The very first thing Zhao Baihui did upon arriving in this unfamiliar place was sell rice, rent a room, and buy three scrawny little girls — thin as bean sprouts, the lot of them.
His purpose was to cheat the subsidy system.
【Team Level: 1; Current Team Size: 1; Daily subsidy: 10 yuan per person.】
【Under Assessment: 3 persons; tap to expand.】
【Next Level: Village; Upgrade Condition 1: 1,000 members; Condition 2: Possess a village settlement, area no less than…】
【1 Team-Level lottery draw available.】
Zhao Baihui tapped the tabletop with his fingers, and the limp cloth pouch sitting on the table plumped up.
Ten catties of rice had appeared inside it.
"Ten yuan a day — buying rice is really the only thing that makes sense."
"Rice is two yuan a catty, so a day's subsidy buys exactly five catties."
"Sell it to the grain shop owner, get a hundred coppers. Doesn't feel like nearly enough."
He could only hope the three girls passed their assessment period soon. Once they did, the daily subsidy would be forty yuan — considerably more breathing room.
"Jinyi. Jinyi."
"Coming, Master." A thin, bony girl walked in. Her coarse cloth clothes were not only worn and patched all over, but clearly too small for her, pulling tight in places.
They were, however, quite clean.
Zhao Baihui slapped his forehead. "I'm sorry — that was careless of me. Give me a couple of days to save up and I'll buy you a new set. That outfit's too small; you can't keep wearing it."
Zhao Jinyi shook her head quickly. "There's no need, Master. I can still wear this — I'll alter it myself when I get the chance. Please don't spend money on me."
"Master, the meal is ready. Time to eat."
"You stubborn thing — how many times do I have to tell you? I asked you all to call me Elder Brother. Master this, Master that — do I look that old to you? I'm only thirty-three."
Zhao Jinyi lowered her head and said nothing.
Thirty-three. In this age, plenty of men were already grandfathers by that age.
"All right, all right, never mind. Let's go eat."
The house was one Zhao Baihui had rented for two hundred coppers a month — equivalent to ten catties of rice, or twenty yuan, two days' worth of subsidy.
A team-level system yielded very little: mostly consumables like food and clothing, and many items were simply too conspicuous to produce here. All things considered, trading in rice was the most practical option — one yuan converted to ten coppers.
He would have liked to deal in rare goods that the locals would actually value, but a team-level system offered nothing beyond ordinary everyday items.
The house was not large: one bedroom to the east, one to the west, a sitting room that doubled as a dining room in the middle, a kitchen at the back, and a courtyard that was, at well over a hundred square meters, a decent size.
In Qingniu Town, people who lived in small courtyard houses like this were, as a rule, not farmers who worked the land. A monthly rent of two hundred coppers was, after all, enough to keep a farming family fed for a month.
Silver here held its value much as it had in the Tang and Song dynasties — purchasing power was strong. An ordinary farming family's annual expenses generally came to no more than two or three taels. This was nothing like the Qing dynasty, when a flood of silver had caused rampant devaluation, giving rise to that dubious tale — of uncertain truth — about thirty-three taels of silver.
When Zhao Baihui came through to the sitting-cum-dining room, eleven-year-old Jinxiu and ten-year-old Jinwen were ferrying dishes to the table.
The meal had been cooked by thirteen-year-old Jinyi.
He had bought all three girls from the town's broker a few days earlier, purely to expand his team headcount and claim the subsidy — people were money, plain and simple.
Zhao Baihui had found their old names too wretched to keep, so he renamed them on the spot: Zhao Jinyi, Zhao Jinxiu, Zhao Jinwen — his own surname. They had been sold to him after all; from now on, they were his family.
On the table sat four bowls. The large bowl held thick congee with an egg nestled inside it. The other three small bowls held congee that was far thinner.
A tiny dish of salted vegetables was the only side.
Zhao Baihui sighed. "Jinyi, I've said it more than once now — stop treating me differently. I can certainly afford a few extra bowls of congee."
Zhao Jinyi smiled. "Master, the congee we have is already very good."
