The first thing I did was to find out

Chapter 554 The Beggar (Part 11)

An Youyou lay listlessly on the haystack, questioning her life and wondering how she, as the leader, had ended up like this. She was worried about her career and whether she would still have the face to brag in front of her underlings when she got back.

Xiao Jiu and the others sat on the haystack, discussing whether they would have dinner tonight, and if so, what they would eat.

Based on the conversation and physiques of Xiao Jiu and the others, Qin Huai could roughly determine that three years had passed since their last New Year celebration. As Qin Huai had predicted, the Chen family had also encountered misfortune.

The bluestone brick house that Chen's family owns was a gift from Luo Jun to Chen's family.

Although Mr. Luo, who was once a well-known figure in Shanghai, went to Sichuan with his wife to search for relatives and has not returned for several years, his reputation for massacring gangsters, burning down warehouses, and arranging a private room at the bottom of the river for a high-ranking official who threatened him still remains. The Chen family has managed to protect the house and even find a decent job delivering vegetables thanks to Mr. Luo's reputation.

Unfortunately, the situation changed quickly. Mr. Luo, who was once in the limelight, has been silent for a long time. There are even rumors that Mr. Luo has gone mad from watching plays and has stopped caring about worldly affairs to guard his deceased wife's grave in Chongqing. He has even stopped subscribing to the newspapers that he used to order every month during the war and had to have someone deliver them from Shanghai to Chongqing.

Without protection, the Chen family naturally couldn't keep this good house.

Perhaps Mr. Luo, far away in Shanghai, has long forgotten the Chen family, but as long as Mr. Luo's reputation remains, the Chen family can continue to live in this bluestone brick house. If Mr. Luo is no longer alive, the Chen family will be nothing more than lambs to the slaughter in the eyes of others.

The first to make a move were the city's small-time gang.

The methods were very simple, or even nonexistent; they used every simple, despicable trick imaginable.

With the help of An Youyou and Chen Shun, the Chen family survived the first wave, but then came the second and third waves.

Chen Shun's father was robbed and had his leg broken while delivering vegetables. The high cost of medicine emptied the Chen family's savings. The pain-relieving ointment made Chen Shun's father addicted to drugs, which led to debt, debt collectors, selling the house, and bankruptcy.

Chen Shun dropped out of school because he couldn't afford the tuition and became an accountant. However, the accountant's salary was too low and he had to wait for seniority to earn enough to pay off the Chen family's debts. Through the introduction of Master Ding from the restaurant where Jiang Weiguo worked, he took a boat to Nanjing to work. His monthly wages were good, but the money he sent back was barely enough to pay off the family's debts.

To support the remaining children in her family, Aunt Chen worked day and night weaving and embroidering. In less than two years, her hands began to tremble and her eyes went blind. Now she can only make a living by washing clothes for others.

Chen Shun's younger siblings, despite their young age, couldn't stay home to rest either. They either learned to beg from An Youyou or helped their mother with chores. Even with all their efforts, the family could barely make ends meet.

Originally, Aunt Chen wasn't this thin. During the Lunar New Year, she braved the cold wind to fetch water from the river to wash clothes and caught a severe cold. The medical expenses emptied the Chen family's last savings, and even drained An Youyou's meager savings. From then on, Aunt Chen dared not eat or use anything, and in just six months, she became as thin as a stick.

When Qin Huai heard Xiao Jiu say that Chen Sao now felt like a burden and only wanted to earn as much as she could, she thought that if she got sick, she would just die so as not to be a burden to the children.

When Xiao Jiu said this, Xiao Shi chimed in, saying that it was a good thing. Life was tough these days, begging was hard, and there were gangsters competing with them for business. If one day he got his leg broken by the gangsters, he'd hang himself at their headquarters and extort money, so everyone could have a decent meal.

Xiao Jiu laughed at him for living in the past. He said that nowadays, no gangster would be willing to be extorted for money. Hanging someone is just like being killed by a bomb during the war. Maybe no one will even collect the body and it will just be thrown into the suburbs to be fed to the dogs.

Xiao Shi said that wouldn't do; after he died, he still wanted to be wrapped in a straw mat and buried in a hole. Previously, Xiao Si had been robbed and pushed into the river to drown; after she was pulled out, the eldest brother bought her a straw mat, and he wanted one too.

Watching the two teenagers talk about death so casually, Qin Huai was at a loss for words. He could only hope that Jiang Weiguo would come back soon, as his return would surely interrupt this hellish conversation.

There were no lights on in the house after nightfall, which showed that An Youyou was indeed poor, so poor that she didn't even have money to buy lamp oil.

The younger brothers sat on the hay, reminiscing about the good old days when they could eat their fill every meal, and enjoy meat and braised pork knuckle soup with cornbread during the New Year. The memory made them hungry, and their stomachs rumbled all at once, one after another, until An Youyou was truly hungry.

