Transmigration: The Evil Mother-In-Law Is Actually Innocent!

Chapter 360: Chapter 360 The Softest Hearted Person_1

Zhulan explained, ”After you marry out, Mother hopes that all the maids by your side are from families, so even if Da Shu marries out with you, with their families in Mother’s hands, they dare not betray you. Or Mother won’t leave the Wan family behind, giving the entire Wan family to you as a dowry is also possible; you can hold the reins yourself.”

As for the three new maids she had bought, she really couldn’t trust them, especially Li Qiu who had sold herself into servitude at ten—she would be the easiest to betray her if family members were threatened, Zhulan thought. No wonder the big families in ancient dramas always favored servants born within their households!

Xue Han was taught a lesson, ”Mother, then why didn’t you buy all the servants from one family, why did you also buy Li Qiu and the others?”

Zhulan smiled, ”Not to mention where we could find so many servants from a single family to buy, even the residence can’t have all the servants from one family; Mother is guarding against them too, in case they marry each other and band together to deceive us in the future. The young servants and maids who came in, they can only rely on their master, and they will be the most obedient. The residence needs voices of both types; you have to remember that everything should be balanced, and to achieve balance, checks and balances are needed. There’s much significance in this, Mother will teach you slowly over time.”

Lady Li stood by and listened for a long time, her head spinning with confusion—checks and balances, alliances through marriage—she felt bewildered. Forget it, she didn’t want to think anymore; following Mother’s words was enough.

Lady Li said, ”Mother, I’m taking Juan Hua back to the courtyard. I want to go to the market with the head of the family in a while. Yesterday was all about queueing for grain distribution; today, I want to see if there are people at the market.”

Zhulan, ”Go ahead.”

When only Zhulan was left, she separated out the household silver. She left five thousand six hundred taels as the family’s base funds, and took the remaining seven thousand taels for herself.

Yesterday, she had asked Zhou Shuren, and barren lands didn’t count within the two hundred acres. She decided to only buy twenty acres of land for household use. The rest would be mountain land. Today, there was no need for the eldest to go; Steward Ding would handle it.

Steward Ding, with more experience than Eldest Brother Zhou, didn’t take four hours to buy both the mountain and the farmland. It would have been even quicker had he not traveled out of the city to view the mountain land. He bought one hundred and eighty acres of mountain land, which came as a gift. In total, he acquired two hundred and sixteen acres, fifteen acres of dryland, and five acres of paddy fields. In Lizhou City, paddy fields are scarce and expensive, costing thirteen silver taels per acre, while dryland was cheaper than in Dongbei, with good quality land costing four silver taels per acre.

Including the taxes for changing land deeds, the land purchase cost nearly four hundred silver taels.

Eldest Brother Zhou and his wife didn’t return until around noon. Zhulan furrowed her brows, ”What took you so long? Steward Ding came back almost an hour ago with the land purchases.”

Had there not been many people following them, she would have thought something had gone wrong.

Eldest Brother Zhou said, ”Mother, at the market today, there were villagers selling wild vegetables and fish, but it was too few. The children selling wild vegetables said there was more at home, and they looked so pitiful. We softened our hearts and agreed to buy it all, but it took time for the children to walk back. We couldn’t bear to let them do that, so since there was a carriage, we sent them home.”

Lady Li continued, ”Once in the village, when they knew we came to buy wild vegetables, many households asked if we wanted more. Thinking that our family buys wild vegetables every year to dry for winter, we stayed to buy them, so that’s why it took quite a while.”

Zhulan looked at Eldest Brother Zhou and Lady Li; in the entire Zhou family, these two were the softest-hearted, ”How much did you buy?”

Lady Li grinned, sure that her mother-in-law wouldn’t be angry, ”Mother, we bought two cartloads, and I also said, from now on when they pick wild vegetables, I’ll have someone collect them.”

Eldest Brother Zhou added, ”Mother, we bought them for two coins per jin, a total of over three hundred jin.”

Zhulan, ”....”

Looks like they’ve bought wild vegetables from all nearby villages!

Zhulan waved her hand, ”Don’t just pile them up after buying them; dry what needs drying pronto. Don’t let them rot.”

Lady Li hurried off, ”Mother, I’ll go dry them now.”

At noon, the Zhou family’s dining table was graced with wild vegetables and fish, with decently sized fish caught by villagers risking a river dive in exchange for silver.

In the afternoon, Zhulan changed her clothes and rode the carriage to see the mountain land she had purchased. Located near Lizhou City, the mountain’s wild vegetables had been picked clean, but some vegetation remained. Over two hundred acres of mountain land was indeed not small.

Eldest Brother Zhou gazed at the mountains ahead, ”Mother, are both these mountains ours now?”

Zhulan, ”Yes.”

Eldest Brother Zhou worried again, ”Mother, is there too much mountain land? Are we just planting sweet potatoes and potatoes?”

In Eldest Brother Zhou’s mind, mountain land usually only grew sweet potatoes and potatoes.

Zhulan could already envision what the orchard would look like and said with a smile, ”On the mountain land near the mountaintop, I plan to plant apple trees, and lower down the mountain, grow some watermelons. After the watermelon harvest, we’ll plant winter wheat.”

Eldest Brother Zhou gasped. Planting so many fruit trees on such a large expanse of mountain land, ”Mother, our family will have to buy quite a number of fruit trees, won’t we?”

Now that Zhulan had seen the land, she had a plan in mind and smiled, ”Of course. After the fruit trees are planted, I’ll hand over the management of the mountain land to you. Li Chun will follow you, don’t let Mother down, okay?”

Eldest Brother Zhou’s only skill was farming, but he had no experience with apple trees or watermelons. His scalp tingled at the thought, and this would be his first time handling such a large family matter, so he felt quite uncertain.

Zhulan, seeing Eldest Brother Zhou’s lack of confidence, thought that he needed more rigorous training, ”You’re not expected to do everything yourself, you just need to spend the silver to hire others to work. You just have to supervise, can’t you handle that?”

Upon hearing this, Eldest Brother Zhou felt assured; since becoming a Zhou family head, he had spent money more liberally. Indeed, he knew how to spend it, ”Mother, I’ll definitely take good care of the mountain land.”

Now that the land was secured, Zhulan’s family needed to hire quite a few people. They had brought a significant amount of grain with them, and Zhulan planned to pay the workers half in grain and half in silver, which would also help to relieve some of Zhou Shuren’s burden.

In the days that followed, not only was Zhou Shuren busy, but Zhulan was too. She calculated how many fruit trees were needed and how many workers to hire. The family’s ice cellar also needed digging. Once everything was calculated, Steward Ding and Eldest Brother Zhou were sent off to Chuanzhou to select fruit trees and hire orchardists.

By the time batches of fruit trees arrived at Zhulan’s place, the Zhou family had been in Lizhou City for over ten days.

Zhou Shuren’s road construction and pond excavation had already begun, with villagers working everywhere outside Lizhou City. Lizhou City was starting to settle down.

Once Zhulan’s family’s ice cellar was dug and villagers were hired to plant fruit trees and farm the land, Zhulan finally had a moment to breathe. That evening, she spoke to Zhou Shuren, ”It’s been almost a month since we came to Lizhou City; how come no Mrs. Guan has invited me yet?”