Chapter 118: What Smells So Good

Chapter 118: Chapter 118: What Smells So Good

In their village, making a new outfit for an adult man or woman required no more than five meters of fabric to tailor everything from the inner layers to the outer garments.

Yun Zhen recalled the exquisite garments worn by the customers buying wooden hairpins at the entrance of Jiuzhou Mall. A single outfit like that probably required seven or eight meters of fabric.

In her world, cotton cloth was a luxury only wealthy families could afford. The residents of Taoyuan Village all wore clothes made of coarse cloth or linen; they simply couldn’t afford fine cotton. During her previous job at a fabric shop in town, she had often seen the dignified ladies and young misses of affluent households. Their clothes were always made of either fine cotton or silk. Though the styles were simple, they were incredibly elegant.

She decided that once she returned to the village, she would have her father tailor a new outfit for her, mimicking the styles worn by the wealthy daughters in town.

"Sir, roughly how many meters are in a single bolt of this fabric?" Yun Zhen asked.

"Fifty meters a bolt!" the shop owner replied, taking a quick breather from his work. "What’s on your mind, miss? Looking to buy a whole bolt?"

Yun Zhen’s response was astonishing. "I want twenty bolts of fabric. All fine cotton. I’ll pick the colors and patterns myself."

"What? Twenty bolts? You’re not pulling my leg, are you?" The owner was in the middle of cutting fabric for another customer. Startled, his hand nearly slipped and ruined the cut. He quickly tightened his grip on his scissors and the cloth. "Isn’t that a bit much? A bolt of fine cotton is fifty meters. Twenty bolts make a thousand meters. At five yuan a meter, that’s five thousand yuan. Are you sure you can really take that much?"

Yun Zhen nodded. "Absolutely."

"Alright, take your pick. These are all brand-new cotton fabrics with beautiful colors and patterns." He led her to the back of his van.

Yun Zhen selected fabrics in a wide variety of colors: crimson, bright orange, goose-yellow, aqua, navy blue, light green, cyan-black, purple, pink, snow-white, and silver-white.

Seeing that she was serious about buying such a massive haul, the owner was ecstatic. "Miss, since you’re buying twenty bolts, I’ll throw in twenty sewing kits for free."

He hauled down twenty plastic boxes. Opening one, he revealed fifty long needles, fifty short needles, spools of silk thread in various colors, and a pair of palm-sized scissors.

Yun Zhen was thrilled. In her world, needles and thread weren’t cheap either, yet this vendor had generously gifted her twenty complete sets in one go.

"Thank you so much," Yun Zhen said, accepting the gift without hesitation.

"That’ll be five thousand yuan!" After paying him, she noticed a box of fabric scraps next to the owner. "Sir, could I have these scraps?"

The owner nodded. "Of course."

The scraps were offcuts left over from tailoring, originally priced at one yuan per catty. Since this generous customer had just purchased twenty bolts of fabric, she was only asking for a few dozen yuan’s worth of scraps. He wasn’t stingy enough to refuse, so without a second thought, he hoisted the entire large box onto Yun Zhen’s cart.

The cart wobbled, seemingly buckling under the immense weight. The twenty bolts of fabric were simply too heavy.

"Do you live in the residential complex here? Want me to help you deliver it?" the owner asked thoughtfully.

"No need, I can manage!"

Yun Zhen pushed the heavy cart with all her might, pausing to catch her breath with every step. She cheered herself on; once she reached the adjacent alley, she could return to the village.

"Return!" she commanded.

THUD THUD THUD! Upon arriving back in the village, the fabric bolts tumbled straight out of the small cart. Yun Zhen’s heart ached at the sound. She prayed they weren’t damaged.

Thankfully, the fabric remained intact. The vendor had wrapped each bolt in plastic packaging, so the cloth hadn’t even gotten dirty. Today, welcoming her back were her parents, the Village Chief, and Aunt Cui Lan.

"Wow!" Yun Duo lunged forward to feel the vibrant fabrics her daughter had brought back. Her face was filled with shock. "Zhen Niang, you bought so much high-quality fine cotton! It’s so soft to the touch. The colors are so bright, and the patterns are incredibly lifelike. How much Silver did this cost?"

