Chapter 102 [VIP]
Wang Ying put the gold ingot down, got up and opened the door.
"Qingyun, why aren't you asleep yet? It's so late."
Chen Qingyun hesitated for a moment, then took out a purse from her bosom and handed it to him. “This jade was given to me by my maternal grandfather. I heard it is quite valuable. Right now, my sister-in-law has to take care of all my food, clothing and other necessities while I’m away from home. I can’t help much. If you don’t have enough money, just pawn this jade.”
"No need, we're not starving yet. Take it back first, and if we really need more money, your sister-in-law will ask you for it again."
Chen Qingyun still stuffed the purse into his hand and hurriedly ran away.
Wang Ying opened the purse and saw that the jade pendant inside was of high quality and looked expensive. She couldn't help but sigh. Qingyun had thought of everything so thoroughly. The little girl had really grown up.
Wang Ying dared not be careless with something so valuable, and quickly put it into the experimental field.
Now that I've settled down, I'll take some time tomorrow to write a few letters to my relatives. I wonder how things are in the county now, and I also need to send letters to my fourth uncle and my uncle Qingyan.
With such a huge flood, and then they suddenly moved away, if their relatives hadn't been told, they would have thought they had all drowned.
I need to go out and look for shops tomorrow. It's already mid-August, and the wheat in the experimental fields has been completely harvested and seasonal vegetables have been planted. The first batch of vegetables will be on the market in October, so I need to take advantage of the time to find a suitable shop.
After extinguishing the candle, Wang Ying cuddled her son and slept soundly until dawn.
*
Meanwhile, Chen Rong and his family followed their son-in-law back to the county town.
Because the area surrounding Longquan County was severely affected by the disaster, there were far fewer disaster victims, since everyone had died.
When the carriage reached the city gate, it saw that the corpses outside the city had been almost completely burned, leaving only a pile of scorched earth.
Chen Rong asked, "What's burning outside the city?"
Lin Qiu said in a low voice, "Dead man."
"dead?"
"When we went out, there were dead bodies washed over by the water outside the city walls. They were so densely packed that it gave me goosebumps."
Chen Rong was startled when she heard this. She was fine until she asked, and then a cold sweat broke out on her back.
There weren't many people on the streets after entering the city. Occasionally, you could see a few passersby, all walking in a hurry. Compared to the days when they left, the atmosphere seemed completely different. I wondered what had happened.
Cao Kun hurriedly drove home. As soon as he arrived at the gate, he saw two or three people standing outside, acting suspiciously and doing something he couldn't tell what.
"What are you doing!" The shout startled several people, who turned and ran away.
Lin Qiu poked his head out and asked, "What are those people doing in front of our house?"
"They must have been up to no good." Cao Kun took out his key and opened the door. Sure enough, there were signs of forced entry on the lock. Those people probably tried to sneak into the house to steal things while they were away. Luckily, they came back in time and the thieves didn't succeed.
I quickly drove the car into the yard and went inside to check. There were no signs that the house had been ransacked, so it seemed that no one had crawled inside.
"Qiu'er, you take your mother and younger brother to settle down first. I'll go see the horse and stop by my mother's place."
"Go ahead, be careful."
Cao Kun led his horse straight to the porter's guild. When he arrived, the gate was tightly closed, and it took him a while to open a crack in the door. "Brother Cao?"
"Xiao Gao, where are the porters? Why is the shop closed?"
Xiao Gao looked around, opened the door, and said, "Come in and let's talk."
Cao Kun led the horse in and found the room empty, without a single person in sight.
"The head manager has taken the brothers to Laizhou to transport grain. There is a food shortage in the city now, and a dou of rice has risen to more than 400 wen. If this continues, we will all starve to death!"
"Four hundred coins?!" I thought three hundred coins per dou was already outrageous enough, but I didn't expect there to be an even higher price.
“The grain in several grain shops in the city has been hoarded by wealthy merchants. They are raising prices on the spot, and people can't afford it. Theft and robbery are rampant. The city is not stable these days. You have to be careful when you go out.”
"Don't the government authorities care?"
"Why should he care? The county magistrate is in cahoots with the wealthy merchant and has amassed countless profits from it. He wouldn't care!"
