Chapter 37: Buying Land and Building a House 1/3

When Jin Xiaoye returned home that day, Mr. Yao came to find her again. “Xiaoye, do you know anyone who wants to buy land? Our family’s four acres of land fields are all together. In the past, even if we sold them together, we could get 110 taels. But this time, I’m only selling for 100 taels.”

At first, Mr. Yao did intend to sell his own land to the Jin family.

If Aunt Jin’s wasn’t determined to buy Yao’s four acres of land for 100 taels, just to push down the price, say, she wanted to buy their four acres of land for 90 taels and then lend them 10 taels of silver, then he would have agreed.

After all, his son did indeed spend Jin Moli’s dowry, and he felt guilty about it.

But Aunt Jin’s wanted five acres of land… and Yao’s family only had a total of ten acres of land!

Speaking of which, Yao’s family used to be considered wealthy in front of the Miaoqian Village. But once this land was sold, they became an ordinary family.

“My aunt doesn’t want it?” Jin Xiaoye was a bit surprised.

Mr. Yao didn’t hide anything and recounted what happened during the day.

After listening, Jin Xiaoye was surprised and speechless.

She was surprised that her aunt could actually come up with one hundred taels… She thought that her uncle’s family savings were at most fifty taels.

After all, her uncle’s family often made new clothes and secretly ate meat, so their expenses weren’t small.

It seems that her uncle earns more than he lets on.

As for why she was speechless… Her aunt actually didn’t seize such a good opportunity!

It’s not common for people to sell land these days!

“Xiaoye, I plan to go to the county town tomorrow to ask around. If someone wants to buy land from your side, I’ll go and inquire too,” Mr. Yao said.

Jin Xiaoye thought for a moment and said, “Uncle Yao, there really is someone on my side who wants to buy land. Let’s go with the price you mentioned, one hundred taels of silver for four acres of land.”

“Really?” Mr. Yao was pleasantly surprised.

“How could it be false?” Jin Xiaoye smiled.

“Will he be willing to pay tomorrow?” Mr. Yao asked again. The husband of that woman, named Xuniang, requested that they gather the money within three days, which was quite tight.

“Yes, he can. We can handle this matter at the government office tomorrow,” Jin Xiaoye said. She was quite uneasy leaving the one hundred taels of silver at home. If she could exchange it for land sooner… that would be great!

Mr. Yao immediately made an appointment with Jin Xiaoye and said they would go to the county office to transfer the land the next day.

Before leaving,Mr. Yao asked, “Xiaoye, who wants to buy the land?”

Jin Xiaoye replied, “It’s someone I know in the county town. She wants to buy a few acres of land for rental. Uncle Yao, you’ll meet her tomorrow.” After some consideration, Jin Xiaoye decided to let Sister Wang act as the “buyer”.

At that time, she would pretend that Sister Wang wanted to buy the land, but in reality, she would be the one buying it!

As for farming after buying the land… she planned to lease it out.

Jin Xiaoye was good at farming, but she didn’t enjoy it at all.

She preferred to go out on the boat to sell things!

So, with a total of six acres of land in her family, she decided to lease it all out.

Families who leased the land for farming would give them most of the produce, which would be enough for them to eat.

After discussing with Mr. Yao, Jin Xiaoye went to find Li Qingzhi and told him about buying the land tomorrow.

Li Qingzhi strongly supported Jin Xiaoye’s decision to lease out the land after buying it. “Xiaoye, this is a good idea!”

As for farming, it’s something you only understand when you do it. Jin Xiaoye not only had to fertilize the land with manure but also endured a lot of hardships during transplanting.

In this era, the methods to prevent mosquitoes and insects were limited. Everyone’s legs would be bitten by mosquitoes, causing many itchy bumps, and scratching could lead to broken skin.

That wasn’t the worst; there were leeches in the fields!

Those leeches would silently climb onto people’s legs and then burrow into any wounds… Li Qingzhi had once seen Jin Xiaoye calmly pulling a leech out of a wound on her leg. After pulling it out, there would be a small blood hole on her leg.

Rowing the boat was also tiring, but with Jin Xiaoshu’s help, Jin Xiaoye, who was used to doing farm work, didn’t find it too exhausting.

Because Jin Xiaoye didn’t just row the boat, she sold various odds and ends, earning much more than farming.

“Ah Qing, come with us tomorrow,” Jin Xiaoye said to Li Qingzhi. “I don’t know many words, so I’m afraid I might mess up this matter.”

“Okay,” Li Qingzhi agreed without hesitation.

Early the next morning, Mr. Yao and his wife came with the land deed to find them.

Yao Zhenfu didn’t come; he felt embarrassed and didn’t want to go to the county seat for the time being.

In just a few days, Mr. Yao looked like he had aged ten years, his head drooping and his whole demeanor lackluster.

He had no interest in rowing the boat, so he took Jin Xiaoye’s boat to the county seat.

After arriving in the county seat, Jin Xiaoye asked Jin Xiaoshu to stay on the boat and watch over Li Damao and Li Ermao. She then asked Mr. Yao and his wife to wait in place for a while.

Jin Xiaoye and Li Qingzhi acted separately. Li Qingzhi went to the Zhu family to say hello and agreed to meet later. As for Jin Xiaoye, she went to ask Sister Wang for help.

Jin Xiaoye didn’t want anyone to know that she had money on her hands. She wanted to buy a few acres of land in her own name, which was not a big deal at all. Sister Wang readily agreed.

They quickly gathered together and went to the bank first.

“Others don’t have cash on hand, only silver bills. So let’s go to the bank first to exchange silver. Uncle Yao, you can hold the silver from the bank with confidence,” Jin Xiaoye said to Mr. Yao.

Mr. Yao nodded at her words, showing a smile. He was indeed a bit worried, afraid of accidentally receiving counterfeit money. If they directly withdrew money from the bank, it would be reassuring.

Li Qingzhi followed Jin Xiaoye to the bank. He had the memories of the original owner and knew what the bank was like, but seeing it in person was still interesting.

When they arrived at the bank, a servant from a wealthy household came over to exchange two taels of silver for copper coins.

The bank’s treasurer was a man with a graying goat-like beard, probably in his fifties or sixties. After examining the silver, he said it was of good quality and could be exchanged for 2,700 copper coins. Then he took out the scale and began weighing the copper coins.

The bank couldn’t be bothered to count the copper coins, they simply weighed them. For example, if one copper coin weighed four grams, then weighing out four thousand grams would be equivalent to one thousand copper coins.

The copper coins obtained from exchanging two taels of silver amounted to over ten catties, all of which the servant put into the bag hanging on his back.

Li Qingzhi overheard the servant talking to the bank’s treasurer and learned that he had come to exchange money because his young master wanted to go shopping. In Chongcheng County, people mostly used copper coins for shopping, so he exchanged silver for copper coins.

After the servant finished exchanging, it was Li Qingzhi and the others’ turn. Jin Xiaoye took out the banknotes; the treasurer inspected them, then he took the key and went into the back room. After a while, he came out with several heavy ingots of silver and handed them to Jin Xiaoye.