Chapter 98 Dust Settles

  Two days later, most of the villagers' wheat had been harvested, and some people had already started planting beans, corn, and peanuts. Ye Shiwu finished harvesting the wheat for the three Ye brothers and handed over the land to the farm workers to plow. He took Mao Shi with him to help Ye Qiusheng's family harvest wheat for a day.

  Ye Baiji received this news and came to find Zhen'er. Zhen'er was naturally willing to help, so she also followed along to make up the numbers.

  Ye Qiushu is a kind and virtuous person, treating the farm workers well. Whenever someone in the village has difficulties, he is willing to lend a hand, so his relationships with others are very good. Even though he has been bedridden for days, the farm workers have followed Ye Luyuan's instructions carefully and diligently harvested the wheat, so not much time was wasted. When they heard that Ye Qiushu's family needed help, many villagers wanted to come and assist, but Ye Qiushu's wife declined, thinking that everyone had to rush to plant their crops. Anyway, Ye Shiwei has taken a look and thinks that with their quick hands and feet, they can hurry up and finish harvesting today.

  Ye Shiwei brought Ye Qishu's family helper and Ye Luyuan to cut wheat, while Ye Sumu and Mao Shi brought Ye Baiji, Zhen'er, Ye Baiwei, and Ye Luyuan's sister and brother-in-law to bundle the wheat. With everyone working together in harmony, they finished quickly.

  At noon, Ye Qiuniang brought lunch to the field and everyone ate together. There were many people, so she was busy and only managed to stir-fry two dishes. The rice was plain white rice, and no one complained about it.

  Later in the afternoon, Ye Lufang's sister went home to help her mother cook, and there were fewer people bundling wheat, but it didn't seem to make a difference, they just worked at their normal speed.

  It wasn't until the sky was completely dark that Ye Shiwei and the others finally loaded the last bundle of wheat onto the ox cart. Looking at the empty field, although everyone felt extremely sore all over their bodies, they were also happy in their hearts. People from rural families couldn't bear to waste food.

  Dinner was, of course, very sumptuous, and the tables were set up in the courtyard. Everyone had plenty of time to spare, and they lingered over their meal, chatting leisurely. The men especially enjoyed discussing farming matters, while Zhen'er sat at a nearby table listening with great interest.

  "...The land rent is getting more expensive every year, and now the landlord Xie from Xiagou Village says he's going to raise the rent again. Does he want people to live or not?!" A man sighed. Zhen'er remembered that he was a helper at the Ye Luyuan household. He worked very diligently, and Ye Luyuan had said that his family had little land but many children, with elderly people on top of that, making life very difficult for them.

  "Yes, yes, that's right. The land rent of the Zhang family has always been the highest. If this is added, no one will be willing to rent their land." Some people also speculated.

  "That's not necessarily true, renting out the land can still leave some savings, if we don't rent it out, the whole family will have to go hungry." Someone said with a bitter tone.

  Everyone in their hearts silently nodded in agreement, this land is too expensive.

  Zhen'er's heart moved. She didn't have much talent and considered herself a short-sighted person, so it was better to choose some safe and secure ways to make money. She had been thinking about what to do with the money from selling strawberries, wanting to buy land but having no one to farm it, only to realize now that there were still many people who didn't have land to farm, so she could also buy land and rent it out to others to farm.

  With this idea, Zhen'er privately entrusted the matter of finding a matchmaker to Ye Lao Yezi. Ye Lao Yezi knew where her money came from and would definitely not ask more questions. Moreover, Lao Yezi was kind-hearted and willing to help, and his mouth was tight, so entrusting him with this matter was the most secure.

  Although she had some small fear of intermediaries after the Qian Zhongren incident, she also knew that buying a house was still more reliable with a stable intermediary.

  In just two days, Old Ye had some news. The middleman he inquired about this time also lived in Yang Liu Lane, just two houses away from the Qian family. His surname was Yuan, and his reputation was very good. Whoever dealt with him once would look for him again next time. This was also because Old Master Ye had made extensive inquiries, even asking people from neighboring villages who came to visit, before confirming the person's identity, and then told Zhen'er about it.

