Ye Wanying followed the old lady to a corner, whereupon the old lady quietly asked, "Young lady, are you here to sell grain?" The old lady looked somewhat nervous, her eyes darting around nervously.

"Auntie, you want to buy grain?" But how come this old lady is so observant? She knew I was here to sell grain?

The old lady nodded and asked, "Can I take a look?"

Just then, someone passed by on the road not far away. The old woman pulled Ye Wanying into a deeper corner and didn't come out until those people had passed.

"Sigh, we're just too scared to talk back..."

Listening to the old lady's sighs, Ye Wanying understood. She had heard her grandmother talk about those times before, but she hadn't expected that in this parallel universe, even though it was already the late 1980s, the policies hadn't been fully implemented yet. However, it shouldn't be too far off...

Carefully, she switched to holding the child in one arm. The child had fallen asleep sometime earlier. With her other hand, she lowered the basket, gently lifting the cloth covering it to reveal a corner: "Auntie, the grain in my house is of the best quality, look!"

The old lady glanced at it, and when she saw the rice in the basket, she was also surprised: "I haven't seen such good rice in many years! Every grain is plump and big. Girl, your family must be good at growing crops!" Her eyes narrowed into slits with laughter, and she was very happy, praising the rice without reservation.

Ye Wanying casually agreed, but she also understood one thing: if her rice were to be leaked, it would definitely cause a lot of trouble. The grains in this era were almost all coarse grains, brown rice, and they were all shriveled and the color was not right.

Rice like this, white, plump, and large-grained, is something even the person at the very top wouldn't have!

Immediately, alarm bells rang in Ye Wanying's mind, and a worried expression slowly appeared on her face. She sighed deeply, "Oh, Auntie, you don't know, this rice took our whole family a lot of effort to grow. A large plot of land only yielded this little bit of grain. The rest were either empty husks or hadn't fully grown. Because we were really struggling to make ends meet and we were breastfeeding our child, we couldn't possibly sell this little bit of grain! This rice was the result of our whole family spending three nights carefully selecting it!"

Hearing Ye Wanying's cries at home, the old lady seemed to empathize, taking out a handkerchief to wipe her eyes: "Yes, when will this ever end! We have to be so careful even when we go out to buy groceries, otherwise we might get accused of something. If it weren't for the children, this old woman would have given up long ago..."

Ye Wanying kept the old lady's words in mind: Yes, she must be more careful. Fortunately, this period will only last two or three years at most. She can just endure it.

When the new era arrives, it will be the perfect time for me to fully demonstrate my abilities!

After a period of sadness, the old lady finally recovered and felt a little embarrassed. She smiled apologetically at Ye Wanying and asked, "Miss, how much is this rice?"

Ye Wanying had already seen the price of rice at the supply and marketing cooperative. Brown rice was cheaper, at a little over two cents a pound, while polished rice, which was several times less refined than her own, was four cents a pound, a full twice as expensive as brown rice.

However, the prices offered by the supply and marketing cooperatives are not valid on the black market; the same items will fetch at least several times the price on the black market.

"This is my first time here too, and I don't really know the market rate. How much would you give, ma'am?" Just play the role of an honest and simple country girl, and your safety will be greatly increased!