The little one's purse connects the two worlds, turning a desolate village into a paradise.

Upon hearing the clearance sale guy's question, Ya Ya quickly pulled out a bunch of straw ropes of varying lengths from her fuzzy crossbody bag: "Here are the sizes, everyone has them. But three new people have come to our village, and I don't know their foot sizes."

Zhao Jiale took the straw rope. "Is there really such a primitive method?"

"It's okay, let me help you choose some shoes by holding the rope. Pick one pair of each size, both the light-up and non-light-up ones. Tell me how old the three new ones are, and whether they're male or female, and I'll estimate a size for you to take home and try on."

If you take it home and it doesn't fit, I'll still be here tomorrow, you can come back and exchange it.

"That's great, little brother! You're so kind! Thank you! I'm so sorry to trouble you." Ya Ya happily circled around Zhao Jiale, holding up the transparent flower slippers, watching him help her compare them.

The old man next to him saw that the little girl genuinely liked her and was planning to buy her for his family and the dozens of people in the village. He began to doubt himself.

Do kids really only love this style these days? Retro styles come every year, but this year it's back to the 80s?

While my mind was still questioning my aesthetic sense, my feet seemed to move out of control and unconsciously squatted down, my hands following suit as I rummaged through the large plastic bag to pick out slippers.

What color does my eldest granddaughter like again?

After some searching, Zhao Jiale picked out fifty-eight pairs of slippers for Ya Ya. Half were light-up and half were regular and non-light-up, and he also included a variety of colors and sizes of flowers. Adding the two pairs that the old man next to him casually picked up, it made a total of sixty pairs.

"Young man, are you charging me a pair of these slippers?" The old man hesitated, looking at the red and green slippers in his hand.

He noticed that the little girl stared at those two colors the longest.

After thinking for a moment, Zhao Jiale said, "Sir, since yours and the child's will make a round number, I'll combine your order with hers and charge you the wholesale price. It's eight yuan a pair, but I'll sell them separately for fifteen yuan each."

The old man opened his mouth.

He, a grandfather, was now being helped by a tiny little kid.

Forget it, it's cheaper and less embarrassing.

Ya Ya quickly pulled out her phone, her eyes shining: "Wow, you're so nice to me, sir! These shoes are so pretty and they even light up! They're only eight yuan a pair! Let me calculate how much they cost."

As she spoke, she found the square pattern that the clearance sale guy had shown her and clicked on it.

"Fifty-eight... and this little cross is a multiplication sign, eight dollars a pair is multiplied by eight, then press eight! Then you can press the two bars pattern, which is called equal to..."

After Ya Ya poked the equals sign with her finger, the original number on the screen immediately jumped to 464.

"Four hundred and sixty-four, little brother, is it really that much?" Ya Ya turned her phone screen towards Zhao Jiale.

Zhao Jiale glanced down at the numbers on the screen, smiled, and gave Ya Ya a thumbs up: "Hey, that's right, you're really smart, kid. You learn things so fast."

Hearing the clearance salesman's straightforward praise, with other people watching, Ya Ya suddenly felt embarrassed. She pursed her lips, suppressing the corners of her mouth that wanted to turn up, and unconsciously tugged at her handbag with both hands, her eyes uncontrollably curving into two sweet little crescents.

……

The dirt road in the mountains was shrouded in the darkness of night, and the cool night breeze brushed against the faces of the three people.

Yan Daya, Zhao Hu, and Da Niu were walking back to Lotus Village.

Yan Daya still had the lingering taste of the cornbread that Da Niu had given her earlier. Although the cornbread had long since cooled and felt hard to the touch, it still tasted delicious.

I heard it's made from flour ground from a type of grain called corn.

It has a slightly gritty texture when you chew it, but the more you chew, the sweeter it becomes.

Yan Daya felt that this was the most delicious thing she had eaten in all the years since she got married, apart from the bowl of porridge she ate in the morning.

Erzhu and Sanya are still in the village. I don't know if they will be able to eat such substantial dry food today, or if they will only be able to share some wild vegetable porridge.

It seems there isn't such good food available; only strong laborers who go out to work would have such delicious pancakes to carry with them. Da Niu even shared one with himself; he's such a kind person. Everyone in Lotus Village is a kind person.

She must work harder in the future so that she can get better food; she can't just let her younger siblings eat for free in Lotus Village without feeling guilty.

Yan Daya was lost in thought as the three of them slowly walked to the village entrance.

Zhao Hu gave instructions: "Da Ya, go back to your room and rest. If you're still hungry, I have some black rice cakes here. Da Niu, you've been busy all day, go back and rest early."

After making the arrangements, Zhao Hu turned and walked towards the area where construction waste was piled up.

Seeing that Zhao Hu wasn't heading towards the village, Da Niu frowned. "Brother Hu, where are you going?"

"I'll go and see if I can move some broken cement bricks up there first, and then find some large rocks from the mountains during the day to quickly block the opening."

Upon hearing this, Da Niu immediately took a step forward: "Brother Hu, your legs are already weak, and the road is difficult to walk on at night when you're carrying stones and bricks. How can you let yourself go? I'll go with you!"

Upon hearing that there was work to be done, Yan Daya immediately chimed in, "I can handle physical labor, I'll go too."

Having just eaten such fine grain cakes, how can I just sit back and rest without doing anything? Today I only went to my own village and demolished two houses, and that little bit of work is less than a fraction of what I used to earn at my husband's family's place.

Zhao Hu paused, then looked up at the two of them: "Aren't you two tired? Don't you need to rest?"

Da Niu shook his head vigorously, and Yan Daya followed suit.

Seeing this, Zhao Hu laughed: "Alright then, let's all three of us carry up what we can."

……

Xiong Bo led Qiao Chuan into Granny Liu's courtyard under the cover of night.

After all the hard work, the entire solar power system has been installed and the power has been successfully connected once the wiring was straightened out. With the help of Yan Erzhu and his sister Sanya, even the foundation around the substation at the bottom of the slope has been completed.

However, once it got completely dark, it was too dark all around to see the objects in his hands, so he stopped working.

Xiong Bo had originally planned to get a light and finish it all at once, but as soon as he turned on his flashlight, Er Zhu reminded him that the night before, they could see from a distant mountaintop that the sky over this valley was brighter than elsewhere. If outsiders came and saw this, some curious or desperate people might try to find their way here.

Xiong Bo immediately turned off the flashlight.

Although I knew that the light from the flashlight couldn't possibly reach the level Yan Erzhu described, and that it must have been from watching the projection the night before, it was always better to be cautious.

Qiao Chuan led the brother and sister to the bathroom for a quick wash and then sent them back to their room to rest before following his master back to the courtyard.

"We'll need to build another room later. We can just put up a simple shed for now, hang some cloth and dry straw to cover it up. We'll still need to cover it up when we watch the projector later."

Qiao Chuan nodded. "We have two USB drives now, they're not borrowed from Teacher Yu, they're our own, and we're not in a hurry to use them. I think we should build the fence and set up the electric fence first. Let's secure this area first before considering these other things."