Chapter 8 A bulging money bag

It wasn't until the sky completely darkened that Qiao Sanhu and Qiao Sihai, who had gone out to look for water and wild vegetables, came back with Qiao Dong and Qiao Nan.

"Mom, we haven't found any water source. The area around here has been searched by people fleeing the famine for a hundred feet, and no one has seen any water. There are so many wild vegetables dug on the road, and many of the grasses are dead. Even the wild vegetables are difficult to dig. "

Qiao Sanhu held a small handful of wilted wild vegetables and said with some annoyance.

Mrs. Qiao took one look at it and sighed: "That's all, take it to your sister-in-law! Let her make a pot of paste with cornmeal and black flour. Let's fill our stomachs and rest early. We'll see if we can drive more tomorrow. We can’t go beyond the several fleeing teams in front, and go to the front to find more food.”

Qiao Ran, who had just eaten a bowl of rice porridge that was bland but easy to swallow, frowned as her third uncle handed the small handful of wild vegetables to her mother.

Then I saw my mother taking out a few handfuls of cornmeal mixed with black flour from a small cloth bag. Since there was no water to wash the vegetables, the wild vegetables were chopped and mixed with the batter and cooked together in the pot.

Are there still sand and soil on the wild vegetables? And if there is no oil or salt, you will know how unpalatable the food will be.

well! How miserable people are in these famine years! There was no water, let alone food!

It would be great if I could take out the things from my farmyard!

She really wanted to try again to see if she could enter the small courtyard, but now that there were so many people and her grandma was still looking at her, she was afraid that something would go wrong, so she had to give up the idea first.

Suddenly, Qiao Ran thought that she still had the money bag found in Wang Yuanwai's body in her arms, and quickly took it out from her arms.

"Ran Ran, this is..."

Mrs. Qiao looked at her granddaughter's bulging money bag in surprise.

Qiao Ran put the money bag into grandma's hand and lowered her voice and said to her: "Grandma, I found this from Wang Yuanwai. You keep it well and don't let anyone else know. Let Third Uncle get some money. Go and buy some food and water with others, so that everyone can have a good meal tonight."

Qiao Ran knew that her family had not had a full meal for many days.

They had been on the road to escape for more than a month and had almost finished the little food they brought from home. They could only dig some wild vegetables and fruits along the way to satisfy their hunger, and sometimes they had to dig up grass roots to eat.

A full meal is an extremely luxurious thing for these people fleeing famine.

Mrs. Qiao opened the money bag and took a look, and she was dumbfounded.

Everything you see is white silver, including five or ten taels of silver ingots, some scattered broken silver, and only a few copper plates.

"So many, then there must be dozens of taels?"

Mrs. Qiao shook her hands and couldn't believe her eyes.

Their family of more than ten people earned less than five taels of silver a year. They fled the famine and went to the city to buy some oil, salt, rice, noodles, etc. Almost all the money in the family was spent, and they only had a few dozen cents. Now Ran But Ran took out so much money in one go.

"Ranran, you..."

Mrs. Qiao didn't know what to say. This poor granddaughter, who had been stupid for several years, didn't expect that not only would she regain her sanity, but she would also be able to bring so much money to the family.

But that's not all, Qiao Ran secretly said in her ear: "Grandma, I still have a lot of banknotes on me!"

After saying that, he turned around, stood closely with his grandma, blocking the view of outsiders, and took out a stack of banknotes from his lapel.

Mrs. Qiao had never seen a banknote in her life. She was dumbfounded when she saw the large stack of paper that her granddaughter took out.

"Grandma, hurry up and collect it. Our family will not have to worry about food and clothing in the future. However, we have to take the banknotes to the city to exchange for money. We are dressed in such rags now. People will know that we are disaster victims at a glance, and the evil-minded people may be ignorant. If they get our banknote, they may even report it to the official and say that our banknote came from something wrong. So don’t use the banknote for now, wait until things settle down.”

Mrs. Qiao looked at her granddaughter with complicated eyes, who now spoke clearly and clearly, and was even much smarter than the average person. A ridiculous idea flashed through her mind, but she didn't want to believe it.

That's all, no matter what, this child is not a bad person after all. She didn't keep so much money for herself. She gave it all to herself as a grandmother. She should protect her more in the future!

Mrs. Qiao took out half of the banknotes and gave several ingots of silver to Qiao Ran: "Ranran, you got this money. Grandma can use half of it to support the family. You can keep these and use them as dowry for yourself in the future. .”

Qiao Ran was about to refuse, but saw that her third uncle had already walked back this way, so she had no choice but to give up and quickly stuffed the banknote into her sleeve.

When Qiao Sanhu came over, Mrs. Qiao took out a piece of broken silver and handed it to him: "Lao San, take this money and exchange it with Zhang Dahu's family in the next village for some food and water. Let your sister-in-law make more tonight." Eat, let’s eat well so we can go on the road tomorrow.”

Qiao Sanhu looked at the broken piece of silver in his hand in surprise, what's going on? Why are you so generous all of a sudden?

There shouldn’t be much money left at home, right? Why did he suddenly take out the money to buy food to feed them?

"Mom, what are you..."

"Go if I tell you to. What are you talking about?"

Full of questions, Qiao Sanhu went to Zhang Dahu and bought half a bag of cornmeal and two water bags from him.

There was no way, there was a famine now, food prices were soaring, and water was more expensive than oil. A small piece of broken silver could only be exchanged for this, but Zhang Dahu also generously gave him a few pickled cabbage plants.

Qiao Sanhu handed the noodles and water to his sister-in-law and repeated what I said.

Chen Huiniang glanced in the direction of her mother-in-law and daughter in surprise. Thinking of something, she silently accepted the food and water.

I mixed some more noodles, spread them into pancakes and stuck them on the edge of the pot. I cut half a pickled cabbage and put it into the batter to add some flavor.

That night, each member of the Qiao family had a pancake and a bowl of batter. The little ones had bulging bellies, and the adults also had a rare chance of being 80% full, and they were all extremely satisfied.

Most of the surrounding villagers only held bowls of porridge and batter so thin that their shadows could be seen, looking eagerly at the bread in the hands of the Qiao family, and secretly wondering where the Qiao family could get enough money to buy food.

Qiao Ran also took a piece of flour biscuit and ate it slowly. The saltless and flavorless flour biscuit was very unpalatable, but seeing that everyone in her family was so satisfied with the meal, she couldn't show her displeasure.

Halfway through the pancake, a pair of broken shoes suddenly appeared in front of him.

Qiao Ran looked up and saw a tall, thin young man with a somewhat handsome face standing in front of him.

Seeing her looking at him, the man looked away from the pancake in her hand. The smile on his face seemed a bit fake to Qiao Ran.

"Ran Ran, I heard that you were injured, so I came to see you. How are you now? Are you feeling better?"