Yun Zhen shouldered the sack of sweet potatoes, weaving through the market to check the prices of various goods.
She marveled at the sheer abundance of supplies in this world while searching for what she wanted to buy.
A tray of thirty eggs cost thirteen yuan.
Before the snowstorm, only two or three households in Taoyuan Village raised chickens.
Her family had tried, but the chickens didn’t survive.
Eggs were incredibly precious back home; in town, they could be used as currency, with a single egg worth five copper coins.
She never expected that thirty eggs here would only cost thirteen yuan.
Yun Zhen specifically asked, “Sir, are your eggs guaranteed to hatch into chicks?”
The vendor paused for a moment before bursting into laughter.
“My eggs are strictly for eating.
They won’t hatch chicks.”
After learning this, Yun Zhen thought it over and decided not to buy any.
She then spotted steamed buns.
They were piping hot in the steamer, each the size of an adult’s fist—as white and soft as Yun Duo.
She had never seen such pristine white buns before and couldn’t help but stare.
“Little girl, want to buy some steamed buns?
They’re fifty cents each.
If you buy a lot, I’ll give you a discount,” the vendor offered, noticing her eager gaze.
Yun Zhen shook her head.
“Not for now.” But then she followed up, “How much of a discount would I get if I bought one hundred and thirty?”
There were one hundred and thirty people in the village.
Fortunately, there were no newborns.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t have survived the snowstorm.
Besides, newborns wouldn’t be able to eat piping hot steamed buns even if she bought them.
The vendor replied, “One hundred and thirty buns at fifty cents each would be sixty-five yuan.
How about I knock off five yuan?
You can have them for sixty!”
“I’ll come back and take a look after I finish work,” Yun Zhen said.
She didn’t immediately spend the forty-five point five yuan in her hand.
For one, she needed both hands to steady the sack of sweet potatoes, making it inconvenient to carry anything else.
For another, the buns would turn cold if she bought them too early, and hot steamed buns tasted much better.
Along the way, Yun Zhen discovered a special kind of noodle.
They were dry and brittle.
The vendor explained that they had to be boiled before eating.
These were called dried noodles, and they were easy to store.
The cheapest bundle weighed ten catties and only cost five yuan.
After wandering around until four o’clock, she headed to Sister-in-law Liu’s vegetable stall for work.
Sister-in-law Liu was busy greeting customers when Li Mei and Yun Zhen arrived one after the other.
“Why did you buy such a huge sack of sweet potatoes?” Li Mei asked, looking bewildered as she saw Yun Zhen shoulder the load.
Yun Zhen set the sack down and temporarily used it as a stool.
“They were selling them at a discount up ahead.
I saw everyone else buying them, so I bought a sack too.”
“If you buy too many, they’ll easily spoil.
Why didn’t you buy less?” Li Mei was puzzled.
Yun Zhen was alone and couldn’t possibly eat that much.
Besides, Sister-in-law Liu had mentioned that Sister Zhang’s charity organization provided free food and accommodation.
Sister-in-law Liu finished attending to her customers and walked over, equally shocked.
“Oh my!
Can you even finish all those sweet potatoes?”
“Yun Zhen, you should have bought less.
It’s not easy to earn money.
You need to save up and spend your money where it counts,” Sister-in-law Liu couldn’t help but lecture.
Yun Zhen knew that Sister-in-law Liu and Li Mei meant well.
But she couldn’t exactly explain that she came from another world, that her village was facing utter devastation, and that these sweet potatoes were meant to provide relief to her fellow villagers.
She merely gave a vague reply, “I won’t buy this much in the future.” She was lying.
She would definitely buy more in the future.
If she didn’t, everyone in her village would starve to death.
Sister-in-law Liu smiled.
“That’s the spirit.
You need to learn how to save money.”
Li Mei chuckled.
“Speaking of sweet potatoes, I love eating them too.
Boiled or roasted, they’re wonderfully sweet.
Eating a roasted sweet potato in the dead of winter warms up your whole body.”
Yun Zhen made a mental note of this.
So sweet potatoes could be roasted, too.
Li Mei sorted out the ugly but edible vegetables and asked Yun Zhen, “Do you still want these?”
Yun Zhen nodded hastily.
“Yes!”
Sister-in-law Liu asked, “You didn’t finish yesterday’s vegetables, did you?”
Yun Zhen had a perfectly good excuse.
“I shared them with other people.”
“All right then,” Sister-in-law Liu nodded.
Although Yun Zhen didn’t specify who she shared them with, Sister-in-law Liu’s imagination immediately conjured up a tragic scenario of poor wretches helping each other survive.
