Sold immediately after wearing it? I took my family and fled the famine.

He reached out, his fingers paused in mid-air, took only four taels of silver ingot, and then pushed Jiang Xing's hand back.

"Sister Jiang, this is enough for me." Shi Tou held the silver ingot in his hand, his voice not loud, but very serious. "You taught me how to catch non-venomous snakes. I just handed you a bamboo stick and pressed the snake's head down a few times. I didn't catch the five-step snake or the mountain wind snake either; you dealt with them all by yourself. Taking four ounces is already a huge bargain for me."

Jiang Xing looked at him, not taking the silver back from his hand: "Are you sure?"

Shi Tou nodded vigorously, carefully stuffed the four taels of silver into his inner pocket, pressed it down with his hand to make sure it wouldn't fall out, and then looked up at Jiang Xing with a smile: "That's enough. Four taels of silver is enough for my father to buy a lot of grain."

Jiang Xing looked at him for a while, then didn't insist. She put away the remaining silver, patted Shi Tou's shoulder, and simply said, "Let's go, let's get out."

When Shi Tou followed Jiang Xing out of the backyard, his gait was completely different from when he went in.

When he came out, he had four taels of silver in his pocket, the first money he had ever earned on his own in his life.

When Shi Tou came out of Renxintang, he was still in a daze. He had one hand in his pocket, tightly clutching the four taels of silver, and he walked with unsteady steps, as if he were walking on cotton.

In the front hall, several families were waiting for them. When they saw Jiang Xing and Shi Tou come out, they straightened up and took a step to greet them.

As soon as Shi Tou saw his father, his pace quickened. He took three steps at a time and walked up to Wang Laoshi, pulled his hand out of his pocket, and opened his palm, revealing four taels of gleaming silver coins lying in his dirty hand.

"Father, here you go." Shi Tou stuffed the silver into Wang Laoshi's hand. His voice wasn't loud, but he couldn't hide the smugness that he had been hiding for a long time.

Wang Laoshi looked down at the silver in his palm and froze.

His family brought the fewest medicinal herbs today. None of them had any talent for recognizing medicinal herbs. The most they dug up were plantain and dandelion. When they weighed the herbs, they only got 150 copper coins in total.

He had just been pondering what he could buy with those few copper coins, but no matter how he calculated it, it was far from enough. Just as he was worrying about it, his son slipped him four taels of silver.

"Where...where did this come from?" Wang Laoshi looked up, his voice trembling.

"I earned it by catching snakes with Sister Little Cow." Shi Tou glanced back at Jiang Xing, then looked back and said seriously, "I helped catch the non-venomous snakes, and Sister Little Cow shared them with me."

Wang Laoshi followed Shi Tou's gaze to Jiang Xing, opened his mouth, his Adam's apple bobbing several times before he finally managed to utter a sentence: "Jiang girl, this... how can this be..."

Jiang Xing rolled up the empty cloth bag containing the snake and stuffed it into his basket. Hearing this, he looked up and waved his hand, saying, "Shi Tou did the work, so he deserves it."

Wang Laoshi looked down at the silver in his hand, then looked up at Jiang Xing. His lips trembled slightly, but he didn't say anything more. He just bowed deeply to Jiang Xing.

Shen Dehou stepped forward, looked at the silver in Wang Laoshi's hand, then at the stone, and a rare smile appeared on his face.

"The Chen family left first," Shen Dehou said to Jiang Xing. "Junsheng said they were going to sell straw hats and sandals. Those things weren't selling well in front of the pharmacy, so they had to set up a stall in a crowded place at the street corner. I told them to go ahead first, and we'll meet up at the city gate later."

Jiang Xing nodded, not asking any further questions about the Chen family's whereabouts.

She adjusted her basket, glanced at the people in front of her, and asked, "What are we going to buy next? Let's agree on what each family needs beforehand, so we don't wander around aimlessly in the streets."

Shen Dehou spoke first: "My family needs to buy some grain; our rice jar is almost empty. We also need to buy some new pots and pans." He paused, then added, "Most importantly, we need to buy a water jar. Without a water jar, we'll have to go to your house to fetch water every time we need it. It's okay for a day or two, but it can't go on like this in the long run."

As soon as these words were spoken, several families nodded in agreement.

Wang Laoshi stuffed the silver into his money bag, then looked up when he heard this: "My family also needs to buy a water tank. And grain. We only sold 150 coins worth of medicinal herbs. If it weren't for Shi Tou's four taels of silver, we probably wouldn't have been able to buy any grain today."

