Chapter 22

Chapter 22 – Not leaving
Li Man rested her chin in her hands. She was resting on a flight of stairs with Li Xiaowu and engrossed with watching Li Shu and Li Hua selling fish.
Actually, the scene in front of her looked very different than what she had thought selling fish would look like. Li Shu had only shouted a couple of times to advertise before the nearby older and younger wives and other womenfolk streamed out of their homes and flocked the stand as if this had been a prearranged meeting.
Although the stand was surrounded, it wasn’t chaotic. These women orderly assembled themselves into a line. One by one, they came forward and without even picking at the fish, they directly said how many kilograms of fish they wanted. After that, Li Shu was responsible for weighing the fish, and Li Hua would collect money.
Everything was conducted in a methodical manner. Before two hours had passed, the two baskets that had been filled with over fifty kilograms of fish had been sold out.
It really was totally sold out. Li Man knew this because a couple of young wives that had come late hadn’t been able to buy any fish. Left with no other choice, the young wives could only go to other people’s stands to buy fish. They looked as if they suffered a huge grievance as they did so.
As Li Shu cleaned up the stand, Li Hua walked over to them. “Are you guys tired of waiting?”
Li Man stood up and shook her head.
Li Xiaowu hugged Li Hua’s arm and very hopefully asked, “Fourth brother, are we going to go buy steamed buns now?”
“En, we’ll be going soon.” Li Hua indulgently ruffled Xiaowu’s hair. Although he was nodding, his warm gaze had leisurely fallen onto Li Man.
Faced with his gaze, Li Man was at a loss. After she blinked a couple of times, she saw him taking the money bag from his side and handing it to her.
“There’s a ready-made clothing store over there. Take this and buy two sets of clothing for yourself.”
Ah? Buy clothes for herself? “No need. I think the clothes I’m wearing is pretty nice.” She knew that this family was poor, and they had only gotten this money from recently selling the fish.
But, Li Hua kept insisting on stuffing the money they had gotten from selling fish into her hands. Because it was all loose change, the filled bag was quite heavy.
“Go on.” Li Hua deeply looked at her, then he turned around, held Li Xiaowu’s hand, and walked back towards Li Shu.
Last night, oldest brother had specially mentioned that this girl had tried to escape once. She didn’t want to stay with their family, but if she was in Shennugou, there was no way that she would be able to successfully escape. But, if she was brought to the town, it wouldn’t be the same. The copper coins in the bag were the equivalent to a couple of silver taels. This wasn’t much, but it would be enough for her to hire a carriage to take her away from here. Second brother had packed enough rations for four people to eat this morning. This would be enough food to last her for one day.
He could only hope that she would have a good life after leaving here!
Li Man stood frozen in place. When she opened the bag of money and saw the copper coins, she just felt dizzy. She didn’t understand the currency system that was used in ancient times.
“How much is this one copper worth?” She took out one copper coin for a closer look. She blankly looked at it for a moment, then stuffed it back into the bag. She turned around and ran toward Li Hua.
After running over, Li Man tossed the bag of money into Li Hua’s hand. She didn’t even know the value of the coins here. How was she supposed to buy stuff by herself? Wasn’t he worried that other people would trick her? “I’m giving this back to you. I don’t want it.”
Li Hua froze in surprise for a moment. His warm gaze was fixed on Li Man, and it gradually became hotter. “You?” Was she not going to leave?
“I don’t need it. The clothes I’m wearing right now is pretty good,” Li Man said. This was truly how she felt.
Li Shu had already finished packing up, and he had put back the clothes he had taken off before. Hearing their conversation, he knew exactly what was going on. He said, “Fourth brother, how could you let her buy clothes by herself? Other people won’t know what she’s saying. I’ll leave the cart here for now. Let’s go to the store together.”
Other than recognizing the words “fourth brother”, Li Man didn’t understand the rest of Li Shu’s jabbering. She thought that he was speaking to Li Hua and didn’t know that they were talking about her.
But, for an unknown reason to her, after Li Hua heard these words, he smiled at her and said, “Let’s go. We’ll go buy clothes for you first.”
Buy clothes? Li Man was a bit stunned.
Li Hua’s eyes were overflowing with emotion. His long arm stretched out and picked up her hand. Tightly holding her hand, he said, “Come with me.”