Reborn before the famine, kicking away the scumbag's family and living a carefree life.

36. Trade-in

My sister and Cao Yunhua insisted on using the previous forty yuan to offset the cost of the grain.

They all knew that Su Jinru had borrowed 100 yuan from the production team, 100 yuan from her family, and 40 yuan from their own family to build the house, owing a total of 240 yuan. Now she had spent money to buy so much grain, leaving her heavily in debt. As her younger sister, how could they possibly accept the grain without spending a penny of their own money?

To appease her sister, Su Jinru had no choice but to accept their suggestion and pay them thirty yuan for the grain.

In other words, after deducting the forty yuan borrowed from her second sister's family from the grain, Su Jinru still owes her second sister's family ten yuan.

Su Jinru talked to her sister about the events that had occurred during the famine. She told her sister that since they had some food for the time being, they should stay home with the children and not go out.

My sister nodded.

"Now that no one is working, most of the people going out are looking for food. They all look like starving wolves, exuding a dangerous aura. For now, since we have some food, it's safe to stay at home."

Cao Yunhua said with lingering fear, "You brought so much grain with you just now. Luckily, you didn't encounter any bad guys. You can't do that again. You should have asked me to go get it! It's dangerous for a woman to walk on the road, let alone carry so much grain."

"Our two villages are only a short distance apart, it's fine. But thanks for reminding me, I can't be so reckless in the future."

Su Jinru noticed it was already midday and realized she needed to go to the county town to buy some things.

After saying goodbye to her sister's family, Su Jinru headed towards the county town.

Along the way, there were beggars who were starving and on the verge of death.

Su Jinru was dressed in tattered clothes, and she covered her hair and face, revealing only her eyes. In appearance, she was no different from these beggars.

No one would notice a person walking down the street like a beggar.

When she arrived in the county town, the people there were all about the same – people everywhere were starving.

Su Jinru went directly to the department store.

At that time, the canteens of collective units in the county still had a little surplus food, but not much. The collective canteens of the units only served one meal a day, which was just porridge that was almost empty and not filling at all.

The department store is no longer as bustling as it used to be.

The shelves selling cookies and candies were completely empty, having been snapped up long ago, and there was no stock to replenish them.

No one came to the shelves selling clothes, pants, shoes, and fabrics.

Su Jinru walked to the stationery counter.

A male sales clerk in his thirties looked up at Su Jinru, then lowered his head again and closed his eyes to rest.

"Give me fifty pencils, one hundred notebooks, and one hundred sheets of draft paper."

Pencils cost one cent each, notebooks cost five cents each, and draft paper cost two cents each.

"It costs four yuan and fifty cents in total."

The sales clerk tossed the items onto the counter and glanced curiously at Su Jinru.

At this time, schools were closed and everyone was only concerned about food. Was she crazy to buy so many pencils and notebooks?

Su Jinru glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then whispered, "Could we use rice to pay for this?"

The other person's eyes widened.

"Rice? You have rice?"

Su Jinru grabbed a small handful of rice from the cloth bag, held her hand out in front of the salesperson, and opened her hand.

The sales clerk was surprised and grabbed a few grains of rice with her hand.

"It really is rice!"

He looked around excitedly, and when no one noticed them, he asked in a low voice, "How much is this rice?"

"One yuan per pound, these things cost four yuan and fifty cents, so I'll give you four and a half pounds."

Rice used to sell for 50 cents a pound, but Su Jinru is now asking for one yuan a pound, which is much cheaper than the five yuan a pound on the black market.

The sales clerk looked excitedly at Su Jinru's cloth bag and said, "How many do you have? I'll take them all."

"Fifteen pounds."

Su Jinru didn't want to sell too much rice to individuals, as it wouldn't be good for either of them.

Moreover, her cloth bag can only hold this much rice.

The other person's eyes lit up with excitement.

"I want them all."

Do you have bags for storing rice?

"Yes, yes, yes, I happen to have one here."

Su Jinru poured the rice from the cloth bag into the other person's bag, put it on the scale, and it weighed exactly fifteen jin.

After deducting the four yuan and fifty cents worth of goods, the salesperson gave Su Jinru ten yuan and fifty cents.

Su Jinru put the pencils and notebooks into her cloth bag, but actually she secretly put them into her spatial storage.

Using the same method, Su Jinru bought herself four sets of cotton underwear, three pieces of clothing, three pairs of pants, a pair of slippers, a pair of square-toed leather shoes, and a pair of cloth shoes.

She bought two sets of clothes for her son, and the same for her daughter.

She also bought towels, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and four basins of different sizes: one for washing her face, one for washing her feet, one for taking a bath, and one for washing food.

I also bought a quilt with eight pounds of cotton, a duvet cover, and a bed sheet.

When I got to the condiment counter, I bought five pounds of salt and a case of soy sauce.

When she arrived at the cosmetics counter, she bought ten bars of soap, twenty bars of soap, three boxes of face cream, and three boxes of hand cream.

I bought some hair accessories, hair ties, and hair bands for my daughter and myself. I also bought a large mirror and two small round mirrors.

She also bought two balls and a hundred balloons for her two children, a toy gun for her son, and a doll for her daughter. She wanted to buy more toys, but there were so few toys available for children at that time.

In short, she visited every counter in the department store.

I bought a lot of daily necessities, clothes, and the like.

She put everything into her spatial storage, and fearing that the sales clerks in the department store would notice her unusual behavior, she quickly bought the items and ran out of the department store.

Su Jinru went to Xinhua Bookstore again and used the same method to exchange for a complete set of junior high school textbooks, senior high school textbooks, and some storybooks, such as the Four Great Classical Novels, the Classic of Mountains and Seas, and Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio.

She also bought three Xinhua dictionaries, one for her younger brother, one for her son, and one for her daughter.

Su Jinru planted four mu of rice, with a yield of 900 jin of rice per mu, for a total of 3,600 jin of rice.

During her trip to the department store and Xinhua Bookstore, she exchanged over 300 kilograms of rice for all the daily necessities she needed and some books.

In addition to the daily necessities she received in exchange, she also received eighty yuan.

With the ten yuan Dingxiang gave her, she earned a total of ninety yuan today.

Su Jinru also bought a folding knife as a weapon for self-defense.

In short, on this day, she not only delivered some food to her parents, her younger sister, and Dingxiang's family, but she also exchanged many things and earned ninety yuan.

After that, she stayed home and stayed with her two children, no longer going out.

On the way home, there were many beggars wandering around, looking lost and confused.

Some people even fainted from hunger.

Su Jinru wanted to give him even a sweet potato, but she was afraid that others would surround her and beg for it, like a pack of wolves surrounding a prey. Just thinking about the consequences made her shudder, so she gave up the idea and walked on with her head down.

She has parents, siblings, and two children who need her care!

Sometimes, excessive compassion can be a disaster.

She's a frail woman; she can barely take care of herself!

Fortunately, she covered her face, so no one recognized her as a young woman. Fortunately, she was empty-handed, so people could tell she didn't have anything valuable on her. That's why she was able to travel back and forth safely.