The Eldest Daughter of a Rural Family
Chapter 321: Should Do More Immoral Things (4)_1

Chapter 321: Chapter 321: Should Do More Immoral Things (4)_1

"Mmm," Pei Qin replied weakly. She had been planning to pre-sell the soy sauce! Now that the samples were gone, that plan was down the drain too!

Sun Xiujin came over again to ask when to plant the sweet potato and about starting the seedlings early.

Although she hadn’t come over while Shen Songming was there, as soon as he left, she ran over, which made Pei Qian even more displeased with her. If it wasn’t for keeping an eye on them, how could she have timed her visit so perfectly? But this Sun Xiujin was nothing more than a Lizheng’s daughter, not good-looking, and only knew how to cook and embroider, nothing else. Even if she had ulterior motives, there wasn’t much hope for her!

"Shouldn’t this be something for Sun Lizheng to handle?" So, Pei Qian asked bluntly and without courtesy.

A flash of annoyance crossed Sun Xiujin’s eyes as she glanced at Pei Qin, "My dad knows I’m on good terms with you all, and since we’re all girls, he sent me to ask first."

"The weather isn’t right yet, we need to wait a few more days! Let’s talk after the spring rain," Pei Qin told her.

Sun Xiujin nodded, then smiled and said, "When it’s time to start the sweet potato seedlings, I’ll come over and help you."

"There’s no need for help, our family can handle the seedlings on our own, we don’t need help from anyone else!" Pei Qian refused outright, as they planned to sell this year’s sweet potato seedlings.

Sun Xiujin’s face stiffened.

"Starting seedlings is simple, as long as the temperature is right. You can take a few sweet potatoes back with you and try it out!" Pei Qin advised her.

Sun Xiujin thanked her with a smile, didn’t stay much longer, and left. Her father had already said that Young Master Shen was the Magistrate’s son, and for a family like theirs, she could only become his concubine, and that too if she was attractive enough to gain his favor and affection. He told her not to have any wild fantasies and to find a moderately wealthy family to marry into in Taiping Town and live a stable life.

If she could only be a concubine, what about Pei Qin? Was she aiming to reach higher branches or was she just planning to stay in Yuanyang County as a mistress? A mistress was worse than a concubine, something she had said herself, yet was she contradicting her own words now?

Sun Xiujin sneered coldly to herself, even if you grew sweet potatoes and received a reward, it wouldn’t make you the wife of the Magistrate’s family, would it? Young Master Shen has accomplishments; his future is boundless. Is she deluding herself with the hope of becoming an officer’s wife?

After the New Year, the second day of the second lunar month arrived, and at last, the long-awaited rain came. Although it was light, it relieved some of the drought in the wheat fields.

After the rain, Pei Qin had workers build a warm shed in the field and started the sweet potato seedlings that had sprouted. She entrusted Sun Quanliang with the cabbage field, and hired help to plant beans.

Sun Quanliang couldn’t understand why they were planting beans when they were supposed to plant sweet potatoes. But since Pei Qin’s fields were never wasted and followed one season after another, he listened to her and waited for the weather to warm up a bit more before planting the beans.

Pei Qin ran around for several days. The land on Taiping Mountain could be bought, but the fields below it could not be purchased, as several families were unwilling to sell. With no other choice, Pei Qin spent over three hundred taels of silver to buy the land on Taiping Mountain.

Pei Lizheng helped by finding efficient villagers from Back Mountain Village to chop down the necessary trees, clear the bramble bushes, and prepare the new land.

With the introduction of the supervisor of Chang’s house and Landlord Chang standing as a guarantor, Pei Qin signed a deal for a small farm of over a hundred mu with 1200 taels of silver, claiming it would become hers after the wheat harvest. It was still owned by someone else before the wheat was harvested, and she paid only two hundred taels as a deposit.

Pei Qian flipped through the account book, doing the calculations. They hadn’t made much money in the first half of last year; it all went into building the house. In the second half, after deducting the profits of the noodle shop, they earned less than forty taels of silver. After subtracting the costs, sugar-roasted peanuts made a profit of just over twenty taels; Drunkard’s Peanuts made a bit more, around thirty taels; pickled cabbage made the most, about fifty taels of silver; the earnings from selling sweet potato balls and sesame paste pancakes went into household expenses. Zouxing’s family sent over twenty taels of silver, and after expenses on building workshops and the warm shed, they had less than a hundred taels of silver left for the year.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.