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Ger Yan, who also stood on the side, was very curious. His eyes widened as he looked at Zhang Shuishen. He was curious on how things would be measured. Zhang Shuishen really had ability. He could multitask. He was able to measure while telling stories. It would be great if he could learn this as well.
Zhang Shuishen lifted his gaze. He was satisfied with the curious expression from these two and answered cheerfully, “Haha, I don’t know how to measure at all. I’m just here to help my brother.”
“…” Ger Yan suddenly had an enlightenment.
“…” Lin Lixuan was speechless. He didn’t know how the other party could still look so smug. This brother really was deep… He turned his gaze to Zhang Huoda, who looked serious and ignored everything that happened around him. Zhang Huoda felt something was happening and lowered his head before they could see his face.
He wondered if this brother was popular.
Lin Lixuan was curious how they measured land in ancient times. He went to Zhang Huoda to ask about it. Although Zhang Huoda was usually quiet, he answered the question. Lin Lixuan was depressed because even if Zhang Huoda told him everything he knew, he still didn’t understand.
Circling the piece of land, Zhang Huoda only needed to take a look and he knew how many mu it was. He held the rope. He didn’t know how long the rope was, but he knew the east was two ropes long and the north was one rope long and one mu wide. Zhang Huoda gestured with his fingers and straightened the rope. He measured how big it was from here to there…. Hearing Lin Lixuan’s curiosity, Zhang Huoda said it was all from the accumulation of experience. He judged it by instinct. It was this kind of skill. Lin Lixuan could only sigh.
Lin Lixuan shook his head. In any case, he didn’t come here to learn math. It didn’t matter if he understood or not. He walked to Ger Yan’s side and threw a piece of dead woof he just picked up from the ground. Ger Yan followed him to the mountain and saw the dead branches and leaves scattered on the ground. He couldn’t help but pick them up to use as firewood at home. These dry little leaves could be used as fire starters. But Lin Lixuan didn’t like his actions. The branches were thorny. When he walked in the mountains and was pricked by the thorns, it would pierce through his pants and wound him. He was afraid Ger Yan would hurt his hands.
If he wanted to gather them, he could only gather the ones that didn’t have thorns.
“…” The ones with thorns were easier to burn. Ger Yan was very stubborn and couldn’t be persuaded. He picked up the dead branches from the ground again. He liked to burn these. It would make the fire crackle. When he was a child, he would stay by the fire to keep it alive. Listening to the fire burn was one of the joys of his childhood.
Lin Lixuan frowned as he watched Ger drag the thorny branches. It was like a little fox he couldn’t control. The thorns extending from the dry dead branches were both thick and thin. The thorn head looked like a square triangle, and the thorny tail was as sharp as a needle. It was terrifying to look at.
Zhang Shuishen saw the little movements between the husbands and once again thought the husbands were truly in love. He missed his own little Shuang’er, who was at home.
Around noon, the work finished. Ger Yan dragged his long tail of branches, swaying as he walked home first to cook. When Lin and the water-fire brothers came down the mountains, came down the mountain and returned to the Lin residence, they smelled the fragrant smell and the delicious wine as soon as they entered the door. Zhang Shuishen sighed, “Our brother sure is blessed.”
Because they had guests, Zhang Huoda asked Ger to kill a chicken and took out a jar of his mother’s wine to heat on the stove. The guests and hosts ate happily. When the Zhang brothers left, Lin Lixuan ha them take their big rooster. Lin Lixuan sent them back in the donkey cart. They drank a bit too much at noon. Zhang Huoda was drunk. He didn’t like to talk and kept drinking and drinking. After getting drunk, he became strange and talked a lot. He pulled Lin Lixuan to talk about planting fruit trees.
The smell of wine was dense. Zhang Huoda’s cheeks were red. His eyes were dazed and drunk. And he was very chatty and spoke about an old man he once knew surnamed Xu. “Lin-laodi1, it’s not good to plant trees. You can’t grow trees without experience. They will either become too small or too sour. DDon’t blame me for speaking frankly. I’m not saying you’re unable to do it…I once knew…a man surnamed Xu who knew how to plant trees. Don’t think just because he was short…”
Lin Lixuan summed up his drunken words. It was basically: he knew an old man surnamed Xu who used to help a large family manage an orchard. Then someone in that family did something wrong. The entire family separated, scattered, and the orchard was deserted. Now the old man had nothing to do at home. If there was anything he didn’t understand, he could ask him about it.
Zhang Huoda couldn’t just be looked at on the surface. He may look as rigid as a stick, but he had emotions. His younger brother Zhang Shuishen was outwardly affectionate, but he was inwardly affectionate. What he said made Lin Lixuan embarrassed. He, the big landlord of a future orchard, didn’t think about such a detail. It was just when they were on the road and he heard Lin Lixuan was going to open an orchard on the barren mountain. He thought about it while he was measuring the land. He told him how he was going to plan the land, how to plant the trees, which side was shady and which side was sunny…
Fortunately, he got drunk. Lin Lixuan sighed or else how would he have gotten such useful information. He wanted to find someone who could manage fruit trees and ask for advice. Before he could inquire, someone already sent over the information. He really had to thank these two brothers.
