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

Jiang Xing stood at the entrance of the clinic, watching their figures disappear into the night, his brows furrowing slightly.

War, refugees, fleeing south.

"Da Ya?" Zhang called from behind, "Let's go, Xiao Niu is asleep."

Jiang Xing snapped out of his daze and nodded.

She picked up the calf again, helped her grandmother, and walked out of Jirentang.

She stopped by the grain shop to buy some grain. Brown rice was five coins a pound, and she bought twenty pounds for one hundred coins.

Flour cost eight coins per pound, and she bought ten pounds for eighty coins.

Coarse salt was fifteen coins a pound, and she bought three pounds for forty-five coins.

The grain shop owner, a plump middle-aged man, sighed as he weighed the rice: "Young lady, is this all you're buying? How many people are in your family? Is this enough brown rice?"

"A family of three," Jiang Xing said.

The shopkeeper glanced at her, hesitated, but finally couldn't help but say, "To be honest, stock up as much as you can now. There's a war going on in the north, and grain prices are changing every day. If you come back tomorrow, the price might not be the same."

Jiang Xing nodded: "Thank you, shopkeeper."

She went to the cloth shop and bought two cotton quilts, one for 500 coins and the other for 1 tael of silver.

The weather is getting colder now, especially since Zhang is old and the dilapidated house is not warm. In the original owner's memory, during the coldest time of winter, the whole family slept next to the kang (heated brick bed), and the firewood could not be extinguished all night, otherwise they might freeze to death.

The shopkeeper, a woman in her forties, saw Jiang Xing buy two quilts at once and asked, "Young lady, are you getting married?"

Jiang Xing said, "No, we're moving."

Finally, she went to the general store and bought three rough earthenware bowls, three pairs of chopsticks, a new kitchen knife, a pair of scissors, a sewing kit, an earthenware jar, a fire tumbler, a water bag, and two coarse cloth bundles. All these things added up to about one hundred coins.

The total cost of everything was a little over one tael and eight mace.

By the time we had bought everything, the sun was almost setting.

Jiang Xing carried a basket on his back, and he and his grandmother each held a cotton quilt. Xiao Niu sat in the basket with a rice bag under his bottom, and they hurried back to the village under the cover of night.

The calf, perched on her back with a white cloth wrapped around its head, mumbled, "Sister, how much did we spend today?"

The answer to him was silence.

"Did it cost a lot?"

"Doesn't your wound hurt? Try to lean back and rest for a while."

The little calf stopped talking, then after a while it blurted out, "Sister, when I grow up, I'll earn lots and lots of money to pay you back."

Jiang Xing did not answer, his feet firmly planted on the ground.

Following behind, Zhang watched her granddaughter's figure disappear into the twilight, tears silently streaming down her face.

I feel sorry for this 15-year-old girl. Her shoulders are so narrow, how can she carry so much stuff?

"Sister-in-law, Daya, Xiaoniu, where are you going? Come on, get in the car and we'll go back to the village together." A man's voice called from behind, and Jiang Xing and Zhang Shi turned around.

When the man drove the oxcart closer, Zhang recognized him: "Jiang...his third uncle?"

"Hello, Third Uncle." The two siblings greeted him in unison. He was the original owner's Third Uncle, who was the best elder to the two children in the entire village, apart from Zhang Shi and Jiang Laosan.

His wife died when he was young, and he didn't have any children. He was carefree and didn't bother to remarry. He often went to work in the county town, and it was normal for him to be away for several days or even half a month without returning home.

"These two children are so well-behaved. Oh dear, what's wrong with Xiao Niu? Come on, get in the car and tell Uncle San." Jiang Caiquan looked at Jiang Xiao Niu with concern in his eyes.

The three generations of the family got into the cart, and with the oxcart, they were noticeably more relaxed.

"I specially brought you sweet potatoes from the side stories this time. They're not only delicious but also filling! Look!"

Jiang Caiquan handed the bag to Zhang Shi. Zhang Shi glanced at it but couldn't recognize it. She then took one out and examined it closely.

Xiao Niu stared curiously, while Jiang Xing seemed the most indifferent, because she knew as soon as Zhang Shi took it out that it was potatoes, so there was nothing to be surprised about.

"Later, I'll share some with you. I'll have the third brother help me plant them, and we can eat them next year when we harvest them," Jiang Caiquan said to himself.

They didn't notice at all that the people in the car looked strange.