Chapter 68: The Names of Eldest Brother and Sister-in-Law

With three families intending to buy, the Shi and Lu families, who had been wavering due to the high grain prices, gradually leaned towards storing grain for their own families’ security.

After some quiet discussion, both families eventually agreed to buy some as well.

While buying a large quantity might be difficult, and they didn’t have that much money anyway, not buying anything would leave them feeling uneasy.

Seeing the three families unanimously deciding to buy, Zhou Cunzheng felt pleased and nodded. “I’ll inform each family about the grain price increase and remind them to store some grain. Later, those who want to buy can come to my house a bit later tonight. We need to go through the procedures first, and it will take some time for the county to approve it. Before that, you can go to the grain shop in Sanli Village.”

Each of the three families had a woman who had completed household registration, but Sang Luo couldn’t afford to delay her tofu business. Therefore, only the men from each family could handle the queue to purchase grain.

After Zhou Cunzheng left, the Lu and Shi families also departed. Mrs. Chen then pulled Sang Luo aside to talk.

“You’ve borrowed six taels of silver?”

Sang Luo nodded.

This news distressed Mrs. Chen deeply. She had never owed such a large sum of money before, and just hearing the amount of six taels made her head spin. “When will you have to repay it?”

She began to curse the government for its negligence, collecting taxes a year in advance, even taxing those who had perished in war.

In defending Sang Luo, she was also defending her own family and their neighbors.

Sang Luo gently patted the rough hands of Mrs. Chen and whispered, “Aunt Arita, it’s precisely because of the government’s actions that I’m afraid. This spring was the first time they collected taxes in advance. It was six months early then. Now, it’s a year in advance. Who can guarantee there won’t be a next time? If this continues…”

She didn’t finish her sentence.

But Mrs. Chen’s expression changed slightly.

She’s fifty-four this year, having seen how power changes hands in this world, knowing the kind of chaos it brings. Her hands shook a bit, and finally, she said, “Whatever. It’s all the same. I just hope we’re far enough south to avoid being affected.”

After all, she hadn’t seen any particularly good times.

In such major events, us common folk can’t influence anything. We can only take care of ourselves and hope that if trouble comes, it won’t reach our little corner.

The old lady refocused her attention and said to Sang Luo, “Don’t rush to prepare anything for your home. If you’re going into the mountains, it’s almost winter, and the fields won’t be as busy. I have a hoe at home that you can use, and you can keep that sharp hoe for now. And keep that sickle too. Repaying your debts is the most important thing.”

Recently, Sang Luo had often borrowed these two items from Mrs. Chen, so Mrs. Chen guessed that perhaps the materials she sold required digging. Mrs. Chen didn’t ask; she just lent them out whenever Sang Luo needed them.

Now, seeing Sang Luo borrow so much, Mrs. Chen worried for her.

She asked Sang Luo to wait and went back inside to fetch a bag of snake repellent powder. “I know you’ve been using a lot of this. There probably isn’t much left. Take this bag back. Making money is important, but don’t go too deep into the mountains. If you encounter wild animals and you’re defenseless like this, it’s over. Nothing is more important than your life.”

Sang Luo was rarely cared for like this before, and her heart felt warm. She smiled and nodded. “I know.”

If she had already searched through her usual areas and didn’t find what she needed, she would explore somewhere else. She always stuck to places where there were people around. Sang Luo valued her life greatly.

After reminding Sang Luo of what she needed to know, Mrs. Chen lent her a pair of scissors. These days, Sang Luo had also received some pieces of cloth. She planned to make a pair of pants for Shen An, so he could be a helper next time they went into the mountains.

Hearing that she was making clothes for Shen An, Mrs. Chen smiled and went inside to fetch the scissors for Sang Luo.

Sang Luo took the items and went back home. As soon as she arrived, Mrs. Gan, Mrs. Feng, and Mrs. Qin came with money and soybeans. This was the payment for the tofu from the previous day.

Business in the county was clearly affected by the taxes and the sharp rise in grain prices. Qin’s tofu, for example, took longer than usual to sell today. When news of the grain price hike spreads further in the county, it may take even longer.

To be safe, Mrs. Qin decided to reduce the usual amount of tofu she buys from eighty pieces to sixty. However, because of the order for thirty pieces of tofu from Dongfu Restaurant and twenty pieces of fairy tofu, the total amount did not decrease but increased. Today, she needed to order one hundred and ten tofu from Sang Luo.

The total amount was one hundred and sixty-five cents, of which forty cents was paid in a bucket of soybeans, and the rest was paid in one hundred and twenty-five cents in copper coins.

As Mrs. Feng and Mrs. Gan had just started their business, they didn’t need much. They each bought sixty tofu, so there was no change in their orders.

Each family was supposed to pay ninety cents. This time, neither Mrs. Feng nor Mrs. Gan brought any linen or anything else, knowing that Sang Luo was short of money. Each of them brought half a bucket of soybeans and gave seventy cents.

With two hundred and sixty-five cents in income, Sang Luo felt much more at ease.

After everyone left and while it was still not dark outside, she brought Shen An over, measured his size, spread out the cloth on the bed, and started cutting to make a pair of pants.

Thankful that the previous owner was good at sewing, Sang Luo herself could manage some repairs, but she wasn’t skilled in cutting fabric. Let alone measuring and cutting with just a few snips. That required some skill.