Widow Sun stood up gently, her voice soft and gentle: "We also need to buy grain...and a water vat, a small one will do." She paused here, as if silently doing some calculations in her mind, a hint of difficulty flashing across her face, but she quickly suppressed it.

Doctor Gu closed the lid of his medicine chest, straightened up, and waved his hand: "You go buy water tanks and grain; I'm not going the same way. I need to buy some tools for processing medicinal herbs, as well as some auxiliary materials; I need to replenish them all. I can go by myself." He slung his medicine chest over his shoulder: "Meet me at the city gate in two hours. Don't be late; the mountain roads will be difficult to travel after dark."

The crowd responded, and Dr. Gu carried his old medicine box and slowly walked towards the other end of the street, disappearing into the crowd of people going to the market in no time.

"Let's go then," Shen Dehou switched the carrying pole to the other shoulder. "The general store is on West Street; they have water tanks and grain there."

The group walked through the town toward West Street.

The last market day of the year was even more crowded than when we arrived in the morning; the streets were packed with people, shoulder to shoulder.

The grocery store is located in the middle of West Street. The storefront is not large, but business is booming at the end of the year. The store is crowded with people who come to buy sugar and salt.

Several women surrounded the counter, wanting to weigh brown sugar and white sugar. The shop assistant was so busy that he didn't have time to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

Next to the general store was an empty room with half of the door panel removed. Inside, there were neatly arranged water vats of all sizes, some coarse pottery and some fine porcelain, stacked in piles against the wall.

Uncle San, Shen Dehou, Wang Laoshi and a few others went into that room to fetch water vats.

Jiang Xing unloaded the basket from his back and placed it against the wall at the entrance of the general store, then squeezed sideways into the shop. The salt in the shop was displayed in the most conspicuous position on the counter; it was coarse salt, grayish in color, with some small black particles mixed in, clearly not finely filtered.

She picked up a small pinch and examined it in her palm. It contained many impurities and the grains were coarse, a far cry from the salt she had seen in the north. Looking at the price tag next to it, coarse salt cost eight coins a pound, one coin more expensive than grain. The brown sugar was even more outrageous; it was dark in color and had hardened into lumps, clearly indicating that the heat hadn't been properly controlled during the sugar-making process, yet it cost twenty coins a pound.

Jiang Xing put the salt back, patted the crumbs off his hands, and slightly turned down the corners of his mouth.

These items are very cheap in her system's store; refined salt costs four points per pound, and brown sugar costs eight points per pound, while the quality is many times better than these.

She had already made up her mind: she wouldn't buy the salt and sugar in town; she would find a secluded spot and get them from the mall later.

Not only salt and sugar, but she also had a lot of grain stored in her space, which she had stored on the road before. She hadn't found a suitable opportunity to take it out until today. The families were traveling separately, and she was going to buy grain by herself, which was a good opportunity to take the grain out of her space.

When she squeezed out of the grocery store, her third uncle and the others had already chosen the water vat.

The grocery store owner was an old man in his fifties, with a round face and a friendly manner. He was using a charcoal stick to keep accounts on the door panel.

Several families lined up the water vats of various sizes. Jiang Xing's family took the two largest ones. This was something Jiang Xing had mentioned to his third uncle on the way. Although there was a well in the yard, they had to draw water from the well every time they needed it. Washing rice, vegetables, and clothes required bending over and pulling ropes back and forth, which was time-consuming and laborious.

Buy two large water vats and place them at the entrance of the kitchen; they'll be convenient to use when filled with water. Third Uncle never disagreed with Jiang Xing's words; if she said two, then two.

Shen Dehou's family ordered a medium-sized one, Wang Laoshi's family also ordered a medium-sized one, and Widow Sun's family ordered the smallest one, which only reached up to an adult's knee and was the cheapest one in the corner.

The shopkeeper clipped the charcoal sticks to his ear, squatted down, and tapped each jar against the side of its container before quoting the prices: "The large ones are five hundred coins each, the medium ones are three hundred and fifty coins each, and this small one is two hundred coins." He glanced at Widow Sun and added, "This small one has a small chip on the rim, but it doesn't leak and won't affect its use, which is why it's cheap. If you don't like it, there are better ones over there."

"No problem, no problem," Widow Sun quickly waved her hand, "This will do."

The shopkeeper nodded and then used charcoal sticks to write down the prices of each family's water tanks. Shen Dehou then said he wanted to buy coarse salt and sugar, so the families squeezed into the shop to weigh the salt and sugar.

Just as the third uncle was about to speak, Jiang Xing gently tugged at him from behind and shook his head, causing the old man to swallow his words.