Peasant Girl Bookseller

Chapter 120 Backer
As soon as Mai Xiang saw that Mrs. Li was still walking out with a basket after the meal was ordered, she couldn't help but asked curiously: "What is Fifth Aunt doing here?"

Jiufeng looked up and said, "It must be to bring food to Fifth Brother. Fifth Brother and Starling are transplanting Chinese cabbage in the field. I heard from my father that I want to finish planting today."

"In such a hurry, there's no time to eat?"

"Father said that we will start to break the sticks tomorrow, and every time the corn is collected, the whole family will be tired for several days." Jiufeng muttered dissatisfied.

"No, after harvesting the corn, we have to be busy planting wheat again, and we have to catch up with the season." Ye Dafu sighed.

In ancient times, the labor force was low, and all the work in the field was done by hand. Therefore, it was really difficult for farmers to have a few days of leisure all year round.

Mai Xiang didn't feel emotional about this. What she thought was that Mrs. Li knew where her in-law's house was just two days after she came here, and she knew to help her husband share his worries. No wonder Mrs. Liu and Wu Fu would fall in love with her at the same time. She must have known about it in advance. Well, this Li family is indeed a character who can endure hardships and stand hard work, so in order to let her enter the door earlier, she didn't even care about the Li family's greed.

At this thought, Mai Xiang also breathed a sigh of relief, she really didn't want to see Wu Fu unhappy.

Early the next morning, it was the day when Winter Solstice left the pavilion. Under Ye Dafu's persuasion, Mai Xiang asked Sanfu to send the two of them to Zhao's house. came back.

As soon as she entered the yard, Mai Xiang saw a large pile of corn cobs piled up under the eaves of the upper room. Qian and Sun were sitting and peeling the corn, and Li was standing on the ladder to dry the corn on the roof. .

Seeing this, Mai Xiang hurried into the house, changed her clothes, and dragged Mai Huang to help.
The Ye family has been busy for more than half a month, and the autumn harvest is basically completed. Immediately afterwards, Mai Xiang's house also started to build a house.

When Mai Xiang was worried that there was no one to cook for the workers at the construction site, Madam Li sent Mai Xiang two wives and a cart full of coarse grains.

Busy days always go by quickly, and winter has come unknowingly. When the first snow fell, Mai Xiang's house had already been completed.

The overall layout of the house was roughly planned by Cao Xueqin. The courtyard wall was built with big stones. There were three gates in total. The house, the house is used as a facade to open a restaurant, and when you enter the inverted seat, it is a large courtyard with three wing rooms on the left and right, which are used as private rooms, the main room is intended to be used as guest rooms, and there are two on both sides. A side room is used to store sundries.

There is a small courtyard at the back of the main house. Through this small courtyard, walk three or four meters, and you will find a small wooden bridge. Under the bridge is a small canal. It is a courtyard with two entrances. This is the house where Mai Xiang and the others live. In the front yard of this house, there is a cobblestone corridor leading to the courtyard wall. On the side of the courtyard wall is an east gate that can enter a carriage. The east gate Facing the village directly, you can see the old courtyard of the Ye family. Less than five meters south of the east gate is Cao Xueqin's new home.

Cao's family has already moved here. The structure of Cao's house is similar to Mai Xiang's. The main house is also a big house with two entrances. In addition, Cao's family also built a small courtyard, which Mai Xiang guessed was prepared for Li Ding's family.

I don't know if it was influenced by the fragrance of wheat, a small canal was also introduced into Cao's yard. Liu Huilan said that she would also raise some chickens, ducks, geese and grow vegetables. In addition, she also planned to plant fruit trees in the open space in the yard, she said Tuominglin helped her find some saplings.

The day for the Ye family to move was set on the tenth day of the twelfth lunar month. Erfu and the others helped Mai Xiang move her things to the new house. As soon as she entered the new house, before Mai Xiang had time to put it away, she hurried to the north again In the yard, Mrs. Qian, Mrs. Sun and Mrs. Li are helping to cook, because today there is going to be a wine warming room, and Mai Xiang happens to use this place to start a cooking test.

Ye Dafu had just opened the north gate, but the first group of guests who arrived was actually the village chief's family.

"Brother Dafu, you are dishonest. You keep saying that you have no money, and you are only planning to build a small courtyard where people can live temporarily. Is this a small courtyard? I think it is many times bigger than my small courtyard." The village chief put his hands behind his back, Walked around and said.

"Big brother, this, I didn't think about this at first, I really planned to build a small house at the beginning..." Seeing that the head of the village was a little bit pulled, Ye Dafu wanted to explain a few words.

Before Ye Dafu finished speaking, Mrs. Yu arrived with everyone from the Zhao family, and the voice came over before they entered the door.

"Girl, you've made it through. This house is even richer than the landlord's, and it's my granddaughter's ability. Within a year of separation, she became a big family." Yu said happily.

Upon hearing this, Mrs. Liu looked at Ye Dafu's broken leg, held Ye Dafu's hand, and began to cry.

