Zhulan explained, “When you get married in the future, I hope the maids around you all have families. At least Dashu will come with you when you get married, and her family will still be in my hands, so they won’t dare to betray you. Or, I can give you the entire Wan family as a dowry, and you can keep them yourself.”

She was truly worried about the three newly bought maids, especially Li Qiu, who had voluntarily sold herself at the age of ten. If someone really threatened her family, Li Qiu would be the most likely to betray them. Zhulan thought to herself, “No wonder large families in ancient dramas all prefer servants born into families!”

Xuehan understood. “Mother, why didn’t you buy all the servants from one family? And why did you buy Liqiu and a few others?”

Zhulan smiled. “First of all, where would you find so many families of servants to buy? Besides, the house can’t be full of servants from one family. I’m also keeping an eye on them so they don’t join forces and deceive us later. Buying some young servants and maids means they’ll only rely on their masters and will be the most obedient. A house needs two voices. You must remember that everything needs to be balanced. To achieve balance, you need checks and balances. There’s a lot to learn here. I’ll teach you slowly later.”

Li Shi stood aside listening for a long time, her mind a complete mess. What checks and balances? What are joining forces and marriage alliances? She was confused. Forget it, she decided to just listen to her mother-in-law.

Li Shi said, “Mother, I’ll take Juanhua back to the courtyard. Later, I want to go to the market with my husband to have a look. Yesterday, everyone was lining up to collect grain, so today I want to see if there are people at the market.”

Zhulan replied, “Go ahead.”

When only Zhulan was left, she separated the household’s silver. She set aside five thousand six hundred taels for family expenses as their base reserve and put away the remaining seven thousand taels herself.

Yesterday, she had asked Zhou Shuren and learned that the wasteland wasn’t counted within the two hundred mu limit. She decided to buy only twenty mu of farmland—enough for the household’s needs—and use the rest to purchase mountain land. There was no need for the eldest to go today; she could simply entrust the matter to Steward Ding.

Steward Ding was more experienced than Boss Zhou. He completed the land purchase in less than two hours, acquiring both mountain and farmland. This was only because he was delayed on the way out of town to inspect the mountain land; otherwise, he would have returned even faster. He bought 180 mu of mountain land, which was considered a bonus, bringing the total to 216 mu: 15 mu of dry land and 5 mu of paddy fields. Paddy fields were scarce and expensive in Lizhou City, costing 13 taels of silver per mu. Dry land was cheaper than in the Northeast, costing 4 taels of silver per mu for good quality.

Including taxes for changing the deeds, the land purchase cost approximately 400 taels of silver.

The eldest son and his wife didn’t return until almost noon. Zhulan frowned, “Why are you only coming back now? Steward Ding has been back for almost half an hour.”

If it weren’t for the large group of people with them, she would have thought something had happened.

Boss Zhou said, “Mother, today at the market, some people came to sell wild vegetables and fish. I felt there wasn’t enough. A few children selling wild vegetables said they had more at home. We felt sorry for the children, and our hearts softened, so we said we’d take them all. But it would take the children a long time to walk back, and Li Shi and I couldn’t bear to do that. Luckily, we had a horse-drawn cart, so we took them back.”

Li Shi added, “When we got to the village, many families knew we were buying wild vegetables and asked if we wanted any more. I remembered that we buy wild vegetables every year to dry and eat in the winter, so we stayed to collect them, which took a lot of time.”

Zhulan looked at the eldest son and Li Shi. Of all the Zhou family members, these two were the most soft-hearted. “How much did you buy?”

Li Shi grinned, knowing her mother-in-law wouldn’t be angry. “Mother, we bought two cartloads. I also said that I’ll have someone collect the wild vegetables they pick later.”

The eldest son added, “Mother, we bought them for two coins a pound, and we bought over three hundred pounds.”

Zhulan was speechless.

They must have bought all the wild vegetables from the nearby villages!

Zhulan waved her hand. “Don’t just pile them up after buying them; hurry up and dry them in the sun, lest they all rot.”

Li Shi left quickly, “Mother, I’ll dry them right now.”

At noon, the Zhou family’s table was graced with wild vegetables and fish. The fish were quite large, caught by villagers risking their lives to fish for money.

In the afternoon, Zhulan changed her clothes and took a carriage to inspect the mountain land they had purchased. The land was near Lizhou City, and the wild vegetables had long been harvested, leaving only some vegetation. The two hundred-plus acres of land were quite large.

Boss Zhou looked at the mountains before him. “Mother, are both of these mountains ours?”

Zhulan replied, “Yes.”

Boss Zhou then frowned. “Mother, is this all mountain land? Are we going to plant sweet potatoes and potatoes on it all?”

In Boss Zhou’s memory, mountain land was usually only used for growing sweet potatoes and potatoes.

Zhulan could already imagine what the orchard would look like. She smiled and said, “I plan to plant apple trees on the hillside near the top of the mountain and some watermelons on the lower slopes. After the watermelons are harvested, we’ll plant winter wheat.”

Boss Zhou gasped. Such a large area of ​​hillside land, with so many fruit trees planted. “Mom, our family will have to buy a lot of fruit trees, won’t we?”

Zhulan had seen the land and felt confident. She smiled and said, “Of course. After the fruit trees are planted, the hillside land will be yours. Lichun will be with you. Don’t let your mother down!”

Boss Zhou’s only skill was farming, but he had never grown apple trees or watermelons before. He felt a little overwhelmed. Moreover, this was the first time he had managed such a big family matter, and he had no idea what to do.

Seeing Boss Zhou’s lack of confidence, Zhulan knew he needed more practice. “It’s not like I’m asking you to do everything yourself. You just need to hire the right people to do the work and be responsible for watching over them. Don’t you know how to do that?”

When Boss Zhou heard about this opportunity, his spirits lifted. Ever since becoming the eldest master of the Zhou family, he had grown quite comfortable with spending money—and indeed, he was good at it. “Mother,” he said, “I’ll make sure to take good care of the mountain land.”

Now that they had the land, Zhulan’s family needed to hire many people. They had brought a lot of grain, and Zhulan planned to pay the workers half in grain and half in silver, which would also help ease Zhou Shuren’s burden.

In the following days, not only was Zhou Shuren busy, but Zhulan was also busy. She calculated how many fruit trees they needed to buy and how many people they needed to hire to help. The family’s ice cellar also needed to be dug. After the calculations were completed, Steward Ding and Boss Zhou were sent to Chuanzhou to select fruit trees and hire fruit farmers.

By the time batches of fruit trees had been delivered to Zhulan, the Zhou family had already been in Lizhou City for more than ten days.

Zhou Shuren had already started road construction and pond digging. Everywhere outside Lizhou City, people were working, and Lizhou City had begun to stabilize.

After the ice cellar at Zhu Lan’s house was dug and the local villagers were hired to plant fruit trees and cultivate the fields, Zhulan was finally able to catch her breath. That evening, she said to Zhou Shuren, “We’ve been in Lizhou City for almost a month now; why hasn’t any official’s wife invited me?”

(End of Chapter)

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