In years of famine and drought, their village even rejected fatty meat.

Chapter 6 Expensive Grain Prices

Hearing the shouts coming from the street, Chen Dao carried the chicken coop to a corner, put the coop on the ground, and sat behind it, waiting for customers to come in.

"Little brother."

As soon as Chen Dao sat down, the stall owner next to him, very familiarly, came over and said with a smile, "Your chicken is quite special! Where did you get it?"

Chen Dao turned to look at the stall owner, a middle-aged man around 40 years old with a broad face and dark skin, clearly someone who did manual labor.

"Obtained by chance."

Chen Dao naturally wouldn't tell the truth. While responding to the middle-aged man, he looked at the man's stall.

This man also happened to be selling chickens, but he had far more than Chen Dao. There were five chicken coops in front of his stall, with three gray-feathered chickens in each coop, for a total of 15 chickens.

"Young man, you're really lucky!"

The man gave Chen Dao a thumbs up, a look of envy flashing in his eyes. Chen Dao's chickens looked excellent; not only were their feathers snow-white, but they were also very large. It was easy to imagine that their value was much higher than the gray-feathered chickens he sold.

"so far so good!"

Chen Dao smiled shyly, "Brother, what's your name?"

"Just call me Wu Han, what about you, young man?"

"Chen Dao".

"Hello, young man Chen!"

Wu Han seemed to be very talkative, so he sat down next to Chen Dao and started chatting with him: "Where are you from, young man?"

"You're from Chenjia Village outside the city, brother. Are you a city dweller?"

"Of course!"

Speaking of his identity as a city dweller, Wu Han's face was full of pride, but he complained, "Everything in the city is good, except that grain is too expensive. It was okay when the harvest was good, but now it's tough! A pound of rice is selling for 15 coins. Those grain merchants are really inhuman."

"..."

Chen Dao was speechless. It was not hard to tell from Wu Han's words that although he was having a hard time, he could at least afford to eat rice, while Chen Dao's family... could only eat rice bran. Although life in the county town was difficult, it was still much better than Chenjia Village.

"Brother Chen, how's it going in your village? Is there enough food?" Wu Han asked again.

Chen Dao shook his head. In peaceful years, Chenjia Village would naturally have enough food to eat, and many villagers would even sell their surplus grain for money. But now...

Villages like Chenjia Village, located outside the city, actually have less grain than those in the county seat. After all, the county seat receives disaster relief grain transported by the imperial court, while villages outside the city, once their grain reserves are depleted, are truly without food.

That is why the villagers of Chenjia Village entrusted Chen Da to buy grain.

"Looks like things aren't going well outside the city either!"

Wu Han sighed softly, and couldn't help but think of the refugees outside the city. If life outside the city were better, there wouldn't be so many refugees pouring into the county town.

As the two were talking, a woman stopped in front of Chen Dao's chicken coop, pointed to the white-feathered chicken inside, and asked, "May I take a look at your chicken?"

Upon hearing this, Chen Dao raised her head, a hint of amazement flashing in her eyes.

The woman standing in front of his stall was extremely tall, about 1 meters.

Her face was pretty yet had a touch of heroism, and she looked extremely capable in her well-fitting outfit.

"of course can."

Chen Dao opened the chicken coop, took out the white-feathered chicken with its feet bound, and handed it to the woman to look at.

The woman, unconcerned about getting dirty, grabbed the chicken directly, a hint of surprise flashing in her eyes: "I've never seen a chicken with such plumage before. Could this chicken possibly have the bloodline of a demon beast?"

"I don't know!"

Chen Dao shook his head. How would he know if the White Feather Chicken had any demonic bloodline? He didn't even know what a demonic beast looked like.

"That's fine."

The woman didn't pry further, and went straight to asking, "I'll take this chicken. How much?"

Chen Dao's mind raced. Street vendors were selling gray-feathered roosters weighing about 3 jin (1.5 catties) for 100 wen (0.05 yuan), while his white-feathered chickens weighed at least 6 jin (3 catties), looked better, and were hens, so they could lay eggs...

After some consideration, Chen Dao tentatively offered, "500 coins!"

"no problem!"

The woman readily agreed and took out a cloth bag, intending to give Chen Dao the money.

Damn! They underreported!

Seeing how readily the woman agreed, Chen Dao couldn't help but feel a bit cheated. This woman was clearly a rich woman; she didn't even haggle over the price of 500 coins for a chicken.

"If I had known this would happen, I should have quoted one or two taels of silver," Chen Dao secretly regretted.

The woman took out a tael of silver from her cloth bag and asked Chen Dao, "Can you give me change?"

"This……"

Chen Dao was dumbfounded. One tael of silver was worth a thousand copper coins, which he naturally couldn't make change for. He had no choice but to ask Wu Han, who was standing next to him, for help: "Brother Wu, can you do me a favor?"

"no problem."

Wu Han was also a helpful person. He took out 10 strings of copper coins (100 coins per string), handed five strings to the woman, and gave the remaining five strings to Chen Dao. He then weighed the one tael of silver, confirmed that it was the correct amount, and pocketed it.

"Thank you, Brother Wu!"

Chen Dao happily stuffed the five strings of copper coins into his pocket, and then handed the white-feathered chicken to the woman.

"correct!"

