Compared to the exquisite shopping districts, the old goods market on weekends in the early morning and the sugar water shop on the street corner are more suitable for retrieving the tenderness hidden in time. The metallic luster of the old camera, the faded handwriting on the old postcards, mixed with the ginger and milk aroma wafting from the sugar water shop, do not have any forced romance. However, in the small discoveries, the heart can gradually settle down with this feeling.
Make an early appointment with the other party in advance – for the good items at the flea market, you should go there early to pick them up. You carry the old enamel cup passed down by your grandma, planning to find a suitable coaster; she carries a canvas bag and says she wants to find an old edition of a fairy tale book. Just as you reach the entrance of the market, you are surrounded by the continuous cries: “Old records are sold at low prices!” “Handmade embroidered pillowcases, all cotton!”
You pulled her into a booth filled with old items. The owner was a middle-aged man with grizzled hair, and he was wiping a black film camera with a cloth. Her eyes lit up, and she crouched down to look through the cardboard boxes in the corner of the booth: “Sir, do you have any old books here?” The man smiled and pointed to the shelves behind him: “There are a few there. They were all collected in the past.” You then picked up the film camera and gently turned the shutter. There was a soft “click” sound, as if a switch for time had been pressed.
Sure enough, she found a yellowed copy of “Andersen’s Fairy Tales” on the shelf, with a picture of a little girl in red shoes on the cover. “This is it! I had a copy when I was a child, but I lost it later.” She held the book up and smiled, the sunlight filtering through the canvas top of the stall casting tiny patches of light on her face. “Quickly, take out the prepared dried flower bookmark from your pocket and insert it into the book: ‘I just bought it at the door, it matches your old book perfectly.’”
After walking for a while, my stomach started growling. You remember there was a well-known sweet shop at the exit of the market. You led her towards that place. Pushing open the glass door, a warm aroma of ginger and milk greeted us. The owner came over smilingly: “What would you like? Today’s red bean paste has just been made, and there’s also double-coated milk.” I ordered the ginger milk for her: “She has a cold stomach, so this will warm it up.” I also ordered green bean paste for myself, “Less sugar, thank you.”
Find a small table close to the wall and sit down. She is still flipping through that old fairy tale, occasionally looking up and saying a few words about the story in the book. When the milk pudding was served, the surface was covered with a smooth layer of milk skin. She scooped it up with a small spoon, blew on it and put it in her mouth. “So tender! It’s much tastier than the last time I ate it.” You pushed the green bean sorbet in your bowl over to her: “Try this. It’s for clearing heat, and it complements the milk pudding perfectly.”
After finishing the sugar water, she returned to the second-hand goods market. She stopped at a stall and picked up a coaster with a chrysanthemum pattern on it. “This matches my enamel cup perfectly,” she said, looking at it. Suddenly, she pointed at the old brooch on the stall and said, “This butterfly is so beautiful. You’ll look great wearing it.” It was a silver butterfly brooch with tiny blue gemstones on its wings. She smiled and pinned it on her canvas bag: “It should be pinned on your bag. It looks better than wearing it on me.”
As she left the market, she was holding old books, with the butterfly brooch on her canvas bag shining brightly; you were carrying a porcelain cup and saucer, and in your hand there was also an old postcard she had picked out – it depicted the alleys of old Shanghai, with a blurry inscription at the back: “Reading the words is like meeting the person.”