Chapter 91: Trivial Matters 1/3

Sister Wang and Mrs. Xu were both keen on listening to operas, leaving Jin Xiaoye to busy herself with chores.

Li Qingzhi asked her, “Xiaoye, do you like listening to operas?”

Jin Xiaoye replied, “I don’t like it… mainly because I haven’t listened to it much and I don’t understand it well.”

In Miaoqian Village or in nearby villages, occasionally households would invite opera troupes to perform. On certain special days, villagers would pool money to hire opera troupes to perform.

At such times, people in the village would spread the news and happily go to watch the opera together.

Her uncle’s wife would always prepare some snacks and dress up Jin Moli beautifully, then take her to watch the opera. But for her…

Her mother had to stay home to work, so she couldn’t possibly take her to watch the opera.

When she grew up and could go by herself, she had to help her mother with chores.

Once during the New Year, an opera troupe came to the temple north of their village to perform. She went to listen once, but couldn’t understand much of it.

The way they sang on the stage was somewhat different from their everyday speech.

“I don’t like watching operas either.” Li Qingzhi smiled and asked Jin Xiaoye again, “Did Brother Dahu and the others go back?”

Among the few people who supported the facade, Li Qingzhi was most familiar with Jin Kunhu, who had helped when their family was building a house.

“They went to buy New Year goods,” Jin Xiaoye replied.

After Li Qingzhi and the bailiffs left earlier, Jin Xiaoye treated Jin Kunhu and his companions to noodles. They felt embarrassed for not being of much help and only ordered the cheaper meat noodle dish.

After eating, they went to buy New Year’s goods, planning to return with Jin Xiaoye’s group.

As soon as they mentioned it, Brother Dahu and the others arrived.

Seeing Li Qingzhi, they were all excited. “Li Qingzhi, you’re amazing! You actually know people from the yamen.”

“Li Qingzhi, how’s that shopkeeper Shen doing?”

“Li Qingzhi…”

The four surrounded Li Qingzhi with questions, and Wang Jie and the others also looked over.

Li Qingzhi said, “Shopkeeper Shen has been thrown into prison.”

In Daqi, filial piety was emphasized alongside respect for teachers and principles. Shopkeeper Shen was essentially raised by Shopkeeper Yang, yet he tried to deceive him… So the county magistrate sent him straight to jail and returned the shop and its contents to Shopkeeper Yang.

Speaking of which, Shopkeeper Shen ended up like this because he went too far.

Shopkeeper Yang had raised him for many years, already had affection for him, and was willing to forgo the 120 taels of silver just to take back the shop. But who would have thought that he still wanted to cheat him out of the shop!

Then there was the woman whom Shopkeeper Shen had divorced… She bore him a son and a daughter, treated him sincerely, but when Shopkeeper Shen gained power, he turned his back on her and mistreated the two children… If not for this, the woman wouldn’t have come forward to accuse him of trying to seize Shopkeeper Yang’s property.

“Being thrown into prison serves him right!”

“Such a person deserves to be in jail!”

“He’s finally getting his comeuppance!”

As they chatted, everyone also inquired about the details of Magistrate Gou’s trial.

Li Qingzhi didn’t hide anything and elaborated on what happened in court.

He was good at storytelling and made the whole process sound very interesting, so everyone was excited to listen.

However, Li Qingzhi actually omitted some things, like… how Shopkeeper Yang later approached him, wanting to sell the shop to him.

Living in Chongcheng County was actually quite expensive. The money spent on renting a house in the city for a year could be used to build a house in the countryside.

Moreover, living in the countryside, given the climate in this area, one could sow some seeds in the front and back yards and have more vegetables than they could eat, and even raise some chickens and ducks… This could really save a lot of money.

Shopkeeper Yang had a shop in the city, but going back a couple of generations, he was also a rural person. He planned to sell the shop, take his silly son, daughter-in-law, and even Shopkeeper Shen’s wife and children, back to the countryside to live.

The money from selling the shop could be used to buy land. They couldn’t farm it themselves, but renting it out to others to farm would also work.

Shopkeeper Shen’s parents didn’t care about their children. Shopkeeper Shen had theoretically suffered, but it was interesting that he didn’t care for his own children either, showing no affection for them.

His son and daughter saw him unfavorably and regarded Shopkeeper Yang as their grandfather. Moreover, the woman whom Shopkeeper Shen had divorced was actually a distant relative of Shopkeeper Yang. Shopkeeper Yang wanted to take them to the countryside to live together.

His silly son had a silly grandson… Shopkeeper Yang dared not let his grandson marry. He planned to change the surnames of the two children, pass them on to his son’s name, leave some land, and let these two children have a meal for his son and grandson.

Although the children’s father was ruthless, these two children were raised by Shopkeeper Yang, and he thought they should be good.

After returning home for dinner, Li Qingzhi told Jin Xiaoye about this, then asked, “Xiaoye, do you want to buy it?”

According to his plan, he wanted to buy the shop, but he still wanted to see what Jin Xiaoye thought.

Jin Xiaoye didn’t hesitate: “I want to buy it! How much are they selling it for?”

Li Qingzhi said, “The shop is quite big, and they want to sell it for four hundred taels.”

“We’ll buy it!” Jin Xiaoye immediately said, “I looked at the shop today. The front is perfect for doing business, and with some renovations at the back, it can be lived in. In the future, we can live in the city, which will be much more convenient. When Damao and Ermao grow up, they can also go to study with Li Xiucai…”

Jin Xiaoye has always dreamed of living a good life and is willing to work hard for it.

She used to live in Miaoqian Village, and her thoughts were simply to buy more land so that Damao and Ermao could have enough to eat and wear in the future.

But these few months, she came to the county town every day and saw how people in the county town lived.

Let’s not talk about others, just Sister Wang’s two sons… They go to school every day and have never done any farm work.

She has worked the land before, she knows how hard it is. If possible, she hopes Damao and Ermao won’t have to farm in the future.

Of course, she wouldn’t sell the land at home, and if there was a chance, she would even buy some more. This was their family’s backup plan.

Li Qingzhi loved listening to Jin Xiaoye’s future plans the most, and now he couldn’t help but smile.

He also felt that living in the city would be better. He liked the village in Miaoqian, but, to be honest, living in the village was inconvenient.

Moreover, their house had mud walls and floors. Although it was warm in winter and cool in summer, it was somewhat damp, and there were a lot of mosquitoes, insects, rats, and ants…

Because the mud walls couldn’t have windows, the house was particularly dark, and during the cold winter, he had to leave the door open to read.

If they bought the Yang family’s shop, he planned to buy some bricks to renovate the backyard. By then, they could buy peach blossom paper to paste on the windows, so he wouldn’t have to study in the cold wind.

As they talked, they became happier, and they also took out their savings to count.

Li Qingzhi earned quite a bit of money from writing books, and now they could completely buy the shop.

After the New Year, they would be able to move to the county town.

“In the future, everyone in the village will surely envy me, especially Jin Moli.” Jin Xiaoye felt happy at the thought.