Chapter 10 No One Should Take Care of My Money
"You are quite positive."
After Wu Yuetang opened the door, she looked at her third brother with an amused expression.
"Hey, aren't we thinking we can find food by following my little sister?"
Wu Zhiyun smiled innocently, as if his thoughts had been exposed, and lowered his head to rub his nose.
"Let's go, go early and come back early."
Wu Yuetang picked up the backpack on the ground, went out first, came to the previous hilltop, opened the map and looked at the surrounding marks, frowning.
There's nothing edible left to dig around here, and the ones marked are mostly medicinal herbs. It seems like today I can only dig up some herbs and exchange them for money in town.
"Third brother!"
Wu Yuetang turned around and called out to Wu Zhiyun, then pulled up a cat's eye grass from the ground and said.
"We're going to pick cat's eye grass today. You have to pick it like me and not damage its roots."
"Okay, I got it. No one in our village picks this grass. They say it's poisonous. I didn't expect my little sister to be so smart and know it's a medicinal herb."
Wu Yuetang listened to him praising her again and rubbed her face a little embarrassedly. She felt shy after hearing people praise her like that so often.
"Alright, alright, hurry up and dig. Then go to town early."
The brother and sister dug from the foot of the mountain all the way to the top. Their backpacks were already stuffed tightly. They even pressed some of the fruits down and picked more until they could no longer hold any more. Then they started to walk down the mountain.
The two of them were walking and talking, and they were so tired that they didn't notice the person following behind them.
He had been following the brother and sister for about seven or eight meters, following their steps closely, dodging left and right and looking for dead trees to hide his body. This action did have the potential to be a spy.
"Little sister, the cat's eye grass we dug today should weigh more than 30 kilograms. It looks like it can be sold for a lot of money."
"Hmm...it should be more than that." Wu Yuetang reached out and shook the backpack behind Wu Zhiyun. "It should be more than 30 kilograms. I estimate that the backpack on my back weighs almost 20 kilograms."
"Really? Fifteen cents a jin. If we calculate it based on forty jins, how much would that be?"
Wu Zhiyun's voice rose in pitch with joy, and the fat boy who was following him could hear it clearly. After hearing this, he refused to follow him and ran home.
The two of them were unaware of what was happening behind them, and they walked towards the town with all their attention, and came to Rendetang, the place where they sold medicinal herbs that day.
When the apprentice saw that there were two more people, he immediately came forward to greet them.
"You two are here again. What medicinal herbs are you selling this time?"
"Oh, we're selling lacquer today, but the quantity is quite large, so you can weigh it first."
As Wu Yuetang spoke, he lifted the cloth covering the two backpacks. Seeing that they were full of medicinal herbs, the apprentice immediately ran to the counter, took out a small scale, and started weighing them.
"The total is 45.6 jin (approximately 500 kg) of silver. Master instructed us to charge you according to the original price before we started seeing you today, which is 15 wen per jin (approximately 500 kg), for a total of 684 wen. Please wait a moment, I'll get the money for you."
After saying that, the apprentice ran away. Wu Zhiyun excitedly pulled Wu Yuetang's sleeve hard.
"Little sister, more than 600, more than 600. Our family hasn't made that much money from selling grain."
"Calm down."
Wu Yuetang felt a little embarrassed. It was already the third day and her third brother was still so jumpy.
At this time, the apprentice came over with a bulging purse in his hand and handed it to Wu Yuetang.
"Please keep it, both of you."
"Thank you. Oh, by the way, we delivered so much lacquer today. Will you still accept it later?"
Wu Yuetang looked at the many cat's-eye grasses on the table, then looked at the apprentice and asked.
"Oh, well, Zeqi probably won't be accepted anymore. You two can pick some other herbs to sell."
"Yeah, okay."
Wu Yuetang responded and left, holding a full bag of money in her hands, thinking about what to eat when she got home in the evening.
The two of them walked around the market one after the other. Wu Zhiyun followed behind the younger sister, watching her walk around every stall and ask questions, but he didn't know what she wanted to buy.
"Little sister, if you don't want to buy anything, let's go back. We haven't eaten the sweet potatoes we dug before."
"Sweet potatoes, by the way, I know what to eat for dinner!" When Wu Yuetang heard her third brother mention sweet potatoes, the dish of candied sweet potatoes came to her mind. After saying that, she ran to the grocery store.
