The city guard of Bohai City didn’t believe Su Jingchen and the Sun Family were relatives, essentially just trying to exploit them. Whether they allowed someone to enter the city was merely a matter of their lip service.
Su Jingchen secretly gave the two guards five taels of silver each, and they let them into the city. However, they told them they couldn’t linger in the city and should leave by boat quickly.
After entering the city, Su Jingchen found the cattle and horse market and sold the horse before taking the Sun Family and boarding a ship to Lu State. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ ⓝovelFire.net
Like Yu Xiaolian and her family, they disembarked at Wei City.
Having gained previous experience, Su Jingchen repeated the story, claiming that the Sun Family were his relatives.
The city guards of Wei City, noticing that Bohai City had let them through, didn’t give them much trouble. They accepted the bribe and also allowed them to pass.
During this period, Su Jingchen considered writing a fake marriage certificate for himself and Sun Manyu to save a lot of questioning and silver coins.
But due to Sun Manyu’s reputation, Su Jingchen didn’t do it.
However, there were too many people in the Sun Family, and just one meal required quite a bit of grain.
Watching as the Sun Family’s grain diminished day by day, soon about to run out, Su Jingchen started spending money to buy them rice and grain.
In just over a month, he found that the two hundred taels of silver he had brought and the eighty taels of silver from selling the horse were rapidly dwindling.
They ate too much, and that was just for food, not even counting accommodation. Their group had never stayed in an inn and always slept under the open sky.
The grain was just too expensive, even coarse rice and grains cost two silver coins per jin.
Plus, traveling through each city meant bribing the city guards, and bribery alone accounted for the bulk of expenses.
By the time they reached Wei City, Su Jingchen only had twenty taels of silver left, which led to him coaxing Sun Manyu to lie.
Su Jingchen said, "If you don’t help, I really don’t know how to get them to Luocheng."
If he were traveling alone, after disembarking, he would buy a horse, and by now he would have reached Luocheng.
Yu Xiaolian was actually quite grateful to Su Jingchen; if not for him, she might have rushed to Bohai City. Now she could meet people halfway, and Yu Xiaolian was truly happy.
Yu Xiaolian told Su Jingchen she came to pick up the Sun Family because their little granddaughter Sun Manjiao had been kidnapped to Luocheng, and she happened to see her.
She then asked Su Jingchen about his father and Yao Shi.
Isn’t there no water in the north? Why didn’t they come with you?
Su Jingchen responded evasively, saying Yao Shi had died, his father was in Linzhou with Zheng Yuanfeng. Zheng Yuanfeng was very foresighted and had bought several pieces of land early, each with natural springs.
To put it this way, there were only a dozen sources of water throughout Linzhou, and Zheng Yuanfeng owned seven.
He also said that Prince Jin had stayed at Zheng Yuanfeng’s house during a recent trip to the Northern Land for disaster relief.
Yu Xiaolian praised Zheng Yuanfeng in her heart, thinking he truly deserved to be the future richest man; his cleverness was unmatched. She had merely given him a hint, and he knew how to use resources wisely.
Just selling water over there must have made him rich!
Su Jingchen then inquired with Yu Xiaolian about Su Jingyue’s current situation, learning that Su Jingyue was eating well, drinking well, and attending school every day. He expressed his gratitude to Yu Xiaolian.
Yu Xiaolian couldn’t help but scold Su Jingchen. If it hadn’t been for Little Tiger stubbornly insisting on delivering food to the ruined temple, she wouldn’t have run into Su Jingyue. A few days later, who knows where Su Jingyue might have wandered off to.
If Su Jingyue couldn’t be found, Su Jingchen might blame himself for a lifetime.
During Yu Xiaolian’s reprimand, Su Jingchen simply listened honestly, not daring to retort, secretly grateful it was Yu Xiaolian who found his brother. He even mentally thanked all gods and buddhas.
This time, Yu Xiaolian packed two large bags of steamed buns, a total of over a hundred, gave one bag to Su Jingchen, and kept another.
When the two returned to the ruined temple, Sun Daji’s wife and Sun Erji’s wife had already returned. They had only gathered a small amount of firewood and were burning it under the pot.
It was so cold that cooking some rice soup would not only fill their stomachs with water but also warm them up.
Everyone poured the water from their water pouches into an iron pot, and then gathered all the water pouches and went out into the city to beg for water.
When Yu Xiaolian and Su Jingyue returned with two large bags of steamed buns, everyone’s eyes brightened, naturally licking their lips.
Upon seeing this, Sun Fifth Master quickly said, "You can’t eat it now, save it for tomorrow; we’ll have porridge later..."
Sun Fourth Master also said, "This is not the time to eat and drink well. You won’t starve; let Yu Xiaolian wrap up the buns and save them for the coming days."
Yu Xiaolian wasn’t going to listen to them, "Meeting me means it’s time to eat and drink well. Today we will not only eat and drink well, but also stay well. I’ll take you to stay at an inn later."
While talking, Yu Xiaolian handed out steamed buns to everyone, "Eat up! Eat to your heart’s content."
A few small children were stuffed with buns by Yu Xiaolian but didn’t dare take a bite; each looked to their grandpa.
Sun Fifth Master and Sun Fourth Master saw their little grandsons looking at them with longing and couldn’t be tough anymore, muttering, "Eat, eat, fill your bellies."
Once the elders spoke, the young ones quickly opened their mouths, devouring the buns; a few bites were all it took to finish a bun.
Sun Manzhi took two buns and handed one to his grandfather and one to his fourth grandfather. "Grandpa, these buns are delicious, sweet."
Sun Daji’s wife was fed a bite of bun by her eldest son. "Indeed, these buns are so sweet; maybe they have sugar added?"
These buns were from the supermarket; modern bakers often add white sugar when using yeast to promote fermentation, so these buns not only rose better than ancient ones but also tasted sweeter.
After Ning Chuyu and her mother’s buns were stolen earlier, they hadn’t dared leave the ruined temple; Mrs. Duan feared those beggars were waiting outside to rob them and didn’t dare go out.
Seeing the Sun Family in the ruined temple, each eating a white wheat bun, Mrs. Duan urged Ning Chuyu to go take a couple of buns.
Ning Chuyu refused, sitting on the steps outside without moving.
Normally they never gave those people any food; how could she now have the nerve to eat someone else’s food?
Moreover, they’d followed these people for nearly half a month, and when Sun Fourth Master’s wife couldn’t walk and wanted to ride in their cart, her mother didn’t allow it.
Now her mother actually wanted to eat their white wheat buns, how could she have the audacity?
Seeing her daughter’s uselessness, Mrs. Duan shot Ning Chuyu a glare and brazenly walked into the ruined temple, heading straight for the steamed buns.
"Oh my, you still have quite a few buns left. You can’t finish them, can you? Just as my daughter and I haven’t eaten yet, I’ll take...
Oh! You child... why did you hit my hand?"
After handing buns to his grandfathers, Sun Manzhi stayed sitting next to the pile of buns, gnawing on one. Seeing Mrs. Duan coming to take buns, he immediately used his strength and hit Mrs. Duan’s hand hard.