Chapter 46: Village Affairs

Carrying the food, Chen Xin arrived at the courtyard. “An Ji.”

“Mistress.” An Ji swiftly came out from the shadows, kneeling in front of Chen Xin.

“Get up, this is your lunch.” Handing her the plate with a faint smile, Chen Xin noticed that she hesitated to take it and said, “How can you work on an empty stomach?”

“Yes, thank you, Mistress.” Gratefully accepting the food, An Ji replied.

“Eat in the kitchen, there’s a small stool there.”

“In the future, we’ll save food for you, and you can come to the kitchen to eat by yourself.”

Seeing her agreement, Chen Xin turned and went back to the house. If possible, she want to be an ordinary person now. An ordinary commoner that didn’t want to be so classy. But for her and Fang Ziyu, she need to do something.

After they finished their meal and took a nap on the bed, at the same time, they heard the village chief calling outside.

“Xiao Yu’er, sleep a bit longer.” Holding him back from getting up, Chen Xin leaned in and kissed his lips gently.

“Mm.” Xiao Yu’er, wanting to get up and help to tidy up her clothes that had gotten a bit messy when she got up, but he felt a bit dazed by the warmth on his lips and his still groggy brain nodded absentmindedly.

Covering him with the thin blanket, Chen Xin straightened out his clothes a bit and went to meet the village chief and the others.

“Miss Chen is here.”

“Miss Chen…”

The villagers greeted Chen Xin enthusiastically, each holding a machete, unable to hide their excitement, looking ready for action.

Chen Xin nodded in response to each greeting and pointed to the nearby mountain, fifteen or sixteen stories high, saying to the village chief, “Let’s go there first.”

“Okay. Everyone follows.” The village chief waved her hand, signaling the villagers to lead the way, with Chen Xin placed second.

Chen Xin understood the village chief’s consideration, as the mountain was overgrown with thorns, making it difficult to walk even an inch without a path, so they would need to clear a path with machetes.

Looking at the not densely packed trees on the mountain, but still unusually tall due to lack of logging, they slowly made their way up the mountain. When they reached a relatively open area, Chen Xin said, “Chief, let’s stop here.”

“Miss Chen, what’s wrong?” Mrs. Lin asked anxiously.

Chen Xin said directly, “If you want to grow crops, you’ll need to clear the trees and weeds on this mountain. Can you do it?”

Although the villagers were a bit surprised to hear this, they were all accustomed to farm work and quickly calmed down. One day at a time, one month or two would pass.

Moreover, as Miss Chen said, the Linjia village had little farmland, and apart from barely sustaining themselves, there was no extra money to be made, so they had to find other solutions.

“It’s possible.” They responded.

Chen Xin thought for a moment, “If some trees are too big, there’s no need to cut them down, it’s a waste of time and won’t block anything.”

Everyone nodded in agreement with Chen Xin’s words.

Then they walked all the way to the top of the mountain, and Chen Xin harvested quite a few medicinal herbs. She even unexpectedly found a cucumber plant and picked over a dozen large cucumbers.

They looked crispy and refreshing. Chen Xin also wanted to distribute them to the villagers, after all, they were all in this together, and it wasn’t something rare. However, since she didn’t discover them herself, they couldn’t accept them. They also said they didn’t know what it was, but it looked sour like the fruits on the mountain.

“Chief, you can distribute the land to each household, and you all know how to plant,” Chen Xin said.

“No problem with that.” The village chief agreed.

“If you want to plant some varieties, you can choose the ones with higher yields when harvested at the foot of the mountain, so you don’t have to climb up and down wasting energy.”

The village chief’s eyes lit up, clapping his hands, “Miss Chen is right.”

“Then Miss Chen, what should we plant?”

Hearing this, Chen Xin thought of the workshop she wanted to open and said, “Peanuts, sweet potatoes, you can plant fewer of these, as they have extremely high yields. You can also leave the sweet potato leaves, and when you sell them, you can still make some money.”

The villagers were dumbfounded. Why did Miss Chen want everything?

“Also, the flowers on the mountain, hmm, I’ll take those too.” Chen Xin calmly looked at the villagers’ even more dumbfounded expressions, feeling a bit helpless, but explaining wasn’t her style either.

However, the village chief disagreed, looking at Chen Xin, “What’s there to sell? If Miss Chen wants it, we’ll pick it for you. You’ve helped us so much, saying these things makes us feel ashamed.”

“Yes, Miss Chen is too polite.”

“That’s right, if Miss Chen wants it, we’ll pick it for you.”

—

The villagers were too enthusiastic, and Chen Xin was touched, but “Let me tell you, picking these flowers also takes time. I can’t let you waste your time picking flowers for nothing. How about this, this will be our first business deal, let’s settle it like this.”

“But we need to separate them by type.” Chen Xin instructed.

The villagers nodded helplessly, and with one dominant villager, there was nothing they could do.