His two older brothers' families and the neighbors had not dried much stock lately, at most twenty or thirty jin per household. After what they had eaten over the past few days, Ye Yaodong collected only 120 jin from all those households combined.
The stock they had set out yesterday still needed several more days to dry. Besides, in each of those households, several brothers shared one boat, so once the catch was divided, there was not much for each family.
After Lin Xiuqing calculated the payments and settled up with his two sisters-in-law and the neighboring women, they were still reluctant to leave.
Everyone knew how to do the sums. Selling dried fish earned much more than selling it fresh.
It took a little more work, but as long as there was money to be made, what did a little extra effort and a few extra steps matter to country folk like them? Their labor was the cheapest thing they had.
Even after taking their money, everyone lingered and chatted, unwilling to leave.
Ye Second Sister-in-Law smiled and said, "There's only a little over a hundred jin here. Is that enough? If not, my parents' family has some too..."
Ye Eldest Sister-in-Law quickly added, "My brothers' families have some too..."
"Our brothers have some too..."
"How did things change so fast for you? When you came back from the city the day before yesterday, you still had over half of it left unsold. Now you don't even have enough to sell and have to buy stock from everyone?"
"Exactly! The day before yesterday, we were all kicking ourselves for believing everything we heard. We thought your family was making a fortune, so we all kept our catches to dry too. Then we found out you couldn't sell yours either