Brother Wu smiled. "You're too kind, too kind. Everyone runs into difficulties away from home. It's only right to lend a hand, and all you did was borrow a scale. You really didn't have to..."
"Of course I did. You're happy to help people, but I can't take that for granted. This fish I dried at home might not be worth much, but it goes great with rice. Take it home and give it a try."
"Hehe, listen to you. What do you mean, not worth much? I saw you selling it for forty-five cents a jin. There must be several jin here."
Ye Yaodong smiled. He wasn't so scrupulously generous as to give him nothing but dried toadfish. Those toadfish were all quite big once dried, spread out into broad sheets, each weighing over a jin. If he really gave him ten, that would be expensive.
He had mixed in some other, cheaper fish, such as small eels that weren't worth much. These were cut crosswise and spread open to dry. Each looked quite long but only weighed about three liang. Still, altogether it was worth about two yuan. How much did a little scale cost, anyway?
"Take it, take it. Don't be polite. Oh, you've got a customer. Go ahead..."
"All right, all right."
After that exchange, the dried fish was cheerfully accepted.
Having accepted his gift, Brother Wu could hardly refuse him a favor. As the scale passed back and forth, he showed no displeasure and kept smiling instead.
Even after he finished selling his hundred-odd jin of dried shrimp first, he didn't immediately pack up his scale and leave. Instead, he waited there.
That made Ye Yaodong feel rather embarrassed. He had brought nearly three hundred jin of goods this trip, in five burlap sacks, and