Yun Zhen smiled at her mother. "I bought twenty bolts of fabric. It cost exactly five taels of Silver!"

How much?! Everyone present was absolutely shell-shocked. It wasn’t that it was too expensive—it was ridiculously cheap!

Although five taels of Silver was a massive sum, enough to keep a family well-fed for an entire year, the Goddess said she had bought twenty bolts of fine cotton. In the county town, a single bolt of plain, uncolored fine cotton cost five or six taels of Silver. Dyed or embroidered fabric was even more expensive, easily going for over a dozen taels a bolt. Even when marrying off a daughter, village families could only bear to buy a single cotton wedding dress, which cost at most one or two hundred cents.

None of the cotton cloth brought by the Goddess looked cheap. Judging by the vibrant colors and beautiful patterns, a single bolt should easily cost at least a dozen taels of Silver. Yet the Goddess had just declared that twenty bolts cost only five taels of Silver. It was an absolute steal!

"Doesn’t that mean one bolt is only two hundred and fifty cents?" the Village Chief calculated. He swallowed hard, his eyes wide with disbelief. "Is fabric from the Immortal Realm really this cheap?!"

"They practically gave it away," Li Cuilan agreed, equally astounded by the bargain.

"Zhen Niang, didn’t you just buy everyone a new outfit? Why buy so much fabric again?" Yun Xiu asked his daughter.

"The New Year is fast approaching," Yun Zhen explained. "I want the villagers who are skilled at needlework to make two more new outfits for everyone to wear during the New Year."

"When the rest of the village hears about this, they’ll be overjoyed," Li Cuilan said, genuinely happy for everyone.

They were getting new clothes again. Some villagers hadn’t worn a brand-new outfit in over a decade, yet this winter alone, they would have three sets of new clothes. And that didn’t even include the winter clothes they had made by stuffing their old garments with the cotton the Goddess brought previously. Even the wealthy households in town probably weren’t this extravagant.

"The shop owner who sold me the fabric also gave me twenty sewing kits for free." Yun Zhen took out one of the kits and opened it, revealing gleaming silver needles, vibrantly colored silk threads, small scissors, and a soft, flexible measuring tape.

"So many beautiful silk threads! They’re even prettier than the ones sold in the county town," Yun Duo said, unable to tear her hands away from them.

"When I worked at the fabric shop, I never saw silk threads this bright. Plus, they have a lot of tensile strength. They aren’t flimsy like the ones we usually use," Yun Zhen noted, having never encountered such smooth and vibrant threads herself. She then began delegating tasks. "Aunt Cui Lan, please let everyone know later that besides making crochet dolls, we’ll also be making new clothes for everyone."

Li Cuilan nodded. "That’s easy. We can make the knitted dolls at night and sew the clothes during the day."

Yun Zhen pulled Yun Duo, who was still admiring the threads and fabric, closer. "Mother, didn’t you want to know what corn is? I bought two hundred catties of large corn on the cob, and the vendor gave me twenty medium-sized cobs for free. Tomorrow, I’ll have the Village Chief boil them for everyone to taste. They’re soft, chewy, sweet, and fragrant."

She opened one of the sacks containing the corn, releasing a fresh, sweet aroma into the air.

"What smells so wonderful?" the Village Chief asked, hurrying over to take a look.

Yun Xiu pulled out a cob of corn and asked, "Zhen Niang, what is this golden thing?"

"This is called corn," Yun Zhen explained. "It’s a type of grain crop, somewhat similar to sweet potatoes and potatoes. Once it’s boiled, it smells even better than it does now."

"Grain!" Another new crop. The Village Chief was ecstatic.

The sweet potatoes from before had been sweet and soft. The potatoes, while not sweet, possessed a rich, earthy aroma and were even more filling than steamed buns. Now there was this "corn." It smelled incredibly appetizing even raw. Had the Goddess not explicitly stated it smelled better cooked, everyone present would have been tempted to sink their teeth into it right then and there.