It wasn't that they couldn't come up with the money, but being forced to pay like this was galling. To be squeezed by someone they had once helped was even more disheartening. Their family had always been good to the villagers—so much so that bringing one child to attend the school was nothing. They could have brought two or three and it still would have been reasonable.
Mrs. Wang was already wiping away her tears, calculating that if it came to it, she would have to go back and sell her land.
