Chapter 79: Chapter 79: Sticky Rice Ball

They walked the mountain path for over an hour. After coming down the mountain, it was another half-hour walk to Phoebe Thorne’s house. Along the way, they saw an old woman selling breakfast. She was furtive and clearly running her stall in secret.

“Sticky rice balls? Ten cents each, no grain coupons needed,” an old woman pushing a small cart asked them in a low voice. She kept glancing around, looking for all the world like a spy on a secret mission.

“Will we get arrested for buying this? I’m scared to,” Adrian Hawthorne said, deliberately pretending to be afraid.

’For this woman to dare sell breakfast in broad daylight, things really did seem more relaxed than before.’

“Don’t worry, they don’t arrest the customers. I got caught once last month, but they just fined me a little and let me go. Things are more relaxed now. I heard that soon, the government will start allowing stalls. Good times are just around the corner!”

The old woman chuckled. Though still cautious, she was clearly much bolder than before. She added, “My sticky rice balls are delicious. The preserved mustard greens are fragrant, and you get a real piece of fried dough stick inside. One is enough to fill you up. How about one, little brother?”

“We’ll take four. Make them nice and big.”

Adrian Hawthorne took forty cents from his pocket. Tang Xiaonan quickly said, “I’m not having one.”

She was worried about bankrupting Adrian Hawthorne, who she thought could barely afford to eat. It was obvious the Hawthorne family had no money, and forty cents wasn’t cheap.

Goldie Thorne was about to pay. He wasn’t about to let a pitiful little kid treat him; he had a few dimes himself. But Adrian Hawthorne was faster and had already paid. He said to Tang Xiaonan, “I have money.”

He really did have money. Before his father left, he had given Byron Thorne five hundred yuan and left another five hundred for him, along with five hundred jin of national grain coupons. He rarely had a chance to spend money, and he especially didn’t dare spend it in the village.

An orphan and his widowed mother, who was also a great beauty, possessing a huge sum of money… they were like a piece of raw, bleeding meat that would attract countless predators. He would be utterly powerless against them.

That was why he would rather go hungry than spend the money. Skipping a few meals wouldn’t kill him, but if their fortune was exposed, he and his mother likely wouldn’t survive.

“Grandpa Tate gave me the money,” Adrian Hawthorne added as an explanation.

Goldie Thorne put his money away. He’d heard that old man Tate had studied abroad, so it was normal for him to have a bit of money.

The old woman chuckled as she took the money. She laid out a clean white cloth, spooned some sticky rice onto it, then added a helping of preserved mustard greens that had been steamed with lard and sugar. She placed half a fried dough stick on top, covered it with more sticky rice, then gathered the cloth and squeezed it tight. A firm, chewy rice ball was formed. She then wrapped it in a dried lotus leaf and handed it to Adrian Hawthorne.

The portion was indeed generous; one was enough to leave you stuffed.

While the old woman was making the rice balls, Adrian Hawthorne started chatting with her. It seemed casual, but every question he asked had a purpose.

“I heard some people are making good money selling postcards in front of the movie theater here. Is that true?”

“Who knows? But there’s a woman in my alley who does it. She’s smart, that one. She doesn’t sell them herself; she gets a few kids to sell for her and just pays them a few dimes in wages. That woman has earned a lot. In just half a year, she bought a seventeen-inch television for her family, and she had a relative bring it back from Tristone.”

The old woman’s face was full of envy. She earned a bit from selling her rice balls, but not enough to buy a television. Besides, she didn’t have that kind of knack for business, nor did she have such grand ambitions. She was content with her small-scale hustle.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep