The little one's purse connects the two worlds, turning a desolate village into a paradise.

Ya Ya's eyes lit up when she heard that: 550 jin!

That would fill many, many bags of polished rice.

She remembered buying rice from her aunt at the grain store; the whole bag was as tall as her, and looked plump and bulging.

550 jin of wheat, that's how many bags of wheat!

Ya Ya's little head was filled with bulging bags of wheat, piled high.

Can so much wheat be grown here?

She still remembers last year, when her uncles and elders bent over and wielded sickles, piling up bundles of wheat with ears of grain into small mounds.

After the wheat ears are spread out in the threshing ground to dry completely, they are ground by pulling the stone mill in circles. The ears of wheat split open, and the golden grains fall to the ground with a rustling sound.

After being winnowed, threshed, and cleaned several times, the wheat can be considered clean and good.

After a full harvest from an acre of land, you can only get four or five small cloth bags of good wheat.

It was about the amount of rice that my aunt sold, roughly the same as two bags of polished rice.

But when the government's grain tax arrived, the officials in black boots, carrying booklets, went door to door urging people to pay. They would dump the sacks onto the carts, and most of the grain would be gone in no time.

The remaining grains must be used to store seeds, provisions, and flour for exchanging for salt cloth.

The family of several people toiled from dawn till dusk, working tirelessly from harvesting wheat to storing it in the granary, only to end up with a few dozen kilograms of grain to keep them alive.

When the wind blew, the threshing ground was empty, and the burlap sacks deflated.

All that's left is a body covered in sweat, utter exhaustion, and a year's worth of sorrow.

After working hard for half a year, everyone ended up with very little money left.

The seeds in Grandpa Village Chief's hand this year are shriveled; if he plants them, he probably won't even be able to fill two bags.

If we used this No. 6 seed, and it really grew as many as the shop owner said, then the villagers would have enough to eat, and everyone would have surplus grain to exchange for salt and cloth.

Ya Ya immediately held up a tiny finger and said earnestly, "I want this. I want one that can plant an acre of land."

The landlady nodded and thought for a moment. It was hard to say whether the land in their village was fertile or not, and this little girl probably wouldn't know either.

He then added, "It would be best to apply some more fertilizer, using the compound fertilizer we have here."

Farmyard manure works too, but the harvest won't be as good. You can also buy a bag of urea as a top dressing; it will make the plants grow even better.

Ya Ya looked completely bewildered.

What are "rich" and "fat"? Urine...tree?

Are there trees that can pee?

Never mind, just write it down.

Her big, watery eyes looked pleadingly at the landlady. "Auntie, could you give me a piece of paper with writing on it, like last time? I want to take it home to show Grandpa; I'm afraid I won't remember it."

Seeing that she was a small, cuddly girl and a repeat customer, the proprietress softened and said, "Okay, I'll write one for you."

She made sure to write the characters large and clear, slowly writing each stroke carefully.

After writing it down, I handed it to Ya Ya.

Ya Ya carefully folded the paper into small squares and put them into her small cloth bag.

Now that I have a solution, I'll buy what the shop owner suggested.

"Auntie, please get these for me as you asked: seeds, fertilizer, and urine tree fertilizer."

"Okay." The proprietress called over her younger brother, who was playing games in the back, to help carry the bags. The two of them carried the three large bags to Ya Ya. She then remembered the seeds the little girl had bought before and asked, "Did you plant the seeds you bought last time? Have they sprouted?"

Ya Ya nodded immediately, her eyes crinkling with laughter. She went to see it every day!

"It's sprouted! It's all green, and it's grown so tall after the rain a couple of days ago!"

As she spoke, she held up two little fingers.

The proprietress, judging from the length she gestured, thought that the villagers were quite skilled at growing vegetables; they grew very quickly.

Thinking that the little girl had bought a lot this time, I also grabbed a few packets of seeds and a small packet of fertilizer as a bonus: "I'll give you a few more packets. These cucumbers grow quite crisp, and there are also loofahs, zucchini, and local sandy-fleshed persimmons."

Ya Ya immediately spotted the bright red persimmons in the picture and exclaimed, "Wow! They even sell seeds for these!"

This is great!

I'll have my mother-in-law plant them behind the house when we get back, then we won't have to buy them anymore!

The final bill came to 420 yuan for 35 jin of wheat seeds, 80 jin of compound fertilizer, and 30 jin of urea.

With the three huge bags placed down, only the top of Ya Ya's head remained.

The proprietress craned her neck to look outside. "Hey? Didn't your parents come? Weren't they waiting for you outside?"

Ya Ya blinked, about to make up another lie.

"Uncle will be here soon. I arranged to meet him in that alley. Auntie, could you please put these three bags there for me?"

As she spoke, she gently clasped her little hands together, raised them to her chin and swayed them from side to side, leaned her body slightly forward, and looked up at the landlady with her little face upturned.

"Thank you, Auntie!"

The proprietress couldn't resist such a polite and adorable little guy; her heart melted.

She reached out and ruffled Ya Ya's hair, then turned and called to her younger brother, who had just sat back down, "Come on, lend a hand. Help this little girl carry her things over there."

Together, the two of them used a flatbed cart to push the three large bags of seeds and fertilizer to the corner of the alley that Ya Ya pointed to and placed them there.

After thanking the shop owner again, and after the two of them had walked away, Ya Ya didn't run around and stayed obediently by the bag.

The little hands touched this bag and patted that bag.

The little cart was also full of new clothes, milk given by the aunt, and seeds and small bags of fertilizer given by the shop owner.

My eyes are full of joy, my heart is brimming with contentment, and my eyes are brimming with unconcealed happiness.

But how do I bring it back?

Ya Ya circled around once and raised her little hand.

She struggled to grasp the small corners of three bags piled together with one hand, while holding the handle of a small cart with the other.

The three bags were bulging, and it was a bit difficult to hold them together by the corners.

She stood there quietly until her little hands got a little sore from gripping the pouch, and then the pouch began to feel warm.

Ya Ya breathed a small sigh of relief; she could go back now!

The next second, they were back in the small mud house, along with their belongings.

Grandma Liu's room was no longer dimly lit; the clip-on lamp from the doorway had been moved in and clipped to the window frame, illuminating the entire room brightly.

The village chief and Zhao Hu would occasionally move slightly closer to the lamp.

They've figured out the pattern: the light dims quickly when no one is moving, but brightens up again when someone gets close or moves.

The two were still figuring out how to tell if someone had arrived by using this lamp when they heard a noise from the kang (a heated brick bed) behind them.

Turning my head, I saw several huge bags piled on the kang (a heated brick bed).

It was bulging and I had no idea what was inside.

Among the pile of bags, only a small hand tightly gripping the corner of a bag was visible, along with a tuft of hair sticking up and the tip of a little braid swaying back and forth.