An Youyou was so moved that she nearly shed real tears, wishing she could follow the young master to see where he lived so she could beg for food at his door in the future.
By the time Jiang Weiguo finished exchanging the money and came out, An Youyou had already begged three rounds.
She had gained two silver coins, two pancakes, a round of insults, and an attempt to hit her with punches and kicks that didn’t quite land.
Seeing Jiang Weiguo come out, An Youyou patted the dust off her clothes, abandoned the clearly targeted fourth rich young lady, and ran towards Jiang Weiguo.
"How much did you exchange?" An Youyou couldn’t hide her excitement in her voice.
"Twenty-three silver coins," Jiang Weiguo said quietly.
An Youyou was ecstatic: "We’ve hit the jackpot!"
Jiang Weiguo stuffed the silver coins into An Youyou’s hands: "Don’t beg for food today, hurry and run before someone notices. Circle around outside the city a few more times, remember to look at the houses."
"Got it." An Youyou pocketed the silver coins, "This place is really nice, all the passersby are wealthy people, I’ll beg for food here from now on!"
Jiang Weiguo glanced at An Youyou speechlessly, then looked at the guards at the entrances of several shops: "Better not, you might be fine staying here for a short while, but definitely not for long."
Just as An Youyou was about to say she’s good at dodging and doesn’t fear being hit, Jiang Weiguo added, "They’re all armed."
An Youyou shut her mouth.
After separating from Jiang Weiguo, Qin Huai noticed someone indeed started following An Youyou. At this moment, the advantage of her strong physical qualities as a spirit was evident; the person who wanted to mug her couldn’t keep up at all.
An Youyou might not be able to fight off eight adults, but she’s definitely quick at running away. Plus, she’s been begging around the city for so long, she knows the map well; she knows all the dark alleys and corners, as well as where it’s easy to climb over walls.
After a series of thrilling parkour, An Youyou shook off all the tails behind her, and then cautiously circled around two more times before starting to look at houses.
An Youyou was looking at houses outside the city.
Though it was outside the city, there were still differences in location. The closer the houses were to the city, the better they were; those that looked evidently built with bluestone bricks were houses An Youyou didn’t even glance at. Her top choice was more old-looking wooden houses, earthen adobe houses, or brick houses that were obviously aged.
Not knowing which house was for rent, An Youyou chose the most foolish way: asking every household one by one, receiving mostly rejection and disdain.
A beggar wanting to rent a house, this idea alone was absurd and laughable.
After receiving the cold shoulder the whole morning and noon, An Youyou, who initially didn’t have such a strong desire to rent a house, got angry. She gave up on food and started asking recklessly.
And then she actually asked her way into a potential rental.
Qin Huai followed An Youyou to look at houses all day and clearly saw why An Youyou couldn’t rent one.
Disdain for beggars was one issue, disdain for 13 beggars plus an odd-job worker was another.
With so many people on An Youyou’s side, renting just one room wasn’t possible. The best option was to rent an independent courtyard, a bungalow with a yard. But even in the suburbs, these kinds of houses were good houses, typically two-story with a yard, and their normal monthly rent wouldn’t be below three silver coins.
Some landlords might be willing to rent out to earn some money, but they would deliberately hike the price to 4-5 silver coins because they looked down on An Youyou being a beggar group.
This price was too high, beyond An Youyou’s consideration range.
If they didn’t rent such an independent courtyard, they could only co-rent with others. Co-renting was also common in the Republic, with several families sharing a courtyard or a well; this way of renting was cheaper but came with other conflicts.
No one was willing to live with beggars.
Even though everyone was at the bottom of society and everybody was poor, civilians were still of higher status than beggars. Moreover, beggars in this era weren’t positive figures, usually associated with trickery and thievery, practically equivalent to thieves.
An Youyou originally thought she could easily rent a house with 1-2 silver coins a month, but reality hit her hard. Not to mention spending one or two silver coins; even with three silver coins, she couldn’t rent the house she wanted.
An Youyou was busy until the sunset, her stomach empty, still not finding a satisfactory house.
As the sun was about to set, An Youyou could only walk towards the ruined temple in sadness. On the way, she bought two pieces of salted fish from a vendor, and quite a bit of rice, probably because she was especially heartbroken and wanted to spend money, she also lavishly bought 6 flatbreads.
All these items combined cost less than half a silver coin, testament to the purchasing power of silver coins.
When An Youyou returned to the ruined temple, all the underlings except Jiang Weiguo had returned. Little Ninth was waiting by the river for An Youyou as usual, and cheered when he saw An Youyou brought back so many things.
"Wow, boss, you’re amazing!"
"Boss, today I got three Copper Coins, one osmanthus cake, three big sweet potatoes, and a bowl of black bean rice. I was too hungry in the afternoon and ate the black bean rice, but here’s the money, the osmanthus cake is in the temple, do you want to eat it now, boss?" Little Ninth handed the money to An Youyou and asked.
Seeing the returned money, An Youyou felt a bit better. She nodded, gave all the food to Little Ninth to take in, and crouched by the river to wash up before returning to the ruined temple.
The underlings didn’t dare to light a fire until their boss came back.
"Hasn’t Thirteen come back yet?" An Youyou asked.
"Boss, Brother Thirteen said he’ll have to come back after dark in the future; he’s working late at Fu Ji." Little Ninth explained.
"What good is odd-job work, coming back after dark." An Youyou grumbled, motioning Little Ninth to hand her the flatbreads.