Chapter 41 Giving you no face
The following day was the 21st day of the first lunar month, which corresponded to March 6th on the solar calendar. Yesterday was Jingzhe; the whole village was busily spinning round and round. Both Tian Xinhua and Tian Qinghua had also gone out to help in the fields. Tian Sisi felt uncomfortable bringing up the subject of brewing liquor with Tian Xinhua. She had been helping Jianguo gather firewood and chop pigweed over these past few days. Although she mostly added to the chaos, she was nevertheless happily occupied. Zhu Aiqing was quite pleased with this; it seemed that Jianguo’s stay here was beneficial after all since it got Ah Nan to start working as well.
A light rain had fallen the previous evening, leaving the ground muddy. Tian Sisi had no desire to go out and play, so she listlessly sat in her room with Qinghua, "flipping fields," which entailed taking a long string, knotting it, and then using both hands to create patterns that somewhat resembled fields, hence the name. Another person could take over and flip the string with both hands to create other patterns. If done correctly, this could go on indefinitely. This game was generally beloved by young girls.
"Sister Sisi, there’s a girl outside looking for you." Weiguo, who had been weeding the vegetable garden, ran in clomping loudly to shout this news to Tian Sisi.
"Who is it?"
Brother Hua said her name is Zhong Yuying, and she’s not a good person," Weiguo faithfully relayed Tian Donghua’s very words.
Tian Sisi couldn’t help but laugh silently. Donghua really didn’t hold this Zhong Yuying in high regard, did he! But why would Zhong Yuying come to their house? Hmph, just like a weasel paying a New Year visit to the chicken - no good intentions. Surely she couldn’t sit still because she hadn’t managed to take advantage of Sisi by not showing up on her own initiative. She was really thick-skinned, thought Tian Sisi, smirking as she packed up the string and stood up to properly meet this mistress who had risen to prominence in her past life.
Zhong Yuying stood at the door of the Tian Family’s house with a stiff smile. Granny Zhao had gone to Tian Liu Jin’s house to make cloth shoes with Li Yuedi. The Tian Family had many mouths to feed, and they had to produce dozens of pairs of shoes each year, all painstakingly crafted by the two old women, with help from other ladies when they had free time. Although rubber shoes and leather shoes were sold at the Supply and Marketing Cooperative, a pair of rubber shoes cost two to three yuan, equivalent to four to five jin (about 2 to 2.5 kg) of meat, and leather shoes were simply out of the question.
The Supply and Marketing Cooperative did have them for sale, but the shoes had been sitting out since before the New Year, now covered in a thick layer of dust, and nobody ever seemed to buy them. It was rumored that a pair cost more than ten yuan—a fortune that even the hardest earnings could hardly cover for a few pairs of leather shoes. And so, women in the countryside kept their hands busy when they had a spare moment, either knitting shoe soles or twisting hemp ropes.