Chapter 30: The Village's Hard Currency

Yang Chunsheng finished his soup, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, walked over to the handcart to grab his sickle, and tossed on a straw hat from the cart before stepping into the waves of wheat.

He worked until noon, finally finishing that patch of wheat. Seeing the heat intensify, he called out to his family, and they pulled the cart home. As for the harvested wheat, they left it in the field; in such sweltering weather, few would dare to come by and steal it.

Back home, Wang Zhaodi took their youngest daughter to prepare lunch, while Yang Xiaolan was tasked with washing the bowls from the morning. Exhausted from his long morning, Yang Chunsheng had Yang Xingwu fetch half a basin of water from the kitchen to the courtyard. He tossed a towel into the basin, washed up, and splashed plenty of water over himself. Feeling refreshed and cooled, he wiped himself dry.

He sat on a bench at the entrance of the main room and reached for his dry tobacco pipe, only to find he had no fire. Seeing this, Yang Xingwu hurried to the kitchen, retrieved a burning twig, and handed it to his father. Yang Chunsheng immediately offered his wooden pipe, puffing hard. Once lit, he sat in the doorway, drawing on the pipe, the clouds of smoke seemingly breathing a bit of vitality back into his weary frame.

Watching this, Yang Xingwu said nothing, nor did he try to persuade his father to quit. In this era, everyone smoked, men and women alike, and the proportion of women who smoked was not insignificant. Farming was bitter and grueling; in their words, smoking relieved fatigue and served as the only real pleasure for the adults. If that were taken away, what hope would be left? Because of this, Yang Xingwu had run to the kitchen for the fire. After all, working for seven or eight hours straight from dawn until noon, with more work to come in the afternoon—even a beast of burden would struggle with such a load. A strong laborer with a sickle could harvest one mu of wheat in a day, but would need days to recover afterward.

Seeing his father’s breathing steady, Yang Xingwu returned the twig to the stove. Wang Zhaodi had nearly finished cooking and called for Yang Xingwen and Yang Xingwu to peel garlic. Lunch was a bit richer today; in addition to the usual three courses, she had prepared cold-tossed cucumber and cold-tossed green beans to help beat the heat.

After the meal, during the hottest part of the day, the family lay on the kang to catch up on sleep. Upon waking in the afternoon, Yang Chunsheng led them to a smaller patch of wheat, about one mu in size, finishing it by dusk. They began stacking the wheat onto the handcart, and after two trips, they had moved all the grain under the shed in their small courtyard. After dinner and chores, they used the water that had been warming in the courtyard all day to wash up, then collapsed onto the kang and fell asleep. Their rhythmic snoring echoed through the mud-brick house like a symphony. The next day, before dawn, the cycle began again.

***

The process went much faster the next day. By noon, the six mu of wheat were all harvested. The family returned home in high spirits for lunch.

After waking up in the afternoon and returning to the fields, Yang Chunsheng loaded one cart of wheat, handed it over to his wife and youngest son, and took his eldest son to help his own father with the harvest. His family had less than six mu left, but his father and brother still had ten mu to go. By working the afternoon with his father and brother, they could clear another mu, and with the rest of the family’s help, they would finish tomorrow.

Harvesting wheat is often called "racing against the wheat"—a race against heaven itself. June weather is unpredictable; one moment the sky is clear, and the next, a torrential downpour could strike. Only when the wheat is cut can one truly be at ease.

When Yang Chunsheng and Yang Xingwen arrived at the field, they saw the whole family working hard. Yang Kaishan nodded when he saw his eldest son, pointed to the far end of the field, and went back to work. Yang Chunsheng nodded in response. Though father and son exchanged no words, a perfect understanding had passed between them. They began cutting from the far side.

Yang Xingwu arrived at the yard with the handcart, stacked the wheat, and returned to the field to collect the rest. Before leaving, the family combed the field several times, terrified of leaving any stalks behind. After loading the final cart, Yang Xingwu joined his mother to help at his grandfather's field.

As they approached, they heard a shout: "Watermelons! Sweet watermelons! If they aren't sweet, you don't pay!"

Yang Xiaohong, previously drooping with fatigue, perked up at the sound, her eyes fixed on the source of the cry. Moments later, a middle-aged man pulling a handcart appeared. The cart was piled high with large watermelons. Yang Xingwu looked at his younger sisters, noticing their longing gazes and their parched lips. He was about to call out when he saw his grandmother, Liu Cuihua, walking out of the field with his cousins.

"Hey, watermelon seller! How are you selling them?"

Hearing a potential customer, the man quickened his pace. Yang Xingwu hurried over with his mother and sisters.

***

Seeing Yang Xingwu, Liu Cuihua said, "Xiao Wu, you're here! You pick the melons!"

"Grandma, let the seller pick. He’d surely pick the sweetest ones, or he wouldn't dare say we don't have to pay!"

"That's true. So, how are you selling them?"

"Are you paying cash, or trading wheat for them?"

"What's the price for cash? What's the rate for wheat?"

"Cash is fifteen cents a jin, and for wheat, it's a one-and-a-half-to-one ratio."

"Why so expensive? Isn't it usually eight cents?"

"Old sister! Eight cents is the July price. It's only May! These are early-season melons; we started the seedlings in February and had to transplant them. It's more delicate work than regular crops! Look at this dark rind—shiny and smooth. Buy a big one, it’ll be enough for your whole family!"

The seller lamented the difficulty of growing his melons. Liu Cuihua felt a pang of sympathy, but sympathy was one thing; haggling was another.

"Alright, I won't haggle the cash price—fifteen cents is fine. But the wheat trade? That price isn't right. Negotiated grain prices are already twenty-eight to thirty cents a jin. You want a jin of wheat for only a jin and a half of melon? That’s not right. And you know how thick these rinds are—give us a better deal! I’ll buy two."

"Fine, since you're so generous, I can't be stingy. We'll go with your price!"

The seller agreed after a moment's thought. Though the new wheat had just been harvested and would shrink a bit after drying, the yield of the watermelons was high, and the weight of the rinds was negligible compared to the profit.