Chapter 267 - 264: As It Should Be
Lin Lan thumped Li Xiangyang on the back. "You big goof, someone might come by any minute."
Li Xiangyang held her tight and wouldn’t let go. "I’m hugging my own wife. It’s the most natural thing in the world. If anyone dares to complain, I’ll tear their mouth off!"
"We still have so much to do!" Lin Lan pinched his waist, making Li Xiangyang yelp and grimace at her. "I finally get what Dongzi was talking about with his ’Nine Yin White Bone Claw’!"
Seeing his exaggerated act, Lin Lan snorted with laughter. "Stop being so dramatic! If that was really Mei Chaofeng’s Nine Yin White Bone Claw, do you think you’d still be in one piece?"
Li Xiangyang looked at her in surprise. "Honey, you’ve read Jin Yong’s novels, too?"
Lin Lan secretly stuck her tongue out and quickly spun a tale. "A sent-down youth secretly told us the stories. We all scrounged up some paper and had her write them down from memory for us to read."
’I’ve not only read the novel, I’ve seen the 1983 TV series too!’ she thought.
Li Xiangyang nodded. "We used to pass them around secretly back then, too."
"Time to get serious," Lin Lan said, bending down to lift a box. "Let’s hurry and get this stuff inside. Then we’ll go back, load up the cart with goods for the shop, and you can go find Shuiqing at the market."
"My dear wife *is* the important business!" Li Xiangyang retorted, hoisting the box onto his shoulder and dashing into the main room.
Lin Lan watched him run off, covering her mouth to hide a smile.
Once they had moved everything into the main room, Li Xiangyang pulled Lin Lan aside. "The oven and mixer have arrived. I’ll find some time this afternoon to take them over to the shop at the South City market."
"Leaving them at the South City shop is a good idea; it’ll save us from having to move them around," Lin Lan said. "We can put the new oven next to the baking stove, and the mixer can go in the empty space beside the work counter."
Li Xiangyang nodded. The two of them locked up and headed to Lexing.
Wu Shufen smiled at Li Xiangyang. "I’ve made some steamed buns. You should call your dad over to eat with us."
"My dad went fishing early this morning. I’ll just take a few back to him later."
"Alright. I’ll have them steamed, and you can take them back to your father."
"Mom, Xiangyang and I are going to take the goods to the shop, iron everything, and prepare for the opening," Lin Lan said, then looked at Lin Yuezhen. "Sis, can you pick up Douzi for me at noon?"
Lin Yuezhen nodded and went inside to open the door to the main room.
Lin Lan and the others loaded more than ten bags of clothes onto the cart. When it seemed like nothing else would fit, Li Xiangyang added two boxes of clothes hangers on top and tied everything down securely with hemp rope.
Lin Lan grabbed a ledger, two towels, and a wooden basin. She packed the ironing board cover and the iron into a bamboo basket, hung it on the cart’s railing, and the two of them pulled the handcart to Limin Street.
They pulled up the rolling shutter door. Lin Lan said to Li Xiangyang, "Next time we go to Yangcheng City, let’s see if they sell rolling shutter doors. We should replace the wooden door panels at the South City shop with one."
Li Xiangyang smiled. "They sell them in the provincial capital. Uncle Da is making another trip to Yangcheng City before the end of the year, so we can ask him to bring one back for us."
The two of them carried the goods into the shop. Lin Lan said to Li Xiangyang, "You head to the market. I’ll unpack the clothes and start putting them on the shelves."
"Okay!" Li Xiangyang looked around the shop and said, "We’ll also need to move a bed into the small storeroom out back. I’ll have Zhigang stand watch at night."
This shop didn’t have a backyard, just a few small storerooms of about ten square meters each, one of which contained a tiny bathroom. Everything had been given a fresh coat of paint during the renovations.
Li Xiangyang’s comment reminded Lin Lan that there were no security cameras in this era, and street theft was rampant. "There’s a bed right across the street. We can move it over later, along with a couple of chairs and a desk."