With the two children by her side, Sang Luo smiled and said, “Let’s make a pair for Shen An first. Later, when Sister An is a bit looser, we’ll make hers.”

Shen An had no objections at all. He smiled and said, “Sister-in-law, I think I don’t need a new one. With the extra fabric from Brother’s clothes, I can patch the legs of mine and still wear it. It gets cold so quickly in autumn. Let’s save some money and buy a quilt for winter.”

The thing that left Shen Ning with the deepest impression of winter in the past two years was waking up frequently in the night because the quilt wasn’t warm enough.

Sang Luo looked at the patches on the little girl’s clothes, there were so many of them. The hem of her pants was actually made by stitching together two pieces of cloth. The top piece was so old that it would probably tear in a few more washes.

She patted Shen Ning’s head and smiled, “We’ll get a quilt, and we’ll make some clothes too.”

At nine years old, if her pants tore while she was outside, the embarrassment would be unforgettable for decades to come.

She sent the two children to count the money from under the bed and to organize the one hundred copper cents into bundles of one hundred each. Meanwhile, she sat on a stool in the courtyard and started sewing pants for Shen An.

When they were told to count money, the siblings were excited. They already knew that their sister-in-law had borrowed six taels of silver from the boss of Dongfu Restaurant in the county to buy grain.

Six taels of silver, Shen An specifically asked their sister-in-law, were equal to seven thousand two hundred copper cents.

Over seven thousand cents.

That was a number that the siblings couldn’t even count.

They also knew that their family was burdened with huge debts, so they had to be frugal even with their food. Thankfully, they had soy milk, tofu pudding, and tofu leftovers in various styles every day, so their nutrition was still decent.

Sang Luo stored the money in the old clay pot she used to cook rice, then hid it under her bed where she slept. She covered it with a wooden board and put a stone on top to prevent mice from getting to it.

Shen An crawled under the bed and brought out the pot. He spread out an old piece of clothing on his bed, then poured all the money onto it.

The two siblings sat on the bed, counting diligently. After finishing a bundle, they double-checked each other’s count, then tied the cents back together with string.

When Sang Luo had almost finished making the pants, the two siblings called out from inside the house, “Sister-in-law, we’re done counting!”

Sang Luo turned to look inside and smiled, asking, “How much is it?”

The two siblings jumped out of bed, put on their shoes, and ran out with excited faces. Shen Ning rushed to say, “Sister-in-law, there are fifteen bundles and an extra twenty-three cents!”

Sang Luo smiled warmly, “That’s one thousand five hundred and twenty-three cents. In another two or three days, we should have saved up over two thousand cents from selling tofu these past few days. We’ll take the crystal flakes we made these days and sell some more. We’ll first pay back two thousand cents to Dongfu Restaurant, and with the rest, we’ll buy some soybeans.”

Yellow beans are also grains, and now all three families have to buy grain themselves. If the situation gets worse, they will probably want to store their own beans as grains. Few people in the county use yellow beans as their main staple food. While the price of yellow beans is not increasing now, Sang Luo also needs to store some.

Hearing that they can repay two thousand coins in a few days from over seven thousand coins, Shen Ning felt much relieved and smiled.

Shen An was meticulous and asked Sang Luo, “Sister-in-law, ten sets of one hundred is one thousand, right?”

“Yes,” Sang Luo nodded. “Ten sets of one hundred is one thousand, and ten thousand is a hundred.”

Shen An repeated this silently in his mind and remembered it.

Sang Luo saw his willingness to learn and thought about teaching them to recognize characters. She asked the siblings, “Have you learned your own names these past few days?”

Both siblings nodded eagerly. Shen An said, “Sister-in-law, we’ll write them for you.”

As they spoke, they turned around and went back inside to fetch the sand tray. Placing it on the ground, the two children squatted beside it and began writing with tree branches. Shen An wrote first, then gave the spot to Shen Ning. Once they were finished, they carefully moved the sand tray to face Sang Luo.

Looking at it, although the characters were quite large and somewhat crooked, with four characters written on each sand tray, they almost overlapped each other, and it wasn’t particularly beautiful, but they had not missed any strokes. 

“Very clever, you both got them right. Just keep practicing, try to make them neater, and they will look better over time.” Sang Luo then asked the siblings, “Do you want to learn any new characters?”

Shen An had already thought about it. Without hesitation, he said, “I want to learn to write Big Brother’s and Sister-in-law’s names.”

Shen Ning nodded in agreement, “I also want to learn to write Big Brother’s and Sister-in-law’s names. Also, last time, the little girl asked me to learn her name and write it for her. We have some stones picked up from outside our courtyard. She helped us pick them.”

Sang Luo remained silent for a moment. In the hearts of the two children, they must still be holding on to the hope that their elder brother would come back alive, right?

She didn’t say anything, just smiled and said, “Okay, let’s take it one step at a time. Shen characters you both know, so let’s start with learning to write your big brother’s name.”

Shen Lie, she had seen the name Shen Lie in her family’s household register.

After receiving the tree branch Shen An handed her, she smoothed out the sand in the sand tray and wrote down the character “Lie” in the corner.

After briefly explaining the stroke structure, she handed the tree branch to Shen An with a smile and said, “Practice for a little while on the side. It’s getting dark, and you can continue learning tomorrow.”

She herself was planning to finish a few more stitches and then call it a day. Anything left unfinished could be done tomorrow morning, as working on needlework after dark would strain her eyes.