Jiang Nuan had always been the housekeeper of the Huang family. When Wang Shi sold purses, she could get a dozen or so coins, but she would hand them over to Jiang Nuan in the blink of an eye. She had never received so many copper coins before.
Receiving so much money suddenly made her heart pound with nervousness.
"Mother, have... have they all been spent?" Wang asked hesitantly.
A chicken costs about twenty coins, two catties of meat cost ten coins, and the rest can buy five catties of fine rice.
But she couldn't bear to.
This is the wages that Boss Huang earns in four or five days, and he can spend half a month if he's very frugal.
“Yes, it’s all gone,” Jiang Nuan thought for a moment, and still felt it wasn’t enough, so she took out another fifty copper coins. “Buy more fine rice. We have many children in our family, and your health is really poor. You must take good care of yourselves.”
She didn't think things through enough. She only thought about the two girls who hadn't grown any teeth yet, completely forgetting that everyone in this big family, young and old, needed supplements.
Jiang Nuan's words almost made Wang's legs go weak.
Buying all 100 coins for food? How greedy must someone be? If word got out, the whole village would laugh for three days.
But she also knew how good Jiang Nuan was to her family. Although her heart ached as if it were being cut by a knife, she felt warm inside and looked at Jiang Nuan with eyes full of admiration.
She knew that her mother-in-law had a sharp tongue but a kind heart. The reason she held onto the money and didn't let her spend it wasn't because she was greedy, but because she wanted to use it for important things.
Thinking that her family spent two taels of silver every year on corvée labor, and that no matter how hard things were, they never made the men perform corvée labor, Wang became even more determined in her beliefs.
Thinking of this, she gritted her teeth and agreed, "I'll do whatever you say, Mother. You can watch the child for me, and I'll go buy it right away."
She couldn't be ungrateful; her mother was thinking of them, and she couldn't let her mother down.
It still hurts so much, one hundred coins, one hundred coins, one hundred coins...
Even though the villains in her heart were drowning in her own tears, Wang still managed to force a smile.
"Go ahead, I'll watch the child!" Jiang Nuan waved her hand, signaling Wang Shi to leave.
Huangjiakou is a small mountain village. The town holds a market on odd-numbered days where you can buy and sell all sorts of things. However, there are hunters in the village, so you can buy meat and other meats from them.
The hunter in the village is surnamed Lin. He settled in Huangjiakou three years ago and makes a living by hunting and processing furs.
Upon reaching a clean courtyard, Wang called out, "Is Brother Lin home? I want to buy an old hen."
Hearing the sound, Lin Zhen came out, opened the door, and raised an eyebrow. "Chuanzi's wife, you want to buy chicken?"
Although the Huang family had some wealth, they lived a very hard life. They usually only bought a small piece of meat, about the size of a palm, to cook for the old lady. This was the first time they had bought a chicken.
“Brother Wang,” Wang explained with a smile, “my mother said that the family has suffered heavy losses, so she’s buying an old hen to help them recover. If there’s any meat, she’ll want some too.”
“There’s no hen, only a rooster,” Lin Zhen explained, pointing to the rooster with a piece stuck in its head. “There is meat, though, all lean. Do you still want some?”
“This,” Wang hesitated for a long time before gritting her teeth and saying, “I’ll take the chicken, and also get two pounds of meat.”
"Okay, I'll cut some meat for you."
A short while later, Wang returned home with a chicken, two pounds of lean meat, several large bones with the meat removed, and half a bag of fine rice.
Carrying the things, Wang was extremely uneasy.
I couldn't buy a hen or any fatty meat. Will Mom be angry?
Will she think I'm too stupid to do such a small thing right?
Will he ever hate me again?
The more she thought about it, the more confused she became, and the smaller her steps became as she walked into the courtyard.
Back in the courtyard, she immediately ran over to apologize.
"Mother, it's all my fault for being so clumsy. I can't even buy something right."
"What happened?" Jiang Nuan asked tentatively, seeing Wang's distressed expression. "Did you lose your money?"
She didn't have much money to begin with, and if she threw in another hundred copper coins, Jiang Nuan felt like she would be in so much pain that she couldn't breathe.
“No,” Wang shook her head, “My daughter-in-law didn’t buy a hen, and the meat she bought was all lean meat.”
Upon hearing this, Jiang Nuan immediately breathed a sigh of relief.
As long as no money was lost, it doesn't matter much whether it's a rooster or a hen. She's not deliberately avoiding the hen anyway.
Lean meat is also a good choice, as it is rich in protein and very nutritious.
"It's alright, as long as we got the chicken and meat, nothing else matters. What about the rice? Did you buy it?"
“There’s no place in the village that sells fine rice, so Hunter Lin gave me four or five catties of what he had for himself,” Wang said, pulling out a handful of copper coins from her bosom. “Mother, these fifteen coins are what’s left over.”
"Keep the rest for yourself, keep it for spending money. You've been a mother for several years now, and you don't have a single penny to your name. You can't even manage in an emergency. This won't do."
Thinking of Wang's nervousness when she received fifty coins, Jiang Nuan decided she had to encourage her. She took out another hundred copper coins and said, "Keep these hundred coins as your private money. You can use them to make clothes for Da Niu or buy him some pastries."
Jiang Nuan's words shocked and moved Wang Shi.
In Huangjiakou, young wives could only take their own dowry; all the money they didn't divide in the family had to be handed over and they couldn't keep any for themselves.
Her dowry was taken away and kept by her mother-in-law as soon as she entered the family, and she was already used to living a life without a penny in her pocket.
Even though she had gotten used to it, Wang still didn't like it much. She couldn't afford to buy better embroidery thread, and when the candied hawthorn seller came, Da Niu could only watch longingly.
“Mother,” Wang rubbed her red eyes, “How can you be so good? I must have accumulated a lot of good karma over several lifetimes to be your daughter-in-law.”
It's just a hundred coins, no big deal, but the child started crying again.
Jiang Nuan's lips twitched, and she said, "Stop crying, keep the money safe, don't let anyone touch it."
She really couldn't understand why Wang was reacting so strongly.
It's only one hundred coins. The Huang couple earns more for their family than one hundred hundred coins, and they're so moved by just one.
Silly and silly!
Jiang Nuan was a little worried that without her supervision, the child might be sold off.
As the two were talking, the door creaked open, and Madam Xie returned from outside.
As soon as she entered the courtyard, she threw down the bamboo pole on her shoulder and shouted at the top of her lungs, "Mother, I'm back! I brought back a lot of bamboo!"
"Second sister-in-law is back," Wang Shi said with a smile. "Mother, I'll go see if there's anything I can help with."
Jiang Nuan waved her hand, "Go ahead, I'll look after the child."
"Sister-in-law, has Daya caused any trouble?" Xie asked cheerfully when she saw Wang.
"No, I fed him half a bowl of porridge today. He ate and then fell asleep and hasn't woken up yet."
"Paste?" Madam Xie's expression changed drastically. "You touched Mother's paste?"
Wang quickly explained, "Second sister-in-law, it was Mother who instructed us to do this. She said that Daya and Erya are seriously in debt and need to be well cared for."
“But you can’t touch Mother’s porridge,” Xie’s expression softened a little after hearing Wang’s explanation, but her tone was still very firm. “Mother’s health is not good, and we don’t have money to buy medicine for her. She can only be fed porridge. Let it go this time, but don’t do it again.”
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