Jiang Sheng knew her aunt was suffering; she had known for half a year. In Jiang Sheng's mind, if you were beaten, you should run away; if you were scolded, you should scold back.
She didn't know why Aunt Zhang had endured so much hardship, staying even after her injuries healed, working tirelessly without complaint.
One time, Xiao Jiang Sheng couldn't bear it any longer and grabbed Aunt Zhang's sleeve, "Auntie, why don't you leave? He keeps hitting you, he's a bad person."
Aunt Zhang turned around and gently stroked her lower abdomen. "Auntie can't leave. Auntie can't let go of her children, and she has nowhere to go."
From then on, Jiang Sheng knew that a married girl had no home.
Aunt Zhang could endure it, but Jiang Sheng felt sorry for her.
"Second brother, how can we stop Aunt from being beaten?" she asked.
Zheng Ruqian pondered deeply, “My mother once said that some guests would try to touch me inappropriately, and the pimps at the brothel would break their hands and feet so they could no longer do so.”
It's that simple.
Jiang Sheng nodded, clenching her fist at her side.
The brother and sister went to another family to collect mushrooms. When they first arrived, the villagers were unusually wary, thinking that the little beggar from the village entrance had come to beg for food.
Some kind people would give you half a cornbread, while others would wave you away, saying, "Go away, there's no food."
Jiang Sheng wasn't angry at all. She smiled and peeked out, "Uncle, we'd like to buy some of your mushrooms."
"Buy mushrooms? You have the money to buy mushrooms?" The villagers stared wide-eyed.
Jiang Sheng, a little beggar, makes a living by begging and scavenging through garbage. Everyone in the village knows him.
If she were rich, the whole village would be rolling in money.
Jiang Sheng knew they didn't trust her, so she reached out and pulled Zheng Ruqian over.
The clean, fine cloth robe was quite deceptive, and the chubby little boy seemed even more wealthy.
Jiang Sheng stretched out his hands, spitting as he spoke, "This is my distant cousin. His family runs a business. He heard there were mushrooms in our village, so he came to buy them. He only came to your house because of my connections. If you don't want to, we can go look at other houses."
After saying that, he turned around without any hesitation.
"Hey, wait a minute!" The villagers were indeed getting anxious.
There are a dozen or so mushrooms at home, not enough for one meal, and selling them isn't worth the trip. Keeping them would mean drying them anyway. Since a silly boy is coming to collect them, it's better to just sell them.
As for the price, everyone will inevitably have their own considerations.
After a final round of heated debate, I finally bought it at the original market price.
"Uncle, don't worry. My cousin's family has tens or even hundreds of taels of silver in assets. As long as he's willing, he'll come and buy our mushrooms again in the future."
Jiang Sheng weighed himself using his own scale, and before leaving, he couldn't resist showing off his wealth.
Back on the main road, Zheng Ruqian began to mutter, "Why did you say I had tens or hundreds of taels of silver? I only have twenty copper coins."
Jiang Sheng glared at him, "Even if you're rich, who would sell us mushrooms?"
Indeed, Zheng Ruqian touched the basket on his back and smiled.
They then visited five or six more households, collecting a whole basket of mushrooms and spending all twenty copper coins.
If you do the math, the price is about the same as what they would have gotten if they had picked the fruit themselves before the first frost and sold it.
Jiang Sheng pulled Zheng Ruqian back to the dilapidated temple and spread out the mushrooms to dry.
The winter sun is already weak; two days of sunbathing are not as effective as one day of sunbathing.
“If you buy these mushrooms at market price, dry them, and then sell them, even if the price remains the same, the weight will be reduced,” Xu Mo couldn’t help but remind her, worried that her younger siblings would be taken advantage of.
Zheng Ruqian glanced at Jiang Sheng.
This was something they had discussed beforehand. It wasn't realistic to ask for a lower price for the mushrooms. First, people didn't trust them enough, and second, if the price was too low, the villagers would rather dry them than sell them to them. It was better to offer the market price directly, which would both gain their trust and build relationships with the villagers.
As for suffering losses.
When Jiang Sheng overheard the teacher's lecture at the school, he mentioned that things become valuable because they are rare. Mushrooms used to be everywhere, but now they have to be collected door-to-door. They have long since transformed from ordinary items into precious items.
In that case, it's not unreasonable for them to sell it at a higher price.
The next day.
Zheng Ruqian and his sister Jiang Sheng carried the slightly dried mushrooms to town, and Fang Heng followed them out of concern.
Wen Zhiyun was somewhat afraid of meeting people, so he stayed in the dilapidated temple under the pretext of "taking care of Xu Mo, who had a broken leg".
Upon arriving at the market, the fresh mushrooms were indeed met with enthusiastic inquiries about their prices.
But when Jiang Sheng raised the price from "two coins a pound" to "five coins a pound", the enthusiastic aunts and uncles disappeared.
Another person scoffed, "It's just some mushrooms, how dare they sell them for five coins a pound? They're crazy."
Zheng Ruqian almost broke down.
"Are we selling it too high? How about we just sell it for three coins a pound?" he whispered to Jiang Sheng.
Jiang Sheng hesitated for a moment, but thinking about the difficulties she encountered when collecting mushrooms, and after walking for another hour to reach the market, her eyes regained their determination. "I'll sell them for five coins a pound."
A morning passed, and while many people inquired about mushrooms, very few actually bought any.
As the market was about to close, Jiang Sheng's heart pounded with despair.
Then, a middle-aged man appeared at the stall, examined the freshness of the mushrooms, nodded, and asked, "You sell these mushrooms for five coins a pound? Can you make it cheaper?"
“Uncle, do you want them all? Four coins each.” Jiang Sheng replied immediately.
The middle-aged man raised an eyebrow and waved his hand, "I'll take them all."
The morning's wait was worthwhile.
Zheng Ruqian almost burst into tears.
Fortunately, Jiang Sheng kept the situation in mind and quickly weighed and packed the goods. She even borrowed a scale from next door. "Uncle, look, it weighs a good nine catties, and costs thirty-six coins in total."
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