Chapter 75: Wealth in Ruins Worth Thousands

It was just after Frost Descent, not yet cold enough to put on cotton jackets. Sang Lou tailored clothes for the younger siblings accordingly. Shen An already had a pair of pants, so Sang Lou only made the upper garment for him, while Shen Ning got a full set.

It took two days to make a complete set of clothes. On September 12th, the siblings put on their new clothes. The fabric was much thicker than the worn-out summer clothes, and most importantly, they didn’t have to expose their ankles anymore.

Ignoring the patched cloth shoes on their feet, which were actually in good condition despite the patches, nobody paid much attention. Many children in the village wore patched cloth shoes, and some even went barefoot.

Even children like Sang Lou and Qin Fangniang, who walked twenty miles of mountain roads every day, had shoes with patches upon patches. However, everyone used matching fabric to mend them, so they didn’t stand out unless one looked closely.

With their new clothes, even Shen An, who always liked to appear mature, couldn’t resist showing off a bit. With their elder sister-in-law at home and no need for someone to watch over the house, the siblings took a stroll around the village.

It had been years since they wore new clothes, so they wanted to flaunt them a bit and let everyone know how much their sister-in-law cared for them.

Their subtle intentions were unknown to others, but when the siblings walked out, the envy among the village children was palpable. It was just getting cold, yet Shen An and Shen Ning were already wearing new clothes.

Previously considered the poorest children in the village, Shen An and Shen Ning were now the most envied.

After their stroll, Shen An and Shen Ning returned home content. Sang Lou found it amusing and instructed them, “Wearing these clothes should keep you warm for now. When it gets colder, wear your old clothes underneath and layer the new ones on top. Two layers should keep you warm.”

Shen Ning added, “Wearing old clothes underneath will also protect the new ones.”

Today, everyone saw their new clothes, so they shouldn’t assume otherwise. Even Third Aunt noticed; she glared at them for quite a while.

Shen Ning felt satisfied.

“You’re quite thoughtful,” Sang Lou chuckled. “Just do whatever makes you happy.”

In between picking sour jujubes and digging up konjac roots every day, Sang Lou began making autumn clothes for herself. By mid-afternoon, she returned from the mountains to find Old Man Chen and Chen Youtian had arrived, bringing a wooden bucket borrowed from the Zhou family.

“We’ll help you measure the autumn tax grain now. It’s best to deliver it tomorrow to avoid the long queues on the fifteenth. We’ve noticed even the county is short on grain because several grain shops have imposed purchase limits. Families are all rushing to buy grain, and it’s likely we’ll have to wait until the last two days to gather enough.”

So, on the fourteenth and fifteenth, there would be crowds outside the county office.

Sang Lou welcomed them into the courtyard and placed her basket in the kitchen. Together, they began moving the grain from the main house outside. It took quite some time to measure and pack the grain properly.

In the end, Old Man Chen instructed Sang Lou to prepare an additional bag, which he filled with two dou of grain. “Keep this as a reserve. Prepare some coins to bribe the clerks during grain collection. This way, you won’t need to touch the reserve grain.”

Otherwise, they might have to kick the wooden buckets or shake them a few times, which wasn’t ideal.

Sang Lou nodded and prepared to bring some money to bribe the clerks. It was enough to buy nearly two liters of rice, but the money couldn’t be left unused, and two liters was still two dou, no need to measure.

With the grain properly measured, Sang Lou went to the Lu family to inform them that she would borrow their cart early the next morning to go to the county to deliver the grain.

Living on the mountain, Sang Lou couldn’t take the cart up herself. Lu Dalang promised to bring it down early in the morning, and they would help Sang Lou transport the grain down.

Before dawn the next day, when Qin Fangniang and her group came to pick up tofu, Lu Dalang, Shi Erlang, Chen Youtian, and others who were also going to the county arrived to help move the grain.

A lamp was lit in the main house, and Shen An and Shen Ning watched as nearly half of the grain they had saved up over the past few days was quickly moved.

They felt a pang of heartache watching it go.

As the villagers slept, the two carts quietly left the village.

Zhou Cunzheng and his son saw the cart Lu Dalang was pulling and realized it was Sang Lou going to pay taxes.

He didn’t ask Sang Lou how she managed to have enough grain, only inquiring, “Have you brought the household registration?”

