Rebirth: Making a Fortune in Ancient Times

The group went to the grain store where they had bought cornmeal last time. They hadn't been able to afford to buy more wheat flour at home for a long time, but now that they had some money, Liu and her family wanted to buy something better for their children. Because of the poor harvest, grain prices had risen sharply in the past two years. In the past, when there was a good harvest, cornmeal cost only two coins per pound, but now it had risen to three coins, and wheat flour to six coins per pound. Liu bought thirty pounds of wheat flour. Rice cost five coins per pound, so she bought ten pounds. Xia Yu was going home to make mung bean cakes, so she bought five pounds of mung beans, which cost five coins per pound. The final bill came to two hundred and fifty-five coins. Liu asked that the five-coin change be rounded down. The shopkeeper hesitated at first, but after thinking about it, he agreed.

Zhang Youtie personally went to weigh everything, making sure each item was in good condition before packing it into bags. Once everything was packed, the boss again arranged for someone to deliver it to their oxcart.

As soon as they stepped outside, they saw the butcher's stall from last time. Xia Yu wanted to buy some pork belly to make braised pork. Before she could even ask, her father had already led them to the stall. After asking the price, it was the same as before. Xia Yu gestured with her hand on the pork, indicating to the butcher where to cut it. The piece she gestured was quite large. The butcher looked up at Zhang Youtie and Liu Shi, asking for their opinion. "Just cut it where the child indicated," Zhang Youtie said, nodding to the butcher. Seeing that the adults agreed, the butcher was happy to sell more and cut it according to where Xia Yu had gestured. When it was weighed, it was a whopping five jin and three liang.

"There are seventy-four coins in total. If you can't finish them all, I can cut off some more."

"No need to cut it anymore, this much is fine," said Madam Liu.

Xia Yu looked at the basket under the meat counter; there were two large, cleaned pork bones and a pig's liver. "Boss, we want so much, can you throw in the two pork bones for free?"

The shop owner glanced down at the basket and said, "Okay, take it if you like. Don't be fooled by the lack of meat; it's especially delicious in soups or noodles."

"How much is the pig liver?" Xia Yu asked again.

"A pig liver costs ten coins, but if you want it, take eight."

"Okay, then give me the pig intestines next to you." Xia Yu didn't hesitate and asked for the pig intestines that were about to be thrown away on the ground after agreeing on the price.

"That stuff is difficult to make; the fishy smell is very hard to get rid of," the shop owner kindly reminded him.

"It's okay, take it home and try it. You're going to throw it away anyway, and if you cook it well, it'll be a meat dish, right? If you don't cook it well, it's just a waste of firewood."

"It would be great if the little girl could make it; my wife tried to do it before, but it never worked—it smelled awful."

Watching her daughter talk to the butcher, Madam Liu understood somewhat. Her daughter had lived in another world for so many years and had seen far more than they had. Perhaps she had even eaten pig intestines in that world and knew how to cook them. So when Zhang Youtie was about to object, she tugged at him from under her sleeve, telling him to be quiet.

Xia Yu was actually quite happy to have successfully obtained the pig intestines. A common scene in time-travel novels is that ancient people didn't know how to prepare intestines and would throw them away. Last time she came to the butcher stall, she didn't see any intestines and assumed it was just fiction in the novels. But when she looked down at the pig bones and saw the pig intestines thrown on the ground, she realized that what was described in novels was true. She wasn't planning to get rich from pig intestines, but being able to take them home for free and cook them for her family was nice enough.

Because of the large intestine, Xia Yu realized that the seasonings they had at home weren't enough, so she told her parents they needed to buy some more. After wandering around for a while, they returned to the general store. This time, Xia Yu bought two ounces of Sichuan peppercorns, two ounces of black pepper, two pounds of white sugar, cinnamon, star anise, and a little bit of bay leaves. The final bill came to a whopping seventy copper coins! Seeing that so little she was carrying cost so much, she was shocked and quickly pulled the shopkeeper aside to ask how much each item cost. She discovered that the most expensive item was white sugar, which cost twenty-five copper coins per pound.

