Although he was already vaguely aware of what was going on, Wu Qingyuan confirmed the problem from the words of several aunts: there was a difference over the passage of time between the modern age where he lives and the ancient time here, so the matter of helping Grandpa Zhou find his younger brother would have to be a long-term plan.

While listening to the arguments of several aunts, everyone walked for about two hours and finally arrived at the town.

“Brother Wu, I won’t accompany you when you go shopping. Our town is not so big; you could take your time. Don’t worry, I’ll wait for you at the pharmacy after I get the medicine. Come to me after you finish shopping; we’ll catch up with Uncle Li later after the ox cart comes back.”

Lin Amo carefully explained to him before leaving and hurriedly heading to the pharmacy to do errands. His flexible back made Wu Qingyuan smile before turning around and strolling on the street.

Although he learned a lot of information about this world from Grandpa Zhou, it was only some basic precautions. Grandpa Zhou could not tell him everything. Since he was going to settle down near Shiqiao Town, he must know more about it. He must take a look at the environment, customs, prices, and taboos here.

As Lin Amo said, the whole of Shiqiao Town was not big, and Wu Qingyuan finished visiting the whole town in less than an hour.

However, although the town was small, it was very prosperous, even if it was not a market day, because of the convenient transportation. Shiqiao Town was the place where most merchants traveled from south to north, so the streets in the town were crowded and lively.

After careful observation, Wu Qingyuan determined that this Xia Kingdom was a good place to live. Although it was a backward ancient time, it was still very different from the ancient times he imagined. In addition to the existence of the gers, because it was an overhead dynasty, both the politics and the life of the people here were very different from the ancient world he was familiar with. The rule of law and the customs of the court were very chaotic. The whole society had both the prosperity and openness of the Tang Dynasty and the backwardness and strictness of the Qin and Han Dynasties for thousands of years. Even the appearance of various crops was very chaotic. Things that only appeared in the later period, such as corn, potatoes, and tomatoes, already existed here, but not enough to be common.

But no matter how chaotic, the relationship between the countries here was still harmonious for the time being. There was no war, and the living standard was low, but people would not starve to death. For him, this world was a paradise!

After learning more about it, Wu Qingyuan became more determined to live in Shiqiao Town. He didn’t need to worry about the situation and local customs. The last thing that was left to worry about was the price. If he wanted to live here, he must understand the prices; otherwise, he would be scammed by others without knowing it was a scam.

Therefore, after walking around the town, he found a grocery store at random, went in, and slowly picked things up and asked for prices on the pretext of buying things.

At this moment, the business of the grocery store was very good, and the boss had no time to tell him more. Seeing that he had asked for some things, but that he didn’t seem to want to buy, his attitude was one of neglect, and he didn’t care to greet him like other customers.

Wu Qingyuan didn’t hold the boss to continue to ask, but just watched the people in the grocery store while extracting the information he wanted from the people around him, asking for prices and bargaining.

After a while, he had almost understood the prices of the goods in the grocery store. He was about to leave when a young man and woman suddenly entered the store.

Because the store was not large, it was full of goods, and the space for action was very crowded. The young man and woman walked side by side. The boss greeted them and surrounded them. The three people almost blocked the entire passage. Wu Qingyuan did not continue to head out, as he could only wait.

 Anyway, he was not in a hurry; he simply stood inside, ready to go out after the boss greeted the two and left.

The man and woman–he didn’t know what the relationship was; it didn’t look like they were husband and wife, but the two of them spoke and behaved very intimately, flirting with one another, and they acted like a couple.

Although the Xia Kingdom was open, a pair of unmarried man and woman walking together in broad daylight was not forbidden, but gossip would inevitably spread, and the two of them were quite courageous. At this moment, the woman seemed angry, and the man was very flattering. He pointed to the pastry in a ceramic jar on the opposite side and prepared to buy some delicious snacks to please the girl.

Wu Qingyuan had no interest in listening to the couple’s quarrel, but the next words of the two suddenly caught his attention.

