Chapter 255: Giving Away Money
Bai Zhi was amused. Since everyone was looking out for her, she might as well enjoy the feeling of being doted on and cared for. After all, in their eyes, she was still just a little girl.
‘Perhaps this special treatment won’t last long as I get older.’
The four of them were all deft hands at this kind of work, and it didn’t take long to fill all the cloth sacks they had brought to the brim.
Zhao Lan had sewn these cloth sacks herself. Yesterday, they had come and dug half a sack of earth melons, which they weighed at home. Half a sack was twenty-five jin, meaning a full one was fifty jin. Bai Zhi had brought five sacks and filled all five to the brim with earth melons, for a total of one hundred twenty-five jin.
Before they left, one of the hired women reminded Bai Zhi, “Zhi, aren’t you going to leave a mark in the field?”
Bai Zhi was puzzled. “A mark? Why would I do that?”
The woman said, “Zhi, you’re still young and don’t know about a lot of things, which is understandable. Let this auntie tell you something. Everyone in our village seems friendly on the surface, but they all have their own schemes. Times are tough for everyone right now. The green wheat isn’t ripe yet, but your earth melons are. Some people care about their reputation and might not think of stealing your melons, but you have to understand, there are plenty of shameless people in our village.”
Bai Zhi understood. When it came to shameless people, the first ones who came to her mind were the Bai Family. The Bai family members were famous for their lack of shame; it was entirely possible they would come and try to steal her earth melons.
“Alright, I’ll make a mark.” She returned to the plot, picked up a stone, and made a few marks in the ground. Now, if anyone touched the earth melons here, she would be able to tell at a glance from the marks, as the soil in the other areas hadn’t been disturbed.
The group returned to the village. Bai Zhi took out fifty copper coins and gave twenty-five to each of the two women, along with two jin of earth melons.
The two women were overjoyed. “We agreed on twenty copper coins. Why are you giving us an extra five?”
Bai Zhi smiled. “You worked hard today. Just think of it as a bonus for the first day of the harvest. And take these two jin of earth melons home to eat. Remember, eat them as soon as possible. If you let them sit for too long and they sprout or turn green, they can’t be eaten anymore. You must remember this.”
The two women had a sudden realization. “Oh, so those people who were poisoned by earth melons back then, it was because they ate sprouted ones?”
The other woman chimed in, “No wonder! I was thinking, we grew some earth melons in our field back then, and my whole family ate plenty without any problems. I didn’t believe the rumors when they started, but then they spread like wildfire, and I got too scared not to believe them. So that was the reason.”
Bai Zhi said, “Earth melons are good food. Don’t let them go to waste.”
The two women thanked her and headed home, grinning from ear to ear the whole way. Whenever they met someone, they couldn’t help but show off a little.
And why wouldn’t they show off? Their husbands sometimes found odd jobs, but they’d work themselves to the bone for a whole day and still not earn this much. All they did was follow Zhi to dig some earth melons, and they received such high wages. What a bargain.
The news quickly reached the Bai Family. Old Mrs. Bai was so angry she threw a stool. “That damn girl! She has a chance to make money and doesn’t even think of her two uncles. Instead, she just gives it away to a bunch of outsiders. It’s enough to make me die of anger!”
Liu added fuel to the fire, “It wasn’t just money, she gave them earth melons, too. We wanted to ask for some of her melons, and before we could even open our mouths, she insulted us every which way.”