Chapter 76: Coarse Grains

These past few days, Granny Li had been thinking about Liu Yinyin.

Seeing her come to buy things again, Granny Li smiled warmly, led her inside, and chattered as she went, “Young lady, I still don’t know your name.”

Liu Yinyin replied, “My surname is Liu.”

“…Miss Liu, what do you want to buy this time?” Granny Li brought her into the house.

Since Liu Yinyin didn’t say much, Granny Li didn’t press further. People who did this kind of trade tended to be cautious, which was understandable.

Liu Yinyin asked, “Granny, do you have any coarse grains for sale?”

Granny Li responded, “Yes, I have cornmeal, brown rice, dried sweet potatoes, buckwheat flour, and sorghum rice. What do you need?”

Liu Yinyin said directly, “Granny, how much of these do you have in stock? If it’s not too much, I’d like to take it all.”

The matter of buying grain couldn’t be delayed any longer. If Jiang Cuihua didn’t want it, Liu Yinyin would just buy it herself and store it. Later, she could sell it back to her at the original price.

That was still better than waiting for the price to rise.

Granny Li was stunned for a moment and asked in confusion, “Why are you buying so much grain? Is your family in trouble?”

Liu Yinyin casually replied, “People are saying the weather is unusual this year. We don’t know how the harvest will turn out in our county, so stocking up on some grain is always a good idea.”

Granny Li suddenly understood. She was well aware of the unusual weather this year—people in her line of work always had access to information.

In fact, she knew the situation was much worse than it seemed.

Her son, Li Chunshan, traveled frequently, and according to him, it wasn’t just their county experiencing abnormal weather—many other places were also suffering from severe droughts.

If only one or two counties had a poor harvest, they could still bring in grain from elsewhere. But if a large-scale drought occurred… the consequences were easy to imagine.

However, in Granny Li’s eyes, this didn’t concern city dwellers too much. After all, urban residents received a fixed ration of government-issued grain each month, so no matter what, they wouldn’t starve.

It was the rural people who would suffer.

But such things weren’t something she could say openly—talking about it could cause panic.

Not knowing that Liu Yinyin was from the countryside, Granny Li hesitated before saying, “…It’s true, you should buy more grain. To be honest, if you had come a few days later, the prices would have already gone up.”

Liu Yinyin’s heart skipped a beat. She forced herself to stay calm and asked, “Granny, the grain prices are going up?”

“…Yes.” Granny Li sighed and explained, “It’s because of the abnormal weather. Grain is getting harder to source from outside.”

The grain she sold was also bought from rural areas. Some people had realized that this year’s situation was unusual and were unwilling to sell their stock. Those who did sell were raising their prices.

So once this batch was sold out, the next batch would definitely be more expensive.

And not just grain—if the drought continued, all other food supplies would likely go up in price as well.

Liu Yinyin immediately asked, “Granny, can you sell me all the coarse grains you have left?”

She wasn’t worried about herself—these grains were meant for the Liu family.

Granny Li agreed, “Alright, I can sell it all to you. There’s not much left anyway.”

“How much per pound?” Liu Yinyin asked.

Granny Li thought for a moment and said, “Cornmeal and brown rice are 16 cents per pound, sorghum rice and buckwheat flour are 12 cents per pound, and dried sweet potatoes are 5 cents per pound. Altogether, there’s about four to five hundred pounds left.”

Four to five hundred pounds of coarse grains would cost dozens of dollars if bought all at once.

Liu Yinyin had brought enough money, but she couldn’t carry that much grain back home by herself.

So she negotiated with Granny Li, “Granny, can you hold on to all this coarse grain for me? I can pay you now, and later, I’ll have my family come pick it up.”

“No problem.” Granny Li naturally wouldn’t refuse money. To her, it didn’t matter who bought the grain as long as it was sold.

She moved the coarse grains out of the cellar and weighed them: 60 pounds of cornmeal for $9.60, 50 pounds of brown rice for $8, 50 pounds of sorghum rice for $6, and 80 pounds of buckwheat flour for $9.60.

The dried sweet potatoes were the most abundant, totaling 200 pounds, which came to exactly $10.

In total, the coarse grains weighed 440 pounds and cost $43.20.

Granny Li rounded off the total and charged her an even $43.

After buying the grain, Liu Yinyin also bought a piece of pork belly, four apples, and a bunch of grapes since they were available today.

Seeing this, Granny Li asked curiously, “Young lady, you really like fruit, don’t you?”

Every time Liu Yinyin came, she bought a lot of fruit.

She wondered what kind of family she came from—how could they afford to eat so much fruit? Ordinary families wouldn’t splurge on it like that.

But then again, it was strange. If Liu Yinyin’s family was well-off, why was she only buying coarse grains?

Without thinking, Liu Yinyin blurted out, “My son likes fruit.”

Ever since Gu Yanyan had started eating fruit, he had even begun to lose interest in milk. But that was actually a good thing—it seemed like weaning him in the future wouldn’t be difficult at all.

Granny Li was stunned. “You… your son?”

Liu Yinyin looked only about seventeen or eighteen, with a slender figure—it was hard to believe she had a child.

Liu Yinyin nodded. “Yes, he’s a little over six months old.”

Granny Li felt a pang of disappointment. She had originally thought about setting Liu Yinyin up with her son, but who would have thought the young girl was already married and had a child?

Looks like she had been overthinking it.

After finishing her shopping, Liu Yinyin quickly rode her bicycle back to the village, returning it before heading home to tell Jiang Cuihua about the grain in the county.

Taking a sip of water, she informed her, “Mom, people are saying that in a few days, grain prices will go up. Do you want this grain or not? If not, I’ll buy it myself.”

Hearing that grain prices were about to rise, Jiang Cuihua panicked and quickly asked, “Of course, we want it! But is this all the coarse grain? Can’t we buy more?”

Four hundred and forty pounds sounded like a lot, but with ten people in the family, if each person ate half a pound of grain a day, they would go through 150 pounds in just a month.

Four hundred and forty pounds wouldn’t even last them three months.

Liu Yinyin shook her head. “It’s too late. Granny Li already cleared out all the coarse grain from her cellar. This is all there is. If we want to buy more next time, it’ll be at a higher price—but we don’t know by how much yet.”

If the price increase wasn’t too steep, they could still buy more later.

Liu Yinyin could buy grain from the system, but she had no intention of smuggling large amounts of it anymore.

Her system balance was already low, and who knew what would happen in the next three years? It was better to save it for emergencies.

Besides, she couldn’t come up with a good excuse to bring grain from the system to give to the Liu family.

Jiang Cuihua slapped her thigh in frustration. “Ugh! I should’ve listened to you sooner.”

The family didn’t have much savings, but Liu Mingyuan had worked as a temporary laborer at the steel factory for three months over the New Year and earned more than $70.

With what they had saved over the years, they had around $300. Just imagine how much grain they could have bought!

But now, it was too late to regret it.