“Baozhu, don’t be angry, I don’t like Lin Amo. How could I like him when his face and attitude are like that? But he is a ger; he could work very well. If I could marry him, we would go home in the future with you as the boss and he the slave, and with him, you don’t have to do any of the housework; you would be living like a young mistress…”

“I don’t believe it! That Lin-ger is not a fool. I heard that the Lin family is not poor in your village. Are they willing to marry their ger as a helper? I have never seen a man in that village marry two wives. Besides, your family is still so poor– how could you provide for me when you marry a woman and a ger? I still want to look pretty.”

The girl in the floral dress was not easy to coax; she didn’t believe it at all and was not polite when speaking of her grievances.

The man’s expression was a little unsightly, and he felt that he couldn’t hold his face, but he held back and continued to please the girl and explain it.

“Baozhu, believe me, what I said was true: Lin-ger is ugly, and he shows the wrong attitude all day, and makes other people gossip. After the new year, he would be nineteen, and no one had gone to his house to propose marriage. If I marry him, he might run to the temple to burn incense and worship Buddha to thank him! Don’t be angry, my pearl. I want to marry him because I want you to be more comfortable in the future. Eat a piece of biscuit to calm yourself down. These crispy biscuits are from Su Xiangyuan, the most famous snack shop in the county…”

“You’re good at plotting…”

The girl seemed relieved after hearing this. She rolled her eyes and said angrily that she would not continue to chase this topic, and began to choose things in the store. In the end, she bought a lot of sweets and things that caught her eye as a woman and spent half a silver coin.

Don’t look down on this half-silver coin that didn’t sound like much. According to the income level of the town, half a silver coin was most people’s wages for a month, and the man looked like he was dressed in clothes and a roughly made jacket. Not to mention his heart bleeding when taking out that much money- however, just like how the girl talked to him just now, he still endured it and paid the money to please the girl, and the two left with their things.

━━ 🐈‍⬛ ━━

After the two of them left, Wu Qingyuan asked the boss to wrap a few cakes while smiling.

“You said the one who left just now? Zhao Haisheng– you don’t know the shopkeeper of the Qianji Grain Store? Nearly all the grains we buy in this town are from him. Haven’t you seen him? Are you from out of town?”

Since the previous two had bought a lot of things, and now this man bought a few cakes from him, the owner of the grocery store was in a good mood and finally changed his previous negligent attitude and talked to him.

Shiqiao Town was not such a big place, and everyone who lived in the town knew the grain store. As soon as he asked, he knew that he was from out of town.

“Yeah, I just moved here; didn’t know…”

Wu Qingyuan nodded without denying, smiled, took the wrapped cake, and left.

━━ 🐈‍⬛ ━━

After leaving this grocery store, he went to hang out at several other grocery stores. After a few comparisons, Wu Qingyuan had formed some ideas in his mind, so he walked into the bank and took out a few gold bars and exchanged them for silver.

Fortunately, he still had foresight. In the beginning, he replaced all the remaining useless money with gold. The amount was not large, but according to the living standard here, the gold was enough for him to live comfortably for a lifetime.

It was okay to take a few out in an emergency, but he didn’t plan to rely on this gold for a lifetime. When he settled down, he still had to find something to do. He couldn’t just sit still.

The gold he brought from modern times was the weight of a standard gold bar. According to the unit of measurement here, a gold bar was about 3 taels of gold.

According to the price exchange, he just learned that one tael of gold equals 10 taels of silver. However, due to industrial reasons, the purity of modern gold was much higher than that of ancient times. Therefore, after talking to the shopkeeper of the bank, one gold bar could be exchanged for 35 taels of silver.

In the end, Wu Qingyuan exchanged three gold bars for a total of 105 taels before walking out.

After that, he went back to the grocery store to buy some personal daily necessities and then went to the pharmacy, where he had arranged to meet with Lin Amo. He had these in his space, but living in the Lin family’s house was not convenient for taking out many things.

His memory was also very good, and the town was not big, so he was familiar with the roads in the town. And there was only one medical pharmacy in the entire Shiqiao Town, so he quickly found the place and saw that there was already someone waiting for him in the pharmacy of the town. Lin Amo had been waiting for a while at the door of the drugstore.

Just as he was about to walk quickly, he suddenly saw a strange man approaching Lin Amo, one step ahead of him, to say hello.

He was tall and thin, with a roughly made jacket, dark skin, an ordinary appearance, and smooth eyes. It was the man he had just met at the grocery store– Zhao Haisheng.