Chapter 38: This Winter Might Be Too Hard to Survive

“Grandpa Zhao!” Su Miaomiao couldn’t help but laugh when she heard him and walked forward, calling out.

“Miao girl? It’s really you?” Old Zhao’s eyes lit up with joy.

“Of course, it’s me.”

“How come you’re already back? I thought your business wouldn’t be done until this afternoon?” Old Zhao quickly put down what he was working on.

“It got handled quickly, so I made it back to the village last night,” Su Miaomiao briefly explained her trip — though she left out the part about delivering a message for Lu Xiuyuan.

“So that’s what happened. You’re really not one to goof off,” Old Zhao chuckled after hearing her out.

He had originally assumed that a city girl like Su Miaomiao would stay out as long as possible before coming back. Who would’ve thought she’d return early?

“What’s fun out there anyway?” Su Miaomiao replied as she took five yuan out of her pocket and handed it to Old Zhao. “Grandpa Zhao, this is the money I earned from selling the medicinal herbs.”

As soon as Old Zhao saw the five yuan, his cloudy eyes practically sparkled.

“You earned this much?” He had thought the herbs might fetch two yuan at most.

“The price in the city is higher than in the county. That’s why I insisted on going into the city,” Su Miaomiao explained as she handed him the bundle of medicines she brought back.

“And here are some commonly used medicines I brought back. They’re not anything fancy, but they should be enough for what we need in the village.”

Old Zhao hadn’t even recovered from the surprise of the five yuan before he got hit with another shock.

“You brought back this many medicines? Just how much did you sell those herbs for?” His hands were trembling.

“Just enough to trade for this medicine and the five yuan,” Su Miaomiao said calmly.

Anyway, she got these meds as a bonus for selling her prescription, so she figured she’d let the old man be happy.

“You could get all this? Is the city really that short on medicinal herbs?” Old Zhao began to wonder if he was dreaming.

“I’m not too sure. Maybe the herbs we brought just happened to be what the pharmacy needed,” Su Miaomiao brushed it off.

“You really are the lucky star of our village. Come on, this business is clearly profitable. We need to develop it properly. I’ll take you to the village chief right now so we can talk to him,” Old Zhao was quick to catch onto the opportunity.

He stuffed the five yuan away, grabbed the medicine bundle in one hand, and pulled Su Miaomiao along with the other, hurrying off to the village chief’s house.

“Slow down,” Su Miaomiao said, not resisting, but reminding him to be careful not to fall.

The two of them hurried to the chief’s house.

Old Zhao didn’t even bother knocking—he just pushed the door open.

“Hongjie! Hongjie! Come out quick, I’ve got something important to tell you!” Old Zhao shouted confidently from the entryway.

But there was no response from inside.

“I don’t think the village chief is home,” Su Miaomiao said.

“No way, he’s been around these last two days,” Old Zhao muttered, and without bothering to be polite, he went straight into the inner room.

Sure enough, when he pushed the door open, Wang Hongjie was sitting on his kang bed, smoking a dry tobacco pipe, frowning at a small booklet in front of him.

“Wang Hongjie! I knew you were home! I was yelling for you just now and you didn’t hear me?” Old Zhao’s brows furrowed as soon as he saw him.

Although Wang Hongjie was the village chief, Old Zhao was a retired soldier and currently oversaw the medicine hall. He was still highly respected in the village.

Wang Hongjie usually treated him with great respect.

“Uncle Zhao, what brings you here? I was just thinking about something and didn’t hear you,” Wang Hongjie finally snapped out of it and quickly put down his pipe.

“What were you thinking about so deeply?” Old Zhao asked.

Wang Hongjie glanced at him. Old Zhao was a village elder—there was no point hiding anything from him, especially since this matter couldn’t be hidden anyway.

“A few days ago, I went to the commune to deliver our grain quota,” Wang Hongjie began.

“Yeah,” Old Zhao nodded. “Was there a problem with the amount?”

“No, the amount was correct. We’ve delivered the full grain quota this time,” Wang Hongjie said.

“Well, isn’t that a good thing? Then why do you still look so worried?” After all, their village failed to meet the quota almost every year.

“We did meet the quota for the state, but now we don’t have enough grain left to distribute to the villagers,” Wang Hongjie said, rubbing his forehead in frustration.

Their village had failed to meet the grain requirement for three years in a row. This year, the commune refused to give him any more credit.

He had no choice but to scrape together the grain to meet the quota.

But while they had finally handed over enough to the state, now the whole village was waiting for their winter rations—and the village granary was nearly empty. These past two days, he was so stressed he couldn’t eat or sleep.

He had been wracking his brain trying to figure out how to help the villagers survive the winter.

Winters in Shimatou Village were already hard to get through. If there was no food… half the village might not make it to spring.

“These past few years of poor harvests have been really tough on you,” Old Zhao sighed heavily.

So many people thought being village chief meant prestige, but they didn’t understand the hardships that came with it.

On one hand, he had to answer to the commune for the quotas. On the other, he had to make sure the villagers had food to live.

Everything weighed heavily on his shoulders.

And with the poor harvests year after year, Wang Hongjie had already gone gray.

“No matter how hard it is, we have to get through it. Worst-case scenario, I’ll swallow my pride and go back to the commune to ask for grain on credit. We have to get something back,” Wang Hongjie finally made up his mind.

“Aiya, my memory’s going! You got me so distracted I almost forgot the real reason I came!” Old Zhao smacked his forehead and hurriedly set the bag of medicine in front of Wang Hongjie. Then, carefully, he took five yuan from his pocket and placed it beside the bag.

“Where did you get this money? And all these medicines…” Wang Hongjie now wore the exact same stunned expression Old Zhao had earlier—his eyes were practically popping out of his head.

Old Zhao chuckled and called out behind him, “Miao girl, come in.”

Su Miaomiao then stepped into the inner room.

As soon as Wang Hongjie saw her, he instantly understood.

“All this… you brought it back?”

“Yes,” Su Miaomiao nodded.

Old Zhao spoke up, “Miaomiao sold the herbs we gathered earlier and exchanged them for these medicines and the five yuan.”

“She led a bunch of the village kids to gather those herbs. It only took us about seven days total.”

“In just seven days, we made five yuan and got all these medicines. Not counting the rest of it, just from the money alone, if we keep this up, we could earn twenty yuan a week.”

“Twenty yuan?!” Wang Hongjie exclaimed in shock.