Cao Kun cursed under his breath, "I've returned the horse. I'm going to check on my mother first."
"Hey, Brother Cao..." Xiao Gao called out to him.
"What's wrong?"
"You should take this horse back and raise it. The chief and the others took almost all the provisions when they left, and I'm afraid the horse will die if I leave it at the caravan..."
A horse is worth sixty or seventy taels of silver, which is not something a mere apprentice like him could afford to lose.
"Okay, I'll take it back first, and I'll bring it over when the shopkeeper returns."
After leaving the porter's shop, Cao Kun rode his horse straight to the old house. His mother and a servant woman lived there, and he was worried that they might be targeted by villains...
When he arrived at his house, he found the gate to the old house closed. He knocked on the door urgently, but no one answered after a long time. Just as he was about to climb over the wall and jump in, he heard a burst of angry curses coming from inside.
"Knock, knock, knock! Do you want to die?! Do you know my son is the manager of a porters' guild? He's traveled all over the country and his hands are stained with blood. If you knock on the door again, I'll have him kill you!"
Hearing his mother's powerful scolding, Cao Kun finally felt relieved. "Mom, open the door, it's me."
"Kun'er?" Cao's mother put down the stick in her hand and ran over in surprise, moving the things blocking the door one by one.
Upon opening the door, both mother and son burst into tears upon seeing each other. "Mother, are you alright?"
"I'm fine. Have you picked up your in-laws yet? Are they alright?"
Cao Kun wiped his eyes and said, "They're all fine. I've brought them over; they're in the new courtyard."
"That's good, that's good."
"You just said someone knocked on our door?"
“Hey, ever since you left, people have been knocking on the door to borrow grain. How could I dare to lend it to them?” Cao’s mother paused. “These people were all agreeable at first, but then they started cursing. Yesterday they even tried to break down the door and steal the grain. I was terrified.”
Cao Kun's eyes darkened slightly. "Where is Aunt Hui?"
“Hui Niang left the day after you left, saying she wanted to go to her uncle’s place. I didn’t stop her, I gave her two strings of cash and let her go.”
"I'm even more worried about you living alone. Come and move to the new courtyard with me!"
This time, Cao's mother didn't refuse. "Then take everything you can back with you, otherwise it'll be stolen as soon as we leave!"
The mother and daughter started packing their things, taking everything they ate and used. There was a vegetable garden behind the old house, which was on higher ground and wasn't flooded, so many vegetables were still alive.
Cao's mother simply dug it up by the roots and took it to the new courtyard to replant it, so that there wouldn't be no vegetables to eat later.
The mother and daughter packed two large trunks and finally managed to pack everything up. They locked the gate and had the things carried back to the new courtyard by horse.
As soon as I arrived at the new courtyard, before I even entered the gate, a neighbor came over and asked to borrow some grain.
Before Cao Kun could refuse, Cao's mother started to complain about being poor, "Auntie, it's not that we don't want to lend you the money, it's just that we're out of food. Look at what's in this box of mine!"
She opened the box, which was full of freshly dug vegetable seedlings. "We're so hungry we've started digging up grass to eat. We also have a little child at home. Could you lend us some grain?"
Upon hearing this, the woman immediately returned to her courtyard, locked the gate, and did not respond further.
Cao's mother scoffed. You have to talk back to these kinds of people, otherwise they'll get a taste of the benefits and come to borrow grain every day, which will be a real nuisance.
As soon as they entered the courtyard, Lin Qiu came out to greet them, "Mother, you've come."
"Hey, where's the wheat?"
“My mother is watching. You go inside. Kun and I will take care of things here.”
Cao's mother hurriedly went into the house; she hadn't seen her grandson for several days and missed him terribly.
Before the flood, Cao Kun and Lin Qiu would visit her every few days with their child, but they hadn't seen Xiaomai since the flood.
Upon entering the house and seeing Chen Rong, the two in-laws held hands and exchanged pleasantries for a long time. "I heard from Kun'er that the town suffered a disaster, and all the houses were destroyed?"
"That's right! Countless people have died; only a few hundred survived in the entire town."
Cao's mother clicked her tongue in disbelief; it was truly tragic that she had ever experienced something like this.
"Sui'er and I are afraid we'll have to stay here for a while. We hope you won't mind."
