I wrote novels in the Republic of China

Sang Jingyun was not afraid that if he went to Sang Qianshi to ask, he would arouse Sang Qianshi's suspicion.

When the original owner of this body was born, Sang Xuewen and Lu Ying were both very young, especially Lu Ying, who was only eighteen years old when she gave birth. Therefore, the original owner had been weak since childhood.

But among his grandchildren, Sang Yuanshan loved the original owner the most.

Sang Yuanshan’s first wife, who died young, was his cousin with whom he grew up. Their first child after marriage was a daughter.

Unfortunately, the girl died in the war when she was only four years old.

After that, any children they had were either born weak and didn’t live to be one year old, or were aborted early.

This situation made Sang Yuanshan miss his deceased daughter for many years.

When the original owner was born, due to transference of feelings, his love for the original owner was no less than Sang Xuewen's.

When the original owner was young, he often carried her to the silk shop and taught her how to use an abacus and read...

The original owner's brothers and sisters did not receive the same treatment as the original owner.

The original owner, who was brought up by Sang Yuanshan, was a very opinionated person.

When the Sang family fell into decline, she had always been by Sang Yuanshan's side, helping him. In the past, when Sang Xuewen acted mischievously, she dared to step forward to stop him and even scolded him.

On the day Sang Yuanshan died, she had an argument with Sang Xuewen and they even came to blows.

The original owner was a capable person, but unfortunately she witnessed Sang Yuanshan's death with her own eyes. She was filled with guilt and forced herself to keep vigil over Sang Yuanshan despite her illness, but she eventually passed away.

"Ayun, there is not much money left at home." Sang Qian sighed.

Sang Qianshi was originally a village woman who could not read a single word. It was only after she married Sang Yuanshan that she learned to read a few words.

She admired Sang Yuanshan very much, and felt that her educated granddaughter was more capable than herself, so she told him everything about the current situation of the Sang family.

When Sang Xuewen gambled, he used his own house deeds and land deeds as collateral to borrow money, and as a result, he lost all the properties and land in his family.

Afterwards, the Sang family went bankrupt, and those who supplied goods to Sang Yuanshan came to his house to ask for payment. The valuables in their homes and some of Sang Yuanshan’s collections were also appraised and used to pay off the debts.

But even so, the Sang family never paid off the debt.

Fortunately, those who did business with the Sang family forgave some debts for Sang Yuanshan's sake and did not make things difficult for the Sang family.

There are still three thousand nails in the rotten ship. When they first moved here, Sang Yuanshan still had some silver in his hands, and some of Lu Ying's jewelry was also saved, but Sang Xuewen couldn't quit opium.

Even the more common opium could only be bought with one silver dollar.

Sang Yuanshan loves his child very much and can't bear to see Sang Xuewen suffer. Lu Ying is a person without a strong opinion, so the money they have is gradually used up.

Before Sang Xuewen passed away, there were only a few silver dollars left in his family, and Sang Yuanshan was even planning to risk his reputation by borrowing money from others!
The one hundred silver dollars from Boss Li were borrowed by Sang Xuewen when he first started gambling, before he lost all the Sang family's property.

In the past, when the two of them drank and had fun together, Sang Xuewen always paid for them, which cost a lot of money. Therefore, although he borrowed 100 yuan from Boss Li, he did not take it seriously, thinking that Boss Li would not ask him for it back.

Boss Li did not ask the Sang family for money at first. It was not until the Sang family fell into poverty that he would come to the family from time to time with IOUs to ridicule Sang Xuewen.

At that time, the Sang family could not afford the one hundred yuan. It was not until Sang Yuanshan passed away that people who had once been friends with Sang Yuanshan came to pay their respects and offer funeral gifts, and only then did the Sang Qian family finally collect the enough money.

Because of this, Sang Qian caused a lot of gossip.

When someone died at this time, the mourning gifts were usually candles, tinfoil and the like, but Sang Qian asked the person who announced the death to tell relatives and friends to give cash as much as possible.

Not only that, she also held Sang Yuanshan's funeral in an extremely simple manner, which caused complaints from some relatives and friends, who felt that she had let Sang Yuanshan down and that it was not worth it for Sang Yuanshan.

The original owner heard a lot of gossip at the funeral and was very angry.

Sang Qianshi herself felt extremely guilty, with tears in her eyes: "Ayun, I'm sorry for your grandfather. I didn't give him a proper burial. I just owe you money, so I have to pay it back..."

"Grandma, grandpa won't blame you." Sang Jingyun comforted Sang Qianshi.

The original owner and Sang Qian both blamed themselves and felt sad because of the simple funeral, but she did not have such thoughts.

After death, everything is empty.

Funerals are just for others to see. You can't hold a grand funeral when the whole family can't make ends meet.

However, the situation of the Sang family is really bad.

After paying off the money owed to Boss Li, their family now couldn't even come up with a single silver dollar. They were left with only a few silver dimes and more than three hundred copper coins, with a total value of about four silver dollars.

Their house is relatively remote and is an old house of an acquaintance. The rent is not expensive, but it is still two yuan per month.

In addition, the price of grain in Shanghai was relatively high, with each dan of rice costing three yuan, which means that one hundred kilograms of rice cost three silver dollars.

There are seven people in their family, and one load of rice a month is not enough to eat. If they eat as much as they want, they can finish two loads, not counting the cost of vegetables.

Even if you save as much as possible, it still costs at least eight yuan a month to support a family of seven and pay rent.

Where does this money come from?

Sang Jingyun looked through all his relatives and friends.

Sang Yuanshan has no brothers or sisters, and all his cousins ​​have passed away.

