Yuan Si got home a little after four in the afternoon. That evening, her grandmother told her what had happened. Yuan Si was furious at first, but then her grandmother took out the IOU and said gleefully, "See this? She wanted to cheat me out of my money? No way. I'm making her pay back every cent she swindled from me, with interest."
Her grandmother thought that one mao per jin of grain was already a high price, so she considered the extra few yuan to be the interest. The old woman was formidable, to be sure, but she had her limitations. She was only a force to be reckoned with on her own turf. In the county seat, she was completely clueless. Thus, she had never been to the black market and had no idea how high grain prices really were.
