Chapter 57 The Disaster Victims Are Making Trouble, Young Madam, Should We Send a Message to the Young Master...?
"This is it, that's right! I heard that this brothel is located in Shishantang. You're being unreasonable, young lady, why won't you let us in?!"
A man in tattered clothes and worn-out shoes started arguing with Fang Yuan at the entrance of the flower shop.
"What charity? No, no, you must have come to the wrong place." Fang Yuan said, leading a group of waiters to stop the man and the group behind him. "You've got the wrong place. Go look somewhere else."
“This is it, that’s right.” The man’s face was smeared with dirt. “The East Market Flower Bureau, this is it. You little girl, are you trying to starve us to death? How cruel.”
As soon as he called out, the older women and the toddlers immediately started crying out, "Wife, wife, please give us some food!"
"Please have mercy, give me some food, my child hasn't eaten for three days..."
A dusty gray figure flashed and disappeared in the crowd.
In the narrow alley, an old woman dressed in green was rubbing a handkerchief and looking around expectantly.
"Here he comes, here he comes." The gray-clad man shrank his neck and hurried over.
The old woman in green: "How is it?"
"Auntie, you can rest assured about what I'm doing. Look." As she spoke, she led the old woman in green out of the alleyway. There, a large crowd had gathered at the entrance of the 'East Market Flower Bureau,' dressed in rags, crying and cursing. "Well? Are you relieved now?"
The woman in green then pulled out a purse and tossed it to him with satisfaction. "You're not bad, kid. You didn't get caught, did you?"
"No, no." The man in gray opened his purse and looked inside. "I wore a straw hat, found a little beggar, gave him a steamed bun, and he went around the disaster camp shouting. The people came over on their own. That little beggar is nowhere to be found right now. No one will ever discover him."
The two parted ways and exited the narrow alley one after the other.
One of the waiters ran to the backyard and called Li Yang out, "Master, hurry and see what's going on, something's happened up ahead."
"What's wrong?" Li Yang straightened his sleeves and followed the waiter to the door.
Fang Yuan: "Hey, Zhao Zhao, what are you doing here? It's a mess here, go to the back quickly."
The other waiters said, "Yes, boss, please go back to the backyard."
"The owner? The owner!" The leading man had very sharp ears and shouted with a raised arm, "This is the owner of this flower shop, don't let her leave."
"Madam, Madam, please give me some food."
Pleading and cursing filled the air. Li Yang was completely bewildered. "Yuanyuan, what's going on?"
"I don't know where this group of disaster victims came from. They insist that they heard somewhere that our shop is distributing disaster relief rice, and they're refusing to leave," Fang Yuan explained to Li Yang as she went to close the shop door.
Seeing this commotion, the tea drinkers in the shop all asked the waiter where the back door was, and one table after another ran off.
Seeing this, Li Yang apologized to the customers repeatedly. Seeing that most of the customers had left, she simply asked Fang Yuan to make way and glanced at the leader. "I ask you, where are you all from, and where did you hear that this shop has relief rice?" she asked the leader loudly.
But the man wouldn't talk to her, and said fiercely, "Never mind, we're not leaving today unless we give out disaster rice."
“You can’t even say where you came from, yet you dare to call yourself a disaster victim? I think you’re just here to cause trouble. If you dare to cause trouble, don’t run away when you see the officials later.” Li Yang had been selling street wontons for two years, so he wasn’t afraid of these local thugs. He put his hands on his hips and said to the waiter behind him, “Go and report to the authorities that someone is causing trouble.”
The waiter left as ordered. Li Yang sneered, told the people in the shop to go outside, closed the door, and then stared coldly at the leader.
The crowd loosened up a bit when she said she would report us to the authorities. The man's expression flickered, and he shouted again, "You rich people, don't try to bribe officials to bully us common folk. We're just starving and came here for food. What right do you have to report us to the authorities?"
Scattered sounds of agreement followed, along with continuous sobs.
“I have no problem distributing rice to the relief efforts, but I also need to report this to the authorities. Are you going to wait here for the government to come and arrest you for questioning, or are you going to leave now?” Li Yang had seen this kind of thing before. In these kinds of riots, there are always one or two people pretending to be disaster victims mixed in with the crowd, just waiting to incite the crowd so they can loot and smash things in the store.
Today, this disaster relief rice must be distributed; she cannot wait for this person to escalate his loss of control.
Sure enough, the leader looked embarrassed and said, "We just want people who stutter..." He didn't say much more, but silently disappeared into the crowd.
An old woman, seemingly unable to endure any longer, leaned on a broken cane and shakily led her young grandson forward, saying, "Madam, kind lady, we've come all the way from Gao County. Our homes were flooded, and we had no other choice but to come to Songshan Town to beg for food. Please have mercy on us. I don't care if I starve to death, but my little grandson hasn't eaten for four days..."
Li Yang glanced over and saw that the old woman had no decent clothes on her body or legs; she was covered up by tattered rags, one after another. The child beside her had disheveled hair and was only wearing a pair of tattered underpants. They looked like two withered grasses, with fluffy seeds hanging from them, about to bend over with the slightest breeze.
She frowned instinctively, then looked around. In the vast crowd, some were squatting, some were sitting, and a few were barely standing. A gust of wind could blow them all over.
"You're from Gao County?" she asked the old woman. "Did Gao County get flooded?"
