After fleeing the famine, my older sister and I married the brother next door.

As soon as the rooster crowed, a fire lit up in the stove of the Chen family's new house. Su Xiaoyin deftly reheated the leftover porridge from last night and made a few multigrain pancakes. The four of them ate quickly, then shouldered the empty basket that Chen's mother had helped prepare the day before, locked the gate of their new house, and headed towards the village entrance in the early morning light.

Under the old locust tree at the village entrance, the oxcart for the market was already waiting, with Old Chen, the village's experienced cart driver, sitting on the shaft. Three or four women from the village were already on the cart, carrying baskets and chatting quietly. Seeing the Chen brothers arrive with their new brides, they greeted them with smiles, their gazes lingering on the Su sisters with a mixture of curiosity and kindness.

"Big Mountain, Little River, taking your wife to the market?" a talkative auntie laughed. "It really is different once you're married!"

Chen Dashan simply nodded in response. Chen Xiaohe replied with a grin, "Yes, Auntie, we're missing some things at home, let's go and get some supplies!" He first helped Su Xiaoqing into the car, then turned to look at Su Xiaoyin and his older brother.

Feeling a little embarrassed under everyone's gaze, Su Xiaoyin lowered her head and, at Chen Dashan's silent prompting, also got on. Chen Dashan placed the basket at the back of the cart and sat on the outside himself. The oxcart swayed and wobbled as it set off, the wooden wheels creaking rhythmically over the dirt road, carrying the expectations of its passengers towards the county town.

The county town was much larger than the town where Nanshan Village was located, and its earthen-yellow city walls could be seen from afar. As the town gate approached, the roads became crowded with villagers from all directions coming to the market, carrying loads, pushing carts, or walking. The sounds of people, livestock, and carts mingled together.

Upon entering the city and finding the main street where the market was located, the place was bustling with activity. Stalls of all kinds lined both sides of the street, stretching as far as the eye could see. Vegetable vendors called out their wares with lively voices, cloth vendors displayed their colorful patterns, mountain produce vendors laid out their dried goods, and food vendors' stoves steamed with fragrant aromas. The cries of vendors, the sounds of bargaining, and the greetings of acquaintances intertwined to create a vibrant and lively symphony of the marketplace.

They didn't arrive early; many stalls were already surrounded by a large crowd.

Chen Dashan was tall. His gaze swept across the bustling crowd and stalls. He turned his head and asked Su Xiaoyin in a low voice, "You didn't eat much this morning. Do you want to buy something to eat first?" He remembered that she had only drunk a small half bowl of porridge this morning.

Su Xiaoyin's face flushed slightly. She shook her head and whispered, "No need, husband. Let's buy things first. I'm afraid the good ones will be taken if we go too late."

Chen Xiaohe, with his sharp ears, overheard and immediately agreed: "Yes, yes, sister-in-law is right! We need to hurry! Especially the lard, if we go too late, all that'll be left is fat, and we won't be able to render much oil! Let's go to the butcher's stall first!"

The four of them squeezed through the crowd and headed towards the area where they remembered the meat stalls. Sure enough, several meat stalls were surrounded by people, and the butchers were busy cutting and weighing meat with their gleaming knives. They chose a stall that looked like it had fresh meat and plenty of fat, and joined the queue.

There were still several people ahead of them. While waiting, Su Xiaoyin whispered to Chen Dashan, "Husband, how much lard should we buy?"

Chen Dashan already had a plan in mind. He said in a low voice, "Buy ten catties. The lard is fifteen coins a catty, so ten catties is one hundred and fifty coins. This should be enough for our two families for more than half a year. The rendered fat cracklings will also be delicious for stir-frying and making dumplings."

One hundred and fifty coins! Su Xiaoyin did a quick mental calculation; this was almost half of the two hundred coins she had received after the family division. But she knew it was a necessary expense; without meat and oil in the winter, life would be very difficult.

When it was their turn, Chen Dashan stepped forward and said in a steady voice, "Boss, give me ten catties of lard."

The butcher was a burly man with a full beard. Upon hearing that he wanted ten jin (5 kg), his face immediately lit up with a smile: "Alright! Please wait a moment, sir!" He deftly pulled two large, thick, snow-white pieces of lard from under the cutting board, and with swift, deft movements, sliced ​​and weighed them. "Look," he said, "exactly ten jin, very tall!"

She paid 150 coins, the lard was wrapped in dried lotus leaves, and she was about to put it in her basket when Su Xiaoqing, with her sharp eyes, noticed several large bones, cleanly shaved and with hardly a trace of meat left, in a wooden basin next to the meat counter. Remembering how her mother always said, "The meat between the bones is the most fragrant, and the broth is the most nourishing," she mustered her courage and whispered to the vendor, "Sir, how much are these big bones over there? Can you give me a discount?"

