Peaceful Farm Life

Chapter 541: Chapter 541 Money is a Good Thing_1

Li Wuyu was not shy and pointed to the ice in the room, ”This much will do, I think it’s enough to stay cool.”

Wang Youbao responded, ”Hmm.”

An Jing looked at them and couldn’t help but laugh. It was true that whatever her disciple wanted, Youbao would provide.

Still, she said, ”You don’t need to buy ice, we made this ice ourselves. I’ll teach you the method, and you can make it at home, it’s much cheaper than buying it in the county.”

Wang Youbao’s eyes instantly lit up and he eagerly asked, ”Is that true?”

An Jing replied, ”There’s no need to deceive anyone about this.” And with that, she explained how to make ice with saltpeter and told him the steps involved.

After listening, Wang Youbao marvelled and then again started to think about the profit, his eyes shining as he asked An Jing, ”An Jing, you wouldn’t mind if I sold this ice, would you?”

An Jing looked heavenward, speechless.

Wang Youbao added, ”We’ll split it fifty-fifty.”

Before An Jing could speak, Li Wuyu showed her dissatisfaction, ”Youbao, why do you only think about money?”

Wang Youbao replied, ”Money is a good thing.” It gave him a sense of security, how could it not be good!

Li Wuyu offhandedly said, ”No wonder people say merchants reek of money.”

Wang Youbao’s gaze darkened slightly before he nodded and said, ”Miss Li speaks the truth, merchants indeed reek of money, and I, naturally, am no exception.”

Only then did Li Wuyu realize she had misspoken and quickly added, ”I wasn’t talking about you! You smell nice, not at all like money! Really!”

Wang Youbao: ”...”

An Jing couldn’t help but laugh, ”You can smell whether Youbao smells nice? I’ve never noticed any scent.”

Li Wuyu, blatantly lying, said, ”I have a sensitive nose.”

An Jing found it even more amusing.

Wang Youbao’s heart felt a little better.

An Jing stopped teasing Li Wuyu and turned to Wang Youbao, ”If you want to make and sell ice, go ahead.”

Upon hearing An Jing’s words, Wang Youbao’s displeasure vanished instantly, and he smiled, ”With the recent heat, the number of customers at the tavern has halved. If I make ice and put it in the tavern, the business might pick up a bit.”

From the money allocated last month, An Jing also knew business at the tavern was tough, so she nodded in understanding.

...

The weather turned increasingly hot, suddenly warming up around the middle of April. Then, slowly, it got hotter each day, and now, on the twentieth of May, after more than a month of heat, there was still no sign of cooling—it remained unbearably hot.

Of course, not the entire Xiyun Kingdom was this hot—just six counties, with Hecheng County being one of them. The remaining five were all adjacent to Hecheng County.

These six counties, because of the high temperatures and drought, saw their land crack to various degrees. The fields were nearly all dried up, and even the water levels in the rivers were dropping.

Normally, water could be released from the rivers to flow through the irrigation ditches into the fields, but now the water level was too low, far below the ditches, and water simply couldn’t be released. It had become a task of manually carrying water from the river to irrigate the paddy fields.

Many people raised rice fish in their fields, but with insufficient water, the fish either died from the heat or from thirst.

The eight mu of mountain fields that An Jing and Xiao Changyi owned were not affected because their water came from a mountain stream. It was the other four mu of fields that had also dried up and needed manual watering.

As Xiao Changyi had to stay with An Jing and had no time to carry water for these two mu of paddy fields, he asked Meng Zhuqing to hire people for irrigation.