The village chief held the QR code out in front of me again. “You’re such a big streamer; you wouldn’t fuss over such a small amount with the villagers, would you?”
Hearing this, the villagers all straightened up. They started chiming in together, “Exactly! Gifts in your live stream fly everywhere—what’s two thousand more or less?”
“It’s not easy for us to farm. You just talk on camera and make money. You should share some with us!”
Denna wiped her tears. “My husband’s medical bills aren’t even covered. You can’t just eat our mangoes for free.”
I could hardly believe my ears. “Denna, you say you can’t cover the medical bills? Other years, your mangoes would have rotted in the fields by now. But this year, just your batch alone sold 8,000 pounds. At the current price, that’s at least 11,000 dollars. How can you still not cover the medical bills?”
Denna was suddenly at a loss for words, her eyes avoiding mine.
My uncle quickly tried to smooth things over, “That’s a different issue! Right now, we’re talking about you eating mangoes for free!”