“Oh, oh… what a tragedy… the heavy rain breached the dike… the crops in the fields, which were almost ready for harvest, are now all submerged… my cattle, all swept away by the flood… what a tragedy…” The old woman cried as she spoke, and the women and children in the crowd also sobbed and cried, “The houses have all collapsed… everything is gone… sob sob sob.”
Gao County was flooded.
Chen Junbo said he had urgent business in Gao County.
Is he alright?
"Zhaozhao, Zhaozhao, what are you staring at? Come in quickly." Fang Yuan grabbed her arm and tried to pull her into the store and close the door, hoping to deter these disaster victims.
Li Yang suddenly came to his senses and glanced at the crowd of people at the door, which looked like withered grass and broken branches. "Yuanyuan, let's distribute the porridge."
Upon hearing this, Fang Yuan quickly lowered her voice and said, "Zhao Zhao, how can we distribute porridge? Our accounts are running low. If we distribute porridge today, what about tomorrow? The day after tomorrow? The day after that? The flood in Gao County won't recede in just a day or two. Are you even going to keep your shop running?"
Yes, if they were to distribute porridge at her flower stall every day, how would they continue to do business?
Suppressing her hesitation, Li Yang glanced again at the child beside the old woman. The child, with big, thick, long eyelashes and a bright black gaze, was looking at her. The child, who didn't understand anything, was sucking on his fingers and holding his grandmother's hand with one hand.
He was so thin, you could see his ribs. His arms were thin and bony, like drumsticks—no, drumsticks were much stronger than him. He wore two strips of cloth that barely covered his lower body. His knees were swollen, and his calves were covered with scratches. His small feet, barefoot on the blue brick slabs, had blackened toes with traces of blood, as if he had walked barefoot all the way.
Li Yang couldn't help but take two steps forward and reach out to touch the child's head.
The child looked up and said, "Sister."
His grandmother, her back hunched, struggled to lift her head to look at her. "Madam, please do me a favor... just give the child something to eat..."
Those present were moved to tears by the sight. Fang Yuan frowned, trying to hold back her tears. It wasn't that she didn't want to help them, but she still had a three-month bet with Hua Ju, and they were in dire straits.
After a moment, Li Yang seemed to have made up his mind, "Distribute the porridge."
As she spoke, she turned to look at the staff and her friend in the flower shop, "Yuanyuan, let's distribute the porridge."
Seeing that she had made up her mind, Fang Yuan, half-crying and half-laughing, suppressed her tears and replied, "Sigh!" She turned around and went to the kitchen to tell someone to cook rice porridge.
The waiters were bewildered, but seeing that the owner asked them to distribute porridge and the shopkeeper had no objections, they brought out all the tables, chairs, bowls, and chopsticks in the shop, preparing to distribute rice to the disaster victims later.
At this moment, Xiao Lu squeezed out from behind a group of waiters, walked to Li Yang's side, and whispered in her ear, "Young Madam, how about we send someone to deliver a message to the young master?"
Hearing her words, Li Yang's heart softened. She remembered what Chen Junbo had said when he left: "If anything happens, just send someone to Gao County to deliver the message. Gao County is not far away; the journey will take only a day."
At the time, I laughed at him for worrying unnecessarily, saying that things could go wrong with him who was having such a smooth life every day.
We've really run into trouble right now. Should we go and call him back?
What good would it do to call him back? Should we call him to distribute porridge? Or should we call him to buy rice for the porridge?
Li Yang suddenly felt a little ridiculous. She hadn't forgotten her indignation at Chen Junbo's interference in the affairs of the Flower Bureau a few days ago. Now that the Flower Bureau was encountering some setbacks, why was she hoping that he could come back and interfere?
The light shifts and the shadows change, half warm, half cool.
“You’re right, even if we bring General Manager Chen back, it won’t make a difference.”
In the west wing of Lanxin Pavilion, Ziyan immediately sided with Liyang after hearing her story.
Seeing that she spoke without hesitation, Li Yang suddenly laughed out loud, "Sister Ziyan, if these disaster victims come to the shop every day, the money for distributing porridge and rice will be small, and this flower shop really won't be able to continue operating."
“Then let’s find another place to distribute porridge. Right now, the disaster victims are only accepting your East Market Flower Bureau’s relief supplies. If you are still willing to continue providing aid, then let’s find another place. That way, the Flower Bureau can continue doing business, and the disaster victims will also receive relief.”
Ziyan gave a solution almost without thinking.
"Sister Ziyan, this method is brilliant! How come I didn't think of it?" Li Yang admired her. Look, she can come up with a solution even without Chen Junbai being at home.
“Zhaozhao, this isn’t a new method, you just don’t know it. Songshan Town is near the sea and right next to the canal, so the surrounding area gets flooded every two or three years.” Ziyan smiled and handed her a pastry. “Which place in Guazhou, Gaoxian, or Yizheng hasn’t been flooded? There are always some disaster victims in Songshan Town every few days. That’s how the shopkeepers handle it. It’s just that today they’ve set their sights on your shop.”
Having said that, Li Yang understood perfectly. In her younger days, Zi Yan was one of the most famous courtesans in town, and she had attended many banquets hosted by officials and merchants. Even just hearing bits and pieces at these banquets was enough for her to learn over several lifetimes.
Thinking of this, she smiled and lowered her head, pondering carefully where to distribute the porridge.
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