My wife and I are both time travelers.

Chapter 27 Old Article
"My surname is Wen, the Wen of the national hero Wen Tianxiang. You can just call me Lao Wen. What should I call you, brother?" Lao Wen asked with a smile.

"Zhou Jiye, just call me Xiao Zhou." One can't hit a smiling face, so although Zhou Jiye didn't know why Lao Wen had come to see him, he still answered him.

"Hello, Brother Zhou. We've met before, and now that we've both set up stalls here, we're acquainted. Hope you'll help me out in the future."

"Not at all, Brother Wen, you arrived early, please take good care of me," Zhou Jiye said modestly.

"Take care of each other, take care of each other, hehehe..."

Old Wen grinned, but his teeth were in bad shape; he was missing two and they were stained yellow with tobacco and tea, making his smile look rather unattractive.

After exchanging a few words, Lao Wen glanced at the cage where Zhou Jiye had just put the chickens and asked, "Brother Zhou, will you be setting up a stall here every day from now on, just selling old hens?"

"Yes, I come almost every day, but I don't know how long I'll stay. I leave as soon as I sell out."

"That's true. By the way, did you get this old hen from the countryside?" Old Wen asked with a smile.

Zhou Jiye's gaze turned slightly cold, and he immediately became wary. Why was this guy asking about the origin of the old hen? Could it be that he saw his business was doing well and was planning to steal his business?
Perhaps sensing Zhou Jiye's wary gaze, Lao Wen quickly gave an awkward laugh and waved his hand, saying, "Don't misunderstand, I'm not trying to steal your business. Doing business is about skill, and everyone has their own way. Besides, I'm in the eel business, and I also help people cut eel shreds and such. I'm so busy with my own business that I don't have time to go to the countryside to buy old hens to sell!"

Strange, if that's the case, then why did he ask? Zhou Jiye was secretly on guard, but smiled and said it was nothing, though his expression still showed wariness.

Old Wen was a seasoned veteran of the underworld, so how could he not see Zhou Jiye's aloofness towards him? Seeing that Zhou Jiye was on guard, he thought for a moment and said directly, "Brother, actually I don't have anything else to say. On the one hand, I heard that you and Comrade Cao have a good relationship and I wanted to get closer to you. On the other hand, you just arrived, so we can get to know each other and look out for each other in the future."

"But don't worry, I, Lao Wen, have been running this stall here for quite some time. You can ask around to see what kind of person I am. I would never do anything despicable like poaching someone's partner, much less steal someone else's business."

"Brother Wen, I didn't say anything," Zhou Jiye said, spreading his hands innocently.

"Yes, yes, it's my fault, my fault." Old Wen nodded repeatedly with a smile, and then said, "To tell you the truth, there's something else I'd like to trouble you with, brother, to see if you can help me."

"Brother Wen, this is my first day setting up a stall, and I'm not familiar with this place at all. You're a seasoned veteran of the market, how can a newbie like me possibly help you?" Zhou Jiye shook his head repeatedly. What a joke! Asking him to help without explaining anything? He's not stupid.

Seeing that Zhou Jiye was young but spoke with impeccable eloquence, Lao Wen realized he had misjudged him. However, his initial intention wasn't really to steal Zhou Jiye's business. After all, he thought Zhou Jiye had a connection with Cao Ping from the market management office, and they might even be relatives. Lao Wen knew that if he offended Cao Ping while running his stall in the market, he wouldn't be able to continue doing business, and he wasn't about to risk a greater loss for a smaller one.

Having said all that, Lao Wen stopped beating around the bush and told Zhou Jiye his plans, then jokingly asked Zhou Jiye if he could help with this matter.

"Help me kill a chicken?"

Old Wen smiled and nodded, pointing to his stall: "I sell eel and eel shreds over there. Business is good one moment and slow the next, and sometimes I'm just sitting idle. To shred eel, you need to scald it with hot water, just like killing chickens. Besides, I'm pretty good at killing chickens, and I'm very efficient at cleaning them. Little Zhou, aren't you selling old hens? It's troublesome for customers to kill the old hens themselves after they sell them. If it's convenient, you could mention to the customers when you're selling chickens that I can help them kill and pluck the feathers, how about that?"

"That's it?" Zhou Jiye asked in surprise, "How much does Brother Wen charge for killing a chicken?"

"Not expensive, just one cent!"

Zhou Jiye was puzzled by this. One cent? What was Lao Wen up to? One cent wasn't expensive at all; Lin Ying's tea eggs cost two cents each. Killing a chicken was a skilled job, and plucking and cleaning it was quite troublesome, plus it required scalding with hot water. All things considered, Lao Wen wouldn't make much money at all.

Why is Lao Wen doing this job that doesn't make money? Is he just putting in effort for nothing? Does Lao Wen have such a high moral character that he's voluntarily doing good deeds?
Upon careful consideration, Zhou Jiye suddenly thought of a possibility and immediately smiled.

“Sure!” Zhou Jiye readily agreed. “Anyway, I only sell chickens. I don’t care whether customers want their chickens killed or not. Since Brother Wen wants to take on some extra work to earn some extra money, that’s no problem! I’ll just mention it when the time comes.”

"Yes, yes, that's exactly what I meant." Old Wen nodded repeatedly.