The shopkeeper was counting money when he heard this. He glanced at the bowl and casually said, "Oh, those? The meat has all been removed, there's not much to eat. If you want them, give me three coins and take them all." There were about three large leg bones in the bowl.

Su Xiaoqing glanced at her sister, then at Chen Xiaohe. Chen Xiaohe immediately understood and readily agreed, "Okay! Boss, wrap it up for us!" He then counted out three coins.

The shopkeeper deftly wrapped the three large bones in oiled paper and handed them over. Chen Xiaohe took them and carefully placed them, along with the lard, at the bottom of his basket. The lard was heavy, and the bones were not light either, causing the basket to sag slightly.

Leaving the meat stall, Su Xiaoqing explained somewhat embarrassedly, "Although the big bones don't have much meat, when stewed into soup... they can still absorb some of the meaty smell. In winter, they're used to stew radishes and cabbage, and the soup is always sweet."

Chen Xiaohe chuckled and said, "Exactly! Three coins for several such big bones, what a bargain! At least it's a meat dish!"

Next, they went to the pottery stall. There were many kinds of bowls, plates, jars, and pots, but the prices varied. They didn't pick and choose, but only ordinary coarse pottery bowls and plates with even glaze and no cracks or defects, and bought seven or eight of them. They also picked out four medium-sized pickled vegetable jars and a large-bellied pickling jar that could hold twenty catties of food. These things were not expensive, but they still cost seventy or eighty coins in total.

Carrying an increasingly heavy basket, he continued walking. He passed a sweet potato stall; the owner, an old farmer, had a small mountain of sweet potatoes in front of him, each about the size of a fist, but the skin was somewhat shriveled, clearly having been stored for some time. Chen Dashan went up to inquire about the price, and it was almost half the usual price. He squatted down and carefully examined them; although the appearance wasn't great, he broke one open and found the flesh inside was still good.

"Boss, I'll take all of these. Can you give me a discount?" Chen Dashan asked.

The old farmer was worried about not being able to sell all his sweet potatoes, but when he saw someone buying them all, he nodded eagerly. In the end, he bought all 100 jin of sweet potatoes for only a few dozen coins. Chen Xiaohe packed the sweet potatoes into another spare large sack, making it a bulging bag.

"Brother, now we'll have plenty of staple foods for winter!" Chen Xiaohe said with a grin, carrying a sack.

Chen Dashan nodded, glanced at the sun, and said, "Let's go to the grain store; we need to replenish our supplies of fine grains at home."

The grain stores in the county town were much more impressive than the scattered stalls in the market, and they had a wider variety of grains. I inquired and found that this year's new brown rice cost seven coins per pound, but the store also had some last year's brown rice. The shopkeeper said it was just a little darker in color, but it was still edible. Because the new rice was hard to sell, it was only five coins per pound. Ordinary white flour was also five coins per pound.

After a moment's thought, Chen Dashan asked for ten catties each of coarse rice and wheat flour. Although the family had received grain after the division of property, it was mostly coarse grains. These refined grains, mixed together, would provide some variety. Another hundred coins were spent.

Finally, they arrived at the general store and bought the essential coarse salt, soy sauce, and vinegar, as well as some needles and thread and a new kitchen knife. When they left the store, Chen Xiaohe's sack and Chen Dashan and Su Xiaoyin's baskets were already stuffed full.

The sun was high overhead, but the crowds in the market showed no signs of abating; in fact, they were even more dense and noisy. The aroma of food wafted through the air with even greater intensity.

Chen Dashan glanced at Su Xiaoyin beside him, whose forehead was beaded with sweat but whose eyes remained bright, and then at his younger brother and sister-in-law, who were carrying heavy sacks but were full of enthusiasm. He said, "We've bought almost everything. Let's find a place to eat something before we go back."

They found a small stall selling mutton soup and sesame flatbread in a corner of the market. It had a simple awning and a few greasy square tables. They ordered four large bowls of steaming hot mutton offal soup sprinkled with chopped cilantro, and eight crispy-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside sesame flatbreads. The hot soup dispelled the morning chill and the fatigue of a morning's journey. The flatbreads, eaten with the soup, tasted especially delicious.

Su Xiaoyin sipped her soup, the warmth spreading from her stomach to her limbs. She looked up at the bustling and vibrant market before her, at Chen Dashan beside her who was silently drinking his soup but carefully breaking up a sesame seed cake and soaking it in her bowl, and at her younger sister across from her who was quietly discussing with Chen Xiaohe how to stew the bones. For the first time, she truly felt that they had started a down-to-earth, everyday life in this distant land.

As the oxcart swayed back to the village, carrying them and their fully loaded baskets, the sun was already setting. But everyone's heart was full and bright. Their new home was gradually being filled with genuine warmth from those heavy baskets and sacks.