Seeing the exhaustion on everyone’s faces, with their heads hanging low and only a small amount of grain loaded on the three carts, the villagers couldn’t help but feel anxious.

“Uncle Lizheng, what happened? Why did you only bring back this little grain?”

The man standing at the front was the first to speak.

Lizheng sighed as he saw everyone waiting for an answer and slowly explained:

“The grain prices have risen. Qingshui Town received the news in advance, so the prices went up early in the morning. Previously, brown rice was only five wen per jin, but now it has doubled to ten wen. Coarse flour also went up from eight wen to thirteen wen. Even at these prices, there’s a limit on how much we can buy. We had to wait in long lines in town for a long time just to buy this little grain. This just shows that the situation in Youzhou is much worse than we thought.”

Lizheng’s expression was solemn.

The villagers, who had been somewhat cheerful earlier due to the wild boar incident, now all had darkened faces.

Shen Qingwan had just finished stewing the last few rabbits when she heard someone say that Lizheng had returned.

She quickly told Xiaoyu to put out the fire and went outside.

Since Lizheng was the only one in the village who had a clear understanding of the situation outside, she needed to gather more information from him.

As she arrived, she overheard Lizheng telling the villagers about the grain prices.

He also mentioned that some villages in Qingshui Town had already started to flee the famine.

However, most of those who left at this point were relatively well-off families who owned horse carts or mule carts.

Once a full-scale famine migration began, the roads would be flooded with refugees, leading to inevitable chaos. So, those with the means to leave were making early preparations to seek refuge in other prefectures.

Shen Qingwan listened for a while. Most of the villagers were against fleeing at this time.

They believed things had not yet reached that point and were unwilling to abandon their homes and livelihoods.

Another reason was that their ancestors had lived here for generations, and they saw this place as their roots—they didn’t want to leave.

Lizheng didn’t say much, so for now, the matter of fleeing was postponed. However, the issue of food had to be dealt with first.

The amount of grain they brought back was far from enough for the whole village.

Lizheng planned to head to Ping’an County early the next morning to try and buy more, even if it was at a higher price.

When a true famine hit, there would come a time when even money couldn’t buy food.

After returning home, Shen Qingwan packed up her things.

She had originally planned to visit Shenjia Village the next morning, but now she decided against it.

She hadn’t planned to visit Shenjia Village just to bring meat to her maternal family—that was merely an excuse to set aside some meat earlier.

Her real goal was to retrieve the money that the original owner of this body had given to the Shen family.

Although she didn’t particularly care about the money, the original owner’s maternal family was truly despicable.

She had originally thought about reclaiming the money so they wouldn’t get away with it so easily.

But now that famine was looming, she couldn’t be bothered to argue with the Shen family anymore.

She decided to consider that money as repaying the original owner’s debt for being raised by them.

The next morning, the early summer sun bathed the land.

It should have been a season of abundant rainfall, yet the ground was parched and dry.

Shen Qingwan planned to visit the county today, so she informed Lizheng early in the morning and traveled with him and the others to Ping’an County to buy supplies.

Lizheng had only learned after returning home that Shen Qingwan had hunted a wild boar, a fox, and some rabbits in the mountains the previous day.

Although she kept saying it was just luck, Lizheng knew that wasn’t something that could be accomplished with luck alone.

He assumed she was heading to the county early to sell the fox fur, so he took her along.

“Da’s wife, we’ll probably be in Ping’an County for quite a while. Once you’re done shopping, just wait outside the county for us,” Lizheng reminded her as they arrived at Ping’an County.

Shen Qingwan nodded, then carried her bamboo basket off the ox cart.

Watching Lizheng and the others disappear into the distance, she turned into a small alley, stashed her basket inside her storage space, and headed toward a nearby clothing shop.

She needed to change her outfit—her current clothes wouldn’t do.

At the shop, she bought a set of decent-quality men’s clothing and changed into it before leaving.

The cost of this single outfit had already used up the silver tael she earned from selling pork the previous day.

Rubbing her hands together, she retrieved a dozen gold bars from her storage space, planning to exchange them for silver at a money exchange. Gold bars were inconvenient to use directly, so she had to convert them first.

In this dynasty, one tael of gold could be exchanged for ten taels of silver.

Each of her gold bars weighed 100 grams, which was roughly two taels.

That meant one gold bar could be exchanged for twenty taels of silver, and the fifteen gold bars she had would amount to three hundred taels of silver.

That should be enough for her needs. If she had to make a large purchase, she could always use the gold bars directly.

“Wan Tong Money Exchange,” she read the four bold characters on the sign. Lifting the hem of her robe slightly, she strode inside.

She was naturally tall, and dressed in men’s clothing, she appeared rather refined.

However, due to malnutrition, her complexion was slightly sallow, and she was somewhat thin.

Even so, her sharp, clear gaze made her look like an experienced traveler.

“Sir, are you here to deposit or withdraw money?”

Perhaps because of the poor economic conditions and the impending famine, the exchange was quite empty.

Seeing Shen Qingwan enter, the shopkeeper hurriedly came forward with a welcoming smile.

Shen Qingwan glanced at the shopkeeper and the clerks before casually placing the cloth-wrapped package on the counter.

The heavy thud made it clear that the contents were valuable.

“I’d like to exchange these for silver. Please take a look,” she said.

The shopkeeper immediately opened the package, and upon seeing the gleaming gold bars, his eyes widened in surprise.

“Close the doors—we won’t be accepting any more customers for now,” he instructed a clerk, who quickly ran to shut the doors.

Only after the doors were secured did the shopkeeper carefully remove the exquisitely crafted gold bars from the bag.

He bit into one lightly and, seeing the faint imprint it left, his eyes gleamed with excitement.

“This craftsmanship is exquisite. Sir, do you wish to exchange all of these for silver?”

He counted the gold bars—fifteen in total.

Ping’an County was a small and impoverished place, and even deposits or withdrawals of ten taels of silver were considered significant transactions. Exchanges involving over a hundred taels were rare.

This amount, worth at least two or three hundred taels of silver, was a major deal.

The shopkeeper weighed the gold bars, confirming their total weight as thirty taels. He offered Shen Qingwan three hundred taels of silver in exchange.

Shen Qingwan had expected some transaction fees but was surprised when the shopkeeper waived them entirely, exchanging the gold for silver at full value.

“I’d like two hundred taels in ten-tael silver ingots, and the remaining hundred in loose silver,” she requested.

“That’s quite a lot of silver to carry. It may be more convenient to exchange some for banknotes,” the shopkeeper suggested.

However, Shen Qingwan was wary of paper money.

In her storage space, there were stacks of modern-day banknotes from her past life that were now worthless.

Throughout history, only gold and silver had retained their value.

Since she had her storage space, she didn’t need to worry about where to keep her money, so she preferred to hold onto physical silver.

“No need. I have plans for the silver,” she declined politely.

The shopkeeper was perceptive enough not to insist.

He promptly prepared twenty ten-tael silver ingots and a pouch containing a hundred taels in loose silver.

After verifying the amount, Shen Qingwan picked up the bag and prepared to leave. Before exiting, she casually asked:

“Shopkeeper, do you know where I can find grain merchants in Ping’an County?”

Since he was a businessman, he would likely have better information.

She needed to buy a large amount of grain, and ordinary stores wouldn’t have enough stock—finding a supplier at the source would be ideal.