Chapter 42: Another Eighty-Point Rating
[Current Estate Upgrade Progress:
- Estate has hired temporary workers 10 times. Progress: 9/10;
- Estate arable land area reaches 1,000 square meters. Progress: 20/1,000;
- Estate revenue reaches 10,000 yuan. Progress: 1,634/10,000.]
The system only calculated the money Jian Xingxia made from selling the chestnuts; the 190 yuan from selling the toilet paper was excluded.
Jian Xingxia wasn’t surprised. After all, the paper didn’t count as estate produce.
By the time she reached home, night had already fallen. Having run around outside all day, she had only eaten a single bowl of noodles, relying on a few chestnuts to line her stomach whenever hunger struck. Right now, her stomach was practically glued to her spine.
Rubbing her stomach, she didn’t feel like lighting the stove to cook, so she simply tossed two ears of corn and two eggs into the electric rice cooker and pressed the cook button.
By the time she finished her bath and threw her clothes into the washing machine, the eggs and corn were done.
Jian Xingxia casually made a smashed cucumber salad, only to slap her forehead as she remembered—she had forgotten to buy sesame oil!
She ate a lot of cold salads during the summer, yet she constantly forgot to buy sesame oil, which was truly a headache.
Terrified that she would forget again, Jian Xingxia decisively placed an order online.
Today, the villagers had also asked if she could buy oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar. Looking over the options, she went for a semi-wholesale purchase, buying a case of four 2.5-liter bottles of sesame oil.
It cost 240 yuan, and they even threw in a small 250ml bottle for free.
It just so happened that Jian Xingxia lacked a small bottle, so this one would be hers. When she did “wholesale” orders in the future, even if the others didn’t need a small bottle, she could use it to fill orders herself.
Since she already had her phone open, Jian Xingxia simply tacked on two more boxes of roll paper, one box of sheet paper, and one box of facial tissues.
Whoosh, another 180 yuan vanished.
Watching her balance drop back down to 2,156 yuan, Jian Xingxia’s heart twinged with pain once more.
After hanging her laundry to dry and tossing a handful of broken rice to feed Dahua, Jian Xingxia went back to her room to sleep.
Ever since returning to the old house, her sleep had improved day by day. Although she was still dirt-poor, she didn’t have to worry about having no food tomorrow or no place to live the day after.
Sleeping early meant waking up early. Before 5:00 AM, before her alarm could even go off, Jian Xingxia was already up.
The sky outside displayed a pale shade of blue, and the air carried a slight chill. Jian Xingxia patted Dahua, opening the door to let her out to hunt for bugs.
With Dahua around, Jian Xingxia surprisingly hadn’t seen a single bug inside the house.
Occasionally at night when the lights were on and moths flew toward them, Dahua would flap her wings, dig her claws against the wall, and launch her whole body into the air to peck the flying insects right up.
Likely because she was free-roaming, Dahua didn’t carry the typical smell of a chicken coop; instead, she frequently radiated the crisp fragrance of wild grass.
Dahua had also just woken up and wasn’t very energetic yet. She ambled over to the backyard gate and squeezed out through the gap beneath it.
Jian Xingxia opened the [Estate Management System] and discovered that Lin Sanniang’s job satisfaction rating from yesterday was only 80 points.
[Temporary Worker Job Satisfaction: 80 points.]
[Excerpt of Temporary Worker’s Inner Thoughts: …No matter what, returning today with so many goods means that even if something happens to me, Taoya, Xing, and Brother Shu will be able to live on well. The Proprietress is very kind and didn’t mention taking my life or lifespan, but I still feel fear in my heart. How can such a good thing exist in this world?]
The previous day, in the Daliang Dynasty.
Lin Sanniang had rushed to the Goddess shrine at the beginning of the Mao hour. Having only worked for two double-hours, it wasn’t even the Wu hour yet when she returned.
Emerging from the pitch-black yet perfectly navigable cave, Lin Sanniang hurriedly turned back to look.
Sure enough, the cave had vanished once more.
Because of the famine, the mountains had been stripped bare by the people, leaving barely any wild grass behind, so there was absolutely no cover to speak of.
The cave was simply gone.
Lin Sanniang’s legs turned weak, but she quickly steadied herself and stood up.
The items in her bosom were still there, and the two leg wraps felt heavy, each loaded with five catties of rice.
The coarse salt was stuffed into her collar, cuffs, and various other places, hidden discretely across her person.
As for the remaining “fabric scraps,” Lin Sanniang had rolled and rubbed them along the way through the cave, twisting the cloth into long strips to thread directly onto the bamboo basket as shoulder straps and bindings.
She hurried home.
Little Brother Shu was still waiting faithfully at the entrance, peering out through the crack in the wooden door every short while.
Catching sight of Lin Sanniang’s figure and seeing no one around, he immediately called out to Taoya and Xing, “Big Sister! Second Sister! Mother is back!”