"Fine, do as you like." Zhao Baihui let it go, because Jinyi was not entirely wrong. Even eating the thickest bowl, he found it rather lacking; but the three girls had lived so poorly before that thin congee already felt like a blessing to them.
In the beginning, the three of them had refused to sit at the same table as him, and refused to make congee for themselves as well. Things were already much better now.
Some things can only change with time. Forcing the issue would only fill three small girls with dread.
"Once we finish eating, I'll take a walk along the street. You three stay home."
Jinyi spoke up. "Master, the three of us were planning to tidy the courtyard and plant some vegetables. In a couple of months we'd have garden greens to eat — it would save quite a bit of money."
"No need. We won't be staying here much longer."
The moment the words left his mouth, he saw the look of anxious alarm that crossed all three girls' faces, and he quickly caught himself and explained.
"What I mean is, I'm planning to buy a plot of land out in the countryside before long, build a proper compound, and farm a few mu of ground around it."
The girls' fear sprang from not knowing what lay ahead of them. Once they knew the plan, there was nothing to be afraid of — they even began chatting cheerfully about what they might plant.
Zhao Baihui didn't join in, but his mood lifted all the same, light and buoyant.
After the meal, he went back to his room and took out the rice pouch.
The two days' subsidy came to twenty yuan in all — just enough to buy ten catties of rice.
"Jinyi, there are ten catties of rice in here. Take them to Proprietor Zhou's grain shop later, and buy some vegetables on the way back. Save whatever's left over."
"By the way, how much have we saved up now?"
"Three hundred and forty-six coppers." Jinyi counted it over with her two younger sisters several times every day. She had never been entrusted with so much money in her life and lived in terror of being off by even a single copper.
"Bring me three hundred of it."
Jinyi went into the room, brought out a small box, and took out two thumbnail-sized fragments of silver. Each had been worked into a small oval roughly the size of a fingernail — one qian of silver, worth a hundred coppers apiece. Then she counted out a hundred copper coins.
A hundred copper coins weighed about a catty. They went into a small cloth pouch, which he tucked into the inner lining of his robe.
Zhao Baihui stepped out and made his way up the street. The town's main street was short; he had walked its full length in a matter of minutes.
He stepped into the broker's shop. Before he could say a word, Proprietor Chen — a man with a thin two-pronged moustache — was already oozing toward him with a slimy smile.
"Master Zhao, what perfect timing! Fine goods arrived today — just the sort of thing that'll set your heart racing, I guarantee it!"
Watching that smile spread across Proprietor Chen's weathered face, Zhao Baihui had a powerful urge to plant his fist right in the middle of it.
You scheming old bastard. It's you who've gone and ruined my reputation.
Word had gotten around town: some out-of-town grain merchant with a thing for little girls had already gotten his hands on three of them and was turning up at the broker's shop every single day.
If that story had come from anyone other than this proprietor, Zhao Baihui would eat his hat.
Of course, he had no interest in a lawsuit, so the fantasy stayed a fantasy. He couldn't actually hit him.
"Bring them out and let me have a look." He had no desire to waste a single syllable on this creature.
Proprietor Chen sent a half-grown boy in the shop to fetch someone, then stayed to keep Zhao Baihui company himself, pouring him a pot of tea.
Before long, an elderly woman came in leading a little girl who looked very young indeed.
A delighted grin broke across Zhao Baihui's face without warning — it just so happened that Jinyi's assessment period had ended!
From now on, ten more yuan of subsidy each day — that would ease things considerably! And since Jinxiu and Jinwen had been bought on the same day, their assessment periods would end that afternoon too.
His income was about to jump from ten yuan a day to forty. How could he not be pleased? And being pleased, he couldn't keep the smile off his face.
Proprietor Chen, for his part, assumed the smile was simply Zhao Baihui's reaction to laying eyes on the little girl.
His own grin grew slimier still. He'd been uncertain — the girl was only eight, rather young even by the standards of his trade — but now the sale looked all but certain. He might even push the price up a little.
This out-of-town Master Zhao was a genuine beast, he thought. Always going for the little ones.
This one barely came up to his waist!
But beasts would be beasts — what did that have to do with him? It wasn't his daughter he was selling.
As long as the deal went through, all was right with the world.