Today, she received another mesh bag full of vegetable leaves.
Sister-in-law Liu watched her shift her load awkwardly, using one hand to steady the sweet potatoes on her shoulder and the other to drag the bag of leaves.
“Can you carry all that weight?”
Having reaped another harvest from today’s work, Yun Zhen smiled radiantly.
“I can carry it!” The only downside was that she had no way to buy eggs, steamed buns, and rice now.
Her hands were completely full.
Looking at the resilient girl, Sister-in-law Liu felt a pang of sorrow.
A homeless child had to bear all life’s pressures alone.
Yun Zhen was as skinny as a baby chick, yet she had to carry a hundred catties of sweet potatoes and drag a bag of vegetable leaves.
Walking down the street, she looked just like a stray child scavenging for scraps.
Her heart ached for her, but she couldn’t do anything more to help Yun Zhen.
“Sigh,” she let out a helpless breath.
She had to keep an eye on her stall; otherwise, she would have escorted Yun Zhen home.
“Let me take you back,” Li Mei offered, as she had an electric tricycle.
There were still a few minutes before her child finished school.
If she hurried, she could definitely make it in time to pick them up.
If not, the child could just wait at school a little longer; the security guards would keep an eye on them anyway.
Yun Zhen politely declined.
“Picking up your child is more important.
I’ve had great strength since I was little.
This bit of stuff isn’t heavy at all.”
Seeing her insistence, Li Mei had no choice but to drive off to pick up her child.
Dragging her large and small bags, Yun Zhen returned to her dorm under the strange gazes of passersby.
Their looks held no malice—only amazement and bewilderment.
Yun Zhen wasn’t embarrassed in the least.
After dropping the sweet potatoes and the mesh bag of vegetable leaves at the dorm, she went downstairs to wander around the neighborhood.
Both sides of the neighborhood street were lined with shops and vendor stalls.
She wondered how the prices for the same goods here compared to the market.
“Sir, how much are the eggs?” she asked after finding an egg stall.
“A tray of eggs is thirteen yuan.”
It was the same price as the market.
She carefully calculated the money she had left.
The wages from the restaurant had gone toward the sweet potatoes.
The money from selling recyclables and her wages from sorting vegetables totaled one hundred and five point five yuan.
She was calculating based on the system from her world, equating one yuan to one copper coin.
She didn’t quite understand this world’s currency, but she could easily figure out how much she had spent and how much she had left.
She said, “I’ll take a tray of eggs!”
Minus thirteen yuan.
Then, she went to a grain and oil store.
She asked, “Sir, do you have rice for one yuan a catty?”
“Yes, right on your right-hand side.”
“I’ll take fifty catties!” She had bought twenty catties last night, which probably wasn’t much by now.
This time, she bought an extra thirty catties; whatever they couldn’t finish could be kept as emergency rations.
Only with an abundance of grain at home would she feel truly at ease.
By the time she found a place selling steamed buns, she only had forty-two point five yuan left.
With each bun costing fifty cents, she asked the vendor for a discount and snagged ninety piping hot, fluffy white steamed buns for forty yuan.
Once she returned to the village, the adults would get one each, and the children would get half a bun each.
She originally intended to keep the remaining two point five yuan.
Suddenly, she saw a man on the side of the road with a long stick dangling from his lips.
He pressed down on a tiny gadget in his hand, and—WHOOSH—a tall flame shot out.
This thing actually breathed fire!
“Ma’am, where can I buy this fire-breathing thing?” she asked the female vendor.
Yun Zhen realized that this tool was far more convenient than flint.
During a massive snowstorm, people would freeze to death without fire for warmth, and her fellow villagers only used flint.
Starting a fire with flint took a tremendous amount of effort.
She had just seen that man summon a flame with the mere press of a finger.
It was too easy.
She wanted to buy two to take back—one to keep for her family, and one to entrust to the village head, so the rest of the village could borrow it from him.
Following Yun Zhen’s pointed finger, the vendor saw a smoking man holding a cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other.
Her mouth twitched.
“That’s a lighter!
Miss, you almost had me fooled.”
She returned to her shop and fetched five lighters for Yun Zhen.
“I bought fifty of them online and still haven’t used them all.
Since you bought so many steamed buns, I’ll give you these five lighters for free.
Take them.”
So this thing was called a “light-bird.”
“Thank you, Ma’am!” Yun Zhen joyfully cradled the five “light-birds.”
Upon returning to the dorm, she couldn’t wait to head home.
“Return!”