After a while, the boss put the food on the table and said politely: "Brother Liu, brother and sister, please use it slowly."
Liu Da smiled and said: "Their steamed sweet and roasted white is good, the wine rice is sweet and glutinous, and the pork belly is fat but not greasy."
Li Xiangyang and Lin Lan also smiled and nodded: "The color looks good."
After the three of them ate, the boss gave Liu Da a bottle of kimchi. The three of them took the package and went to the alley of the station, where Gu Guoqing was already waiting.
"Ticket check-in is in two minutes, let's get into the station quickly." Gu Guoqing said and led the three of them towards the iron gate.
After entering the station, Gu Guoqing took the three of them to the platform where the train to Yangcheng was parked, got on the No. 12 train, and waved to the three of them: "Uncle Liu, Brother Li, Sister Lin, please walk slowly!"
"Okay!" Liu Da said to him, "We will be back in eight or nine days. Please pay attention and help us pick up the goods."
"I know." Gu Guoqing smiled and turned around and left.
The three of them had three lower berths. Li Xiangyang put the luggage away, and Liu Da told them not to sleep too hard at night. There were also three hands on the sleeper car.
Li Xiangyang nodded and said, "I'll take a nap later and stay alert at night."
Lin Lan remembered that she had heard someone say before that before the crackdown, someone took a bus from the provincial capital to Kyoto to do business, and was visited five times by three hands along the way. After the man reported the crime, he finally picked up the policeman and arrested more than ten thieves in that carriage. Still,
Thieves from different gangs committed the crime, including a child under ten years old.
Li Xiangyang and Liu Da talked for a while, and then they went to the convenience store.
Lin Lan sat leaning against the car window, watching the passengers outside the car rushing to catch the train and getting on the car.
It was a bit cold on the train, so Lin Lan opened the quilt to cover her feet, leaning against the carriage and squinting her eyes to fall asleep.
Passengers from the sleeper car also came up one after another. A man in his forties wearing gold-rimmed glasses and carrying a briefcase got into the middle berth, and then a young guy with a crew cut came up.
Lin Lan took the upper bunk.
As they were about to drive, an old couple got into the car with a three or four-year-old boy. They looked at the middle bunk above Lin Lan and the upper bunk opposite and said to the boy: "Dongdong, sit here obediently, Auntie."
Later, grandpa and grandma will put the things on the luggage rack."
The child nodded and sat at Lin Lan's feet.
Li Xiangyang returned to the bunk here, helped the old couple put their luggage on the luggage rack, sat on the bunk and said to Lin Lan: "Are you thirsty? I'll get a pot of boiling water."
"Well!" Lin Lan handed him the military kettle in the basket, "Be careful."
Li Xiangyang nodded and walked towards the carriage.
Lin Lan glanced at the fat little boy sitting at his feet and thought that it was rare to raise a child so fat these days.
The old couple put away their luggage and sat on Li Xiangyang's bunk. The old lady smiled and said to Lin Lan: "Comrade, does the lower bunk opposite you belong to your lover?"
Lin Lan glanced at the three of them and knew that they wanted to change bunks, so she nodded and said, "It's my lover's bunk."
The old couple looked at each other and felt that Lin Lan was easy to talk to. They said politely: "Sister, we bought the tickets late. The tickets for the lower berth are sold out. It's a bit inconvenient to take the children to the upper berth. I'll add some money and use it."
Can I swap the middle berth with you for the lower berth?"
Lin Lan nodded cheerfully and took Li Xiangyang's coat to his bunk: "You can stay in my lover's bunk."
"Thank you, thank you!" the old couple said to Little Fatty, "Dongdong, thank you auntie quickly."
Li Xiangyang came over with a kettle and learned that Lin Lan had moved him to the middle berth. He nodded and sat next to Lin Lan.
The old lady took out ten yuan from her small bag and handed it to Lin Lan: "Sister, please make up for your money."
Lin Lan smiled and said: "No need, we are young and have flexible legs and feet. We can sleep anywhere."
When the old couple saw that they really didn't need money, they took the little fat man and saluted them to thank them.
Lin Lan and Li Xiangyang talked for a while, and Li Xiangyang climbed to the upper bunk and fell asleep.
At six o'clock, Liu Da came over to wake up Li Xiangyang. The two of them went to the dining car to buy rice and an egg soup, and brought them to the bunk here. They had kimchi, fermented bean curd and mushroom sauce for dinner.
Liu Da patted Li Xiangyang on the shoulder and returned to his bunk to sleep.
Just after falling asleep for a while, the little fat man whined and cried for his mother. The old lady patted his vest and coaxed him softly.
Lin Lan squinted her eyes and listened for a while. Little Fatty was coaxed to sleep by the old lady, and she also fell asleep in a daze.
When Lin Lan woke up, the lights in the sleeper car were turned off. Only the green exit light under the corridor and the toilet light were still on.
She sat up, put on her clothes and wanted to go to the toilet. Li Xiangyang in the middle bunk also sat up: "Xiaolan, do you want to go to the toilet?"
"Well!" Lin Lan whispered, "Are you not asleep yet?"
"I slept in the afternoon and can't sleep now." Li Xiangyang said as he got down from the bunk, "I'll go with you."
Lin Lan slapped him angrily: "I'm not a three-year-old child."
She went to the bathroom and checked the time. It was already two o'clock in the morning.
Lin Lan came out of the toilet and saw Li Xiangyang standing in the aisle looking at the toilet. She felt warm in her heart. She returned to the bunk and said to Li Xiangyang: "I woke up, you should sleep for a while."
"I'll sleep for two hours. You wake me up." Li Xiangyang said and climbed to the upper bunk. After a while, the sound of deep sleep could be heard.
At dusk the next day, the three of them arrived at Yangcheng Railway Station safely.
Li Xiangyang took off the backpack from the luggage rack, then helped the old couple take the luggage out and handed it to them.
Liu Da came from next door with his luggage. The three of them got out of the car together and told them that the wholesale market was not far from the train station. If they walked quickly, they would be there in less than half an hour.
The three of them left the station. Lin Lan felt that Yangcheng was warmer than Dongshi. In the early 1980s, Yangcheng did not have high-rise buildings or neon lights, but it was much livelier than the provincial capital.
Many men riding tricycles shouted loudly in broken Mandarin outside the station, "Xihu Road, Huanghuagang..."
Liu Da told the two of them that the place where they were shouting was the night market in Yangcheng, and told them not to talk to anyone casually here. There were many human traffickers, and after dark, there were even robbers in the corners.
Lin Lan felt that this was the case around every wholesale market, such as the provincial capital wholesale market, where there were wallet throwers, specifically to lure money-grubbing people to pick up their wallets.
She picked up the wallet with her front foot, and someone followed her behind her. She said that the person who saw it had a share. In fact, the money inside was only the top one and the bottom one were real gold and silver, and the ones in the middle were all Hades coins. Someone around her was deceived.
The two of them followed Liu Da for half an hour and arrived at Huanghuagang Wholesale Market.
Lin Lan felt that the wholesale market in every big city was not far from the train station, because these days, bulk commodities are almost transported by train, so there are so many people jumping over trucks to grab the carriages.
She knew that for many years in the future, Yangcheng's clothing would be the trend vane across the country, and many shops would boast that what I sold was Guangdong goods, which were the most popular styles and the latest fabrics.