Reborn as a Landlord

Lian Shouren, Lian Jizu, and Erlang had left, leaving only Lady He, Lian Manman, Wu Lang, and Xiao Qi.

"Second Aunt..." Lian Manman looked at Lady He with a smile. She, of course, had nothing that she needed help with from Lady He, but she did not expose Lady He in front of Lian Shouren and the others either.

"Manman, aren’t you all going to stroll around the market? Go ahead and enjoy yourselves," Lady He said this and then quickly turned and walked away, seeming as if she had some urgent matter to attend to.

Lian Manman watched Lady He’s retreating figure and shook her head silently.

"Brother, Xiao Qi, let’s go buy stuff," Lian Manman called to Wu Lang and Xiao Qi. Because they were sidetracked by Lian Duoduo’s incident, they hadn’t bought anything after selling the peanuts.

"Brother, when you went back and said Lian Duo was found, what did Grandfather and Grandmother say?" Lian Manman asked as they walked.

"What else could they say? I went back and told them we found Lian Duo in the town, Uncle and Auntie initially didn’t believe it. They said people had been looking several times and couldn’t find her, so how could she be in the town. They also said if it was really Lian Duo, why didn’t she recognize us, insisting we must have been mistaken," Wu Lang said, kicking a small stone on the ground, "I talked for a long time before Auntie believed me, and only then did they look for a cart, and that’s when they came."

"It is quite strange," Lian Manman remarked.

Wu Lang and Xiao Qi both nodded their heads, unable to comprehend why Lian Duo would behave in such a way.

Lian Manman first entered a dried seafood shop. Qingzhou Prefecture had one corner bordering the sea, which was less than a hundred miles from Qingyang Town, where fishermen also fished. However, due to the undeveloped transportation of the time and the high costs of ice block preservation and transportation, it was rare for Lian Manman and the others to eat fresh sea fish. Fortunately, the fishermen, for the same reasons, mostly turned the fish they caught into dried salted fish, which were then sold by traders to other places. In Qingyang Town, there was such a dried goods shop that sold dried salted fish.

Before the Lian Family split households, they seldom ate fish, mainly because Lady Zhou personally disliked fish, especially sea fish, and complained about the fishy smell and the waste of oil and ingredients in cooking it. Manman, on the other hand, loved to eat fish, and now that they had split off to form their own household, and she had some money in her hands, she wanted to buy some fish to eat.

Manman looked around the shop and finally chose Spanish mackerel, which were meaty with few bones and relatively inexpensive. Each fish was split open from the middle and gutted so that once home, all she would need to do was remove the fish gills and they could be cooked. Manman chose five Spanish mackerels, each weighing around a pound. She also bought a pound of tiny shrimp skins and half a pound of dried kelp.

The kelp was something she had planned to buy from the start. Although there were no cases of goiter in Thirty Mile Camp, she had heard that such cases existed further away. Locals believed that goiter was caused by a volatile temper, often due to getting angry. However, Manman knew it was due to a lack of iodine. Although no one in the Lian Family had this disease, it was better to be safe than sorry, and besides, kelp was nutritious, delicious, and chewy.

After leaving the dried goods shop and not walking far, they reached Fuda Grocery Store. Because of Erlang’s marriage matters, Manman couldn’t help but take another glance inside the store. She had previously visited this store and met Zhao Xiue’s father, Zhao Dexing.

"Sister, we haven’t bought the osmanthus cake yet," Xiao Qi reminded Lian Manman. Because they were first watching Erlang on his blind date and then chasing Lian Duoduo, the osmanthus cakes they had planned to buy were forgotten.

"Let’s go buy it now."

Liutiao Street was right behind the Fuda Grocery Store. Walk a bit further ahead, turn into the right-hand alley, and at the end of that alley is Liutiao Street. Although called a street, it’s more of a narrow, long alley, similar to a willow branch. As soon as they turned onto Liutiao Street, Manman spotted Lady He and Matchmaker Wang standing inside the back door of Fuda Grocery Store, their heads together, talking. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

It turned out that Lady He had hurried off to find Matchmaker Wang.

"Let’s go and listen to what they’re talking about," Lian Manman said upon seeing this, feeling intrigued.

Lady He meeting with Matchmaker Wang could only be about Erlang’s marriage matters. To the children, this was extremely novel and attractive gossip. Therefore, Wu Lang and Xiao Qi did not object. The three of them, taking advantage of their youth, edged closer along the wall. Lian Manman did not dare to get too close for fear of being discovered by Lady He and Matchmaker Wang, so she stopped at the doorway next to where they stood and leaned in to listen to Lady He and Matchmaker Wang’s conversation.