With Que Hongjin and Bai Qianluo helping out, Qiao Suluo’s workload would indeed be much lighter.
"Alright, thank you both. Now, let’s go buy a few things first," she said.
They had very little food left at home, and what they did have had been gifted by the villagers. It would only last a few days. She needed to stock up to ensure her family wouldn’t go hungry.
Hearing this, Que Hongjin found it quite unbelievable. He couldn’t fathom that she was actually thanking them.
As for what they were going to buy, it had always been dictated by her preferences in the past. It was usually just clothes, rouge, and cosmetics—nothing out of the ordinary.
Qiao Suluo walked a few steps forward before seemingly remembering something. She turned to look at the two men beside her and asked, "By the way, is there anything you guys want to eat or buy?"
Both Que Hongjin and Bai Qianluo froze, visibly stunned by her question.
Naturally, Qiao Suluo noticed their astonished expressions. "Did I say something wrong?" she asked, blinking her clear eyes with a look of pure confusion.
With that expression, she actually looked somewhat cute. It gave someone the sudden urge to reach out and pat her head. Realizing what he was thinking, Que Hongjin’s expression changed drastically. He was supposed to despise her. How could he possibly harbor such a thought?
He quickly shook the thought from his mind and let out a light cough to mask his unnatural demeanor. "Nothing is wrong," he replied in his clear, smooth voice. "It’s just that our wife has never asked for our opinions before. Since you asked so suddenly, I don’t know how to answer."
In truth, she had given him too many shocks today, so much so that he hadn’t yet reconciled this new version of her with his past impressions. Her transformation was simply too immense—her behavior, speech, and manners were all completely different. It forced him into deep contemplation.
Qiao Suluo had no intention of acting like the original host’s vicious self; doing so would be detrimental to her mission. "Oh, that was my fault then," she said. "We’re a family, so I should ask for your thoughts. As I said, I will correct all the bad and wrong things I did in the past. From now on, if there’s anything you want to buy or have, just tell me. Even if we can’t afford it right now, we can always buy it once we’ve saved up enough copper coins."
The ink-like depths of Que Hongjin’s gentle, picturesque eyes seemed to melt slightly. His eyelashes fluttered as he concealed the shifting emotions within them. "Thank you, wife," he replied warmly. "But there really isn’t anything I want or wish to buy."
Qiao Suluo then turned to Bai Qianluo. "What about you, Bai Qianluo?"
"Wife, I have nothing I wish to buy either," Bai Qianluo replied coldly. "I leave everything to your discretion."
Seeing how cautious the two men still were, Qiao Suluo didn’t press them further. Instead, she led them straight to the grain shop to buy food.
Looking at the grain shop, Que Hongjin doubted whether they had walked to the wrong place. To his surprise, it wasn’t a clothing store or a cosmetics shop at all.
Qiao Suluo walked inside naturally, and a clerk immediately came over to greet her. "What would you like to buy, dear customer? Our Tao’s Grain Shop is the largest grain store in the county. We have a complete variety of grains at fair prices. We even stock rice and glutinous rice from the south..." The clerk enthusiastically welcomed her, introducing the shop’s selection.
"Do you have soybeans?" Qiao Suluo asked directly.
The clerk paused in surprise at her question, but quickly recovered. "Oh! Yes, yes, we have soybeans." He hurried to a corner and opened a sealed gunny sack, revealing the soybeans inside. "Are you looking to buy soybeans, customer?"
Usually, very few people bought them, and he wondered what this customer intended to do with them. Soybeans had a high yield and grew easily just by scattering seeds in the fields, making them incredibly cheap. Their main drawback was the limited number of dishes that could be made from them. Red beans and mung beans were more expensive because they could be used to make pastries. Soybeans, on the other hand, tasted awful in pastries. At best, they could be ground into flour, mixed with coarse flour, and made into steamed cornbread.