If it were the old An Youyou, she would have already started cursing, regardless of whether she was right or wrong, she would have cursed them a couple of times to shut their stomachs up.

But An Youyou remained silent because she lacked confidence. An Youyou was a very self-aware leader; knowing she could support all her underlings, she was determined to do everything in her power and act like the boss.

But when she is unable to support her younger brother, she will readily give up her status as the eldest sister and lie on a haystack questioning her life.

Since there were no lights or clocks, Qin Huai had difficulty determining the exact time. It was probably after 10 p.m. when Jiang Weiguo hurriedly returned carrying a bag.

Jiang Weiguo is now an adult. When An Youyou found him, he was already the oldest among the group of underlings. Now, more than three years have passed, and he has been working in the restaurant, where he has no worries about food and drink and his salary is not low. He looks tall and strong, and it seems like he could take on five people at once.

Seeing Jiang Weiguo return, An Youyou sat up weakly from the hay and asked, "What are we eating today?"

The novelty and eagerness for what to eat that day were gone from his tone.

Jiang Weiguo didn't speak, but silently opened the cloth bag and took out some dry cornbread to distribute to everyone. Each underling received half a cornbread. The hungry underlings stuffed the cornbread into their mouths as soon as they received it. Those with a little more sense, like Xiao Jiu, immediately grabbed a broken bowl to get some cold water after receiving the cornbread.

The younger brothers don't drink cold water, but the boss does.

An Youyou, as the eldest, could eat two steamed buns, but Jiang Weiguo didn't; he had already eaten at the restaurant.

Along with the steamed buns, Jiang Weiguo also brought back some dried radish. There wasn't much; if it were to be divided, each of his underlings would only have a lick before it was gone. So Jiang Weiguo simply gave all the dried radish to An Youyou.

"Did Aunt Chen eat anything today?" Jiang Weiguo asked.

"I don't know, I think I only drank a few sips of water," An Youyou said. "I've been begging in the city all day and only come back at night."

"It's really hard to beg for food now. The shopkeepers who are easy to talk to have all closed their shops and gone back to their hometowns. The ones left are people who have been beaten but still can't get food. Even the wealthy families have stopped giving out porridge and money. I could tell last year during the Spring Festival that I didn't get much money, but I didn't expect it to be this hard this year."

"The price of rice is outrageously high! Is rice made of gold? It's so expensive!"

"It's not wartime now. If it were a few years ago, we wouldn't have been able to get food because of war, but now it's a time of peace. How can we not get food?"

"Boss, weren't you begging for food when you were fighting?" Jiang Weiguo asked.

An Youyou took a bite of the cornbread, and when she saw Xiao Jiu return with a bowl of cold water, she handed him another cornbread and told him to take it to Aunt Chen next door, saying, "I'm not stupid. Guns and bullets don't have eyes. Where am I supposed to beg for food?"

“When the war was going on a few years ago, I hid in the mountains and only dared to come out after several years. If this continues, I think I will have to go back to the mountains. At least I can eat my fill back in the mountains. In this world, you can starve to death even if you beg for food.”

Jiang Weiguo was silent for two minutes before saying, "Chen Shun wrote me a letter yesterday."

An Youyou:?

"Why did he write to you and not to me? Is he taking advantage of my inability to write? Although I can't write, I can recognize characters, and I can write the most basic few dozen characters, okay? What did he say in his letter? Could it be that he didn't make any money in Nanjing and isn't sending money this month so I can help him pay off his debts? His family has to pay three silver dollars every month, where am I supposed to get the money to pay him?"

“I can barely support myself; I’m all dependent on you. There are so many thugs on the street begging for food, but I don’t dare pick up a single one. I just regret not learning a few more skills before. If only I could steal something while begging, I wouldn’t have to go out begging all day and get nothing.” An Youyou told Jiang Weiguo everything she didn’t want to complain to her underlings.

If she used to at least pretend to care about her boss's reputation, now An Youyou is too lazy to even pretend anymore.

Qin Huai: ...Three-legged Golden Toad, you don't plan to learn any proper skills at all? You either steal or take, and you even had plans to become a bandit king and rob others. You only want to learn the quick way to make money, right?

Jiang Weiguo was speechless after being choked by An Youyou's words. Seeing that her subordinate didn't agree, An Youyou could only continue her rant:
"I really don't understand. Your wages have increased, but my younger brother is gone. How come we're getting poorer and poorer?"

“Back when you only had two silver dollars a month, I had to support 13 younger brothers and rent four rooms. Back then, I could eat my fill every day. I drank millet porridge every meal, and I could even eat braised pork knuckle during the New Year.”

