Early the next morning, Jing Chen and Xue Yu went to the county town. Since the county  town was quite far, they rode an ox cart together with other villagers. The owner of the ox  cart, Uncle Li Heng, was a very straightforward person. He told Jing Chen and Xue Yu that they needed to pay first before they could sit on the cart. 

One trip of an ox cart’s ride cost five wen for one person. Since Jing Chen and Xue Yu planned to buy a lot of things that day, they decided to pay for a round-trip which cost them twenty wen. Uncle Li would pick them up after they were done shopping. This  made some people in the cart jealous, usually the villagers went to the county town by  ox cart, but they went back by themselves, and they were all women. Men walked by  foot. It took two hours, but it was clearly cheaper. This way, the villagers could save some money. 

The villagers looked down on Jing Chen and Xue Yu, thinking that they were so prodigal that they actually preferred to pay for a round-trip rather than save money. Moreover, they  saw that Jing Chen and Xue Yu only brought two jungle fowl to sell. How much could jungle fowl be worth? It was smaller and leaner than chicken; they could get a total of 75 wen at most. 

Who didn’t know Jing Chen only got ten taels when he separated from the Jing family? Didn’t Jing Chen’s family pay four taels for renting a house recently? Did they really  think they could live lavishly with six taels of separation money left? They didn’t have fields to work on. They also didn’t have any job. How long did they want to search for food in the mountains? It could be dangerous; did they forget Jing Chen got in an accident when hunting in the mountains?

Winter would come soon, how could they survive like that? Ai, did they forget they had five mouths to feed? The villagers scolded Jing Chen and Xue Yu in their hearts. They  started to wonder if there were more reasons for the Jing’s family separation other than the parents being partial. 

When they arrived at the town, Jing Chen and Xue Yu went straight to the market. The market was big; it was separated into two sides by a large street. The left side consists of clothing, stationery, furniture, and furnishing shops while the right side consists of food stalls and grocery shops. The right side of the market had a smaller street inside where you could find butchers’ shops and livestock markets. Fresh products like vegetables and fruits were sold on each side of the market's street; each seller had the same square mat as their stall. 

Their first destination was to sell the jungle fowl. Since both of the jungle fowl weigh three catties each, and the price of jungle fowl was 10 wen per catty, they got 60 wen in total. While Xue Yu received the money from the stall owner, Jing Chen bought three catties of porks. He also bought two catties of pork bones at a very cheap price, considering the people in this era didn’t know how to process bones into edible food. Apart from that, Jing Chen also bought two catties of chicken wings. He had to pay 225 wen for the pork, 20 wen for the bones, and 30 wen for the wings. Seeing this raised a curiosity from the butcher since people usually prefer the breast and the thighs or bought the whole chicken. But he shrugged it off, thinking maybe Jing Chen didn’t have any more money to spend. 

When Xue Yu saw what Jing Cheng bought, he was horrified. He felt Jing Chen was too frivolous in spending money. It was true that they had more money now, but wasn’t it better to save some to buy fields or to build a house? They were fine with eating brown rice and vegetables; besides, there was a rabbit at home. They could eat it instead of wasting money to buy pork and chicken. Rabbit, pork, chicken, what was the difference? All of it was meat after all.

“Chen-ge, why did you buy so much meat? How much did they cost? We still need to buy  other things; we don’t know if we got enough money yet,” 

“Don’t worry, it’s not that much,” Jing Chen smiled, “There’s no harm to be a bit prodigal sometimes. I owe you, Wenwen, and the twins four Chinese New Year’s celebrations. The Jing family never left any meat for us to eat at those times, didn’t they?” 

Xue Yu smiled, “Chen-ge doesn’t owe us anything. You were kind enough to buy  Wenwen and the twins sweet things every year. You also gave them red envelopes at Chinese New Year. It’s more than enough; they were so happy.” 

Xue Yu softly added, “I was happy.”

Jing Chen sighed. How should he explain to Xue Yu that having the bare minimum life wasn’t something you should feel happy about? As his spouse, Xue Yu had a right to demand for a more comfortable life from Jing Chen. In modern times, people divorced all the time when they felt their spouse didn’t live up to their expectation. But this era and modern era weren’t comparable afterall. 

“Don’t be happy with something so trivial. Ask for more. Don’t worry too much about money, there’s plenty of ways to make money.” 

Xue Yu nodded obediently, but he felt even more horrified in his heart. Ask for more? What more should he ask for? He was a ger wife; he couldn't afford being arrogant and demanding more things from Jing Chen than what he had already given. 

Plenty ways to make money? If there were many ways to make money, people wouldn’t be counting on working in the field year around. They were just farmers, so their skills  were limited on how to work on the field. There was no war right now; it meant they couldn’t apply to work in the military. It was true that they could make money from hunting big animals in the mountains, but it was dangerous. Where would their money  come from? 

But, since Jing Chen said so, Xue Yu could only follow his words. All of their money was  from Jing Chen anyway. Deep down, Xue Yu wanted to do embroidery. He could embroider purses, clothes’ sleeves and collars, and handkerchiefs. He was good at it. He could also teach Wenwen and the twins while working. After all, needlework  was a skill every woman and ger should possess.

Thanks for reading everyone! Shout out to my beta, @Fancy Dreamer, she's the best!

Notes & reminder:

- Chinese New Year (CNY) is one of the most important holiday in China. It is celebrated sometime between January 21 and February 20 according to Western calendars. The most common Chinese New Year foods include dumplings, fish, spring rolls, rice cake, longevity noodle, and mandarin oranges. People also give red envelopes (with money inside) to younger ones.

- 1 catty = 500 gr

- 1 tael = 1000 wen

- I made a mistake when writing chicken and pork prices in the first chapters, which I already edited. For you who are curious about the price, here's the additional information:

- The price of 1 kg chicken is 40 wen, a catty 20 wen. The price of 1kg pork is 150 wen, a catty 75 wen. The price of 1 kg pork bones is 20 wen, a catty 10 wen. The price of 1 kg of chicken wings is 30 wen.

Pics from left to right:

[1] Ox cart, China Town, Street markets

[2] Dried fruits & red envelope for Chinese New Year, Traditional Chinese New year dishes, Embroidered sleeves & collar for high-class family, embroidered purses