The two sides had been separated for fifty or sixty years, and the descendants of Sang Yuanshan's cousins ​​had no friendship with their family.

The Sang family members who stayed in Jiaxing were not well-off. When Sang Yuanshan passed away, they sent someone to give him a ten-yuan funeral gift, white candles, incense, etc. They slept on the floor of his house for one night and left the next day. They had no intention of taking over the mess of the Sang family, and the Sang family could not return to the countryside of Jiaxing.

Sang Qian was born in the countryside and all his relatives were poor. Now he was avoiding them as much as possible and could not rely on them either.

Lu Ying is a native of Shanghai. Her family originally had some money, but her parents died early and her younger brother had no interest in business. He sold the family shop and went out to study, and his whereabouts are unknown. Therefore, her family could not help the Sang family.

As for Sang Yuanshan’s friends in Shanghai, they had helped a lot after the Sang family got into trouble, and the Sang family still owed them money.

Now that they are not asking the Sang family for the debt, they are already giving face to Sang Yuanshan. It is definitely impossible to ask them for help again.

"When your grandfather was buried, the funeral gift sent by the Chen family was an IOU written by your grandfather himself. The same was true for the Wang family..." Sang Qian showed Sang Jingyun several IOUs.

Sang Jingyun saw it and while he was impressed by the kindness of these people, he also knew that they must not want the Sang family to come again.

In Sang Jingyun's previous life, he had no parental supervision since childhood and had always lived with his grandparents.

Her grandparents were ordinary farmers. They had more than one child, her father, and they favored boys over girls.

They weren't bad to her, but they weren't good either.

At a very young age, she went to and from school by herself and handled the problems she encountered in her study and life by herself. Later, she lived alone for many years and had a strong ability to take care of herself.

Having lived for more than thirty years, she is more independent-minded than the original owner, a sixteen-year-old girl.

"Grandma, we don't have much money at home, so we have to spend it frugally. In my opinion, the food in the village must be cheaper than in the city. You can go to the village tomorrow and buy some food. You can also buy some more sweet potatoes and some sweet potato vines for vegetables... Later, we can clean up our yard and plant some vegetables." Sang Jingyun said his plan.

The original owner of this body was not familiar with the countryside, but she was born in the countryside in her previous life and knew the situation in the countryside.

Now it is August in the lunar calendar, and the sweet potatoes should be grown.

Sweet potatoes are cheaper than rice anyway.

"Grandma, tomorrow Jingying and I will go to visit Uncle Zhang to explain the situation to him and ask him to extend the rent for a few days." Sang Jingyun added. It was now the beginning of August and it was time to pay the rent.

But they couldn't pay this money. If they paid the rent, their family's food and drink would become a problem.

Uncle Zhang probably won't come to ask for it, but they should go and ask.

Sang Jingyun also talked about some other plans, such as she wanted to go to the county town to take on some jobs that could be done at home, such as pasting packaging boxes, for Lu Ying and Sang Qianshi.

You don't make much money doing this, but it's something.

When saying this, Sang Jingyun was once again thankful that she was living in the Sang family instead of the slums on the other side of the river.

At that time, Shanghai was still an acquaintance society. Shops would not trust strangers, let alone people living in shanties.

It is extremely difficult for those people to take manual work home.

But she is Sang Yuanshan's granddaughter, so when she goes to ask for help, people will always help her.

"Grandma, I will try to find a job, and our lives at home will definitely get better." When Sang Jingyun talked about finding a job, he wanted to sigh.

The original owner of this body could read and do accounting, and she inherited all these skills.

In her previous life, she graduated from college and could speak English and a few other miscellaneous things.

She has so many abilities. If she were a man, it would be easy for her to find a job under the banner of Sang Yuanshan's grandson.

But she is a woman, so it is not easy for her to find a job.

It is highly likely that shops in Shanghai's county towns do not hire women.

In addition to finding a job, Sang Jingyun has another way to make money, which is to write novels and earn royalties.

But she didn't know how to submit her work at that time, and she didn't know what kind of novels people liked at that time. A novel cannot be written in a short time, and it will take time to get the royalties.

This matter can only be done slowly. Right now, finding a job is the most important thing.

Not only her, Sang Jingying is thirteen years old this year and has graduated from elementary school. She can also try to find a job.

Sang Yuanshan attaches great importance to the studies of his grandchildren, and even thought of letting her and Sang Jingying study abroad, but in the current situation, the most urgent priority is to make money.

In fact, Sang Jingying and Sang Jingxiong were not here today because they were out doing odd jobs.

After Sang Jingyun finished speaking, Sang Qian said, "Ayun, everything else is fine, except for you finding a job."

The world is very chaotic now, and Sang Qian is worried about her sixteen-year-old granddaughter going out.

Sang Jingyun was very firm: "Grandma, don't worry, I won't go out alone."

After saying that, Sang Jingyun changed the subject: "Grandma, the most important thing is not these, but to control father."

When Sang Qian heard Sang Jingyun talking about Sang Xuewen, she felt a little sad.

Sang Jingyun had acted very strong before, but now he deliberately showed his sadness and vulnerability: "Grandma, if I leave father alone any longer, he might sell me out for opium! Grandma, please have pity on me, and never let father go out again!"

If Sang Xuewen were locked up at home, he would only need a bowl of rice to eat, which would not cost much money. But if he were released... who knows what he would do?
Sang Jingyun knew that he was weak and could not control Sang Xuewen, so from now on, he would have to rely on Sang Qianshi!

Sang Xuewen, a skinny guy, could not beat Sang Qianshi, whose legs were thicker than Sang Jingyun's waist and weighed at least 140 pounds.

(End of this chapter)