The head of the Mu family

Chapter 5: First, figure out how to avoid starvation.

The village chief chuckled and put Shen Huai down on the ground, then bent down, took Shen Huai's little hand, and said:

"Little Wuya, how about coming to your house with Grandpa?"

"Good~"

Shen Huai smiled sweetly and pulled the village chief along as they walked home.

When they arrived at Wuya's house, the village head called Wuya's parents back from their work in the garden.

Seeing the village head smiling and holding his daughter's hand, Wu Ya's father quickly invited him into the main room, where he sat down with him.

Wu Ya Niang washed her hands and served a bowl of plain water.

He sat down next to Wu Ya's father, both of them waiting blankly for the village chief to explain their purpose.

"Cough! Cough!"

The village chief cleared his throat and took a sip of water:

"Liang San! Bring over the grain that your family is going to sell in town in the twelfth lunar month."

"Hey~ Uncle Guo, I haven't finished packing yet!"

"When I asked you last time, you said you wouldn't come to my house until the end of winter or the beginning of the twelfth lunar month~" Wu Ya's father said, rubbing his hands.

"I'll remember!"

"Take out what you've already sorted out~"

"Okay, you wait here~"

As he spoke, Wu Ya's father turned around and went to a thatched hut on the sloping side outside, where he carried back half a sack of sorghum and a small half sack of cornmeal.

The village chief told Wu Ya's mother to carry Wu Ya to the yard and come back in when called.

The village chief then had Wu Ya's father find a half-burnt stick, fiddle with it in the main room for a while, and then called Wu Ya's mother to bring the child inside.

"Little one, listen to Grandpa, this bag shows the weight in kilograms."

This is sorghum, 21 jin, 6 wen per jin;

This bag contains eight pounds of cornmeal, which costs eleven coins per pound.

Your dad is going to town to sell candy in a few days, he'll buy you some!

Tell your father and mother how much money they want to sell it for.

You guessed right! When we go to Grandpa's house later, Grandpa will give you some candy~

The village chief took Shen Huai from Wu Ya Niang's hands, put her on the ground, and smiled as he patted Shen Huai's little pigtails.

Shen Huai then pretended to be thinking and calculating, muttering to himself.

Because the product of sorghum is a three-digit number, I waited a little longer before speaking to the sorghum bag:

"This one, twenty-one, one hundred, twenty-six."

Then he said to the cornmeal:

"This, eight, eighty-eight, hee hee!" she said with an innocent smile.

Wu Ya's parents were dumbfounded and looked at each other in disbelief.

The village chief burst into laughter:

"That's all right~ Liang Sanwa, your family is very lucky~"

"You must be the pagegirl from the God of Literature, reincarnated into your family! Come on~ let's go back with grandpa and get some candy!"

The village chief led Wuya back and asked the village chief's grandmother to give them some rock candy.

Shen Huai was both amused and exasperated, thinking that at least it was fruit candy.

Looking back, apart from the neighborhood chief's family, almost no one else had ever seen candy.

Not to mention rock sugar, there's no regular white sugar or brown sugar either.

It turns out that rock sugar was a luxury item only available to well-off village chiefs in rural areas during that era.

Shen Huai really didn't want to eat the rock candy, so he quietly put it in his pocket, intending to take it back for the other girls.

I just checked, and each person gets one piece, with one extra piece to give to Wu Ya's mother.

As a result, when the village chief saw it, she thought Shen Huai was just reluctant to eat it.

I thought to myself: This child is so young, yet so sensible!

He took another piece from the jar and stuffed it directly into Shen Huai's mouth.

Shen Huai: You've misunderstood. I'm not being stingy with the food; I'm not that considerate.

Then, the village chief told his grandmother about how Shen Huai had followed him around playing every day and had actually learned to listen to numbers and even do accounting.

Of course, we'll definitely have to show it off.

The village chief sighed again. By the time Shen Huai finished his demonstration, it was almost dark.

The village head took Wuya's little hand and escorted her home.

Shen Huai: As expected, elders all like children who do well in their studies. This step was the right one!

Finally, the rock candy in the pocket was divided among the four girls, one piece for each of them, and the remaining piece was split in half by the parents of the fifth girl.

The whole family was as happy as if they had eaten meat.

Shen Huai: The steely heart of a corporate slave carries a bitter taste in its mouth.

From then on, Shen Huai began his formal internship as an accountant.

Until the market day in December, whenever someone had something and needed to ask the village head or Dr. Gao for help, the village head or Dr. Gao would come to Wu Ya's house and take Wu Ya away.

Basically, Wuya would calculate first, and then they would check if it was correct.

Shen Huai: Hehe~ Of course they're all right!

Shen Huai took the opportunity to spend several days "learning" numbers and a few simple characters representing grain.

At this point, we were using traditional Chinese characters. Although we could guess many of the simpler characters correctly, we couldn't guess many of them.

I was able to guess a few correctly, mainly thanks to the popular Penguin chat app signatures during my school days.

Various strange symbols and traditional Chinese characters; not only do I need to change my signature frequently to be cool, but I also need to be able to understand my classmates' signatures.

I didn't find it difficult to learn, but I've only learned so much so that I'll have to find an opportunity to learn it properly in the future.

Since starting his internship as an accountant, Wu Ya's family has finally become much more relaxed.

