Chapter 3: Will Fifty Work for You?
“She really started working!”
Jian Xingxia was incredibly surprised.
As she worked inside the house, she would occasionally observe this “hired hand” who had come from the mountains.
Despite how thin and small Taoya looked, she worked even more efficiently than Jian Xingxia. It had taken Jian Xingxia an hour to clear out one room, yet Taoya had pulled up a vast patch of weeds in just over half an hour.
Jian Xingxia observed the area cleared; the distance was well over twenty meters, nearing thirty.
Taoya was still buried in her work, clearly intending to keep going until Jian Xingxia told her to stop.
Jian Xingxia watched as she worked, and an hour flew by.
She took a look toward the back door and saw that the girl had cleared a wide circle along the iron fence of the back courtyard, stretching a good fifty meters.
All weeds over ten centimeters high had been torn out, and three piles of items were placed on the ground near the back courtyard gate.
One pile was a dozen or so pheasant eggs.
One pile was wild vegetables, among which Jian Xingxia recognized purslane.
And a third pile was a jumble of wild grasses that Jian Xingxia didn’t recognize.
She called out to stop, and Taoya stood up timidly, hiding her wounded hands behind her back.
She looked at Jian Xingxia and the house in front of her with unease and fear.
She had never seen a house like this—tall, big, and imposing enough to be intimidating.
Jian Xingxia pointed to the third pile of wild grasses and asked, “What is this?”
Taoya’s face, already flushed red from work, turned even deeper as she stammered, “It’s… wild vegetables.”
Jian Xingxia had lived in the countryside and recognized some wild vegetables. She pointed to the pile next to the pheasant eggs and said, “Didn’t you put the wild vegetables over here?”
This pile should be the wild vegetables!
Taoya’s voice dropped even lower. “That one is wild vegetables, that one… is also edible.”
Jian Xingxia looked at that pile of grasses, along with grass roots, tree bark, and some grass seeds, and truly couldn’t believe her ears: “That’s edible too?”
“Yes, it is.”
Taoya noticed that Jian Xingxia wasn’t angry, only surprised.
She gathered her courage to explain, “There’s a famine in the village, there’s no grain, and even the wild vegetables have all been picked. We eat grass roots and tree bark… I thought you probably wouldn’t want these, so I set them aside.”
As Taoya spoke, her voice grew quieter and quieter.
She picked helplessly at the mud on her hands, regretting her actions.
Anything in the field, even a single blade of grass, belonged to the master of the house.
She had finally found someone willing to let her work, and on the very first day, she had pulled a stunt like this.
In her anxiety, Taoya actually plopped down and knelt before Jian Xingxia.
“I’m sorry, sister, I shouldn’t have, I shouldn’t have taken your wild vegetables!”
This is no wild vegetable!
Jian Xingxia sighed inwardly, recalling her original intention for studying Agronomy: she had heard stories about the Great Famine from her grandmother when she was young and wanted to help more people have enough to eat.
And the little girl before her was verifying the stories of the famine.
But what she couldn’t understand was, with the power of the state, even if Taoya lived deep in the mountains, it was highly unlikely she would suffer a famine so severe she had to eat tree bark and grass roots, right?
Yet, a person like a bag of bones was right before her.
Jian Xingxia had to set aside her doubts and deal with the immediate situation first.
She had Taoya stand far away while she opened the back courtyard gate. Finding nothing unusual, she let Taoya come closer.
When she touched arms as thin as reed stalks, she felt she had been a bit too cautious. With arms this thin, she could snap them with the slightest bit of force.
Taoya didn’t dare move, letting Jian Xingxia pinch her arm.
This texture… she really is a living person! Jian Xingxia muttered to herself.
Jian Xingxia used the hem of her shirt to scoop up the pheasant eggs and had Taoya bring in the wild vegetables.
Taoya complied. She had picked two or three pounds of wild vegetables from the extended area of the back courtyard.
She crouched down and hugged them to her chest.
But the moment she stood up, she felt a wave of dizziness and thud—she collapsed against the back courtyard door.
Jian Xingxia had just placed the eggs on the small wooden table in the parlor when she heard the sound. Turning around, Taoya was already on the ground.
She had fallen, but she still held the wild vegetables tightly in her arms.
Jian Xingxia rushed over to help her up.
The moment she lifted her, she nearly used too much force—the girl weighed probably only about twenty kilograms, much lighter than she had anticipated.
Her bones were practically sharp against Jian Xingxia’s hand.
Jian Xingxia looked at Taoya’s pale lips, thought of the famine she had mentioned, and hurriedly rummaged through her small shoulder bag.
She found one, took it out—xylitol, no good.
Fortunately, the second one was a lemon candy she had prepared in case she got carsick on the bus.
She popped the lemon candy into Taoya’s mouth, and Taoya opened her eyes, dazed.
“So sweet.”
Jian Xingxia breathed a sigh of relief. “You scared me to death! I thought you were going to die right in front of me!”
Taoya looked completely ignorant, smacking her lips.
She had never eaten candy; she had only picked up corn husks that had been wrapped around maltose.
The sweet and sour taste of the lemon candy surprised her. Not knowing how to suck on it, gulp—the candy slid down her throat.
Taoya choked and coughed violently.
Jian Xingxia patted her back, afraid of using too much force and breaking her bones.
Taoya’s red eyes were full of tears that she didn’t dare let fall.
Jian Xingxia released her hand, relieved, then immediately felt ashamed.
