AGN -Chapter 310 Beggar (Part 2)

An Youyou clearly still wanted to persuade Jiang Weiguo to return to begging—a more “stable” line of work—but Jiang Weiguo no longer wanted to listen.

He chose to start cooking.

The beggars’ cooking setup was extremely simple: two fire pits, two clay pots, and three wooden spoons.

Thanks to An Youyou’s exceptional begging skills, she could still afford a few things to improve her quality of life while supporting thirteen underlings.

Under her management, the ruined temple didn’t have any valuables worth guarding. Items like clay pots were simply hidden in straw. Normally, no one needed to stay behind to watch the place. All thirteen underlings had to work—everyone went out to beg every day. Since there was plenty of dry grass in the outskirts, keeping a fire source around was a fire hazard, so they used matches to start fires.

From the cautious way the underlings handled the matches, Qin Huai could tell that this group probably only had that single box.

The clay pots were also divided into one new and one old. The newer one belonged to An Youyou—the boss’s exclusive pot. Jiang Weiguo poured the beans she had begged for, along with rice and salted fish bought by a runner, into the new pot and set it to boil over the fire.

The old pot was for a mixed stew. Whatever food the group had begged for went in—as long as it wasn’t moldy or rotten. Black beans, wild vegetables, rice bran, cornmeal paste, coarse black flour paste, sweet potatoes, potatoes, bits of meat from leftover soup, rotten cabbage leaves—even a finger-length fish some underling had scooped out of a river. It could barely be called a “hearty” hodgepodge stew.

Halfway through cooking, Jiang Weiguo dug out a small packet of coarse salt from the straw and sprinkled some into the stew. This immediately drew An Youyou’s strong dissatisfaction.

“Why didn’t you add salt to my portion?” she demanded.

“Your porridge already has salted fish. It’s cured with salt, so it doesn’t need more. This is the cheapest coarse salt—bitter and overly salty. The salt on your fish is much better quality,” Jiang Weiguo explained helplessly.

Only then was An Youyou satisfied. “Of course! My salted fish costs one copper coin per piece—premium stuff! Way better than those two-for-one coin ones!”

Jiang Weiguo: …

He silently continued cooking without another word. An Youyou squatted beside the pots, waiting. The other underlings didn’t dare get that close to the boss; they could only squat at a distance, holding their share of beans and occasionally popping one into their mouths, staring at the pots and swallowing their saliva.

As time passed, the aroma from the two pots grew richer. Qin Huai realized Jiang Weiguo’s cooking skills were actually quite decent—good enough to earn him a kitchen helper’s position in a restaurant.

An Youyou’s pot was essentially salted fish and bean porridge. The fire beneath it was strong, and the boiling broke the salted fish apart. The unpleasant fishy smell had been completely enveloped by the rice porridge. Both the beans and rice were cooked until soft and mushy, nearly every grain blooming open. The rich fragrance of rice mixed with the beans, plus a faint salted fish aroma, oddly made it smell somewhat like seafood porridge.

The heat control was excellent.

At least far better than Qin Huai’s.

The other pot of mixed stew didn’t look nearly as appealing. There were too many ingredients, too messy, and none of them were particularly good. The rotten vegetable leaves the beggars collected were truly rotten—so bad they wouldn’t even make it into a marketplace. Combined with unrefined coarse salt, the fact that modern people could swallow this stew at all would already be considered a success.

Of course, pickiness belonged to modern people. Everyone present—including An Youyou—was already drooling at the sight of the pots.

An Youyou drooled more subtly. After all, she was the boss—she couldn’t act as unrefined as the others.

“Thirteen, are you really planning to work at that Fuji place as a helper from now on?” An Youyou stared at her porridge, itching to taste it. “You really won’t beg with me?”

“Of all the people I picked up, you’re the smartest. The others don’t cooperate well and just drag me down. If the two of us teamed up, with some luck, we might even be able to beg our way into the concession areas.”

At the mention of the concession, An Youyou pulled out a cloth bundle and showed Jiang Weiguo a white pound note. “A young master gave me this today. It seems like money, but I don’t recognize the writing. Take a look.”

Jiang Weiguo glanced at it but didn’t take it. “That’s a pound sterling.”

“A pound? British money?” An Youyou held it up to the firelight, examining it repeatedly. “Then it must be worth a lot. I should’ve cried harder and gotten more from that young master.”

Jiang Weiguo: …

“How much is this worth?”