Cao's mother quickly said, "How can you say that? You are Qiu'er's mother. Even if this hadn't happened, it would have been perfectly natural for you to stay by his side! You may stay here, but if Cao Kun dares to say a word against it, I'll slap him across the face!"
Chen Rong couldn't help but laugh out loud. When Lin Qiu and Cao Kun got married, she was a little worried that Cao's mother would be difficult to get along with. Now that she had gotten to know her, she found that although the old lady was straightforward, she was an extremely easy person to get along with.
Cao's mother picked up her grandson and bounced him around. "Xiaomai has lost weight. If I had known it would be like this outside, I wouldn't have let Xiaomai go with us. Adults are suffering in this heat, let alone the child."
"That's right, I was wondering why Lin Qiu came over carrying a child."
Fortunately, she didn't cause any problems along the way and remained lively and adorable.
After chatting for a while, Lin Qiu and Cao Kun finished tidying up the house. The new house has five main rooms, a kitchen and a storage room next to it, which is enough for a few people to live in.
Lin Sui and Chen Rong lived in the two rooms on the west side, while Cao's mother lived in the three rooms on the east side with Cao Kun and Lin Qiu.
They also had enough food. When they returned from town, Wang Ying gave them five bags of wheat, plus the two bags of millet they had brought with them. This amount of grain was enough for them to eat until next spring.
Just to be on the safe side, Cao Kun took two strings of cash and went to the grain shop.
Nowadays, the price of grain in the county changes every day. Yesterday, millet was 450 wen per dou, but today it has risen to 500 wen per dou. Wealthy families can still afford to eat their fill, but those who are poor have started digging for wild vegetables and gnawing on tree bark.
Cao Kun went in and inquired. He found out that the grain seller was an old acquaintance of his. In the end, he paid two strings of cash for four and a half bushels of grain, which he put into a cloth bag and carried back.
From the moment he came out of the grain shop, more than a dozen pairs of eyes were staring intently at the rice sack behind him.
Because of Cao Kunsheng's tall and imposing stature and intimidating appearance, they didn't dare to try and snatch it.
However, the people who came out behind him were not so lucky. They were surrounded by a group of people who snatched the millet from his arms after only a few steps.
"Don't take it! Don't take it! My children and mother are starving to death! Let go!"
However, this kind of thing happens every day, and nobody cares, because the yamen runners themselves are barely able to eat, and the whole Longquan County is in complete chaos...
This situation continued until October, when the authorities finally sent soldiers with relief grain. Grain prices in the county town gradually dropped, but unfortunately, many people had already starved to death.
*
As October arrives, temperatures in the north have started to drop, and people need to wear thicker clothes in the mornings and evenings.
Early in the morning, Wang Ying took some strychnine seeds out to look at shop locations. When she arrived at the agreed-upon place, a matchmaker was already waiting for her.
"Please come in, sir. This shop has a good location. Don't be fooled by the narrow entrance; it's spacious inside, so you can sell your goods without any problems. What do you think?" the matchmaker asked.
Wang Ying shook her head. The room was a cylindrical structure without windows, so it was pitch black inside and you couldn't see anything. Although the price wasn't expensive, you couldn't do business by candlelight every day.
As soon as he came out of the shop, Ma Qianzi hurriedly stepped forward and asked, "What do you think, sir?"
"No, let's look at the next one."
The other shop is located at the intersection of Zhengyang Street and Zhenghe Street, a place where all sorts of people mingle.
When the two arrived, they happened to witness two groups of people fighting and getting covered in blood. They were soon arrested by the officials.
Wang Ying frowned, didn't even look at it, and immediately gave up on the shop.
His fresh vegetables are mainly sold to wealthy families. These wealthy families don't buy from places like this, and besides, they have no connections. If they frequently encounter troublemakers, the money they earn won't even be enough to appease them.
After a fruitless morning, the two returned home.
During this period, Ma Qianzi had become quite familiar with the city, and he usually went out to find shops, and then called Wang Ying over to inspect them.
However, there are too few suitable shops, and the rent for any of them that are to my liking is not cheap. With the vegetables in the experimental fields already harvested, if all else fails, I will have to use Qingyun's jade...
A note from the author:
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