After dinner, Gu Yuan secretly carried a few bags like a thief and sneaked into the room where the old lady lived. She hid the bags behind her back and said mysteriously, “Mother, guess what I brought?”
The old lady was very happy to see her and quickly waved her to sit down. “No need to guess. It must be something my good treasure daughter brought to be filial to me.” She was very confident in her daughter’s filial piety.
Seeing the old lady’s matter-of-fact expression, Gu Yuan couldn’t help laughing. She nodded repeatedly. “Yes, yes, something filial for mother.” She brought her hands forward. “Ta-da—take a look, what is this?”
The old lady looked at her in surprise, then took the bags and opened them. Immediately after, she stood up in shock, trembling as she said, “Th-this… good treasure, where did you get this from?”
One bag contained white flour—snow-white, even better than what Old Fourth’s grocery shop sold. A faint fragrance could be smelled as soon as the bag was opened. The other bag was coarse sorghum flour, but refined to a level she had never seen in her life.
The old lady had bought flour and rice countless times in her life and could roughly estimate the weight by touch. Each bag contained about two catties (about 1 kg). By market price, these were worth around forty copper coins.
But that was the price in Qing Mountain Town. The quality of what her daughter brought was clearly much better, so the value must be higher.
After calculating, the old lady felt a little heartache. She reached out and touched Gu Yuan’s injured forehead. After these days of rest, the bandage had already been removed, revealing the scar clearly.
“Did you spend all the money? There’s mother at home, you don’t need to support the family.” She turned around. “Wait, I’ll get you some money.”
Just as she was about to open the cabinet, she muttered, “My good treasure… in this whole family, only you care about me. The others are all heartless, only thinking about themselves.”
Gu Yuan quickly stopped her. She still had nearly two hundred copper coins in her system and didn’t feel right taking her mother’s money.
“Mother, don’t rush. I still have something else.” She took out a cloth bundle containing salt.
The old lady opened it suspiciously. Even though she was prepared, she still couldn’t help but lightly smack Gu Yuan. “You wasteful girl! This is salt, right? How can you wrap it in cloth? What if it spills?”
Salt was precious—especially such snow-white salt. She held her head. “Let me calm down.”
The shock was too great; these three ordinary-looking items had completely overturned her understanding.
She had once thought white flour was already rare. Now she realized she had been ignorant. She had thought only nobles could afford such white salt, yet now she too could taste it thanks to her daughter.
The old lady suddenly felt unsure—whether the money she had was even enough to repay her daughter.
Gu Yuan said proudly, “I was lucky. Today I went to Qing Mountain Town and met a traveling merchant. These were bought from him, and even cheaper than in town.”
She pointed at the flour. “White flour and sorghum flour were the same price as in town. Salt was only twenty copper coins.”
She slightly inflated the price to make her story believable.
Even so, the old lady still felt doubtful. Salt being that cheap felt unrealistic.
Gu Yuan continued, “He’s from out of town, doesn’t know local prices. He not only sells cheap, but also buys high. I sold some plantain (dandelion) we picked, and got fifty copper coins per catty.”
“Of course, that’s only because it was me. Others couldn’t get that price.”
Plantain in town only sold for fifteen copper coins per catty.
Gu Yuan felt guilty inside. One lie really did require many more lies to cover it up.
Fortunately, in this world salt could be privately traded under limits, so her story was not completely impossible.
The old lady surprisingly believed her completely.
“My good treasure has always had good fortune.”
She stored the items carefully and asked, “Tell me, what else do you want?”
Gu Yuan smiled. “I want to buy plantain.”
The old lady immediately agreed. “How much?”
Gu Yuan said she wanted to buy at town price—fifteen copper coins per catty. The old lady suggested keeping it the same price as town, or even slightly higher so villagers would still earn something and be willing to gather it.
She even gave Gu Yuan over a hundred copper coins to start the purchase, instructing her to say it was ordered by the town and to keep the price lower when speaking outside.
After the discussion, Gu Yuan left to assign the task to Gu Nanfeng to spread the word in the village.
Later, she went back up the mountain again, continuing her gathering and earning copper coins through the system.
She spent the day collecting wild herbs, selling plantain and other plants to the system for profit, already planning to use the money to improve their food and buy clothes.
As she calculated her future earnings, she became more and more motivated.
By evening, she returned home—and found a crowd gathered at her house.