"But is your backyard safe? Won't there be a lot of people? If we buy so much food, it will be troublesome if others see us."
The waiter shook his head. “Don’t worry, ladies. Our backyard is very secluded. Our manager unloads the grain there, so there are very few people around. Besides, there’s only the manager and another employee in the grain shop right now.”
Hearing this, An Shuyi and Xia Hua felt even more at ease. Soon after the grain was weighed, another worker put it in the backyard.
After giving the money for the grain to the waiter, Xia Hua said, "Shushu, you stay here and watch the grain. I'll take them to buy some more."
“Okay!” An Shuyi nodded. “Don’t worry, I’ll stay here and watch over the grain, but you all need to come back soon.”
"We'll buy some from that shop up ahead and come right back!" Xia Hua said as she left the grain shop.
Seeing her leave, An Shuyi said, "Waiter, I'll go to the backyard to watch the grain. They'll be here to collect it soon. Don't come over during this time, otherwise if too many people are discovered, your manager will think you sold too much."
"Don't worry, madam, we won't go over there." Anyway, these two ladies will be taking the grain away soon, as long as they don't go over there now.
Having received a satisfactory answer, An Shuyi hurriedly went to the backyard and began buying grain through the trading system. Before long, Xia Hua arrived at the backyard. "Shushu, I'll send them away for a while. They'll come here to collect the grain in half an hour."
"So let's hurry up and load as much as possible, otherwise we don't know how long we'll have to walk."
"Okay, I've bought it all. Now we can start packing." With that, she stood behind the pile of grain they had bought and began packing.
The backyard was spacious. The grain they bought was piled high. Behind it was the direction leading to the grain shop, and in front was the door to the backyard. There were walls on both sides, so there was some distance, but not much. The two of them hid between the grain and the back door to load the grain.
An Shuyi bought several thousand kilograms of rice and flour at once, and put them in several compartments. Xia Hua opened the burlap sacks she bought, put the handles inside the sacks, and put the grain directly into the sacks from the warehouse. When the sacks were full, she would replace them with another sack. She stopped after filling fifty sacks.
She had already filled all the grain she bought through the trading system, and there was no more in her inventory. She didn't plan to buy any more. They had a total of 15,000 jin of grain, which would be enough for them to eat once they found a place to settle down.
Of course, this is still under the condition that each person eats only half a pound of grain per day. Some children can't eat half a pound a day, but some adult men need half a pound a day, after all, they have to pull a cart, which is hard work.
It's said that half-grown boys can eat their fathers out of house and home, and that's absolutely true. In their group, the ones who consumed the most food were the ones with many children at home, especially the half-grown boys. They had to carry their belongings and travel every day, and they were always complaining of being hungry.
After they finished packing the food and were finally able to rest, there was a knock at the door. Judging from the voices, it was one of their own, so they quickly opened the door and let them in.
An Shuyi pointed to the grain and said, "The grain is all here. Hurry up and pack it up. Be careful not to make any noise and don't leave any mess. Also, cover it with the old cotton quilts you brought earlier."
“Your sister-in-law and I are going to take a look and buy some other things. We’ll be back soon. Before we arrive, you must pack up the food and you are not allowed to leave here.”
Seeing that they nodded in agreement, Xia Hua and she each carried a basket and left. Now they were going to buy other things, including things for their own people and things for the tribespeople that needed help carrying. It was a wide variety of things, and since there were so many items, the two of them bought them separately and would meet up here later.
An Shuyi first bought a lot of pastries and candied fruits from this world. Her warehouse was full of things given to her by Huahua. Some of them were not suitable to be taken out. Then she bought fabric, needles and thread. Traveling would wear out shoes too much, and she also needed to prepare more clothes. Of the several bolts of fabric she bought before, she made some clothes for herself, and some were bought by her tribesmen.
This time, besides buying for herself, she also bought some for them. Looking at the bookstore in the distance, she remembered what Xiao Liu had said, so she went in and bought a few more books: the Analects, Thousand Family Poems, and the Young Learning Forest... as well as two medical books for Xiao Wu, though she didn't understand them; they were all recommended by the shopkeeper.
These few books alone cost her tens of taels of silver. Not only that, these books are really expensive. However, this also means that movable type printing does not yet exist in this world, because if it did, these books would not be so expensive.
Then she started buying things on the street, buying whatever her people wanted. Suddenly, she smelled a foul odor and looked over to find that it was a meat stall. She went over to look and saw big, fat pieces of meat, but not many people were buying them.
"Sister-in-law, are you buying meat? It's thirty coins a pound, no bargaining," the pork vendor said.
An Shuyi pointed to the bones, "How many are there?"
"Those are all bones, not a bit of meat. You can have them for twenty coins."
"I'll take them all." These are all spare ribs, not the fatty meat that the people here eat. She doesn't like it, since she can buy it through her trading system. She plans to buy some spare ribs and then buy some fatty meat from the trading system later. Some of her tribesmen will definitely buy it, and she can just ask for less silver then.
"Nine catties and three taels, I'll give you nine catties, one hundred and eighty coins, and these bones are for you too." The shopkeeper said, tying the ribs together with a piece of tree bark and handing them to her. An Shuyi handed over the coins, picked up the ribs, and left.
Seeing the grain shop's backyard approaching, she stopped, put the meat in the warehouse, and covered the basket. When she arrived there, Xia Hua had already returned, her basket also full.
"Is everything installed?"
The eldest son nodded, "Mom, it's all packed, but most of it is on the cart." That way, everyone can push it together. They hadn't expected to be able to buy so much grain. As long as they safely reunite with the village chief and the others, they won't have to worry about food anymore.
An Shuyi nodded, "Then let's go back, but be careful. With so much food, those refugees won't let it go easily. Hopefully, there are government troops here, they won't dare. Otherwise, you need to be careful not to get robbed. If they do, they'll still be killed. Do you understand?"
"I understand."
The group of forty people then pushed the grain in a grand procession towards the city gate. Unexpectedly, there were even more refugees than when they entered Anhe Prefecture. As soon as they came out, the refugees looked at them with greedy eyes, but perhaps because they were wary of the soldiers present, they did not attack for the time being.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