As soon as he walked into the grocery store, he saw the shopkeeper slumped over the counter, a look of worry on his face. He hadn't noticed any customers coming into the store until Wu Yuetang spoke, and then he realized what was happening.
"Shopkeeper, how much are you selling this candy for?"
Wu Yuetang asked as she stood in front of the trough containing the candies, her voice neither too loud nor too soft, just enough for the shopkeeper to hear.
"Oh, sugar is 25 wen per liang. How much do you want?"
The shopkeeper hurriedly came out from behind the counter. Sugar is very expensive nowadays. Looking at the brown sugar in the little girl's hand, he knew that it was the cheapest variety. The prices of malt sugar and brown sugar had risen ridiculously.
25 wen? Has the price of sugar increased that much?
Wu Yuetang calculated that making a serving of candied sweet potato would require about 150 grams of sugar, or three taels.
"I want three taels. Um... do you sell any small powder in your store?"
She originally wanted to say starch, but when she thought that this was ancient times and most people didn’t know what starch was, she immediately changed the subject and asked about flour.
"Yes, yes. The price for small pink is 15 wen per liang."
The shopkeeper was weighing candies in his hands. When he heard the little girl's question, he responded with a smile.
"Okay, give it to me and weigh it three taels."
Wu Zhiyun was extremely anxious when he saw Wu Yuetang pay another 120 coins to leave, but he did not dare to stop her, for fear that she would scold him and he would not be able to have anything delicious to eat in the evening.
Wu Zhiyun sighed and suddenly felt that life was so difficult.
Wu Yuetang was about to put the paper bag in her hand into the backpack when she saw her third brother standing at the door in a daze.
"Third brother, what are you daydreaming about? Let's go buy some meat."
After saying that, he ran towards the pork shop.
"Boss, give me five pounds of tenderloin."
This time, Wu Yuetang came to the same shop and the uncle's house where she bought meat last time.
"Hey, little girl, you're here again. The tenderloin is 12 cents a pound."
Uncle Pork looked at Wu Yuetang with a smile on his face. He was deeply impressed by her. Because it was a famine year, it was rare to see such a young girl from the family coming out to buy food.
"Okay, uncle, just weigh it for me."
He bought five pounds of pork tenderloin and spent sixty coins. Then Wu Yuetang went to a vegetable vendor and bought some dogwood. He originally wanted to buy chili peppers, but unfortunately, chili peppers had not yet been introduced to the Dayu Dynasty. If he wanted to eat spicy food openly, he could only use dogwood instead.
Cornus officinalis is produced in large quantities and is not very expensive, only five or six coins per pound. Looking at the pork and cornus officinalis I had bought, and then looking at the remaining money in my hand, I still had more than four hundred coins left.
"Well, it should be enough for the whole family to have a full meal."
Wu Yuetang shook her purse and walked into the grain store. When she heard the waiter say that rice was fifty coins per catty, her eyes almost popped out. She remembered that in history, the price of rice was half that, only ten coins per catty. It seemed that the grain supply in the Yu Dynasty was really in short supply.
He looked at the fine rice in the trough and gritted his teeth.
"Weigh me five pounds of rice!"
To be honest, this was the first time Wu Yuetang felt his heart bleed in the past few days. He originally thought that buying five kilograms of rice would cost at most seventy or eighty cents, but now the price has tripled or quadrupled.
When Wu Yuetang paid the two hundred and fifty coins, her hands were shaking, but the waiter's face was full of joy.
In order to upgrade the system and make delicious food for others, I bought a few things and only had more than 230 coins left. My wallet was suddenly deflated.
When Wu Yuetang put five pounds of rice into Wu Zhiyun's backpack, Wu Zhiyun couldn't help himself.
"Little sister! We have brown rice at home! Why did you spend all this money on rice? You're really wasting money! We'll tell mom when we get home. You're really outrageous!"
Wu Zhiyun has always been a very obedient person and doesn't like to meddle in other people's business, but this time he seemed to be really angry. However, Wu Yuetang was not a soft-hearted person either, and she directly opened her mouth and retorted.
"Do you want to have a full meal? If not, just return the rice!"
After saying that, Wu Yuetang left angrily, leaving Wu Zhiyun standing at the door of the grain shop, looking disheveled in the wind.
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