Chapter 603: The Disaster Begins

At this point, the door to the shop was nudged open slightly, and an elderly man covered in age spots, carrying a large cloth bag, timidly walked in.

“Shopkeeper, shopkeeper do you want to buy wheat?”

The shopkeeper merely glanced at the old man before driving him away annoyedly, “Go away! We don’t buy wheat here, you can sell it somewhere else.”

The elderly man did not leave, but approached another step forward, “Shopkeeper, this is our own wheat from our fields. We originally kept it for seeding, please show mercy and buy it! My grandson is waiting for me to sell this for his life-saving money…”

“Be off with you! This is not a charity! If you want to beg, there’s Lord Di’s porridge shed in the south city, you can beg there. If you insist on staying here again, and disturb my honorable customers, I will not spare you!” The shopkeeper spoke irately.

The elderly man did not leave because of this, but humbly pleaded: “But shopkeeper, I beg you, my grandson truly needs this money. I beg you to buy it. This is life-saving money. You can give me one tael of silver for this bag of flour…”

“One tael of silver?” The shopkeeper almost jumped out of his skin!

Then he reacted promptly and started cursing: “Do you think your wheat is gold? You want one tael of silver for such a small bag of wheat, why don’t you go rob someone instead? Go, go! You have to know your audience if you’re trying to extort, if you stay here again I’ll report you to the officials and have you locked up to taste some free jail food. Humph, what sort of people are these!”

With pushing and persuading, he finally drove the old man out of the shop.

Liu Sisi frowned. After paying the bill and walking out of the shop, she saw that the old man was being driven out of another shop.

The shopkeeper there was cursing: “You want one tael of silver? Why don’t you go rob someone? Get out, get out, get out!”

The old man was scolded such that he couldn’t lift his head, huddled in on himself.

“Grandpa, how much do you want to sell this bag of wheat for?”

Liu Sisi walked up to him and quietly asked.

Seeing Liu Sisi suddenly get close, the old grandpa shrank back: “I, I want one tael of silver …”

“Alright, one tael of silver, right?”

Liu Sisi took out a tael of silver from her bosom and handed it to the old grandpa: “This is one tael of silver. Keep it safe and go for your grandson’s treatment quickly!”

After finishing talking, she even smiled at the old grandpa.

An attendant on the side promptly stepped forward to take the bag of wheat from the old man’s hand.

“Thank you, thank…”

The old man could only look at the silver in his hand in a daze, not yet reacting to the sudden turn of events.

After a while, he finally lifted his head to look around, only to discover that Liu Sisi and others had long since disappeared.

“Good person, you are a good person! There are indeed more good people in this world than bad ones…”

Liu Sisi and the others had already walked far and didn’t hear the old man showering praises on them, even less realizing that her inadvertently kind act had saved a family’s life.

They strolled casually. YingEr would occasionally look back curiously and ask, “Mother, why did none of these shopkeepers want to buy that old grandpa’s bag of wheat, and in the end, only you bought it?”

“It’s very simple, because that bag of wheat isn’t worth one tael of silver.”

Liu Sisi said indifferently.

“Not worth a tael of silver? Then why did you decide to buy it, mom?” YingEr was all curiosity and chatter.

“Look at how the old man carries a bag of wheat on his back. His clothes are clean and tidy, but they are also distinctly old, suggesting that they are from a long time ago.”

“Although he is wearing new cloth shoes, you can see imprints on his ankles where the ropes from straw sandals have left deep marks, indicating that he is accustomed to wearing straw sandals.”

“His back is hunched, and his skin is tanned and weather-beaten, suggesting that he works out in the fields all year long.”

“Consider also his anxious and disappointed demeanor, his dried lips and bloodshot eyes. It seems there is an urgent need for money at his home, that’s why he has to sell the wheat he kept for sowing, asking for a tael of silver. That’s why I decided to buy the bag of wheat for a tael of silver. YingEr, do you understand now?”

Liu Sisi went on and on, and Di Ying blinked her wide eyes repeatedly, shaking her head and nodding intermittently.

“I don’t understand. Could it be that the old man is pretending and trying to deceive people?”

Liu Sisi had also thought about this question, but how should she explain it to make YingEr understand?

“Even if he were to deceive us, what of it? In the cycle of cause and effect, as long as we harbor good intentions, we have already sowed the seed and established the bond of goodness by doing this charitable deed. As for how the other party would react, it’s beyond our control.”

Liu Sisi stroke Di Ying’s head: “We can’t simply do nothing just because the other party might have malicious intentions, right?”

YingEr shook her head in frustration: “Mom, you’ve said so much, I can’t remember it all…”

“You don’t have to remember everything, just remember this: ‘Do not harbor malicious intentions towards others, but be vigilant of potential dangers. It’s easy to offer help when others are in abundance, but it’s difficult to provide help in times of need.’ That will be enough!”

“Okay! Mom, I understand now!”

Di Ying clung to Liu Sisi’s arm, her face radiant with joy.

The group then went to a cloth shop to buy cloth, then to a grocery store to buy eggs, glutinous rice, grains and oil, and every time Liu Sisi asked about the prices she kept frowning.

The reason is simple, the grains in the grocery store have significantly increased in price. Before, she paid two taels and nine liang silver for a stone of rice, but now it has risen to four taels and two liang per stone – more than a one-third increase. It’s truly astonishing!

“Shopkeeper, why did the price of grain suddenly rise so much?” Liu Sisi asked curiously.

The shopkeeper kept busy packing the grains and taking care of other customers. After looking at Liu Sisi for a moment, he finally sighed and replied.

“Madam, don’t you know? There hasn’t been any rain since the beginning of this year. Now it’s already mid-July, half a year has passed and the rice in the fields has been severely affected by the drought. Most of the grains are empty shells now. Even the included early rice yield from the fertile fields near the water sources have dropped by more than 10-20%. The late rice doesn’t look promising either! The price of grain will only rise more and more in the future, it won’t drop anytime soon!”

So that’s the reason!

“Is it really that serious? Aren’t the officials doing anything about it?”

Liu Sisi spoke quickly. It was then she realized the County Magistrate Su’s position was taken over by Di Yelei!

“Of course they are doing something, who said they aren’t?”

The shopkeeper finally sent away some customers and walked over to Liu Sisi: “Our Captain Di is a good official. Not only did he distribute porridge and food, but he also repaired bridges and roads, and dug trenches to bring river water to the fertile land. Otherwise, us common people would have had a harder time trying to survive!”

Di…. Captain?

Liu Sisi blinked her eyes for a long time before she remembered that Di Yelei also has a sixth-ranking officer title.

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