When Taoya first appeared, she could see she was thin and had poor stamina.
Yet she had made her pull weeds for an hour to confirm there were no ambushes or strange circumstances before letting her in.
Given Taoya’s condition, it was clearly hunger combined with labor, and standing up suddenly had caused a bout of hypoglycemia.
Jian Xingxia had Taoya sit down while she went back into the room.
There was bread in her backpack, left over from the trip, which was supposed to be her dinner.
She found it, went to the back courtyard gate, and handed a slice to Taoya.
“I didn’t finish this at noon; it’s untouched and clean. Don’t mind it.”
Taoya took it cautiously.
How could she mind?
It looked like a slice of steamed bun, but it felt softer than cotton to the touch.
It was golden and smelled of milk and eggs—sweet and delicious.
She had never seen such a soft steamed bun.
Taoya held it in her hands, not daring to move. She looked up at Jian Xingxia: “Sister, is this for me?”
Jian Xingxia touched Taoya’s withered, yellow hair with pity and nodded: “It’s for you, eat it!”
Taoya held the bread to the tip of her nose, sniffing it greedily.
Internally, however, she was torn, refusing to take a bite.
Jian Xingxia, terrified she would faint from hypoglycemia again, urged her: “Hurry up and eat, it’s not poisoned!”
She was vigilant toward Taoya, and Taoya was likely the same toward her.
To her surprise, Taoya smiled frankly: “I know. If you wanted to harm me, sister, you could have done it when I fainted just now…”
In the years of famine, some people who fainted could be saved.
Others didn’t even have a complete corpse left to bury.
Jian Xingxia didn’t know any of this; she just urged Taoya.
“Right, hurry up and eat. When you’re done, I’ll send you out of the mountains.”
She had to go to the village, find someone, and call the police.
She didn’t know how this little girl had entered the deep mountains alone; getting her out quickly was the right thing to do.
What if she fainted again or something happened? She wouldn’t be able to explain it.
Taoya, hearing this, hurriedly refused: “Sister, you don’t need to send me out of the mountains. I can go back myself, it’s just, it’s just…”
“Just what?”
“It’s… the wages…”
Taoya’s face turned bright red; she felt she had no face to say it.
A little girl like her wasn’t easy to find work. She had only worked for half an hour and had even fainted once.
If this were any other master, they would have driven her out long ago.
The master, this sister, hadn’t reprimanded her; she had even given her candy and a slice of bread.
And yet, she still wanted wages.
“Oh, oh, the wages.”
Jian Xingxia slapped her forehead. The girl had done so much work for her; she should be paid.
“You pulled weeds for an hour, can I give you fifty?” Jian Xingxia asked.
This hourly wage wasn’t low, but Taoya worked efficiently. For such a large patch of grass, if Jian Xingxia had done it, she might not have cleared it by the afternoon. It was worth it.
But she couldn’t give more, because she had relied almost entirely on part-time jobs for the last two years of university.
Living expenses, clothes, socks, fixing her phone, transportation… before graduation, she had only saved 6,371 yuan in total.
There was still the old house to renovate, and the remaining money had to be saved for seeds and fertilizer, to last at least until the harvest.
She couldn’t afford to be generous.
“Will fifty work?” Jian Xingxia asked again.
“Wu-shi (lunch)?” Taoya hesitated. In her heart, she wanted to earn money for her mother’s medical treatment.
Her mother was ill, running a high fever, and needed money for a doctor.
Food was okay too, but before the famine, her family only ate morning and evening meals.
Two meals a day; they rarely ate “lunch” (wu-shi).
Only rich people did that.
Besides, after the famine, many wealthy families had also reduced their lunches.
Taoya looked down at the “steamed bun slice” in her hand, assuming this must be the fairy sister’s “lunch.”
Although it wasn’t money, it looked expensive—made with refined flour, she could smell the milk and eggs in it; giving it to her mother would definitely nourish her body.
Lunch it is then!
The master was kind; she hadn’t driven her away or reprimanded her, and even gave her lunch as wages. She was already a kind person.
Taoya clutched the “steamed bun slice” in her hand, thought for a moment, and nodded.
“Sister, that’s fine. Lunch is fine.”
With that, she turned to leave.
Jian Xingxia rummaged through her pockets and finally scraped together a fifty-yuan note, handing it over: “Good thing I have fifty.”
Otherwise, she would have hated to give away a hundred.
Jian Xingxia held a few colorful, thin papers in her hand, and Taoya didn’t understand for a moment.
These thin papers didn’t look like food; they looked like promissory notes or land deeds, but she didn’t recognize the words on them.
That shouldn’t have anything to do with “lunch.”
Jian Xingxia held out her hand, but Taoya remained indifferent.
“Fifty won’t work?”
“It will.”
“Then take it.”
“I’m already holding it.”
Taoya and Jian Xingxia looked at each other in confusion: “Sister, haven’t you already given me lunch?”
Jian Xingxia was stunned: “When did I give you fifty?”
What was this little girl mumbling about? Was her hypoglycemia making her confused?
Jian Xingxia stuffed the bank notes—some fives, tens, and twenties—into Taoya’s hand: “Take it!”
Taoya, however, acted as if it were a burning coal, hurriedly withdrawing her hand: “Can’t take this! Can’t take this!”
Jian Xingxia was about to go crazy.
“You’re the one who said you wanted fifty, why can’t you take it now?”
She couldn’t have run into a professional scammer, right?
