On the morning of New Year's Eve, Li Xiang once again rode his three-wheeler to the county town to buy New Year's supplies.
Yesterday, he had gone to the nearby town for things like wine, calligraphy brushes, couplets, firecrackers, and fireworks, since they were all available there. But today, he needed to buy some ingredients for his family that they didn't eat often, which meant a trip to the county town was necessary.
After all, the county town had a much richer variety of goods. In some of the larger seafood shops, you could find things like king crab and Boston lobster. There were plenty of wealthy people in the county town, too. Normally, sales for these ingredients weren't great, but as soon as the New Year rolled around, demand would outstrip supply, and the prices would start to climb.