  Zhen'er heard about it and also took the opportunity to go to the county town to ask around. It turned out that Yuan Zhongren's reputation was quite good, and the reason Zhen'er didn't see him at the warehouse last time was because he happened to have something to do in the countryside helping someone with their rice fields.

  Two days later, the strawberries were almost ripe. Zhen'er and Ye Luyuan and Ye Baiji said goodbye to each other, and they made preparations. On the same evening, the four of them were busy picking strawberries on the mountain again.

  Recently, Ye Luyuan has been busy running around, and Ye Qiuniang is wholeheartedly taking care of Ye Qishu, so she hasn't noticed anything unusual about Ye Luyuan.

  The next day, just before dawn, the four of them went up the mountain again. Since this was the last batch of strawberries, they didn't need to be very careful about whether the strawberries were fully ripe or half-ripe; as long as they took a quick glance and could tell roughly how many were ripe, they would put them in which basket accordingly, making their work much faster.

  When Yang Zhanggui came with a horse-drawn carriage to fetch strawberries, Zhen'er and the others had already picked them.

  Because he had made an appointment in advance, Ye Lao saw Yang Zhang's carriage coming and closed the door of his clinic, following him.

  After exchanging a few pleasantries, Yang Zhuang brought the people who quickly and nimbly took out the large scale, lifted it with a stick, and weighed the strawberries.

  It was a total of 548 catties, and Yang Zhanggui planned to calculate it as 530 catties. Zhen'er disagreed, and directly calculated it as 500 catties. The remaining few catties were considered as treating Yang Zhanggui to a meal.

  Yang Zhanggui didn't drag his feet, directly calculated as 500 catties, last time gave 10 taels of silver as a deposit, this time gave another 90 taels, and then took the horse cart away. Strawberries can't be stored for long, he had to hurry up and take the strawberries to the dock to load onto a ship to transport to the provincial capital.

  After closing the door, Ye Baiji stared at Yinzi with a pleased expression.

  They had already agreed on how to split the money with Ye Luyuan, so she directly took three 50-tael silver ingots and Ye Luyuan also took three of the same kind. The two of them took it and left. Zhen'er was holding the silver and chasing after them from behind but couldn't catch up, and not daring to shout loudly, could only hold back her breath and return to the house.

  The old man saw them like this and laughed, haha, they are really children, such pure thoughts he hadn't seen in a long time.

  "Never mind, they've got what they wanted. They're not worried about food and clothing, and even if they get more, they won't be at peace," the old man comforted them: "You three siblings being close is worth more than any amount of silver."

  Zhen'er thought so too, and put away the remaining sixty taels, pulling the old man along to ask him questions.

  "Grandpa, didn't we already report our household registration? Why hasn't the document been issued yet?" Zhen'er was really getting anxious. Without a household registration, she couldn't do anything. She couldn't even buy land. If others had already planted their land, she would have to wait until next year.

  The old man stroked his beard, calculated and said: "I think it should be just these few days, if there is land to be distributed, you must hurry up and plant seeds in these few days. Don't worry, I'll go to the village chief's house tonight to ask for you."

  Who would have thought that Old Ye hadn't left yet in the evening, when the village chief arrived with his grandson to deliver the household registration documents to Zhen'er. Upon hearing this, Old Ye rushed over without even finishing dinner.

  "...Zhen'er and Hu'zi don't have any documents, the land is not easy to deal with, I just drew a boundary for your land," the village chief explained. Seeing Zhen'er's siblings holding the documents with smiling faces, he knew she didn't mind these things, so he continued: "Your house is surrounded by six mu of land, and there are two more mu on the other side of the small stream. This land is quite fertile, it just needs to be well managed."

  Zhen'er listened intently and nodded her head in thanks, pouring tea for the village elder several times, making the old man laugh with joy.