Rebirth in a Courtyard: I Am a Little Hunter

"Give me twenty jin." Yi Zhonghai didn't hesitate, took out a thick wad of small bills, counted out the price for twenty jin, and handed it over. The stall owner weighed out twenty jin of cornmeal and put it into the cloth bag he had brought. Yi Zhonghai took the bag, weighed it in his hand to confirm the weight was correct, and then turned and left. The whole process was swift and efficient, without a single unnecessary word.

Watching Yi Zhonghai's retreating figure, Wei Chen silently noted down the costs: five jin of wheat flour, three yuan per jin, totaling fifteen yuan; twenty jin of cornmeal, one yuan and eighty cents per jin, totaling thirty-six yuan. That adds up to fifty-one yuan.

In these times, this is almost two months' wages for an ordinary worker. The fact that Yi Zhonghai could come up with so much money to buy grain shows that his family is indeed well-off and that he had already planned for this month's food shortage. Wei Chen didn't look any further and turned to continue walking.

After navigating several crowded stalls, he heard a familiar, cheerful voice haggling over prices. Although the voices were lowered, the shrewdness was unmistakable. Wei Chen looked in the direction of the sound and, sure enough, saw two figures, one tall and one short, standing together in front of a grain stall, haggling with the stall owner.

Xu Damao squatted in front of the stall, holding a handful of sorghum rice, examining it closely, clicking his tongue and saying, "This sorghum rice doesn't look very plump. Is it last year's stock?"

The stall owner, a lean middle-aged man, looked displeased upon hearing this: "Stale goods? Which eye of yours saw that they were stale goods? These are freshly harvested this autumn. Look at these grains, they're plump and full, almost like rice."

"Newly harvested?" Xu Damao snorted. "With this drought this year, the ground is cracked and the crops are all withered. Where did you get new grain? You're kidding me."

The stall owner's expression changed: "Are you going to buy it or not? If not, don't waste my time and ruin my business."

Sha Zhu, standing next to Xu Damao, grew impatient and tugged at his arm: "Hey! What are you talking nonsense for? Hurry up and buy it and leave. If you dawdle any longer, all the good stuff will be snatched up by others."

Xu Damao ignored him. Luckily, he knew he couldn't call him by name! Xu Damao argued with the stall owner for a few more minutes, but finally took out his money and bought five catties of sorghum rice, muttering, "It's expensive, but it's better than starving to death."

Sha Zhu bought a coarse cloth bag of cornmeal from the stall next to him, weighed it in his hand, and then asked the stall owner, "Do you have any wheat flour left? I'd like to buy two more pounds."

"The flour is sold out. The last three jin were bought by an old man wearing a cotton hat." The stall owner shrugged. "Come earlier tomorrow, maybe you can still make it."

Sha Zhu clicked his tongue, somewhat regretfully, "Alright, that's settled then." He picked up the bag of cornmeal, turned, and left. Xu Damao followed, the two talking in hushed tones as they walked, occasionally glancing back at the stall behind them, as if afraid of being watched. At this moment, the two stopped arguing and even seemed somewhat intimate!

Wei Chen watched the two disappear into the crowd, then shook his head. "I don't want to think about it anymore, what am I thinking about!"

He continued wandering through the ghost market. He passed a stall selling miscellaneous goods, on which were displayed several rolls of cloth, several boxes of needles and thread, a pair of scissors, and a few enamel mugs. The stall owner was a thin old man, haggling with a customer.

Wei Chen didn't stop. He walked past several stalls selling secondhand clothes. Most of the clothes were faded and patched, but in those days, having a piece of clothing without patches was considered respectable.

He stopped in front of a stall selling local dried goods, looking at the handfuls of dried wood ear mushrooms, a bag of dried red dates, and a few dried chilies on the stall, silently noting down the prices. Red dates were 80 cents a pound, wood ear mushrooms were 60 cents, and dried chilies were 30 cents. These things wouldn't cost much in a good year, just a few cents a pound, but now they were all more than double the price.

He was about to leave when he suddenly caught a glimpse of a familiar figure out of the corner of his eye. The person was standing in front of a cornmeal stall, clutching a wad of cash, head down, as if hesitating about something. The figure—tall and thin, with slightly forward-leaning shoulders and the habitual rubbing of fingers.

Wei Chen recognized him at a glance: Jia Dongxu.

Jia Dongxu stood in front of the stall, the sack of cornmeal in front of him almost empty. The stall owner looked at him impatiently: "Are you going to buy it or not? If not, I'm closing up shop. This is the last bit; if you don't buy it, someone else will be waiting."

Jia Dongxu clutched the wad of money, his expression indistinct in the dim firelight, but Wei Chen could sense the inner struggle within him.

He'd carried that wad of cash in his pocket the whole way, clutching it tightly, his palms sweating. He'd thought his salary this month, plus his scraped-together savings, would buy him over twenty jin (about 10 kg) of cornmeal, enough to last until the end of the month if he ate sparingly. But when he got to the market, the price of grain had gone up again. The little money he had, which would have bought over twenty jin, was now only enough for about ten jin. Ten jin of cornmeal wouldn't even buy a couple of ounces a day for his family of three. Only a few days into the month, how would they survive the rest of the month?

He stood in front of the stall for a long time, so long that the stall owner started giving him strange looks. Finally, he handed over the money: "Ten jin, please."

