The village chief of Dàhé Village was also surnamed Zhào. He was fifty-five this year and had been the village chief for over twenty years, holding great prestige in the village.
Village Chief Zhào was the first to suggest lending the Wáng family one jin of grain, and others followed suit, agreeing to lend a little. Few people in the village had surplus grain; everyone was starving day by day. Where would extra grain come from?
In the end, everyone in the village collectively gathered three jin of grain.
Three jin of grain, even if they tightened their belts and only ate one full meal a day, would only last a family for four or five days.
Auntie Wáng held the three jin of grain, crying until she couldn't breathe, and finally fainted directly into her daughter's arms.
Old Madam Zhào stood among the crowd. She had lent half a jin of corn. She had originally thought of telling her eldest daughter-in-law to be vigilant in the middle of the night, but she immediately reconsidered, fearing that the money obtained from the Chéng family had already been used by this daughter-in-law to buy meat, and there was no surplus grain left in the house. The old woman shook her head, returned to the Zhào family, and instead of going back to sleep, woke the whole family to hide their grain.
In the Zhào family, only the eldest branch had separated; the second and third branches lived together. Including adults and children, there were a total of twelve people.
Old Madam Zhào was someone who had experienced hardship and knew the importance of saving grain. She put away a little each day, and after a long time, the family had about forty to fifty jin of corn, thirty jin of buckwheat, and over thirty jin of pear grass seeds, finely ground cornmeal... The old madam gave ten jin to each of her two sons to store in their rooms. This way, even if thieves came, they would at most only lose ten jin, unlike the Wáng family, who had nothing left to eat.
That night, no one in Dàhé Village slept well.
The thieves were not found, and the Wáng family only had three jin of grain, which fundamentally couldn't last until the autumn harvest... More importantly, there might not be a harvest this year.
Early in the morning, the Wáng family was already in an uproar.
"Father, please, I beg you, please don't sell me..."
Wáng Dàmài, the Wáng family's daughter, knelt on the ground, her face covered in tears.
Ní Qiū hugged her crying older sister and stood up: "Father, sell me instead. I'm a boy, selling me will get more money."
Auntie Wáng's tears fell: "Husband, must it be this way?"
"There's no grain left in the house. If we don't sell the girl, what else can we do?" Wáng Yǒngchéng sighed. "Going to a rich family, even if famine comes, there will be something to eat. Dàmài going there is to enjoy good fortune, why cry! Dàmài goes there, and they'll give us a string of money. Half a string can buy a hundred jin of grain. This is a good thing!"
Although he said this, his face was filled with sorrow.
If it weren't for being unable to endure any longer, no one would want to sell their child.
When Chéng Luánluán got out of bed, she heard the dispute about selling a child next door.
She took the chestnuts she had obtained yesterday, separated more than half, and brought them to the neighboring house.
She leaned against the mud wall and said mockingly, "The village chief is truly unfair to your family. Without a second word, he gave your family three jin of grain, but my family didn't even get a single grain of rice! In the town, there's a general store owner who can't have children, and they've offered two liǎng of silver to buy my Sìdàn to smash the basin."
"My family has four little boys, each one with an open mouth waiting to eat. If I sell Si Dan over there, two taels of silver would only be enough to eat until the New Year. No matter how shameless I am, I am still their birth mother; I cannot do something like selling my child. At most, we'll all starve to death together!" She extended her hand, offering the chestnuts.
"I also don't have money to buy Dà Mài. I'll pay this much in food. Let Dà Mài come to my house to work for one day."