She Only Cares About Cultivation
Chapter 224: [223] Tasty and Pretty Fisherman 74 (seventeenth watch)

Chapter 224: [223] Tasty and Pretty Fisherman 74 (seventeenth watch)

She left four small potatoes for Grandma—in case they returned late, the elderly woman could use them to fill her stomach. The octopus was kept alive in a bucket for the time being.

Why not sell it? Because even if she took it to town, it wouldn’t be very fresh anymore, and seafood was priced according to its freshness.

Since it wouldn’t fetch a good price, it was better to keep it for her own enjoyment.

The so-called "town" was the one that extended from the port where she had landed previously. Traveling from Huagang Village to the town required an hour or two, round trip about four hours, eight hours, and any delay would make it a whole day’s trip, probably returning only by evening.

Precisely because the mountain roads here were rugged and difficult, it was hard to transport seafood, leading to the fishermen’s impoverished life.

Those with boats at home could go around the sea to the port, but life was not easy for those without boats.

In other words, the class hierarchy was just like in later generations, the rich got richer, and the poor grew poorer.

Similarly, entering the city required buying a pass, and this time, she and Yaya each paid a copper coin to enter Port Town (named so because of its large port).

The town was not big, with only three or four bustling streets; beyond them were dilapidated tile houses and mud brick houses. Despite being run-down, it still looked more orderly than the fishing village.

The streets were damp, clearly someone had cleaned them, and they were very tidy.

The bustling streets were even paved with stone bricks, and the store fronts displayed various signs for cloth shops, tailoring shops, pastry shops, restaurants, tea houses, etc. Though small, it had everything it needed.

Since she had come to check out the market, she wasn’t in a hurry to go to the restaurant and started by visiting one shop after another.

For instance, in the fishing village, food made from wheat flour was rarely seen, but surprisingly, she found a bun shop in town.

Although most of the buns were made from mixed grains, she also saw buns made from white wheat flour.

They were a bit dark in color, but that didn’t affect the taste of the flour.

Also in the pastry shop, aside from wheat flour, they even used rice flour (rice ground into powder for making pastries).

She asked the owner why, and learned that since this was the largest port among several surrounding villages and towns, not only local ships passed through, but also those from other places. Many of those people liked flour-based foods, but it wasn’t available here, so business-minded people would buy wheat flour from these outsiders and make delicious food to sell. Of course, the price was quite attractive, and the average fisherman couldn’t afford it, so those who could buy it were the wealthy folks in town or wealthy fishermen with boats from nearby fishing villages.

The fabric and tailoring shops sold primarily cheap and durable hemp, cotton, and coarse linen; silk and fine cloth were seldom displayed.

Seeing cotton cloth also meant cotton itself was available, which relieved her.

She also looked into the pharmacy, which stocked all the common medicinal materials; that was enough.

The grain shop not only sold grains but also seeds, even wheat and rice; however, locals felt their yield was low, so very few people cultivated them. You couldn’t say no one grew them, just that very few did. Those who liked eating rice and flour would cultivate them tirelessly regardless of the low yield because it was food, an indispensable part of their diet!

These past few days, she had been subsisting on broth because there were no fats, and the people in the fishing village rarely fried food; even if they did, they used animal fats.

Xiao Yu, accustomed to vegetable oil, found this hard to adapt to. If she had a chance, she still wanted to make some vegetable oil to eat.