Sang Lou nodded, “Yes, it’s all here.”

Zhou Cunzheng didn’t say anything more and followed along to the county.

When they arrived, the city gate was still closed, but there was already a line forming outside. At intervals, there would be someone holding a torch. In the flickering light, Sang Lou could see over a dozen people like her, pulling carts loaded with grain.

These people all shared a common characteristic: poverty, extreme poverty!

It was just after the autumn harvest, and in normal circumstances, very few people in the countryside would have trouble paying the autumn tax at this point. Those who did were either already living in extreme poverty or cultivated land that was rented. If the land wasn’t particularly fertile, then indeed, paying taxes could become difficult.

Such cases were rare in Shili Village. Even the poorest family, Zhou Lai Zi’s, managed to pay their taxes a few days ago. Their difficulty lay in not having enough grain to last until next autumn after paying taxes.

Sang Lou only glanced at them briefly before looking away. Each person had their own hardships, their own difficulties. No one knew what the others were going through. If she hadn’t transmigrated, if her original self hadn’t died, she didn’t know what circumstances Shen An and Shen Ning would be facing now.

In this world, just managing one’s own affairs was already difficult enough.

As the sky brightened, more people arrived. They weren’t there to pay grain taxes or set up stalls; most of them were holding sacks of grain, having come to buy grain in the city.

Sang Lou realized that compared to the previous times she had been to the county, there were slightly more people coming to buy grain this time.

It seemed that the tension and rumors about disasters in various prefectures had spread to the villages. Those with slightly better conditions at home were beginning to prepare ahead of time.

Today, the city gate seemed to open later than usual. When it finally did, the crowd stirred with activity. Sang Lou’s group arrived early, among the first to enter the city. Lu Dalang had to queue to buy grain, so Sang Lou didn’t bother her and pulled the cart herself.

On the other hand, Mrs. Gan and Feng Liuniang helped push the cart, preparing to accompany Sang Lou to the county office to deliver the grain.

As they headed towards the county office, they had to pass by the grain shop. To their surprise, they found a long line already formed outside. Judging from their attire and the timing of the gate opening, these were all residents of the county.

Sang Lou’s heart skipped a beat. Would Chen Youtian and the others be able to buy grain today?

She didn’t have time to dwell on it. Pulling the cart, she proceeded towards the county office. Upon arrival, she didn’t need to ask where the grain warehouse was, as not far from the east side of the county office, there was already a long line forming in the alley. The county residents who had stocked up on grain in the past few days were also in line to pay their taxes.

Sang Lou joined the queue with her cart, letting Mrs. Gan and Feng Liuniang go attend to other matters while they waited for the clerks from the county office to start their work.

Indeed, apart from the city gate guards, there were no clerks from the county office who arrived this early. Even though the people arrived early, all they could do was secure their place in line, whether they were first or last, they still had to wait.

As the sky brightened further, after waiting for another two to three quarters of an hour, there was finally movement at the gate of the courtyard in the east. The queue suddenly became restless.

Inside, the clerks were chatting, but Sang Lou tiptoed to look ahead. She saw the two men at the front of the queue starting to move the grain sacks from their cart into the courtyard. She silently counted how many carts would pass before it was her turn.

In front was a woman with a young man around twenty years old. The woman whispered to the young man, “Have you prepared enough silver coins for the taxes?”

The young man felt his narrow sleeve and nodded.

The woman let out a sigh of relief, but it seemed more like a sigh.

The process of collecting grain was not quick. After nearly half an hour of waiting, it was finally Sang Lou’s turn. The grain sacks had to be moved inside, and Sang Lou realized at this moment that it would be quite strenuous for her to carry a sack of grain alone.

And it wasn’t just one sack; it was a whole cartload.

The clerks in the courtyard were urging them on, and Sang Lou looked at the cart behind her. There were two burly men in their twenties or thirties.

In situations where help was clearly needed, Sang Lou wouldn’t pretend to be strong just because of embarrassment. She smiled and said, “Brothers, these grain sacks are too heavy. Could you please lend me a hand?”

It was quite common during grain collection for people to ask for help when needed. Seeing Sang Lou, a delicate young woman, one of the men asked, “Why did your family send a young lady like you to deliver grain?”

It was just a casual question, and Sang Lou smiled. He didn’t mind either. Without making Sang Lou lift anything, they lifted a sack each and carried them into the courtyard along with their own brother.