The woman, who was about to leave after receiving the white-feathered chicken, suddenly turned around and said, "If you have any more of these chickens in the future, you can sell them to me. I live at the Fuhu Boxing Gym and my name is Li Ying."

After saying that, the woman turned and left.

"Tsk tsk!"

As Wu Han watched the woman's departing figure, he muttered to himself, "This girl is clearly a martial artist."

"Musha?"

Chen Dao's eyes flickered. Martial artists were extremely rare in this world. According to the original owner's memories, every martial artist in this world was a person of extremely high status. He never expected that he would encounter a martial artist while visiting the county town.

"That's right!"

Wu Han nodded and said, "That girl's hands were covered in thick calluses, she was definitely not an ordinary person. Moreover, she said that we could go to the Fuhu Boxing Gym to find her. The Fuhu Martial Arts Gym is one of the largest martial arts gyms in town. People who come out of there, even if they are not martial artists, are still from wealthy families."

Chen Dao nodded thoughtfully. Practicing martial arts in this world is not a simple matter. Not only does it require enough meat to strengthen the body, but it also requires various precious medicinal herbs to nourish the blood and qi. Ordinary people can't even get enough to eat, let alone practice martial arts.

"I wish I could become a martial artist!"

Chen Dao thought to himself that martial artists held an extremely high status in this world. Even the county magistrate had to show them respect. If he could become a martial artist, changing his family's impoverished situation would be a simple matter.

But Chen Dao knew very well that with his family's circumstances, let alone becoming a martial artist, he would have a hard time even having enough to eat. So Chen Dao suppressed his thoughts of becoming a martial artist and asked Wu Han beside him, "Brother Wu, how much is your gray-feathered rooster?"

"Ok?"

Wu Han was taken aback and asked, "Young man, do you want to buy my chicken?"

"Yes!"

Chen Dao said, "I plan to buy more, Brother Wu, could you give me a discount?"

"That's no problem!"

Wu Han generously said, "We're already so familiar with each other, I'll give you a discount, how about 80 coins each?"

80 coins each...

Chen Dao silently calculated in his mind. He originally had 183 coins, plus 500 coins from selling white-feathered chickens, for a total of 683 coins. If he calculated at 80 coins per chicken... he could buy a total of 8 chickens.

Of course, Chen Dao didn't intend to spend all the money. He still needed to buy some grain and feed for raising chickens. In the past, with only one chicken, he could let it roam freely and find its own food. But now that Chen Dao planned to raise chickens on a "large scale," he couldn't do it that way anymore.

Therefore, after considering it for a moment, Chen Dao said, "80 coins each, can I buy five?"

"Row!"

Wu Han deftly placed five gray-feathered roosters into Chen Dao's cage, then handed the cage to Chen Dao.

Chen Dao took the cage, a hint of joy appearing on his face. If all five gray-feathered chickens could be upgraded to white-feathered chickens, wouldn't that be worth 3 taels of silver?

Three taels of silver!

Chen Dao was filled with excitement, feeling that getting rich was just around the corner. He quickly handed 400 copper coins to Wu Han and then asked, "Brother Wu, is there a grain shop nearby?"

"some."

Wu Han was clearly familiar with the area and pointed out the way to Chen Dao: "Go straight ahead, there's a grain store just outside this street."

"Understood, thank you, Brother Wu!"

Chen Dao picked up the chicken coop, said goodbye to Wu Han, and headed straight for the grain store at the street corner.

"Uncle Chen, what are you doing here?"

Upon entering the grain store, Chen Dao was somewhat surprised to see Chen Da and his two companions.

Turning his head and seeing Chen Dao, Chen Da couldn't help but laugh and said, "Of course I'm here to buy grain."

After saying that, Chen Da looked at the chicken coop that Chen Dao was carrying and asked in surprise, "Why have your chickens changed again?"

"The chicken from before has already been sold."

Chen Dao explained, "These are the gray-feathered chickens I just bought."

Chen Si asked in bewilderment, "This rooster can't lay eggs, keeping it is a waste of food, it can only be killed and eaten for meat, why did you buy this thing?"

"Yes!"

Chen Jiang also said, "Xiao Dao, you haven't been scammed, have you? Buying chickens isn't a good deal these days."

These days, during festivals, every household is extremely frugal, trying to spend every penny on grain. Eating meat is still too much of a luxury for the villagers of Chenjia Village.

Not to mention that Chen Dao's family is not well-off and they don't even have enough food. If they buy these roosters and eat them for a few meals, how will they survive after that?

"Don't worry, brothers, I know what I'm doing."

Chen Dao didn't intend to explain, so this was the only answer he could give.

Chen Da looked at the five gray-feathered chickens in the coop, lost in thought.

"Let's buy grain first."

Chen Da didn't say much, but gestured for the others to buy grain first.

So Chen Dao began to observe the grain store. The store had a spacious interior with shelves on the floor, filled with various grain products, and the prices were marked on wooden signs.

Rice: 15 yuan/jin (approximately 0.5 catties).

Millet: 13 yuan/jin.

Wheat flour: 12 yuan/jin.

Sorghum flour: 8 wen/jin.

Sorghum: 7 yuan/jin.

Bran powder: 3 yuan/jin.

Rice bran: 2 wen/jin.

"This rice is really expensive!"

Chen Dao sighed softly. 15 copper coins a pound of rice, this is more than just expensive.