Julie went to the place where pots, bowls, and chopsticks were sold.
She picked out quite a few bowls, plates, and chopsticks.
All the bowls at home had cracks and chips.
She decided not to take them back and would just throw them away.
If she wasn't careful, those could easily cut her mouth and make it bleed.
She saw some wooden buckets and bathtubs, so she bought one of each.
If she remembered correctly, there was only one bathtub at home.
It was the one she used for her first bath after arriving here.
She thought it would be better for each person to have their own.
The men could use one, and she would have one for herself.
It wasn't worth arguing over a few coins.
Julie also saw some kitchen knives and wooden cutting boards, so she picked one of each.
She also bought a clay pot with sand mixed in, thinking it would be good for making soup.
When she saw salt and sesame seeds for sale, she bought five pounds of each.
Sesame seeds and soybeans could be used to make oil.
She remembered back in the orphanage, when she was bored, she had read in a book that you could use a wooden oil press to make oil.
From the original owner's memory, she knew that someone in the village sold tofu and happened to have such a wooden oil press.
Later, she could buy a piece of tofu and borrow the press for a bit. If they didn't agree, it didn't matter.
Money could solve anything.
If money could fix a problem, then it wasn't really a problem.
In the end, everything cost eight hundred and fifty-three coins, which wasn't too expensive considering how much she bought.
After paying, Julie noticed a nearby stall selling hairpins and wooden combs.
She walked over and saw that they were selling handmade wooden and silver hairpins.
Julie picked a design with crabapple flowers and bought three wooden hairpins and three silver ones.
Thinking it was getting late, she planned to come out another day to shop more.
She wanted to take them to the gold and jewelry shops to buy some gold and jade accessories.
For now, these would do.
She had jewelry in her space, but they weren't really suitable for men, so she didn't take them out.
The wooden hairpins cost three coins each, and the silver ones cost ten coins each.
After paying, she tucked the hairpins into her sleeve.
Carrying the pots, bowls, seasonings, and daily supplies she bought, she went to the carriage and put everything inside.
When she passed by a pastry shop, she hesitated for a second but decided to stop and told them she would be a moment.
She thought that men probably liked to eat sweet things too.
Since they were her husbands, she needed to take good care of them. Even if she couldn't give them love, she wanted to treat them fairly in material things and everyday life.
She never dreamed about spending her whole life with just one person.
It wasn't that she didn't believe in it, but she thought it was too unrealistic.
In the apocalypse, she had no lovers.
In her heart, she believed that needs and love were two different things.
The word "love" was too big. She didn't understand it and didn't want to.
She only knew that as a woman, she had responsibility and duty toward her men.
Her responsibility was to make sure they had enough food and clothes.
Her duty was to treat them equally, without favoritism.
Without favoritism, there would be no fights.
Because everyone would be treated the same.
That was how balance could be kept.
This was her plan, and she would stick to it.
Julie entered the pastry shop and looked around casually.
The shop wasn't big, and the variety of pastries wasn't very wide.
The shop assistant smiled brightly when he saw a customer come in and warmly greeted her.
He enthusiastically introduced the different pastries.
Julie felt a bit helpless. She wasn't interested in the names, and she didn't really like sweets.
In the end, she bought several kinds of the shop's special pastries, six pieces of each.
She bought osmanthus cake, pea cake, water chestnut cake, and mung bean cake.
At checkout, she paid one hundred coins.
She thought to herself that it was really expensive.
She hoped it would be worth it.
Carrying the packed pastries, she handed them to Lorrie, Bailee, and Haven.
Thinking they might be hungry, she figured they could eat some on the carriage to fill their stomachs a little.
She was good at driving the carriage steadily.
Bailee and his two brothers looked at the oil paper wrapping the pastries but didn't move.
It wasn't because they weren't hungry, but because they were used to waiting for their wife to either give them permission or take the first bite herself.
Julie noticed the sky getting darker and decided not to waste any more time.
She had bought almost everything she needed. If anything was missing, she could buy it next time she came to town.
Now that they had a carriage, traveling was much easier.