"Wow, white sugar is so expensive!"

"Young lady, this sugar is transported from the south. I heard that the production process is very complicated and the output is not large. My little shop doesn't always have it in stock. I just happen to be able to get a few pounds of it."

"Then I don't want it, it's too expensive." Xia Yu felt it wasn't worth it. By this calculation, the mung bean cakes at the pastry shop, at twenty-five coins per catty, didn't seem expensive at all.

"Hey boss, wrap it up for us! Daughter, if you want to eat it, we'll buy it. Didn't the boss say that they don't always have stock? It's lucky we caught it."

After saying that, she quickly paid the money to the shop owner. Xia Yu wanted to say something more, but Liu Shi patted her arm reassuringly.

Having bought everything, the family prepared to return home. Back in the courtyard where they had initially parked the oxcart, Zhang Youtie went to the counter to complete the formalities. The tables, chairs, and grain they had purchased had already been delivered, and the shop assistant helped load them onto the oxcart. The family returned home laden with their purchases. However, halfway there, when no one was around, Liu had Xia Yu store everything in her spatial storage, except for the three wooden buckets they had brought. People are fickle these days; they shouldn't display so much flour and meat that everyone could see.

Back in the village, Zhang Youtie first unloaded his own buckets into the yard, then drove the car to the village chief's house. Liu Shi, with her son and daughter, went back into the house to take out all the things they had bought, sorting and tidying them up. However, she didn't take out the rattan table and chairs that Xia Yu had chosen herself; she put them in her spatial storage so that she would have a place to sit when she visited it later.

Looking at the large basin of pig intestines on the ground, Liu asked her daughter, "Shall we make this today?"

"I'll clean out the filth inside first. This stuff stinks. I'll go wash it by the river." Actually, Xia Yu also disliked the pig intestines filled with feces. But for now, this was the most primitive state, and if she wanted to eat it, she had to clean it herself.

"I'll go wash it. What are you doing washing pig intestines, you little girl! Tell me how to clean them and I'll go wash them." Although Liu didn't know if they would be edible in the end, she still couldn't bear to let her daughter clean a bag full of pig intestines filled with feces.

"Mom, why don't I let my brother come with me? I can put this in my spatial storage first and take it out when we get to the river. Besides, I'll only be washing the dirt out of the river; I won't be using my hands much. I'll wash it thoroughly when we get back. If you go, you'll have to go all the way there smelling bad, and if people see you, you'll have to explain yourself. You can also put away the things we bought today at home; my brother isn't good at doing these things."

After thinking about what her daughter said carefully, Liu felt that it made a lot of sense, so she let the two children go by themselves.

Xia Yu put the pig intestines into her spatial storage, and then asked her brother to dig up a small basin of wood ash from the stove and put it into the storage as well. The two siblings carried the empty basin towards the river, but this time they didn't go to the place where the villagers usually washed clothes. Instead, they went downstream from where they usually washed clothes. After making sure no one was around, Xia Yu put her hands into the basin and took out the pig intestines and wood ash. Following his sister's instructions, the two siblings found a stick and turned the pig intestines inside out. The smell of the dark green feces inside almost made them vomit. Carefully avoiding the feces falling on their feet, the two of them each took one end of the stick and put the whole pig intestine into the stream to rinse it.

Only after the stream had washed away all the dark green feces did Xia Yu grab a handful of wood ash, apply it, and rub vigorously. Chang Yun, watching his sister's actions, suppressed his nausea and followed suit, grabbing a handful of wood ash to scrub the inside of the pig's large intestine. The siblings cleaned it bit by bit, again and again, until all the remaining feces were washed away, leaving only white grease. They then cleaned away the excess grease and lymph nodes by hand, and turned it inside out. They also scrubbed the outer wall with wood ash.

"Okay, bro, let's go home."

"Okay, I'll carry the basin."

After Xia Yu put the large intestine back into her spatial storage, Chang Yun carried the empty basin, and the two went home together. Unbeknownst to them, a pair of eyes had been watching their retreating figures for a very long time from a clump of grass.