The stall owner weighed out ten jin (approximately 5 kg) of cornmeal and poured it into the cloth bag he had brought. Jia Dongxu took the bag, weighed it in his hand, and felt its lightness. He glanced down at the bag of cornmeal in his hand, then felt the little change left in his pocket. After a moment of silence, he turned and squeezed into the crowd, head down, not looking back at any of the stalls. His figure appeared particularly thin in the flow of people, his shoulders slightly hunched, as if something invisible was weighing him down.

Wei Chen stood a few steps away, watching Jia Dongxu disappear into the crowd, without approaching. He knew that, given Jia Dongxu's personality, he would never want anyone to see him in such an embarrassing state. He withdrew his gaze and continued strolling through the ghost market.

Time slipped by unnoticed. The ghost market grew increasingly crowded, as if the entire city's starving people had gathered here. Wei Chen weaved through the crowd, his gaze sweeping over each stall, his mind constantly processing the various pieces of information.

He saw someone selling a small bag of soybeans, priced at two yuan a pound, which was snatched away by a woman in the blink of an eye; he saw someone selling a basket of eggs, each priced at forty cents, which sold out in less than fifteen minutes; he saw someone selling a jar of lard, priced at eight yuan, with several people surrounding the stall owner, all vying for the price. He stood on the outskirts of the crowd, taking in all this information, thinking to himself, although he wasn't a professional businessman, he couldn't afford to be ripped off when dealing with Brother Tiger!

Before he knew it, almost an hour had passed. Wei Chen glanced around and noticed that people in the courtyard were starting to leave one after another. He gave the Ghost Market one last look, making sure no one was paying attention to him, before turning and walking towards a secluded corner.

The corner, hidden beneath a section of collapsed city wall and obscured by clumps of withered grass and a pile of broken bricks, was just outside the reach of a kerosene lamp, shrouded in darkness. People came and went in the ghost market, but no one gave this corner a second glance.

Wei Chen walked over, turned his back to the crowd, squatted down, and pretended to be tidying his shoelaces. With a thought, forty pounds of high-quality, finely ground cornmeal, which he had already prepared in his spatial backpack, quietly appeared in the cloth bag at his feet.

The cloth bag was one he had prepared beforehand; it was bulging with grain and looked no different from the ones others had bought from the ghost market. He picked up the bag, weighed it in his hand to confirm its weight, then stood up and walked back the way he had come.

He walked out of the ghost market entrance and past the broken table. The middle-aged man collecting the entrance fee was already dozing off in his chair, not even lifting his eyelids. Wei Chen didn't stop, heading straight for the meeting point he had come from—the shade of the locust trees outside the city wall.

Before he even reached the locust tree, his spiritual senses detected two figures lurking in the shadows. It was Yan Jiecheng and Liu Guangtian, one on each side, crouching guard against the entrance to the ghost market. Seeing Wei Chen approach, Yan Jiecheng stood up and lowered his voice, "Wei Chen, you're out? What did you buy?"

Wei Chen picked up the cloth bag in his hand and shook it: "I was lucky, I got some corn grits."

Liu Guangtian leaned closer, looked at the cloth bag in his hand in the dim moonlight, and clicked his tongue enviously: "You're really lucky. I saw those people come out empty-handed or only bought a little. You managed to get so much, that's quite a lot."

Wei Chen didn't respond to that, but said in a low voice, "Let's talk when they come out. Don't speak loudly here."

Yan Jiecheng and Liu Guangtian exchanged a glance, wisely shut their mouths, and crouched back down in the corner, continuing to stare at the entrance to the ghost market.

A quarter of an hour passed, and people began to emerge from the ghost market. First came Xu Damao, carrying a cloth bag. He hurried to the locust tree, and seeing Wei Chen and the others already there, he breathed a sigh of relief and asked in a low voice, "Is everyone here?"

"Not yet, wait a bit," Yan Jiecheng replied.

Immediately after, Sha Zhu came out, carrying a heavy sack, panting heavily: "Damn it, the people in this ghost market are insane. I squeezed for ages and almost got crushed."

Xu Damao rolled his eyes at him: "You bought something and you're still complaining."

"I managed to buy it, but the price was outrageous." Sha Zhu put down the sack, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and said, "One yuan and sixty cents a pound of cornmeal. In the past, that price could buy three pounds. Just thinking about it now makes my heart ache."

"Alright, we've already bought it, why bother saying anything more?" Xu Damao rolled his eyes at him again.

After a while, Liu Haizhong, Zhang Dashan, and Liu Erzhuang returned one after another. Liu Haizhong carried a cloth bag in his hand, a satisfied look on his face.

Zhang Dashan, a burly man in his thirties, worked for a transport team and bought a bag of sorghum. Liu Erzhuang, a young man in his early twenties, worked at a roadside repair shop and bought a bag of dried sweet potatoes. The three of them, each carrying their own things, didn't say much, just nodded, and stood in the crowd to wait.

Jia Dongxu was the last to emerge. He kept his head down, carrying a cloth bag containing ten pounds of cornmeal, his steps heavy. Reaching the locust tree, he didn't speak to anyone, silently standing at the edge of the crowd, staring down at the bag in his hand as if grappling with a difficult problem.

Yi Zhonghai counted the heads, confirming that all twelve people were present, and breathed a sigh of relief: "Good, everyone's back. No one's fallen behind, right?"

Everyone nodded in agreement.