“Two pounds. On the black market, it should be worth over twenty silver dollars,” Jiang Weiguo said.

An Youyou gasped, staring at the note like it was a god of wealth. “Over twenty silver dollars? I’m going to get rich!”

“How do I exchange it? Where’s the black market? How do I get there?”

“See? I told you begging has a future! You earn one silver dollar a month, and I can make that in a single day—equal to two years of your work!”

Jiang Weiguo calmly stirred the porridge, ignoring her. After removing a couple of firewood pieces to lower the heat, he said slowly, “Since you’re rich now, have you thought about renting a place?”

“In summer, sleeping in a ruined temple is fine—at worst you get bitten by bugs, or unlucky enough, a snake. It’s autumn now; it’s not too cold, and straw is enough at night.”

“But winter is different. Forget about us—Little Ten is only four, and she’s a girl. With just thin clothes and straw, she won’t survive the winter. Shanghai winters aren’t as cold as Beiping’s, but I know that in Beiping, people without padded clothing don’t even dare go outside, and families sharing one quilt can still freeze to death.”

“If beggars don’t go out one day, they might starve the next. If we stay here in winter, everyone will either starve or freeze to death.”

An Youyou frowned. “Why is raising people so expensive?”

“Last time Little Three and Little Two got their legs broken, it cost me a lot of money, and Little Two still died. I had to pick up a new Little Two.”

“The Thirteen before you—I told him not to eat spoiled food. Missing a couple of meals wouldn’t kill him, but he didn’t listen. He secretly ate it and died from diarrhea.”

“The previous Little Ten couldn’t speak while begging. Someone kicked her in the chest, and she died on the spot coughing blood.”

“And the first ones I picked up—Little One, Little Three, Little Four, Little Seven, Little Eight, Little Ten, Little Eleven, Little Twelve—they either died of illness, were beaten to death, or froze in winter. Actually, winter isn’t that cold—you can survive if you make a fire.”

“Come to think of it, only Little Nine has survived from the beginning until now.”

Jiang Weiguo listened expressionlessly, silently stirring the stew.

“I’ve thought about renting a place too. This ruined temple isn’t comfortable. If you can sleep on a bed, who wants the ground? But rent is too expensive. Even out here in the suburbs, to house this many people—one room for me, the rest of you squeezing together—it would cost at least one silver dollar a month!”

“One silver dollar!”

“Do you know how much salted fish and rice that could buy?”

“Rickshaw pullers only earn one or two silver dollars a month. If you have that money, it’s better to eat well than rent a place.”

“The porridge is ready,” Jiang Weiguo said.

Overjoyed, An Youyou took out a bowl and waved to an underling, signaling him to wash it by the river. She then dipped the remaining steamed bun into the hot porridge and continued eating.

When the bowl was cleaned, she handed it to Jiang Weiguo. He filled it generously with salted fish porridge, scooping most of the fish into her bowl—clearly showing her status as the boss.

From the remaining half pot, Jiang Weiguo filled a small portion for himself. Then he signaled the others to come forward. The underlings lined up in an orderly manner—each received a ladle of the mixed stew and a bit of salted fish porridge.

Everyone slurped it down, not caring about the heat.

An Youyou finished her bowl at lightning speed. As the boss, she restrained herself from licking it clean, told an underling to wash it, and the rest began arranging the straw inside the ruined temple—saving the softest bedding and the best wind-sheltered spot for her.

An Youyou sat beside the still-burning fire, watching her underlings busily at work. She watched Little Ten, only four years old, vigorously patting the straw, trying to make it softer so An Youyou could sleep more comfortably at night.

“Is renting a house really more cost-effective than just buying a quilt?” An Youyou asked. “If you buy a quilt in winter, you can still use it in spring. It doesn’t cost much.”

“Houses have beds,” Jiang Weiguo said, giving a reason An Youyou couldn’t refuse. “And if you’re willing to spend a bit more, you can rent one with a kitchen. Kitchens have stoves, so you won’t have to eat mush or salted fish porridge every day—you can have stir-fried dishes.”

“The owner of Fuji is indeed stingy. He’d rather throw away leftovers than give them to beggars, and he doesn’t allow the staff to secretly take food home. But that’s actually a strategy. Although people criticize it, it made Fuji famous in a short time. Many officials and wealthy people like to dine there.”

“So while the owner seems stingy and strict, his strictness is mainly directed at the front-of-house staff. When it comes to the kitchen chefs and helpers, he usually turns a blind eye. The head chef, Master Ding, is a very kind person. If I can get on his good side, I believe I’ll soon become a chopping-station cook.”