Zhang Shuishen talked a lot. He chatted while he drank. The wine was very strong. He smiled and listened to his brother spit out words like a fish spitting out bubbles. Lin Lixuan sent them back to the county town. After being blown by the cold wind the entire way, Zhang Huoda sobered up a bit. The two of them got off at the county town gate and walked home.
That night, Lin Lixuan, a busy cow who had been working for most of the day, hugged Ger Yan inside the quilt, kissed his face, and stroked the land he had cultivated and asked, “Ger Yan, what fruit trees do you like?”
“Ah!” Ger Yan, who was extremely tired, half-opened his eyes. Fruit trees?” Pears? Or peaches?” He shrank into his warm chest. The tip of his nose rubbed against Lin Lixuan’s collarbone, making the other party feel itchy. Lin Lixuan couldn’t help but bow his head and kiss him again.
Pear? Peach? It wasn’t enough to just plant these two types. Lin Lixuan planned to plant a variety of fruit trees. “Then my dear Ger Yan, wait to eat peaches in the fall.”
Ger Yan giggled. “Fruit trees need to be planted for several years before they bear fruit!” Ger Yan gradually fell asleep. Probably because they were talking about fruit trees before he fell asleep, he dreamed of a peach forest. The tall peach tree was filled with ripe red and tender peaches. Lin-dage picked peaches for him to eat. Ger Yan held the peach that was bigger than his fist and smiled happily. Before he could take a bite, the scene in his dream changes. The Lin-dage in front of him became a Lin-dage with a sharp beak, scaly monkey, while he himself had become a pig. The peach forest also changed to a watermelon field. There were many watermelon vines crawling all over the ground…
When he woke up from his dream the next day, Ger Yan told Lin-dage about his dream. Lin-dage nodded. “No wonder you were drooling while you slept last night. No matter how I tried to wake you up this morning, you wouldn’t get up either. Were the peaches and watermelons in your dream delicious? Don’t worry, your Lin-dage will plant them for you to eat later…”
In fact, Ger Yan had never eaten juicy and sweet peaches or watermelons before. These things only existed in Lin-dage’s mouth and books. He had only eaten wild fruits from the mountain since he was young, which were sour and astringent. Could delicious fruits really be grown in the mountains? Ger Yan held his face with both hands, both daydreaming and worrying.
A few days later, the title deed fell into the Lin family’s hands. The barren land he obtained was about more than 120 mu of land. Each mu of mountain land was one tael eight coins. It cost about 216 taels to buy this mountain. The rest of the money was used to buy 4 mu of high-grade paddy fields and 6 mu of dry land. After adding it all up, all of the 300 taels of silver was spent. It was a good time to buy land. They could wait till spring to plow it.
Now their Lin family was considered to have some assets within Jade Creek Village. They had the barren mountain, 6 mu of high-grade paddy fields, 1 mu of medium paddy fields, and 6 mu of dry land.
When the title deed was in his hands, Lin Lixuan began to swagger into the village to recruit strong adult men to cut down trees on the barren mountain. The reason for this was to cut down the random trees and clear an open space in the middle of the mountain. The other reason was to inform everyone that his mountain now belonged to their family. Lin Lixuan also invited the village chief to oversee things. In less than a day, he found ten men from the ages of twenty to forty years old, who had some strength. He told the people in the village they could earn 80 yuan for a day’s work. When others heard about it, they thought 80 yuan for a day, and after working for more than 10 days, it was equal to one or two taels of silver. Why wouldn’t they want to do such good work? So the men who were free all came to work.
This wasn’t the time for spring plowing, and there were many idle people at home. While Zhao Liniang was chatting with others, she revealed that her family was paying this much because they were all from the same village. Those who did hard work to move goods at the wharf in the county town didn’t even make this much money.
When others heard this, they thought it made sense. Now that the Lin family was developed, they didn’t forget the people in the village and brought them to earn money too. They thanked the Lin family, while some people sneered and hated the Lin family. Their eyes were red with jealousy.
In their minds, now that the Lin family had developed, why shouldn’t they take their things? How could they be stingy now that they were rich? Fortunately, their malice stopped there. They heard the village chief say the Lin family knew the Official Register. He also knew Boss Shen from the county town bookstore, and even an official went to their house a few days ago. It seemed, they had a lot of connections… Seeing this, those who were secretly planning on doing something canceled their plans.
Since ancient times, people didn’t want to fight with officials. They…were scared.
Jade Creek Village discussed the Lin family’s behavior of buying land. Everyone was envious. Some people said they sold their tofu recipe and that was why they had this much money. They bought a mountain. The Lin family had made a fortune and became landlords. With so much land, they were now hiring to cut down trees. Everyone said the Lin family picked up luck from somewhere. But these days, it wasn’t only the Lin family who was lucky, but the Ji family as well.
- Lit translate is old little brother, but used to be friendly calling someone “bro” ↩︎
