After the snowstorm, the village became quieter.

On weekdays, you hardly see anyone.

Occasionally, a few men wore shabby cotton clothes to the mountains to collect some firewood and take it to the county to sell for some coarse grain.

This year's food prices are surprisingly high, doubling from the beginning of the year. The already dry weather has caused the price of grain to rise again, and many families are already facing the question of whether they can survive the winter.

Later, it snowed a few more times in succession, and the weather became colder and colder, and the days became more and more difficult.

The condition of the Tian family is fine, with corn and sweet potatoes, they don't have to worry about being hungry. It's just that the quilt is not too thick, and the clothes with torn cotton wool are relatively thin, and Xi Jiang and Tian Tang are shivering from the cold, and they must burn firewood in the house at night.

So far, except for the necessary eating, drinking, and Lasa, Xi Jiang has not gone out for more than half a month.

Even the white snow scene outside is not in the mood to appreciate it.

However, everyone in the Tian family was not idle.

Tian Fengming took advantage of this rare free time to turn out the book of heaven and copy all the content that followed.

In addition to eating, others are trying to memorize the Book of Heaven and read and write.

On this day, the Tian family gathered in the most spacious hall to study the transcription of the Book of Heaven.

There was a knock on the door outside the courtyard.

Tian Fengming asked Li to put away the transcription cheats, got up and walked outside the house.

Outside the courtyard, a middle-aged man wearing a wide black and gray torn cotton jacket looked haggard, looking at Tian Fengming who came hopelessly.

"Uncle Guiyuan, why are you here? Come on in. Tian Fengming opened the wooden fence gate and invited.

Sun Guiyuan hurriedly shook his head, looking like he wanted to say something and stopped, wanting to say but afraid that Tian Fengming would refuse. A pair of eyes that Tian Fengming had seen on weekdays were completely different and a little dark.

Seeing this, Tian Fengming frowned, "Uncle Guiyuan, is something wrong?" Tell me something. ”

"Fengming, just ...... It is...... You...... Can you lend me some food? Sun Guiyuan stood for a long time before he said it.

After finishing speaking, his head hung down, not daring to look at Tian Fengming's expression at all.

Along the way, he had already asked everyone in the village. But everyone's situation is not good, there is no surplus food, and several of them are in a similar situation to their family.

"Uncle Guiyuan, come in and talk about it!" Tian Fengming already had a guess when he saw Sun Guiyuan just now.

didn't hear Tian Fengming's refusal, but invited himself into the house, and Sun Guiyuan's eyes burst with a glimmer of hope.

Tian Fengming invited Sun Guiyuan into the house, and said to the Li family: "Daughter-in-law, do we still have more cakes?" ”

"Yes." Li quickly brought out the cakes in the house.

The Tian family is not short of food now, and coupled with the influence of Xi Jiang, their family now eats three meals a day. Therefore, I always have multigrain sweet potato cakes or multigrain tortillas at home.

Seeing Sun Guiyuan's haggard appearance, Wang was a little surprised, "Brother Guiyuan, eat some cakes and fill your stomach." ”

Sun Guiyuan saw the multigrain cake on the table, swallowed his saliva, shook his head and said, "I won't eat it, this time I want to borrow some food from your family." ”

"Uncle Guiyuan, this grain must be lent to you. Eat with confidence! Tian Fengming comforted, and whispered to Tian Qingming again.

Sun Guiyuan saw that the Tian family was willing to borrow grain, and tears welled up in his eyes. The hard work of these days, the sourness of coming to the door several times, and being rejected several times, suddenly appeared in front of me.

The crowd was silent, just wait for him to cry and cry out.

Tian Fengming saw that he was almost crying, so he asked, "Uncle Guiyuan, what's going on?" ”

According to the situation in the village in previous years, there should be no food this year!

Sun Guiyuan wiped his tears and sighed: "Alas! Originally, the family's money was barely able to survive according to the price of grain in the winter of previous years. But this year's food prices have risen to almost four times that of previous years.

Originally, there was a drought this year, and the heavy snow was ahead of schedule, so the family's preparations were not sufficient, and the price of this grain rose again, and the family had no money. ”

"The price of this grain has quadrupled?" Tian Fengming was shocked, and he didn't figure out why it had come to this level for a while.

"The black-hearted merchant." Wang was also surprised.

After the Tian family entered the winter, they had never entered this county, so they naturally didn't know that the price of grain had risen like crazy. They thought that the drought was not severe because they had well water for irrigation, but most of the other drought-stricken areas did not have well water for irrigation.

Therefore, on a large scale, the situation is still relatively serious.

Although it has not reached the point of no harvest, it is certain that the yield will be reduced by several percent.

Naturally, grain prices have risen, and some wealthy grain merchants have taken advantage of this opportunity to hoard and raise grain prices. They didn't care whether the peasants lived or died, they only knew that they could take advantage of this disaster to earn more money and land.

In many other places, some peasant households have been forced to sell their sons and daughters and their land.

Everyone was angry, but they were just powerless farmers and couldn't do anything.

"Uncle Guiyuan, would you like to taste this cake?"

Sun Guiyuan picked up the smallest piece of cake and tasted it, and he tasted the sweetness.

Unexpectedly, the Tian family was willing to buy sugar.

After tasting it, Sun Guiyuan stopped eating. This cake with sugar is a bit of a rarity.

He has eaten, and no one in the Tian family has eaten it.