Translator’s Note: It was my 50th birthday yesterday, so here are two bonus chapters!!

Zhou Shuren washed his feet and stopped thinking about it. Choosing the right person was difficult, mainly because the money came from the government office, and the selection involved too many factors, so he had to be careful. “By the way, did Old Master Zheng leave? He said last time he’d stay a while and then go back.”

Zhulan actually knew, because her family owned quite a bit of land, and she’d been back quite often recently. “The old man went back. He mainly came to see you this time, just to meet you, and then he left.”

Zhou Shuren’s lips twitched. It really was to see him. First, he sighed, then regretted that the Zhou family didn’t have a son who could marry into the Zheng family. The old man didn’t hide at all that he didn’t like Changzhi, but he did have his eye on Mingyun, whom Zhou Shuren had distracted him from. Bah!

He came to his door looking down on his son, and now he wanted his grandson? No way! Besides, he was even afraid of that old fox; he had no intention of getting involved in the marriage!

Zhou Shuren didn’t want to mention the old man anymore. “It’s getting late; go to bed early.”

Zhulan said, picking up her pillow, “The autumn harvest back home should be over by now. They should have set off more than half a month ago, right?”

Zhou Shuren pulled Zhulan closer. “Go to sleep; don’t worry about them. They’re all grown up and have families. They can take care of themselves. They’ll arrive when they need to.”

Zhulan knew Zhou Shuren was worried about her, so she lay down and said, “Okay, okay, I won’t worry. Go to sleep.”

Zhulan didn’t say anything, but she was calculating the days in her mind. She estimated that Second Zhou and the others should arrive in late November. As soon as she finished calculating, she closed her eyes and started thinking about hiring people to pick apples. It would take a lot of people to transport them down from the mountain. Sigh, all these things.

The only thing that made Zhulan feel at ease was that her family’s apples had already been contracted with a merchant from another tribe. They would buy them for fifty copper coins per pound, regardless of size.

Zhulan, half asleep, mentally calculated everything before finally falling asleep. Zhou Shuren opened his eyes, tucked her in, and muttered, “A worrywart by nature.”

The next morning, as soon as Zhou Shuren left, Li Shi and Boss Zhou went out shopping.

Zhulan summoned Er Yue, asking her to hire people to pick apples in five days. Many in Lizhou City were following the trend of planting apples, and with more people, more workers would be needed, providing extra income for the locals.

Zhulan’s family hadn’t sold any grain; the settlement was still half grain and half silver, twelve copper coins a day, two catties of cornmeal, and a simple vegetarian meal at noon.

The Yang family’s orchard had also been contracted; Zhulan sent someone to the Yang residence to ask her father if they could pick the fruit together.

Zhou Shuren was the prefect; whether foreign or domestic merchants, no one dared to delay payment—it was always cash on delivery.

After Zhulan finished making arrangements, Boss Zhou and Li Shi returned. Zhulan looked at the things Li Shi had bought. “I gave you ten taels of silver, and you only bought a few pieces of fine cotton cloth?”

Zhulan calculated the time; the couple had been shopping for an hour and a half, three hours, and only bought a few pieces of cotton cloth?

Li Shi touched her purse. She was reluctant to spend the money. She held the monthly allowance from the eldest son’s family, plus her own savings and the occasional allowance from her mother-in-law, totaling only one hundred and fifty taels. She also had to consider the ten taels of silver from yesterday. With more children to come, she, as a mother, must give them money. So, she was content with just browsing today. If the sewing shop hadn’t run out of fine cotton cloth, she wouldn’t have even bothered buying any.

Zhulan pressed her forehead and waved her hand. “You must be tired after shopping all morning. Go back and rest!”

Boss Zhou opened his mouth, feeling uneasy. Despite Li Shi’s seemingly carefree nature, she was very careful with money. He hadn’t given her enough confidence.

Zhulan saw this but didn’t keep the eldest son. Firstly, the family’s assets were few, and she didn’t even have enough money for her current investments. She couldn’t divide the family assets among the eldest son. Even if she were biased, she wouldn’t disrupt the balance. Everyone in the family was shrewd; if she showed too much favoritism to the eldest son’s branch, there would be no peace.

In the following days, Li Shi didn’t leave the house, instead using the newly bought fabric to make small clothes.

After arriving in Lizhou City, a sewing shop was established, and Zhulan would allocate money to it every month to buy fabric for making clothes. She and Zhou Shuren would have two new outfits a month, while the eldest son and Li Shi would each have one.

In twelve months, excluding her and Zhou Shuren, each person would have twelve outfits, or three outfits per quarter—quite extravagant.

But there was no other way. Zhou Shuren had become an official, and Zhulan received many invitations, several every month. She needed to take her daughter-in-law or daughter out, and her son and grandson also received invitations. The family couldn’t always wear the same clothes, so they spent more money to maintain appearances.

Before they knew it, it was apple-picking day. Zhulan visited the orchard the day before the harvest. She noticed that the higher up the mountain the apples grew, the sweeter they were, so she had everyone keep twenty trees from the top for their own consumption.

Zhulan’s trees were five years old, in their prime, and although some damage had occurred during transplanting, each tree still yielded thirty jin (approximately 15 kg).

In this fictional dynasty, apples were introduced from Europe and first settled in the northwest. While apples were native to the region, they weren’t called apples due to variety; they were low in moisture and had a poor taste. Later, European apples were introduced, and the native varieties were phased out.

Steward Ding went to Sichuan to buy apple trees, supposedly the best variety introduced. While the taste still couldn’t compare to modern apples, it was still quite good, and importantly, it was all-natural, free of pesticides and fertilizers.

For the over one hundred acres of apple orchard, Zhulan’s family hired fifty men. Due to transportation and other issues, the harvest took six days to complete, with most of the time wasted on transporting and sorting the fruit.

Although they wanted all the fruit, regardless of size, some bad fruit, especially those eaten by squirrels, mice, and birds, had to be picked out.

Merchants still wanted the picked-out fruit, but at a very low price.

A tree that weighed thirty catties could only yield about twenty catties of fruit, as winter approached and animals came out to forage, targeting the orchards.

Zhulan had initially planted over three thousand apple trees, including the ones she had given away; only about two thousand six hundred survived, a high mortality rate. Subtracting the twenty trees that remained, only a little over two thousand six hundred apples were marketable.

The final accounts showed a profit of over two thousand seven hundred taels of silver, not even recouping the year’s investment. If it weren’t for the high number of dead trees, they could have broken even this year. The only consolation was that this was the first year, and next year would basically be pure profit.

Actually, apple cultivation was quite profitable; a tree didn’t only bear fruit for one year, provided there was no drought. Otherwise, if the trees died from drought, the investment was wasted.

(End of Chapter)

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