“Now you earn a full six silver dollars a month, and I, including you, am just six of us. The seven of us are crammed into one room. Forget about millet porridge every meal, we can’t even afford rice bran every meal.”

"There's no war here, isn't it? The wars are happening in other places, so why has life become so difficult?"

An Youyou's face was full of confusion; she was genuinely puzzled.

No one in the room could answer her question, so Jiang Weiguo could only remain silent and then deliver another piece of bad news.

"Is Fu Kee closing down?"

"Huh?" Everyone exclaimed in surprise.

"Why? Why are you suddenly closing down? Isn't Fu Kee a big restaurant? Isn't business very good? Don't you usually work until around 9 PM every night?"

“Business is good, but the taxes are too heavy.” Jiang Weiguo sighed. “Now the boss has to pay not only government taxes every month, but also taxes to the army, money to the police, and money to the gangsters. Not a penny less.”

"But I heard that this is not the main reason. It's because the person above the boss fell from grace, and a lot of debts can't be recovered. The young master also developed a gambling addiction."

"Fook Kee is closing down next month; the landlord has already sold the land title."

Although it was dark, Qin Huai could still vaguely see the look of utter despair on everyone's faces.

Jiang Weiguo's wages were the most stable source of income for An Youyou's begging team. They not only relied on Jiang Weiguo's wages to pay their rent each month, but also on him bringing them food after get off work. Jiang Weiguo's unemployment was undoubtedly a huge blow to the begging team, enough to send them straight back to their dilapidated temple.

No, we might not even be able to get back to the dilapidated temple.

An Youyou doesn't have as many followers now, and they're not as strong and capable as before. The dilapidated temple should have been taken over by other beggar groups long ago.

An Youyou glanced sadly at her beloved bed. She knew this was the last time she would sleep in a bed, and in the days to come, she might not even be able to sleep on clean straw.

"Then let's pack our things," An Youyou said. "Although there's not much to pack, Xiao Jiu, you don't need to beg for food starting tomorrow, since you won't get anything anyway."

"You and Xiao Shi go to the outskirts to find a place to stay, preferably somewhere to avoid the rain."

"Xiao Yi, Xiao San, Xiao Qi, you go to the city to find a place to stay. While you're at it, also see where the grass roots are sweet. Forget about tree bark, it's really hard to swallow."

"Yes, boss." The five henchmen said in unison, indicating that they would stay with their boss even if they had to sleep in a dilapidated temple and eat grass roots.

Jiang Weiguo: ...

"I just said that Fu Kee is closing down, it doesn't mean I'm unemployed," Jiang Weiguo said helplessly. "Master Ding has already found a new job and said he can take me there, but I'll have to start as a handyman."

"Room and board are provided. You can sleep in the shop and earn one silver dollar a month."

An Youyou understood: "So, Thirteen, you're going to go it alone, right?"

Jiang Weiguo: "...Boss, I only took meals for half a year, and I've always worked alone."

An Youyou:......

“As I mentioned earlier, Chen Shun sent me a letter in which he said that a rice shop in Nanjing was hiring an accountant, specifically a female accountant.”

"I heard that because the rice shop owner is a woman, the accountant needs to go out with her on business. Since men and women are different, hiring a male accountant might damage the reputation, so they specifically require that only female accountants be hired. The requirements are that they be literate, good at accounting, and have good speech. Chen Shun thinks that you, Boss, are very suitable and asked if you want to go to Jinling."

An Youyou:?

"I'm going to Jinling to be an accountant?" An Youyou was stunned, pointing at herself, "Me?"

"I'm a beggar, a proper beggar, how can I be a bookkeeper instead of doing my proper job?"

Jiang Weiguo: ...

It's clear that over the years, Jiang Weiguo has never given up trying to brainwash his boss, urging him not to become a beggar and to find a proper job.

"Boss," Jiang Weiguo earnestly advised, "begging is not a long-term solution."

“I am very grateful to you for picking me up back then, taking me in as your little brother, giving me food, and saving my life. In good years, begging can still help you survive, but these past two years have been bad, as you can see. If begging could save your life, you would have picked up so many beggars on the street.”

“You are literate, good at accounting, have a good memory, and are strong. You can survive in this world no matter what you do. There is no need to be trapped in begging and die.”

"You can't beg for food your whole life, and neither can Xiao Jiu and the others."

"The consequence of begging... is that one day you will become a corpse lying on the street. The only difference is that you are a little beggar or an old beggar."

You need to find a proper job.

“Nonsense, begging is the most…” An Youyou was about to retort subconsciously, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to say it.

An Youyou fell silent.

Qin Huai could tell that the eldest brother was wavering.

As expected, times are tough. Even the three-legged toad is so desperate that it doesn't want to eat anymore and wants to find a proper job.

(End of this chapter)