According to the mediator, despite owning tens of thousands of livestock, his family has never killed a single animal for food. Even during the ritual ancestral offerings on the eighth day of the lunar December, he can’t afford to buy a piece of meat as offering. He let his son borrow a Jin of cooked meat from the meat shop that buys their livestock, put it in a basin, and add a few coins in a dish. They would worship their ancestors this way and pray, saying "Drinking alcohol harms your health, please eat meat, our ancestors. The meat is borrowed from the meat shop and is fresh and edible. I was too busy to buy fruits, so please accept the coins as a substitute."
After the ritual was over, he sent his son to return the meat to the meat shop.
Even more shocking, when his grandson died, his daughter-in-law dressed the baby ready for burial, but he forcefully stripped off the clothes from the baby’s body, rolled up the child in a straw mat and took him to the graveyard. Before burying, he even took back the straw mat that wrapped the child, fearing it would be wasted!
Listening to the mediator’s recount, Cai Wei felt she had encountered the Chinese version of Grandet, a money-obsessed miser who disregard family and grandchildren. Without substantial benefits, he would not easily sell the grain in his hands.
As expected, when she met Li Tieji later, Cai Wei proposed to buy the grain he was hoarding, and he rejected her outright.
Cai Wei had already raised the price for grain to the highest level, a stone of corn’s original sale price was four hundred copper coins, and she doubled that price to eight hundred copper coins, which was the same as the market price, but Li Gongji firmly refused and demanded two taels of silver.
Cai Wei doesn’t like being taken for a fool, eight hundred copper coins was already her limit, so, negotiations broke down.
However, Cai Wei did not plan to give up the grain he hoarded. If he was unwilling to sell, she would have to forcefully take it. After all, he dared to extort her, and she had a spatial artifact!
The mediator, seeing that the deal had not been successful, did not delay and took Cai Wei to the next home.
The owner of the second house was easy to talk to, but from the moment Cai Wei entered the door, his squinty eyes clung to Cai Wei’s face and stayed there. His obscene appearance made it easy to guess what he wanted to do next.
As expected, when Cai Wei mentioned that she wanted to buy his grain at a high price, he readily agreed, but he proposed an additional small request: He wanted to have dinner with Cai Wei alone in the evening.
Having lived two lifetimes, Cai Wei surely knew what this dinner meant, but she did not expose him. She just smiled and agreed, making sure that money and goods were exchanged at the same time after dinner.
After leaving, the mediator earnestly said to Cai Wei, "Miss, this old master is obviously up to no good at first glance. I suggest that this deal is better left undone."
Cai Wei laughed and said, "Thank you for your concern, but since I have promised him, I know how to deal with it. Don’t worry!"
Seeing how determined Cai Wei was, the mediator did not try to persuade her anymore, and took her elsewhere.
Since noon until nightfall, Cai Wei only bought three thousand stones of grain. In ancient times, the unit of measurement for grain was calculated by volume. For instance, one liter equals ten units, one bucket equals ten liters, and one stone equals ten buckets (old measurement unit ’he’, similar to a bucket).
One stone of grain is roughly enough food for a soldier for a month. Compared to the consumption of an army of 100,000 in one month, three thousand stone of grain was far from enough.
During the buying process, the mediator was very diligent and impartial. Therefore, even though they did not achieve their initially agreed ten thousand dan target, Cai Wei still picked a ginseng of excellent quality from her space and gifted it to him.
The mediator gratefully accepted it and bid farewell to Cai Wei before leaving.