Helping others is helping yourself, and as long as it doesn't affect Zhou Jiye's business, Zhou Jiye naturally won't object. Besides, regardless of Lao Wen's intentions, having someone help slaughter chickens at the chicken stall would benefit Zhou Jiye, making things much more convenient for customers. Thinking this through, Zhou Jiye couldn't help but admire this seemingly unassuming Lao Wen; it was quite clever of him to come up with such a plan!

Moreover, according to Zhou Jiye's guess, Lao Wen didn't really earn much by helping to kill chickens, but don't forget that the chicken blood, feathers, and other things processed during the killing process are all good things. One of these things can be eaten, and the other can be collected and sold as scrap.

Moreover, the internal organs and giblets cleaned from killing chickens are also useful. Some people like to eat them and will take them away, while others who don't eat them will leave them for Lao Wen. One chicken may not be much, but several or even a dozen chickens add up to quite a lot. Lao Wen probably had this in mind.

This is a shrewd businessman!

That was Zhou Jiye's assessment of Lao Wen, and his gaze unconsciously drifted toward Lao Wen's stall.

Old Wen's stall wasn't big. There were two large wooden buckets with lids on the stall, one filled with hot water and the other with eels. There was also a small table with two nails on it, as well as his bone knife for slicing eels. As for business, it was just as he said, busy for a while and slow for a while.

"Is Wen's business doing alright usually?" Zhou Jiye finished his cigarette and casually took out a cigarette to hand to Old Wen.

Old Wen thanked him, took the cigarette, and laughed, "Small businesses are all the same, just barely enough to make a living. Brother Zhou, aren't you in the same boat?"

"Haha! Brother Wen is right, we're all just trying to make a living."

Zhou Jiye immediately chuckled. Old Wen's words were quite meaningful! However, he liked this way of communicating. The distance and cautiousness of the people in Shanghai made Zhou Jiye very comfortable. This was one of the reasons why Zhou Jiye drifted around Shanghai after graduating from university. Old Wen was a typical Shanghainese.

Smoking a cigarette, I chatted idly with Lao Wen. It was my first day setting up a stall at the market, and it was good to meet someone like Lao Wen. After all, Lao Wen had been around here for a while and knew more about the market than I did. It would be good to get some information from Lao Wen during our chat.

The two chatted idly for a while, and when they finished their second cigarettes, it was almost time to leave. Zhou Jiye apologized and prepared to pack his things to leave, but as he was leaving, his gaze inadvertently lingered on something not far away across the street, and he couldn't help but pause slightly in surprise.

There was an elderly woman, not young, bending over and picking through a pile of vegetable leaves on the other side.

Vegetables spoil easily, and people in Shanghai are quite particular about what they buy. When selling vegetables at the market, they usually peel off the outermost layer of old leaves from bok choy and cabbage and throw them aside. After the sale is over, they put them all in a designated place to be collected by the garbage truck in the afternoon.

These things were all garbage, piled up there and smelled terrible. Most people would walk around them, but this old woman was picking and choosing, carrying a basket in her hand, and every now and then she would pick out a few decent vegetable leaves from the garbage and put them into her basket.

Compared to other places, Shanghai, as the city with the largest economy, has a much better quality of life for its residents. To be honest, the income of ordinary people in Shanghai is not low, and with the policies of a big city, even ordinary people can live a good life.

Add to that the "refinement" and sense of superiority that Shanghainese people typically possess, making them particularly discerning when it comes to food. If something is of good quality and slightly more expensive, Shanghainese are often willing to readily pay for it. Take, for example, Lin Ying's tea egg stall, or Zhou Jiye's idea to sell old hens. In some smaller cities, would these businesses be so easy to run?
But this old woman behaved completely differently from other people in Shanghai. She was picking through the discarded vegetable leaves. Zhou Jiye and Lin Ying had been in Shanghai for so long, and this was the first time they had ever seen such a scene.

"That old woman is a pitiful person!" Perhaps Zhou Jiye was so engrossed in watching that, following his gaze, Lao Wen saw the old woman picking up vegetable leaves across the street and said this with emotion.

"Does Brother Wen know this old lady?"

"Hehe, I don't know her, but I see her almost every day." Old Wen shook his head and said, "I've been setting up my stall here for about half a year. On my first day, I saw this old lady often coming to the market. Every time she comes, she picks up vegetable leaves in that spot, and she does it for a long time."

"Are you going to eat these vegetable leaves?" Zhou Jiye asked curiously. Although these vegetable leaves were unwanted, they weren't inedible. The problem was that people in Shanghai wouldn't pick them up. After all, these vegetable leaves were not only old but also dirty. Plus, it wouldn't be polite to pick up vegetable leaves in this place!
Old Wen nodded: "I guess so, otherwise why would we pick it up?"

Zhou Jiye sighed. If what Lao Wen said was true, the old woman was indeed pitiful. However, Zhou Jiye didn't think too much about it. There were plenty of pitiful people in the world, and he, Zhou Jiye, wasn't a pushover. He could barely take care of himself, let alone others.
Just as Zhou Jiye finished packing up and was about to leave, the old woman across from him finished picking out the vegetable leaves. She picked out a basket of vegetable leaves and slowly walked towards the exit of the market.

As she moved, Zhou Jiye was stunned once again. The old woman clearly had a back disability. It wasn't a problem when she was bending over picking vegetable leaves, but as soon as he left, he noticed that she couldn't straighten her back and walked with great difficulty, almost inching forward step by step. What would be a few steps for an ordinary person took her a long time to cover, her body trembling, a heartbreaking sight.

(End of this chapter)