A Farm Girl: Three Acres of Fertile Land Can Be Exchanged for a Country

As she watched, Wutong seemed to have taken a sleeping potion and fell asleep once again.

She woke up at dawn, and the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was the dried letter and the flickering candlelight below.

Even though she knew it was impossible, she quickly sat up, wanting to take the letter and read it.

Just then, a cold morning breeze blew in through the window. Wutong watched helplessly as the letter was blown by the wind, a corner of it caught fire, and the dry paper, which had been baked all night, instantly ignited.

"do not want!"

She screamed, snatched the paper, and forcefully extinguished the flame with her fingers.

Unfortunately, it was still one step too late. A large section of the lower right corner of the letter was burned off, and the remaining area was still blurry.

Shan was awakened by her shouts. He opened his eyes blankly and saw her sitting cross-legged on the quilt, pressing her forehead and holding a crumpled piece of paper in her hand.

"Is it dry yet?"

Shan sat up and asked.

Wutong hummed in agreement, silently stuffed the letter into her bosom, and got out of bed to get dressed.

Breakfast consisted of thin, watery porridge, along with two steamed buns.

After they finished eating, the two asked the proprietress if she knew anything about Furong Street.

The proprietress blushed immediately upon hearing this.

"We are all respectable people, how could we possibly know about such things? You two gentlemen, do you perhaps want to go there for fun?"

Wutong gave a perfunctory reply, and Tongshan went out to ask other people in the village.

The two stayed in the village for two or three days, and not a single day was idle. They asked around about almost everything they met.

However, no one knew about that incident. They only knew that there was a Furong Street in the city, but they had no idea how the women on the street came to be.

Shan asked, feeling deflated, and couldn't help but say, "Could it be that fatso is lying to us? He just wants to get the blueprints and is just making up a pretext."

Wutong recalled the situation at the time and felt that it was unlikely. It was probably because there weren't many girls in the village, so those men were too lazy to come.

They had a car and enough fuel. In order to find the answer, Wutong decided to go to a more distant place, so for the next few days, they would go out after breakfast.

The villages in the Central Plains are now so scattered that it's appalling. Sometimes they can spend a whole day out and not encounter a single living person. But there are wild dogs everywhere that eat carrion, their eyes bloodshot, looking like demons.

Shan hadn't been to the Central Plains for many years. Although she didn't want to go home to see her parents, this was, after all, the place where she grew up. Finding it so desolate for the first time, she felt quite sad.

Another day of fruitless effort. Wutong drove the car to the yard and was about to go in when she heard painful sobbing coming from inside.

The two exchanged a glance, opened the car door, and got in. The scene that greeted them was the proprietress squatting on the ground crying, while her two sons stood blankly beside her, at a loss, unusually quiet.

It was clear something had happened. Wutong walked over to the proprietress and asked, "Shopkeeper, what's wrong?"

The proprietress raised her swollen, red eyes, her face streaked with tears.

"Waaah, what a tragedy... How could people in this world be so wicked... My mother and I have always lived peacefully and honestly, never offending anyone, why did they have to do this to us..."

Wutong was completely confused, while the proprietress was heartbroken and had no intention of explaining.

Until her eldest son said, "Someone stole our family's grain."

Wutong suddenly realized what was going on and noticed that the proprietress had an empty bag in her hand, with not a single grain of rice left.

No matter the era, eating is always the most important thing.

There were no grain stores in the village, and each household was self-sufficient. No one had any surplus grain, and without grain, they could only wait to starve to death.

Wutong helped the proprietress to a chair and poured her a glass of water, finally managing to stop her pain.

With a sob in her voice, the proprietress recounted the whole story.

It turned out that after making lunch, she saw her two sons were still playing outside, so she closed the yard gate to go find them. But when she returned, she found the gate wide open and someone rummaging through things inside.

She knew they were there to steal, so she grabbed a machete and rushed inside.

The man was extremely arrogant. He kicked her away and, right in front of her, poured all the rice, flour, oil, salt, and other things into the wooden bucket he had brought, then fled as fast as he could.

Not only did the proprietress fail to stop him, but he also kicked her in the waist, causing her excruciating pain. She sat on the ground and cried, feeling like there was no way out for her.

Her husband doesn't know when he'll be back, and she has two children to support. What should she do?

Shan said, "Go buy the grain. Didn't we give you money? If you're worried about the child, we can watch over him for a day."

The proprietress shook her head.

“Where can we buy it? Our grain is distributed uniformly by Phoenix City. We can only go into the city to buy grain once every two months. My share was sold out last month.”

Wutong frowned. "So strict?"

The proprietress said, "You guys clearly have no experience running a household, you don't understand. Several years ago, there were hardly any people farming in the Central Plains anymore. All the grain was brought in from beyond the Great Wall, it was all the emperor's grain. Since you want to eat, of course you have to be mindful of his mood."

Shan cursed, "This is disgusting! How are ordinary people supposed to live? Everyone has their share of troubles sometimes. Are we just supposed to let them sit there and starve to death?"

The proprietress looked dejected.

"I've had enough of this kind of life, I don't want to live it for another day. It's a good thing my two sons were born early, otherwise they wouldn't even have had the chance to open their eyes and see me. Life will only get harder as it goes on, I don't want to..."

She covered her mouth, unable to say anything more, tears streaming down her face.

Wutong understood the meaning behind her words and quickly tried to persuade her.

"Shopkeeper, please don't think too much. We won't starve. I still have some money here. It's not enough to eat, but there are definitely people in the village who need it. Ask them if they can sell you some at a higher price. Get whatever you can."

The proprietress looked up in surprise as a few banknotes were slipped into her hand.

"You really want to..."

"Go quickly," Wutong said.

The proprietress clenched her fists tightly, stood up and said, "Alright, since you all say so, I'll give it a try. I'll trouble you to keep an eye on the children for me."

Wutong reassured her that she would definitely not let anything happen to the child.

The proprietress took the money and left, not returning until late at night. She had spent all the money, and now she had a bag in her hand containing a sachet of buckwheat noodles.

"I begged and pleaded, but this is all I got. Nobody wants to sell their grain. What are we going to do..."

The proprietress asked with a worried expression.

Wutong looked at them and comforted them, "It's alright, it's only about half a month until the end of the month. If you eat sparingly, it will be enough."

"What about you?"

"I forgot to mention, we were planning to leave today anyway."

"Go? Where?"

Wutong smiled and said, "There's no need to know that. Anyway... thank you for your hospitality these past two days."

After saying that, they went to their room and started packing their luggage.

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