It was the second watch of the night, a time to seek tender loving care.
***......***
Shopkeeper Wang was fiddling with his abacus beads, tallying up accounts.
Today, Lian Manman's family had delivered three carts of bitter gourds, each cart carrying ten sacks.
"...Two thousand two hundred and thirteen catties, still at last year's price, five wen money per catty, that comes to... eleven thousand and sixty-five wen money."
Upon hearing Shopkeeper Wang announce this amount, Lian Shouxin was stunned.
Eleven thousand and some wen money, equivalently eleven strings of coins, was not a huge sum for Lian Shouxin, who was accustomed to seeing the daily earnings of Lian's Shop. However, from the perspective of a typical tenant farmer's household, this was a substantial amount of money—enough to cover a family's expenses for a year, with surplus.