Qiao Suluo naturally understood the clerk’s reaction. Having wandered around early in the morning to investigate the market, she knew that tofu hadn’t yet been invented on the Beast World Continent. Therefore, soybeans wouldn’t be very popular.
"How much are the soybeans per catty?" she asked.
"Four cents a catty."
Qiao Suluo’s eyes lit up. She thought, "Four cents a catty! One catty of soybeans can produce about four catties of tofu, meaning the cost of one catty of tofu is exactly one cent. No matter how I price it, it’s a guaranteed profit."
Though her heart burned with excitement, she kept her expression calm. "Do you have any other beans?"
"Yes, right here we have red beans and mung beans. They are eight cents a catty."
Qiao Suluo hadn’t expected the price to be exactly double. She guessed it was because no one knew that soybeans could be used to create so many delicious dishes. She was tempted to buy everything, but considering the copper coins she currently held, she decided to act within her means. She would buy a small amount first and purchase more once she started making money; otherwise, she would run out of funds.
Next, she looked at the flour and rice. Coarse flour and coarse rice were eight cents a catty, while fine flour and refined rice were both twenty cents a catty.
Ultimately, Qiao Suluo purchased twenty catties of soybeans, ten catties of fine flour, and five catties of refined rice. Once she started earning money, she didn’t want to suffer through eating coarse flour and coarse rice anymore; they were too scratchy on the throat. She also knew that in this primitive Beast World era, only wealthy families could afford fine flour and refined rice, as processing them seemed to be extremely labor-intensive.
Wheat was also four cents a catty, so she bought ten catties of it. She planned to use the wheat to make malt sugar. As for the glutinous rice, she would wait a few days until the wheat sprouted before buying it.
These purchases came to a total of four hundred and twenty cents. After a bit of haggling, she managed to save ten cents, spending a total of four hundred and ten cents, leaving her with five hundred and seventy cents.
Following that, Qiao Suluo went to a pork stall and bought two catties of pork belly. At twenty-five cents a catty, along with some chicken eggs, duck eggs, and vegetables, she spent a bit more on various odds and ends. In the end, she had only five hundred cents left in her hand.
Placing everything into their bamboo baskets, they prepared to head home.
As they passed a narrow path lined with black locust trees, Qiao Suluo rolled up her sleeves. "It’s definitely too late to leaven dough for lunch today," she said. "But if we start the dough at noon, we can make black locust flower buns for dinner tonight."
Buns made with pork belly and black locust flowers would definitely be delicious.
With that, Qiao Suluo shinnied straight up the tree in a flash.
Que Hongjin knew his wife wanted to pick the black locust flowers. He was just setting down his basket to grab a wooden stick when he suddenly witnessed the scene. His gentle, picturesque eyes instantly froze, and the color drained from his face. "Wife, be careful!" he called out.
She had actually climbed such a tall tree, and with such speed! It completely overturned everything he thought he knew about her. Without even realizing it, Que Hongjin’s heart leapt into his throat. He hurried to the base of the tree and watched her nervously, determined to catch her if she accidentally fell.
"I’m fine," she replied.
Back when she used to forage for fresh ingredients, Qiao Suluo had frequently climbed trees to pick things. To her, this was a perfectly normal and simple task. If it weren’t for the plumpness of this body, she would have been even more agile. She had absolutely no idea what kind of waves her actions had stirred up in Que Hongjin’s heart.
As she spoke, her hands moved swiftly, picking the black locust flowers and tossing them to the ground so they would be easy to gather later.
Although Bai Qianluo couldn’t see clearly, he roughly gathered what had just happened from the sounds. He let out what seemed like a soft sigh, a trace of helplessness in his tone. Yet, his ears remained perked, listening intently. He, too, was thinking that if she fell, he would need to quickly determine her position to catch her.
Regardless of the reason, the fact remained that she had changed for the better, and naturally, he didn’t want anything bad to happen to her.