Sang Lou also tried to lift a sack herself, but she couldn’t manage it. It was more like she was dragging it than lifting it.

The man who had carried the sack inside and then come back out said, “This isn’t something a young lady like you should be doing. You stay aside; we’ll help you carry them in.”

With that, he struggled to lift the sack Sang Lou had found difficult to manage and carried it inside.

Sang Lou thought to herself that she had truly encountered good people.

Half of the cart’s grain was carried in and out by the two men. Sang Lou repeatedly thanked them, but the men waved it off, “No need to be polite. Go on inside.”

Once inside the courtyard, Sang Lou realized that the county office’s grain warehouse was its own enclosed area, with walls on three sides and no windows except for the entrance. The grain collection took place in the outermost courtyard, and Sang Lou couldn’t see what was inside. She didn’t have time to look either. She hurried forward and greeted the two clerks responsible for collecting grain with a smile.

One of them said in a businesslike tone, “Show me your household registration.”

Sang Lou handed over the household registration she had prepared earlier with both hands. The eight copper coins in her hand fell into the clerk’s hand under the cover of the registration. “Thank you for your hard work!”

The clerk raised an eyebrow, a smile appearing on his face. He casually accepted the money and registration and began to tally the tax documents.

Sang Lou didn’t forget the other clerk either. While moving the grain sacks to block the view of the others, she also slipped eight copper coins into his hand. “Thank you for your hard work.”

“No problem.” The clerk collected the money smoothly, one after the other, and tucked them into a hidden pocket in his belt. Then he turned to the clerk handling the registration and asked, “Found it? How much is owed?”

The clerk quickly scanned down the rows and soon said, “Four pounds and four pounds!”

“Alright.”

The other clerk began working, opening the grain sacks and pouring out the grain. He worked very efficiently, giving the exact amount owed without any extra fuss. Sang Lou swiftly completed the tax payment, received the tax documents, dried the ink, folded them neatly, and put them into her money pouch. Then she collected her empty grain sacks and the two jars and two kilograms of grain left in the cart before pulling it away.

Her first stop naturally was Yongfeng Restaurant. This time, she had over three hundred and sixty crystal cakes ready, and as she urgently needed money, she brought them all.

When she left Yongfeng Restaurant, she had received a payment of three hundred and sixty-five cents from Yan, the steward. Combined with the over seven hundred cents she had, Sang Lou now had over a thousand cents on her.

She pulled the cart straight to the cloth shop.

In her original memories, she had indeed picked fabrics with her mother in the cloth shop, but they were all good fabrics, and the matter of payment wasn’t her concern because Sang Lou didn’t know the price of cotton.

Upon entering the cloth shop and inquiring, she took a sharp breath.

At this moment, the cloth shop only had two options for filling cotton jackets or quilts: the expensive one was silk or silk cotton, which Sang Lou didn’t even consider due to its price. The cheaper option was cotton, also known as kapok in the future, a type of cotton produced by a tall flowering tree, known as kapok here.

In terms of purchasing, one and a half kilograms of cotton cost one hundred cents.

Sang Lou finally understood why poor families would stuff their quilts or jackets with willow fluff or reeds. It was simply because they couldn’t afford real cotton.

It was too expensive.

For children like Shen An and Shen Ning, just one jacket and pants set would require about a pound of cotton, which would cost one cent. For an adult like her, who was taller, she would need about one and a half pounds.

So, for three people to make one set of cotton clothes each, they would need to spend three thousand five hundred cents on cotton alone.

This wasn’t even considering larger items like quilts.

Even though it was the southern region, you’d still need about four to six pounds of quilt filling for late autumn and early winter. Since the quilt cover and filling could provide warmth by themselves, you could save a little and stuff a quilt with about four pounds of cotton.

If you wanted to prepare for winter, you’d need about eight pounds. Even if it was thinner, pressing a cotton jacket on top of the quilt, you’d still need about six pounds.

Just thinking about it made Sang Lou feel how difficult it was. It could be considered knowing what it meant to be rich and have everything, yet still feel like you had nothing.

Many families’ fortunes had also been built up bit by bit from nothing, just like hers was now.

Save up.

She took out ten strings of coins and said, “Please, could you weigh one kilogram for me?”