“At that point, I’ll not only earn three silver dollars a month, but meals will also be provided. And I’ll most likely be able to bring back leftover ingredients from the kitchen. Then you can eat stir-fried dishes every day.”

An Youyou looked at Jiang Weiguo unhappily. “I didn’t even want to rent a house—why did you have to tell me all this? Now I want to rent one.”

“That means spending money again. I finally managed to save some.”

“I beg seriously every day, and every time I manage to save a little, something comes up to spend it—either medical treatment, medical treatment, or more medical treatment. Why is it so hard to keep people alive? Why do we even need a house!” An Youyou complained loudly.

“I should’ve picked up fewer people. Six would’ve been enough.”

Jiang Weiguo asked, “When are you planning to look at houses?”

“Tomorrow,” An Youyou replied irritably. “I’ll go to that lousy black market first to exchange the money, then beg for half a day, and then go look at houses.”

“That stir-fried food you mentioned—is it the kind they sell in restaurants?”

“Yes,” Jiang Weiguo nodded.

“Will what you cook taste the same as theirs?”

“Unless it’s a big restaurant like Fuji, I’m confident I can make it better than them,” Jiang Weiguo said.

An Youyou rolled her eyes. “Keep bragging. With such good talking skills, why are you going to work in a restaurant? Begging with me would be so much better.”

“Look at you—you’re just like me. You can read, do math, fight, and you’ve got skills. You don’t talk much, but you speak when it matters. Most importantly, you can read people and won’t easily get beaten to death.”

“You’re even better than me—I can’t write, but you can.”

“With such good qualifications, you should be begging with me!”

Jiang Weiguo: …

Qin Huai could see the deep speechlessness on Jiang Weiguo’s face.

“Actually, I don’t understand either,” Jiang Weiguo said. “You can read, do math, speak well, and fight—so why are you so determined to be a beggar?”

“Even if it’s harder for a woman to make a living outside, the way you look now, no one can tell your gender. You should be able to find plenty of jobs better than begging. Even working as an accountant in a shop would be more respectable.”

An Youyou widened her eyes in anger. “How can bookkeeping compare to begging?”

“Accountants earn fixed wages. Sitting in a shop every day with an abacus, calculating day and night until your eyes go blind, and you only make two or three silver dollars a month.”

“Don’t look down on begging, okay? If I didn’t beg, could I support all of you? Look at everyone here besides you—who else can actually get food?”

“Go ask around. Among all the beggar bosses, whose reputation is as good as mine? I support so many underlings and don’t demand tribute. I don’t force you to scam people. No stealing, no robbing, no trafficking women, no joining gangs as thugs—and I can still feed this many people. How many can do that?”

“Only me!”

“Sure, my underlings get replaced quickly, but their deaths aren’t my fault. In Shanghai, beggars and refugees die every day. If I were an accountant, could I support more than a dozen people?”

“Then why do you support us?” Jiang Weiguo asked.

“Because I’m the boss!” An Youyou lifted her chin proudly. “You don’t know how it was before—I had even more underlings!”

“I’m the boss! If I don’t have at least eight or ten underlings, how can I live up to my name? Of course I have to support them. Do you think I started out begging? I even thought about robbery.”

“But I couldn’t win. The other side had guns—how was I supposed to fight?”

“Besides, having underlings isn’t useless. Sure, except for you, the others are useless now—but in a few years, what if they get better at begging? Then each of them could give me one silver dollar a month. I’d earn thirteen silver dollars without doing anything!”

“And if I casually beg a bit myself, wouldn’t I get rich?”

Jiang Weiguo: …

Qin Huai: …

Seriously, what kind of person are you? That’s such a wild way of thinking.

Jiang Weiguo said nothing, simply concluding that An Youyou was a bit crazy.

After all, there were plenty of crazy people these days—one more didn’t matter.

“I still have to go to Fuji tomorrow. I’ll rest now,” Jiang Weiguo said.

“Wait, don’t sleep yet. Tell me where exactly that black market is—I need to exchange money tomorrow.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Aren’t you going to Fuji?”

“The black market opens early.”

“I’m worried you might get greedy when you see money… That place is controlled by the Green Gang. If we offend them, even thirteen lives wouldn’t be enough to pay for it.”

“Am I that greedy?”

“You are.”

“…Alright, I am.”