The three piglets totaled fifty-seven pounds and some change, we'll just round it to fifty-seven pounds. At fifty wen per pound, that would be a total of two thousand eight hundred and fifty wen. Lian Manman took out two strings of money, eight strands of money, and counted out another fifty wen to pay for the piglets.
Wang Shiliu happily left with the money in hand. It was common for households to buy three piglets at a time, but few paid as promptly as they did.
When Wu Lang and Xiao Qi returned from school, they saw three new piglets in the pigsty, busily enjoying their feed.
The three piglets represented the promise of having three fat pigs for the New Year, lots of delicious meat falling off the bone, symbolizing wealth and savings. More importantly, these three piglets were now their property; unlike the past, before they had separated the households, when after a year of hard feeding, all they would receive were barely the equivalent of a pig's leg.