When villagers ask the village head or a traditional Chinese medicine doctor for help, they will usually give a small gift as a token of their gratitude.

Sometimes it's a bowl of noodles, sometimes it's a bowl of sorghum soup.

Since it was all grown by the farmers themselves, the village head and Dr. Gao would always share half a bowl with Wu Ya's family.

Wu Ya's parents had never received such treatment before, and at first they hurriedly declined.

Later, both the village head and Doctor Gao said it was Wu Ya's wages, and that they would need Wu Ya's help in the future.

They were extremely grateful and happily accepted the bowl, but only accepted a small portion. The village head and Doctor Gao then let them have their way.

Ever since Wuya learned a few words, the village head and Doctor Gao have been even more fond of this child, and they even taught Wuya how to read a scale.

Shen Huai: What parent wouldn't like a child who is both smart and eager to learn?

The village head's family was the only one with a scale in the whole village. Anyone who went to the market could borrow one and return it when they came back in the evening.

As Wuya grew brighter and brighter, the families where Shen Huai worked would always give him some good food.

Wuya took them all back to feed the girls who were growing.

Shen Huai: I just can't bear to see such a young child around me go hungry!

So every time I went to someone's house, I would always have extra things in my pockets when I came back from work.

Sometimes it's a steamed bun, sometimes it's a few peanuts, and if you're lucky, you might even get an egg.

It's all the farmers' simple sincerity!

So Shen Huai didn't mind. Sometimes, after calculating the grain, the village head or Doctor Gao would go off to do other things.

Shen Huai would stay behind and help the neighbors with any other accounts they needed help with.

Shen Huai: He who eats another's food is bound to him; he who takes another's money is bound to him.

Since I brought food back to give the four girls extra meals, they've been smiling more and showing even more affection for their youngest sister.

Given our family's circumstances, it's usually too difficult for us to even have enough to eat!

Furthermore, after Wuya brought honor to her parents, every eight or nine days, the whole family would save an egg from their food rations and stew it for Wuya.

Shen Huai was too embarrassed to eat by himself, so Wu Ya's father or mother would simply hold the child in their arms and feed her.

Shen Huai: This special treatment really doesn't sit well with me.

We're really poor, but everyone seems quite kind and compassionate. Let's just live like this.

Let's see if we can use our knowledge to help improve the lives of these kind and simple 'family members'~

There's still hope for the future~

Love makes even water taste sweet.

During this time, Shen Huai had new plans:

None of my studies are useful, but no matter the era, studying medicine is never a bad thing!

I want to study medicine!

Doctor Gao is a very nice person. I'll shamelessly go to his place first and get to know him!

Except when they have work to do, Wu Ya's parents are paying less and less attention to her these days; they just let her come home to sleep at night.

After all, although he was just a baby, he was the only one in the family who received wages.

So, whenever Shen Huai had free time, he would start going to see Doctor Gao.

When you arrive, greet him sweetly as "Uncle Gao." If Doctor Gao asks you any questions, answer him with the simplest words possible.

They even proactively helped sort the herbs that were drying, and when they had nothing to do, they would quietly sit by and flip through books with illustrations of herbs.

Gao Lang is very happy to have children with him!

Shen Huai: Four key points to getting closer to elders

Sensible, loves learning, doesn't make a fuss, and proactively helps with chores!

Shen Huai was happy to quietly learn some traditional Chinese medicine knowledge!

Win-win situation~

Of course, there are still many words that I don't understand and I have to guess them from the context.

But it's still okay to look at the familiar appearance of the herbs.

I could guess the uses of the herbs from the few words I could read.

It wouldn't be surprising if we asked Doctor Gao again after we've learned more characters and grown a bit older.

For someone with no prior knowledge, it's always a good idea to do thorough preparation before learning a difficult text!

Try to write down some herbs for treating colds, fevers, inflammation, and external injuries, as these are commonly used in this era.

Regarding improving conditions, Shen Huai's plan is as follows:

How can we expect the villagers to grow grain only twice a year?

With the current planting technology, we can only plant for one night a year, relying entirely on the blessings of nature.

Our great Communist Party of China has said:

To shake off poverty, we must ensure that people have enough to eat.

The children are able to go to school.

Everyone can afford medical care.

Agriculture is a crucial and essential focus in the fight against poverty!

In this day and age, going to school has to be put on hold; food and medical care are major problems.

For most families, eating is simply about keeping themselves from starving.

As long as you don't die from illness, you can keep going.

This is terrifying!

Shen Huai thought: Take it slow, slowly figure out how to make things better.

However, the current wages are definitely not enough!

This year's harvest is good, and every household has some surplus grain to sell.

If the harvest is bad, Shen Huai doesn't even dare to think about how he'll get through the year.

Fortunately, there's still a long way to go, and we'll find a solution eventually.

Putting aside everything else.

First, we have to live a life where we have toilet paper!

This is the first small goal!

By any means necessary, we will accomplish our mission!

As the weather grew colder, even the poorest families couldn't bear it any longer and started heating their kang (a traditional heated brick bed).

Before we knew it, it was December, and the market days were starting. It was also the last market day of the year in Duoshui Town.

The men in the village wrote down what they needed to buy and what they needed to sell.

If any neighbors have difficulty making purchases, they help each other sell or buy things on their behalf.

It's the last market day of the year, and everyone is taking their wives and older children to town together.

Shen Huai: The villagers are still very simple and honest.