Sun Qin's Performance

Waiting always seemed to take forever. Even a mere two days had been something of an ordeal for Yin Yunze.

The direct profit from this transaction was a minor matter. What mattered was that once it was complete, it would mean Yin Yunze had found a way to turn his resources into money.

Fortunately, perhaps because she understood what Yin Yunze was thinking, Sun Qin returned to the ruined temple on the afternoon of the second day.

Hearing Sun Qin call out, Yin Yunze immediately put down his work and entered the ruined temple.

"Lord Qingqiu, I'm back!"

Although the weather had yet to warm up, Sun Qin's face was covered in sweat. Clearly, she had been in a great hurry. Perhaps because she felt she had done well, she had also changed the way she addressed Yin Yunze slightly.

Paying no attention to the slight change in how Sun Qin addressed him, Yin Yunze said softly, "How did it go?"

"There weren't any problems." As she spoke, Sun Qin carefully took a small cloth bundle from inside her robes.

She unfolded it before Yin Yunze, revealing three gleaming yellow pieces of gold: two large and one small.

"The price of rice in the county town went up again. The five hundred jin of polished rice you gave me, Lord Qingqiu, sold for thirty-three wen per jin. That came to sixteen thousand five hundred wen in total. I exchanged five hundred wen of that for brown rice and gave it to Brother Liu as pay for his help. The remaining sixteen thousand wen came to sixteen taels and five qian of silver. At the current market rate, one tael of gold can be exchanged for six and a half taels of silver, so that makes two taels and five qian of gold altogether."

It might have seemed counterintuitive, but in ancient times, gold actually fell slightly in value compared with silver in the early stages of a disaster year.

The reason was that gold was worth more than silver. Although that made it easier to carry, ordinary people could not spend it as easily.

Taking one qian as the smallest unit, one qian of silver was worth a hundred wen, but one qian of gold was worth six hundred.

Not only was the denomination too large to make change for, but more importantly, not everyone could recognize gold or was willing to accept it.

So most of the time, gold existed as a commodity rather than a commonly circulating currency.

On top of that, when a disaster year came and a household ran out of rice, people's first reaction was to sell their belongings. The first things to go were often gold and silver ornaments, which looked pretty but had little practical value.

As more people sold their gold, its price naturally fell.

Silver could at least be measured against copper coins to some extent, but when the supply of gold exceeded demand, it naturally lost some of its value.

However, if the disaster worsened further and war and chaos truly broke out, gold's high value and portability would cause its value to rise again, increasing its exchange rate against silver.

The drought here had lasted only half a year, and gold was still at the stage where it had begun to depreciate.

It might have been a little hellish, but the rising price of rice and the falling value of gold were bad news for the ordinary people of this world.

For Yin Yunze, however, they were good news.

They meant that Yin Yunze could spend less and earn more.

Yet even as he thought this, Yin Yunze could not bring himself to feel happy.

After all, when all was said and done, he was still profiting from a disaster.

For a moment, even the gold Sun Qin held in her hands lost some of its appeal.

"Sigh..."

Yin Yunze sighed deeply. He wanted to say something, but found that he did not seem to have much to say.

After all, keeping Clear Creek Village stable was already an achievement for Yin Yunze. He had no ability to look after the people outside the village.

A person's butt was only big enough for so much business. Reach too far, and not only would he fail to help others, he might even get his claws chopped off.

From beginning to end, Yin Yunze had had a clear understanding of his position. He was still at the stage where, at best, he could look after himself.

This gift of grain was less about saving people than it was about fattening himself up.

Otherwise, Yin Yunze could have taken the initiative to seek out those whose families had nothing left to put in the pot several days ago, rather than waiting for them to come begging at his door.

He had made that choice simply because he knew that the best way to make people work hard was to have them beg him to let them do the work, rather than taking the initiative to ask them for help.

Take the classic Journey to the West, for example.

It was the Buddha who wanted to spread the scriptures to the Great Tang in the first place, but after a series of maneuvers, it became a tale of Tang Sanzang traveling to Western Heaven to fetch them.

Wasn't the reason that people often cared less about what was offered to them freely? Only after they had suffered a little would they treasure it.

His gaze falling on the two large pieces and one small piece of gold in Sun Qin's hands, Yin Yunze said softly, "As agreed, hand over the five qian of gold to me."

Although he coveted the two large pieces a little, Yin Yunze was an honest fox immortal, after all, and would not do something like raise his price at the last minute. Honesty was paramount in business, and all the more so for a fox immortal.

At worst, he could raise the price a little later!

"Lord Qingqiu." Upon hearing this, Sun Qin immediately knelt down. Lowering her head and holding up the three pieces of gold, she said, "You have been so kind as to look after my daughter and me. How would I dare speak of a transaction with you? These two taels and five qian of gold are all an offering to you!"

On this trip, Sun Qin had truly seen what it meant to be better off a dog in peaceful times than a person in troubled times.

Yin Yunze had only been supplying water for a few days, but those crucial days had been enough to keep Clear Creek Village's seedlings alive.

In the surrounding villages that had received no water, the seedlings had withered and died, and the tragedy of people selling their sons and daughters had already begun.

Even where the water sources had not yet dried up completely, people could see the water dwindling day by day, and life was growing harder to endure with each passing day.

Sun Qin was no fool. She naturally understood that, as a widow who could not even protect her own daughter, Yin Yunze was the only one she could rely on now.

Whether grain or money, Sun Qin had no ability to hold on to it!

For now, only by relying on Yin Yunze, the fox immortal, could she gain a firm foothold in Clear Creek Village.

Otherwise, what had happened before would only happen again and again. When trouble truly came, not one of the men who used to crowd around her had even spoken up.

In a disaster year, no one would want a widow with a child in tow.

Indeed, quite a few people had probably been thinking at the time that it would be better if Xiao Wan'er died.

After all, everyone in the village could see how much Sun Qin cared for Zhao Wan. Some of the more ill-minded among them even wondered what they would do if Sun Qin married into their families and cared more about Xiao Wan'er than their own children.

Yet they never stopped to ask themselves whether Sun Qin would even look twice at men of their character!

Ever since she had brought Zhao Wan, who had narrowly escaped death, back to their ransacked home that day, Sun Qin had lost her trust in the villagers.

"Very good."

Yin Yunze was naturally quite pleased with Sun Qin's words.

He was pleased not only that Sun Qin had given him all the gold, but also with how she had handled things.

After all, giving five hundred wen to the person who had helped her was already an act of generosity beyond many people.

Much of the time, being willing to spend money was the key to getting things done.

If she had given her helper nothing and offered it all to Yin Yunze, he would instead have thought less of her.

You might take advantage of someone once, but could you do it a second time?

Do it often enough, and who would help you again?

Saving money in getting things done had always been secondary. The most important thing was to get the job done.

If the job was not done, no amount of money saved would be of any use.

Judging by her performance so far, Sun Qin was already quite capable, at least by the average standards of the ancient countryside.

She was more than qualified to be his assistant.

After falling out with Spirit Medium Wang, Yin Yunze did indeed need a proxy to convey his wishes.

Leaving aside the fact that getting too close to ordinary believers could make a deity lose their awe, there were things Yin Yunze could not conveniently say outright as a deity, and he needed someone to take the blame and convey them for him.

"What do you want?"

Although he was almost certain already, Yin Yunze gave her one more small test.