He brought out several bowls of thin porridge—more precisely, yellowish water with a few grains of rice floating in it—and two small plates of pickled radish so salty it was bitter.
"My apologies, everyone. This little shop truly has nothing good to offer."
Zhu Bajie looked at the few lonely grains of rice in his bowl. His mouth opened, but he swallowed the complaint that had risen to his lips.
He might have been lazy and gluttonous, but he was not so shameless as to complain about poor food when others could not even afford to eat. He silently picked up his bowl and gulped down the porridge in a few mouthfuls, licking even the rice residue clean from the bottom.
Chu Yang did not drink any porridge. He took out some dry provisions from his Storage Bag—flatbread, dried meat, and several pieces of pastries—and placed them on the table.
"Shopkeeper, keep these provisions. There's no need to give me porridge. Share it with those who need it more."
The shopkeeper froze for a moment. Looking at the food on the table, his eyes immediately reddened.
"This... this is too kind..."
"Take it," Chu Yang said. "When traveling, help when you can. By the way, shopkeeper, I'd like to ask—when did this drought begin?"
The shopkeeper sat down and wiped the corners of his eyes with his sleeve.
"Two years ago. It has barely rained since the autumn before last. We could barely hold on during the first year. The crops in the fields yielded less, but our stored grain was enough to eat. Then last year, the wells began to drop too, and the water drawn up became murkier and murkier. This year is even worse—more than half the wells in the city have dried up, and the few