Taoya and Xing were currently washing and drying clothes in the courtyard. Since Lin Sanniang had left in a hurry today, the laundry she had taken from the dock laborers yesterday wasn’t finished, so Taoya had taken over the chore.
Hearing Brother Shu’s shout, they hurriedly rushed over to help unbolt the gate.
“Mother!”
Returning to find her three children safe and sound, Lin Sanniang finally let her heart settle completely.
Taoya’s eyes shone brightly. “Mother, did you see the Proprietress Sister?”
Lin Sanniang’s eyes filled with boundless tenderness. “I saw her. The employer is truly a good person.”
Brother Shu peered expectantly into Lin Sanniang’s bamboo basket, but the basket was completely empty, without even a single wild vegetable inside.
Sucking on his thumb, he wanted to ask his mother.
Xing slapped his hand away. “Stop sucking your thumb!”
Brother Shu sheepishly pulled his thumb out.
How could Lin Sanniang not know what the children wanted to ask? She took off the bamboo basket and said, “Today was Mother’s first day helping out at the employer’s house. The employer didn’t say anything about giving wild vegetables, so Mother couldn’t just pick them myself.”
“But the employer gave many items. Even if Mother worked outside as a hired hand for a month, I might not receive this much.”
Saying this, Lin Sanniang began untying the various cloth strips.
Unwinding the loop wrapped around her waist, it looked like a coarse belt, but Xing was sharp and immediately reacted: “Our house doesn’t have this kind of blue cloth!”
“Yes, the employer gave this,” Lin Sanniang said with a smile, gesturing directly for Xing to untie it. “They are all excellent pieces of cloth. Once untied, they can make clothes and shoe uppers for you all.”
Brother Shu joined in to help, and the two quickly unwound a section. Spreading it out and smoothing it flat, it turned out to be a piece of cloth over a foot wide and nearly two feet long.
A piece of cotton cloth this large would usually cost dozens of copper coins.
It was true that poor families couldn’t afford to wear cotton. Even for kudzu and hemp cloth, making a full outfit would cost one to two hundred coppers, which was why patches were applied over and over again.
Cotton cloth was even more expensive, costing seven to eight hundred coppers.
Many households possessed only a single outfit made of cotton cloth, and whoever went out to tend to official business, go on a blind date, or attend a banquet was the only one allowed to wear it.
Xing held the cloth up, measuring it against Brother Shu. “This cloth is almost enough to make a tunic for Brother Shu. Just stitch it here at the shoulders and tie it with a cord at the waist. It’s a bit short but works perfectly as an open vest—it’ll be cool to wear in the summer.”
Taoya and Lin Sanniang turned to look, and both instantly burst into laughter. “It really is!”
Brother Shu’s eyes shone brightly. “Then I’ll have new clothes to wear?”
From the moment he was born until now, he had only ever worn altered hand-me-downs from his father, mother, and older sisters; he had never worn brand-new clothes before.
Under normal circumstances, Lin Sanniang would have to reconsider carefully.
After all, cotton garments were premium clothing used to maintain appearances. It was best to make them according to an adult’s measurements so Taoya and the others could also wear them with rolled-up edges.
But since she had brought back quite a bit of fabric this time, seeing Brother Shu’s eager anticipation, Lin Sanniang happily agreed.
“Alright. Do you like this color, Brother Shu? If you like it, Mother will sew an outfit for you just like the one your second sister described.”
Brother Shu cradled the cotton cloth, announcing loudly, “I love it!”
Over on her side, Xing had already unraveled two more sections. Once spread out, they were all pieces of fabric this large.
She was so excited she couldn’t even speak. Soon, she discovered that on the “empty” bamboo basket, the two thick shoulder straps and the layer of “cloth rope” wound around the outside of the basket were also made of fabric.
“Mother! All of these are cloth!”
Lin Sanniang smiled. “Yes, untie them all. We’ll make an outfit for Brother Shu, a pair of shoes each for you and Taoya, and see if there’s enough left to make a garment for the two of you to share.”
Taoya felt immensely proud at this moment. “Mother, I told you so, didn’t I? The Proprietress Sister is a truly wonderful person!”
Lin Sanniang stroked Taoya’s head, temporarily pushing the worries in her heart down as she agreed, “Yes, the employer is the best, most wonderful person in the world.”
While Xing and Brother Shu were untying the fabric over there, Taoya and Lin Sanniang had already meticulously collected the catty and three taels of coarse salt, placing it into the salt jar.
Although this coarse salt was of excellent quality, it was still within the realm of what could be found in the Daliang Dynasty, making it far less eye-catching than the fine salt from before.
Storing it in the earthenware jar carried no risks.
Next came the ten catties of coarse rice bound to her legs.
Lin Sanniang scooped up a handful, saying, “Tonight, we shall cook thick porridge! We’ll use this much rice!”
The three children cheered and danced around, feeling even happier than they did during the New Year.
No matter how many anxieties she harbored, none could compare to the joy of the children right before her eyes.
At this moment, the mountain villa on the other side of the cave was the best place in Lin Sanniang’s heart.
