Allure of a Country Maiden
Chapter 608 - 606

Chapter 608: Chapter 606

Du Yijin pondered Xiao’er’s words and agreed. There would be rewards after making investments, the greater the investment, the greater the return.

The walnuts they painstakingly cultivated could not be compared to the wild ones.

As Xiao’er and Du Yijin were in disguise, they couldn’t accompany the Jingrui brothers.

Otherwise, it would reveal their earlier ploy to tap into the market!

Xiao’er and Du Yijin chatted and laughed as they walked towards the carriage.

Arriving at the carriage, Du Yijin hesitated upon seeing the bags of silver in her and the maid’s hands.

Carrying these bags of silver back to Du Mansion was too conspicuous. If Mrs. Gu found out, they would surely face trouble.

She decided to deposit the silver in the bank and exchange it for silver banknotes, which would be safer to hide on her person.

Du Yijin hadn’t come out in her own carriage, but had hitched a ride with Xiao’er.

Since she needed to visit the bank on the way back, she couldn’t go with Xiao’er’s carriage again.

"Miss Rui’an, I plan to go to the bank first to exchange this silver for banknotes, so I won’t be taking your carriage," she said.

Upon hearing this, Xiao’er suggested: "I have some silver banknotes here. How about this, let’s count how much silver you earned at the Four Seasons Restaurant, and I’ll help you change it with my banknotes. In this way, you don’t have to give your silver to the bank."

The bank charged a handling fee of 100 coins for every 100 taels of silver exchanged for banknotes.

"Is it convenient for you to carry so much silver?", Du Yijin hesitated.

If she could save some silver, she wouldn’t want to spend any extra, unless it created trouble for Xiao’er.

"There are many shops in my family that require cash transactions. After eating, we can count the silver and switch back into female clothing at the Four Seasons Restaurant before leaving," Xiao’er explained.

Upon hearing these words, Du Yijin no longer hesitated, boarded the carriage, and left.

Upon entering the Four Seasons Restaurant, the duo encountered the son of the rich merchant who had bought the first "tiger head" walnuts in the morning.

Seeing Xiao’er and Du Yijin, he cheerfully exclaimed, "Made some silver and came for a lavish meal?"

Xiao’er: ...

Du Yijin: ...

The man was incredibly blunt; even if they had made money, they didn’t want the whole world to know!

Feeling hungry, we just came for a meal," Xiao’er didn’t hold a grudge against him and replied with a smile.

"Will you be selling walnuts tomorrow? I’ll bring more friends to buy some!," the merchant’s son said cheerfully.

What a loyal customer!

Xiao’er laughed and replied, "Well, thank you for your kindness, sir. See you tomorrow! We’re going to eat now!"

The merchant’s son acknowledged with a nod.

Xiao’er and Du Yijin then went on their way further into the restaurant.

Gu Honggen, who had lost all his silver and accrued a massive debt, had just stepped out of the gambling house. He stood on the roadside, watching a familiar figure at the entrance of the Four Seasons Restaurant. Wasn’t that Du Yijin, the vile girl he had known from childhood? Even in male disguise, there was no way he could mistake her!

Was she selling green-skinned walnuts? And had made silver out of it?

He had heard at the gambling house that many literati loved playing with walnuts, so lots of people in Wenwan Street were gambling on green-skinned walnuts. Someone had even sold this wild fruit at a high price of ten taels per piece, making them as precious as golden fruit.

He remembered Mrs. Gu complaining a while ago that at the beginning of the year, Du Chun’an and Du Yijin had cut down many good peach trees in the villa to plant walnuts. This year, the yield of peaches in the villa had halved, and stingy Du Yijin had only brought a basket back home for her father. Mrs. Gu hadn’t had a single one! Not to mention bringing back baskets full of peaches to her mother’s house like in previous years!

If those wild fruits could fetch ten taels each, how many walnuts could a tree bear? He didn’t know, but he guessed there must be at least more than a hundred. A single tree could bring in over a thousand, or several hundred taels! Considering many walnut trees had been planted, how much thousand silver taels had been planted in total?

Oh goodness! They made a fortune this time!

Gu Honggen’s eyes glowed green at the thought of the Du family’s villa laden with walnut trees, each walnut worth ten taels. The Du family had struck it rich overnight! There was a solution to his gambling debt.

He intended to urgently find his aunt and tell her the joyous news.

No, he couldn’t. Mrs. Gu currently didn’t have control over the Du family! Her monthly allowance was only one hundred coins!

Gu Honggen thought about the two black bags that Du Yijin’s maid was carrying. Could they contain silver?

Gu Honggen excitedly rubbed his hands, his feet were even trembling.

This was his reaction when he had a particularly good luck.

He decided to wait for Du Yijin to come out to see if the bags really contained silver!

He had just lost a thousand taels of silver, and had initially intended to pick some green-skinned walnuts from the Du family’s villa to sell in order to repay his gambling debt.

If those bags really contained silver, he planned to borrow it temporarily. Perhaps after repaying his debt, he might have a bit of silver left to gamble, and win back the silver he had lost.

Gu Honggen thought blissfully.

Xiao’er brought Du Yijin to a private room in the Four Seasons Restaurant. After ordering a few dishes and finishing their meal, they started counting the silver.

Xiao’er enjoyed counting silver.

Du Yijin had never counted silver before, but now she found she loved the feeling.

To her astonishment, they had earned over a thousand taels of silver, which seemed surreal to Du Yijin.

What a pity that the walnuts they had newly planted this year didn’t yield much fruit, and those that could be sold were all sold out today.

"Miss Rui’an, how did you know those walnuts could be sold at ten taels each?" Du Yijin asked, a question she had been keeping for quite a while.

Xiao’er laughed after hearing the question. In the olden days, walnut pendants were popular, and in the modern times, a pair of green-skinned walnuts could be sold for several hundred to a thousand yuan.

In this era, most of those who could afford to be cultured were wealthy individuals. The Imperial City housed an even larger cohort of such men of letters, who enjoyed the finer things in life.

They pursued anything that was cultured and elegant. Thankfully, the medical skills in this place were rudimentary, and kidney transplantation wasn’t yet a thing, otherwise, there would indeed be people selling their kidneys to buy walnuts.

"Playing with walnut pendants is a cultured affair, their pursuit, and can’t be measured with mundane things like silver," Xiao’er explained.

Du Yijin: I don’t understand. Anyway, I wouldn’t do such a thing.

She was probably just too afraid of poverty.

Xiao’er gave Du Yijin a thousand taels in banknotes in exchange for her thousand taels of silver.

After exchanging a few more words, they left.

The maids, Yang Liu and Yang Mei, each carrying a bag of silver, followed Xiao’er out.

When Gu Honggen, whose legs had gone soft from waiting and had mentally cursed Du Yijin and all her eighteen generations of ancestors, finally saw her coming out.

Seeing Du Yijin in female attire, he knew his earlier recognition hadn’t been mistaken!

He saw the black bag being carried by Yang Liu, the same as the one carried by Du Yijin’s maid just now. Without thinking too much, he just assumed that she was helping to carry it.

Without a second thought, he rushed up and tried to snatch the black bag from Yang Liu’s hand.

"Cousin, let me borrow some silver, I will pay you back tonight!", he said.