After hearing Yu's words, everyone in the Ye family felt mixed feelings. They didn't expect that Ye Dafu would be blessed by misfortune. He exchanged a broken leg for a separation of the family, and also for today's prosperous life.

"Second sister, your family is really booming. Is your house the first one in the village?" Mai Xiang's uncle Zhao Yuanshan asked.

"What nonsense? Have you ever seen the landlords in our village have such a big yard? It's only in the villages of big families in the capital that they have such a big garden." Mrs. Yu smiled triumphantly.

"Brother-in-law, where did your family Maixiang get all the money? How much money does such a big yard cost?" The uncle Yang Dalin asked everyone's thoughts.

In fact, speaking of it, the land price at this time is really not expensive. In addition, because of the problem of heating, the houses in the north are generally not built very high, so it is relatively cheap, and the rooms are all large. The kang also saved a lot of money for furniture, so even Mai Xiang didn't think that with less than 200 taels of silver, she could have such a large yard in ancient times, and it was still at the foot of the Fragrant Hills in the capital. Definitely a rich man.

Seeing so many eyes looking at her, Mai Xiang smiled and said, "Actually, we really didn't intend to build such a big house. I only had three or forty taels of silver in my hand, but later someone knew that I was going to build a house, so I borrowed it." Give me 40 taels of silver, if you say it’s troublesome this time, it’s better to cover it once, it can save a lot of trouble, that’s how I built the whole house.”

"How much? 100 taels? Who is so rich and willing to lend you so much money?" San Fu asked.

"Who else could it be? It must be Gege. I didn't even see that someone even brought over the cooks." Qian said enviously from the side.

"Big girl, do you really want to pay back the money?" Upon hearing this, Mrs. Liu became anxious again.

"Certainly, Mammy."

"Oh, mother, you don't have to worry about this. With Da Ya here, can the money still be a problem?" Sun said.

"No, with such a granddaughter who can hug money, what are you worrying about?" Someone in the village laughed.

Everyone was laughing, Bafu ran over and said, "Dear girl, someone came to give gifts, and a carriage stopped at the door."

When Mai Xiang was about to go to greet her, she saw Tong Liwen bringing Feng Nian with her.

"You two?" Mai Xiang was stunned.

Tong Liwen smiled when he saw Mai Xiang, and said, "My mother sent me to give a gift today."

"What's so funny about that?"

Except for the close relatives of the Ye family and the Zhao family, as well as the villagers of Huangye Village and a few friends of Ye Dafu, Mai Xiang didn't inform others, not even Ge Ge and Fujin, but the Tong family acted very quickly.

"What? Don't invite me in to have a look?" Tong Liwen had already heard about Mai Xiang's big courtyard.

"Okay, I'll let my eighth uncle take you in for a walk."

Tong Liwen looked at the people in the courtyard, smiled, and said, "Forget about it for today, my mother said, she will come and have a look someday when she is free."

While talking, Tong Liwen saw Fengnian put down his things and handed the gift list to Mai Xiang, so he took Fengnian to leave.

"It turns out that he is the young master of the Tong family. Wei Dao looks so energetic. This person who has studied is different. He is so gentle and polite." Sun said on the side.

It was only then that the members of the Ye family remembered that Tong Liwen was the one who bought straw sandals with eggs last time. When did Mai Xiang know him so well?
Just when he was wondering, someone came outside again, this time it was from the Wan family, the couple from Zhang Xiang's family.

"Miss Mai Xiang, our old lady originally wanted to join in the fun in person, but we couldn't get away due to some emergency at home, so we had to send us for a walk."

"How did you say that? It's freezing and snowy, we don't dare to bother the old lady, so we asked Mrs. Zhang to go back and say something, thank you very much."

Before Mai Xiang had time to look at Wan's gift list, she saw Li Nanny and Guan Nanny coming in with a smile.

"Hey, we seem to be late." The two said with a smile when they saw a carriage at the door.

"Two sisters, come in and have some hot tea. Why are you running in such a cold day?" Mai Xiang patted her head. There were no mobile phones in ancient times. How could these people be so well-informed.

"We don't want to come, but the old lady and Gege both said that they want to give you some celebration, and it's the end of the year, and they also brought new year gifts, which saves us another trip." Li Nam Mammy said with a smile.

"No, we, Fujin, also said that you didn't send her a letter for such a big happy event as housewarming. She was angry as a sister, saying that you definitely didn't take this sister to heart." Madam Guan laughed.

"That's it, but the house will be messy." Mai Xiang doesn't want everyone to see how deep her friendship with these big families is. She is afraid that she will be missed by others from now on, and there will be no peaceful life.

Unexpectedly, Wula Duomin and A Muxin thought exactly the opposite. They just knew that Mai Xiang’s family had no backer in the village, their parents were sick and disabled, and they were afraid that Mai Xiang’s family would be bullied, so they specially picked a day for Mai Xiang’s housewarming. By sending a big gift, I just want to tell everyone that they are Mai Xiang's backers.

(End of this chapter)