs. Mei's Survival Diary - Chapter 5

Chapter 5 – Five hundred and twenty-two taels

After finishing the simple lunch, Rong Yinshuang fetched water again and scrubbed the yard and the floor of the house.

After her work was done, she was exhausted, but she felt an unspeakable sense of satisfaction at the same time. When her husband was alive, she didn’t have to do work at home because there were people at home at their service. She was surprised that she finished such tiring work, and she wanted to tell her husband that she was not only a pampered woman but a woman who could do hard work. But unfortunately, there was no chance again.

When she was thinking about the past and how much she missed her husband, Mo’er suddenly hugged her. She came to her senses and looked at her younger son’s smile, and her heart melted at such an innocent smile.

Rong Yinshuang looked at them and asked with a smile, “Do you want to eat candy?”

The children forgot the sad thought after hearing the word candy, and both of them nodded their heads happily like pounding garlic.

“Mother, I want to eat. Where is the sugar?” Mo’re asked in a cute voice.

Rong Yinshuang couldn’t help smiling when she saw their greedy faces, and then she scratched the elder’s nose and then patted the little one. She untied the apron cloth that was wrapped around her body, poured out the sewage in the bucket, and then said to the two children, “Let’s go, let’s go to the street to buy some candy.”

The two children came to hold her hand, and Mo’er couldn’t help but say repeatedly, “Mother, buy candy! Mother, buy candy!”

Rong Yinshuang looked down at him and nodded with a smile. “Yes, buy candy.”

Mo’er cheered happily, but Da’er felt a little strange and asked, “But mother, do we really have money to buy things?”

“Well, when we were kicked out of the house, I secretly took some money. So don’t worry. Although your mother can’t earn as much money as your father, it’s important to support you.” Rong Yinshuang was touched by her son’s words.

When they heard about their father, the two children felt a little disappointed. Although they still didn’t quite understand what death meant, they just vaguely understood that their father had gone far, far away and would never come back again.

Da’er took a deep breath, finally couldn’t hold it back, and said to Rong Yinshuang, “Mother, I miss Dad.”

Rong Yinshuang looked at them, feeling extremely sad, but she couldn’t show too much on the surface. So she nodded, smiled at Da’er, and said, “Yes, mother too.”

 …………………………..

The mother and two sons went to a pawnshop; Rong Yinshuang led them to the tall counter and handed over a piece of gold that Wu Daozi left behind. “I want to exchange these into bank notes.”

After speaking, Rong Yinshuang stood in front of the counter nervously. She remembered that her husband once said that gold and silver treasures that came from the wrong sources could only be sent to pawnshops. Stirring the hem of the clothes, she managed to calm herself down. The skin on her lower lip was almost torn apart by her bite, and she was not relieved until the shopkeeper behind the counter asked, “For money?”.

She nodded and replied, “Yes.”

Immediately, the shopkeeper on the high platform shouted loudly. “The real gold is five taels, which can be exchanged for five hundred and eighty taels of silver.”

After a commotion in the pawn shop, Rong Yinshuang heard the crackling sound of the abacus dialling inside, and a stone hanging in her heart finally fell to the ground.

The shopkeeper pushed a stack of brand new banknotes to the counter and gave Rong Yinshuang another pawn ticket, routinely saying, “If there is a pawn, there is a redemption. Within half a year, you can redeem it with an additional 50% of the price.”

This kind of thing, they usually said when accepting pawns, was all the treasures that came in, unless they met the next buyer who was in a hurry; otherwise, they would usually keep the things for half a year. This was the rule for all pawn shops. Rong Yinshuang listened carefully, and after a few moments of silence, she put the banknote and the pawn ticket away in her lapel and walked out of the pawn shop with the two children.

She bought two cups of rice in the morning and ate half at lunch. Rice was not the only essential food for living. Today was expected to be challenging for her to relocate everything. When they approached the bridge, she spotted some handymen sitting beside the carts. Rong Yinshuang walked over, called for a cart, and went directly to the rice shop, where she bought a bag of fifty catties of rice and ten catties of noodles, a catty of salt, a catty of sugar, and some oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar. She then rushed to the furniture store and chose a bedboard that wasn’t too big or too small.

Rong Yinshuang realised that they hadn’t changed their clothes for two days, so she went to a clothing shop and bought two sets of ready-made clothes for Da’er and Mo’er and one set for herself.

After buying clothes, Rong Yinshuang went to the market again and bought some easy-to-cook vegetables. When passing by a candied fruit shop, she bought two sticks of candied fruit and gave them to her sons, who were delighted with joy. After buying everything they could, they got on a box cart full of loads and went to their temporary home.

With help from the ox cart driver, Rong Yinshuang unloaded all the things at the door after she settled her two sons in a shady place in the yard.

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First, she made a bed using the bedboard. A thin layer of wool was spread on the board before it was covered with bamboo mats. She worked without taking a break, and the most difficult thing she faced was carrying the rice bag into the temple, aka their temporary house. She was able to carry ten or twenty catties of things but as the rice bag weighed fifty catties, she had to drag it on the ground, along the path in the yard, and finally to the door of the kitchen.

 [T’L: catty,” a weight measurement used in China that is typically standardised at 50 grams.]

After everything was fixed, she saw that the two children’s faces were covered with sweat, so Rong Yinshuang quickly fetched water and called the two children to wash their faces. The cool well water made the children very happy. Rong Yinshuang wiped their faces, their hands, and their backs before letting them continue playing.

She had become accustomed to receiving assistance from others in the past. But she had to do everything by herself now. Although it was very tiring, she had no other choice.

She then went to the kitchen with a bucket of water to clean the stove, which was covered with dust. She looked around the kitchen and saw a few chairs lined up, and she saw that even though the chairs were covered with dust, there were no cobwebs at all. It was really surprising because normally, even if there were no animals like rats and snakes, there would be spiders in such an abandoned place. Then she remembered what Wu Daozi had said.

After scrubbing the chairs, she moved them to the yard. In the morning, she had wiped the small square table clean. Now that there were a few more chairs, it looked really decent. Of course, the environment and conditions here couldn’t be compared with those in Mei Manson, but she was satisfied with her work. What’s more, she could no longer indulge in the old life. For her, the Mei Mansion was Just like her dead husband, she could never go back to the past.

 ………………………..

 Two vegetarian meals and a bowl of beef soup were cooked, and they were all delivered to the table by Rong Yinshuang. Mo’er stood on a chair with half of his body on the table, staring at the dishes, while Da’er stood on the ground. Rong Yinshuang decided to eat outside because she felt that the house would be too stuffy and poorly lit. The older brother helped move the chairs while the younger brother walked behind him back and forth.

Rong Yinshuang brought out three bowls of rice and then opened her hand to Mo’er, letting him sit on her lap to eat. Da’er also sat down and started to eat.

As night fell, there were already stars twinkling in the dark blue sky, and while eating, Mo’er suddenly pointed to the sky and shouted, “Mother, the stars.”

Following Me’er’s cubby hand, Rong Yinshuang saw the starry sky, where the moon was hanging in the middle of the sky. She had never noticed such beautiful scenery before. She suddenly remembered what her husband had said before. ‘There was no shortage of breathtaking landscapes on the earth, but a few people actually enjoyed nature. But when people are in different environments, they will easily find different scenery and new worlds, like a butterfly breaking out of a cocoon.’

‘Husband, this is the tenth day after you have passed away; are you doing well in the other world?’

[Chapter update schedule: every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday]

End of chapter 5

Have a nice day!