Li Xiangyang nodded. "Alright, I’m heading out then."
After Li Xiangyang left, Lin Lan pulled the rolling shutter door mostly shut, then turned and took the ironing board cover Wu Shufen had made out of the bamboo basket.
The cover was made from two layers of plain white homespun cloth with a thin layer of cotton batting sandwiched between them. It was cut to the shape of the ironing board, and a drawstring was sewn around the edge. Once she slipped it over the board, pulled the string tight, and secured it with thumbtacks, the whole thing didn’t look much different from an ironing board from a later era.
Once the ironing board was ready, Lin Lan dragged a bag of clothes into the back storeroom. She cut the bag open with scissors, took out the clothes, and began sorting them onto the shelves.
After unpacking a few bags, Lin Lan started to sweat. She took off her jacket and continued with her work.
By the time she had unpacked all ten-odd bags and arranged the contents on the shelves, she picked up her ledger and began to tally the quantity of each style, recording the numbers by category.
She had just started picking out the small-sized clothes to iron and hang up as samples when Li Xiangyang arrived with Shuiqing and his two daughters.
Lin Lan looked at the two slim, pretty girls and smiled. "What lovely young ladies."
Both girls blushed. Shuiqing smiled and said to them, "Little Xue, Little Mei, this is your Auntie Lin."
"Auntie Lin," the sisters called out, their faces flushed.
Lin Lan smiled and nodded. "Did your Uncle Xiangyang tell you why he asked you to come?"
Little Xue, who wore her hair in a ponytail, nodded candidly. "He did. We’ve never sold clothes before, so we’re not sure if we’ll be any good at it."
Lin Lan said gently, "Don’t worry, I’ve never sold them either. I figure it’s like selling cakes and pastries. As long as we’re friendly and pleasant, and not like those salesclerks at the department store who give everyone a nasty look, customers will want to shop here."
Little Mei, who had a shoulder-length bob, wrinkled her nose. "I hate shopping at the department store. The clerks there all have faces as sour as a wicked stepmother’s."
Shuiqing gently tapped her on the forehead with a bent finger and chuckled. "Silly girl, where have you ever even seen a wicked stepmother?"
Little Mei rubbed her forehead, though it didn’t hurt at all, and looked at Shuiqing. "Dad, don’t you remember? We saw one the last time we went back home."
Shuiqing shot her a glare. "I say one thing, and you’ve got a hundred comebacks ready." He then looked sternly at both sisters. "While you’re here, you listen to what Auntie Lin says. If you don’t understand something, you ask. Got it?"
The two sisters snapped to attention and replied in unison, "Yes, Dad!"
Lin Lan watched the father and daughters with amusement, thinking that Shuiqing treated his girls like a pair of little soldiers.
Li Xiangyang lifted the handles of the handcart. "Shuiqing and I are off to move the equipment," he told Lin Lan.
Lin Lan nodded. She turned to Little Xue and Little Mei. "For now, take the hangers out of the boxes and screw the hooks in tight. In a little while, I’ll teach you how to read the clothing sizes."
The hangers she’d bought were all wooden, and their metal hooks had to be screwed in tight before use.
"Okay!" the sisters chirped, grabbing a pair of scissors and getting right to work.
Lin Lan helped them with about ten hangers, hanging them on the rack. Then she fetched a power strip from the storeroom, plugged in the electric iron, and placed a small rectangular block of wood on the ironing board. She stood the iron on the block to let it heat up.
She carried the wooden basin to the storeroom, turned on the tap to fill it with water, and prepared to start ironing the clothes.
Lin Lan picked up a tunic suit and tried to recall the steps a friend of hers used for ironing. She spread the collar flat on the board, straightened it, then dipped a towel into the basin of water. After wringing it out, she laid the damp towel over the collar, picked up the hot iron, and pressed it down. With a SIZZLE, a puff of steam rose into the air.