“What?” The shopkeeper thought he had misheard.
Xia Qingyue turned her palm upward, revealing the silver coins. Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced around the shop. At the moment, there were only the two of them inside.
“Mine, and the ones I’m buying for my parents too. We have household registration papers. You can register all our names.”
The shopkeeper had sharp eyes and could tell at a glance that she was holding at least three taels and five hundred copper coins.
“Of course, if you can make it a round number, that would be even better.” As she spoke, she lifted her hand slightly, and the silver in her palm shifted with the motion.
“Well…” The shopkeeper put on a troubled expression. In the next moment, he smiled and picked up the ledger used to record salt sales. “Oh dear, look at my memory. This Zhao Qian clearly bought six jin of coarse salt, but I wrote it down as one jin.”
He picked up his brush and corrected the entry.
Seeing how cooperative he was, Xia Qingyue handed over the money. “Give me some coarse rice as well.”
Rice was graded from lowest to highest quality: coarse rice, old rice, and refined rice.
Coarse rice cost eight copper coins per sheng. Ten sheng made one dou, ten dou made one shi, which was about 120 jin.
Considering that she had already bought quite a lot today and still needed to purchase meat and lard later, she said, “Make it three dou.”
“This young sir, if you have enough money on hand, you might as well buy some flour or millet too.”
The shopkeeper glanced around cautiously and leaned closer to Xia Qingyue, covering his mouth with his hand as he lowered his voice.
“Didn’t word spread not long ago that Prince Xiang and Prince Yun have fallen out? My uncle’s cousin’s brother-in-law serves in the army camp. He sent a message home saying that fighting is about to break out.
“I’m not trying to scare you. Just in the past couple of days, people from the yamen suddenly started going door to door with household registries. On the surface, they say it’s to guard against foreign enemies for everyone’s safety, but in truth…”
He lightly bit his tongue and sucked in a breath, then glanced uneasily at the door, his face tense. “They’re probably checking how many able-bodied men there are. When war starts, they need exact numbers to deal with the chaos.”
“I’ve been in a hurry these past two days to sell off more of the goods in my shop. Whatever I can’t sell, I’ll stockpile myself, then close the shop and hide at home.”
After speaking, the shopkeeper patted his forehead twice with a deeply troubled look. “When will these days ever end?”
Sighing, he went to pack the coarse salt.
Xia Qingyue raised her brows slightly, surprise showing on her face.
She couldn’t tell whether what he said was true or false. Living in the mountains, her access to news was limited. It could be real, or it could be the shopkeeper deliberately trying to scare her into buying more.
After some thought, Xia Qingyue bought one more dou of coarse white flour, priced the same as the coarse rice.
After finishing her purchases of rice, flour, and salt, she carried the heavy basket on her back and headed straight for the pork stall.
After asking around, she learned that slab lard cost ten copper coins per jin. Cuts like front leg meat, hind leg meat, and pork belly cost twenty copper coins per jin.
Other parts were cheaper: lean meat was fifteen copper coins per jin, pig trotters and pig heads were nine copper coins per jin, and offal like liver and intestines cost three copper coins per jin.
“Boss, I’ll take all the slab lard. Cut me two jin of front leg meat too. I’ll take two pig trotters as well. Can you throw in a bit of liver and intestines for me?”
“Alright.” The butcher moved swiftly as he weighed and cut the meat. “There are ten jin of slab lard, that’s one hundred copper coins. Two jin of meat is forty copper coins. The pig trotters weigh a little over nine jin. I’ll count it as nine jin, eighty-one copper coins. That’s a total of two hundred and twenty-one copper coins.”
As he spoke, he pushed the entire pile of pig offal onto Xia Qingyue’s meat pile, clearly intending to give it all to her for free.
Xia Qingyue took out her vegetable basket to hold the pork and thanked him. “Boss, my family lives deep in the mountain valley, and we rarely come down. I heard that Prince Xiang and Prince Yun have fallen out.”
The moment she said that, the butcher became tense. He glanced left and right, nodded as he lowered his voice. “Young sir, there are too many ears outside. Since you’ve finished buying, hurry home.”
She closed her mouth and didn’t press further.
After everything was bought, she returned to the cloth shop and tied the four bolts of fabric horizontally onto her basket. She also asked the shopkeeper for some banana leaves to cover them up.
Even after that, she still felt it wasn’t safe enough. She went to the shopkeeper’s chicken coop, scooped up some droppings, and smeared them onto the banana leaves and the basket. Even the vegetable basket holding the pork didn’t escape.
She had bought quite a lot. Altogether, it weighed at least one hundred and thirty jin. It was heavy, but still within what she could manage.
After leaving the town and reaching the area near Xiushui Village, Xia Qingyue took a detour.
When she reached a spot some distance away from the village, she stopped to catch her breath. She leaned the basket against a large rock behind her and set it down.
The moment she put it down, her whole body relaxed.
She was exhausted, truly exhausted.
She raised her hand and wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, gazing at the towering mountains in the distance as she sighed silently.
It would take at least another hour to walk back to the sinkhole.
It was close to noon, and she was starting to feel hungry. Fortunately, she had the foresight to buy two meat buns in town.
One fist-sized meat bun cost five copper coins. A plain white steamed bun cost three.
She was wondering whether to eat something first before continuing on her way.
“Wuu wuu wuu…”
The sudden, miserable crying sound interrupted Xia Qingyue’s thoughts. She looked uphill in the direction of the sound, but with the trees blocking her view, she couldn’t see anyone.
She hoisted the basket onto her back and called Heihei to move on.
Even in broad daylight, encountering something like this in the wilderness was unsettling.
Xia Qingyue wanted to leave this place as quickly as possible. However, not long after she started walking uphill, someone stumbled out in a panic.
When she looked closely, it was a woman wearing dark blue floral clothes.
The woman had delicate features and a well-proportioned figure. She looked no older than twenty.
“Wuu wuu wuu… Young sir, my name is Tan Xiaozhu. I’m from the village at the foot of the mountain. My family wants to sell me to beggars. I had no other choice, so I ran up the mountain to hide. Please, please save me!”
The woman dropped to her knees in front of Xia Qingyue with a thud, crying pitifully, tears streaming down her face.
Xia Qingyue thought to herself, how could she possibly save her? She wasn’t some kind of savior. Besides, this was a complete stranger. She knew nothing about her.
Perhaps because of her original family and the environment she grew up in, even close relatives could abandon her without hesitation. That kind of cruelty made it even harder for her to trust outsiders. As a result, when she first interacted with anyone, she always carried suspicion and guarded hostility.
Only after spending more time together and truly understanding someone would she gradually relax.
“Miss, please get up first. I’m just an ordinary commoner with no money, no power, and no ability. Even if I want to help, I can’t. The mountains are full of dangers. You should go back down and return to your village. Talk things over properly with your family.”
Xia Qingyue turned to leave.
Footsteps hurried after her from behind. “Young sir, I have nowhere else to go. If I return, there’s only death waiting for me. Please have mercy on me and take me with you.
From now on, I’ll be yours.”
The woman spoke earnestly. Her tear-filled eyes swept from the vegetable basket in Xia Qingyue’s hand to the basket on her back, lingering on it for a moment.
She took two steps forward and put on a flattering smile. Her face was like a blooming flower, tears spilling from her eyes, making her look fragile and pitiful.
She stretched out her soft, boneless slender hands. “Young sir, you’re going up the mountain, right? You’re carrying so many things. Let me help you.
From now on, I’ll be your servant. You can order me around however you like.”