Chapter 30 The girl that made Li Zhi's heart beat

Listening to the words of the children, the Gan family fell into deep silence.

They stopped talking and hurried to find the carpenter's house.

The carpenter was introduced by the shopkeeper. It is said that he has good skills and reasonable prices.

Coincidentally, the carpenter's house is next door to the doctor who treated Li Zhi's mother, Su Baishou.

Li Zhi saw Su Baishou's granddaughter drying herbs in the yard, so he went up to help.

After listening to the Gan family's request, the carpenter said in a deep voice that it was no problem.

"Three days, come back and get it after three days."

"As for the price..."

The carpenter gritted his teeth: "Just give me two stone of rice."

Since the first flood, the price of grain has been rising again and again. Now that the gates of Tongmen Pass are closed, it has become an isolated city. The price of grain has become terrifyingly high.

And you can't buy it just by having money!

He went to the grain store and lined up for three days in a row, but couldn't buy any grain.

"Do you have to exchange it with rice?"

"If you don't have rice, just give me five taels of silver."

He said listlessly: "Originally, I didn't want five taels of silver, but now the price of grain has skyrocketed, and my price is already cheap."

He didn't want silver at all now.

Even if you have silver, you can't buy rice. Silver is just useless stone. Rice is still real.

Not only him, but now many towns within Tongmen Pass spend grain as money and barter.

Having silver is not great, having grain is the real deal!

"I don't have rice, can I exchange it with red beans or mung beans?"

Gan Fanren didn't feel much about the rice that Gan Tian took out before, until he saw the excited expression of the innkeeper, and then he realized that it was too high-profile to take out such rice.

It is safer to use red beans and mung beans.

"Red beans and mung beans are fine, as long as they are edible."

The carpenter was overjoyed.

They don't have many good fields at home, and there is not much grain left before. Now the rice jar is already empty.

Even if they had to eat porridge every day, they could only last for two or three days at most. If they still couldn't buy food by then, the family would go hungry.

Now that they have food, the family can still have a few days of full meals.

"How much food do you have? I can exchange it with you, or I can buy it."

Like a traveler who has been walking in the desert for a long time and sees the rain, the carpenter saw hope in Gan Fanren.

"Okay."

Gan Fanren pondered for a while: "I'll see if there is anything I need."

The carpenter's home has many small gadgets made by himself, which look very delicate.

Gan Fanren took a delicate small table and a beautiful dressing table from him, and then stopped.

In fact, he also had his eyes on large items such as wardrobes, but he had to hurry to the capital and would not stay here for a long time, so he had to give up.

The carpenter lowered his eyes in disappointment: "These little things are worthless, just give me two bushels of rice."

Gan Fanren thought the carpenter's offer was quite reasonable, so he said: "I live in a nearby village, and I came here to sell grain this time."

"But the grain store is too unscrupulous and offers a very low price, so we plan to sell it ourselves."

"Five hundred coins for one stone of red beans."

Hearing this price, the carpenter and his family were stunned.

Gan Fanren frowned: "Too expensive?"

The carpenter woke up as if from a dream: "No, no, no, it's too cheap. I haven't seen such a cheap price for a long time."

The price of red beans has always been high, much higher than that of rice.

He went to the grain store to ask yesterday, and rice was already three taels of silver per stone.

Red beans will only be more expensive.

But Gan Fanren only wanted 500 coins!

This price was unprecedented even before.

He rubbed his hands excitedly: "How much do you have?"

"As much as you want."

The carpenter thought this was a bit crazy.

But after thinking carefully, the man in front of him was originally a farmer, and maybe there were many in the village.

"I want 100 shi, no, 200 shi."

At that time, there was no unit of measurement called jin, and the people mostly used dou and shi to measure the amount of grain.

The amount of one shi of rice would also fluctuate according to different times.

Most of them were around 110 to 20 jin.

Two hundred shi would be about 24,000 jin.

Gan Tian could take out so much grain, but the problem was whether the inn could accommodate it.

[I have never seen 20,000 jin of red beans, but I estimate that the amount is not small. Where should I put it? ]

Don't even mention Gan Tian.

Even Gan Fanren had never seen so much food.

He did not agree in one breath, but said: "So much food cannot be transported in one go, I have to deliver it in several trips."

"No problem, no problem, as long as it can be delivered."

The carpenter's wife was a dark middle-aged woman, wearing a coarse linen dress, with thick lips slightly puffed up.

"Master, how long will we eat so many red beans?"

"It will be bad if they get worms."

The carpenter explained: "I have my reasons for doing this."

"We have a large family and eat a lot of food. Now the price of rice outside is high and we can't buy it. I don't know how long we can survive this life." "

The price of red beans is cheap, we might as well take this opportunity to buy more, so that we don't have to worry if we can't buy food for a few years."

That's true.

The carpenter's wife thought for a while and said, "In that case, let's buy more."

"I want three hundred dan!"

If the grain price does not drop for a while, these red beans are enough to support it. Even if the grain price stabilizes after a while, Gan Fanren sells it at a low price and it is easy to sell it.

Although Gan Fanren sells it at a low price, three hundred dan is not a small number.

The carpenter took out all the money in the family and borrowed a lot before he could get enough money.

Hearing that they were talking about grain, the little granddaughter of Sun Baishou next door poked her head out.

"Do you have grain?"

"Can I buy some?"

Li Zhi looked at Gan Fanren eagerly: "Can I, big brother?"

Hui Niang saw Li Zhi's eyes and guessed what Li Zhi was thinking about.

A boy of fourteen or fifteen is at the age of thinking about love. Li Zhi is probably in love with the girl.

Hui Niang asked with a smile, "How much do you want?"

The girl was not pretty, but she looked very comfortable. When she smiled, she had two shallow dimples on her cheeks and her eyes were shining beautifully.

She said in a sweet and crisp voice, "I want ten stones."

"Half red beans and half green beans."

"Okay, I'll send it to you in a few days."

The girl happily took out the silver and handed it to Hui Niang, but she didn't take it.

"Your grandfather treated our old lady a while ago, so let's forget about this money."

"How can that be possible!" The girl raised her voice unconsciously and widened her eyes: "Grandpa will blame me if he finds out!"

"Besides, my grandfather also received your consultation fee, how can I take your food for free?"

"If you don't accept it, I will replace it with medicinal materials for you, but I will never take your food for free!"

The girl was afraid that Hui Niang would regret it, so she stuffed the silver into her hand and ran towards her home as if she was running for her life.

Li Zhi saw this and hurriedly chased after her.

"I'll take you there."

This idiot, the girl's family lives next door, why would he need to take her there?

The girl ran into the yard and closed the gate, leaving Li Zhi with only the bare door panel.

Li Zhi dropped his hands in disappointment and was about to leave when the door suddenly opened.