Chapter 266: Pocket is Cleaner than Face

It was a dreamless night, and when Qin Yao woke up naturally, it was still early.

There were noises of sweeping in the yard. Qin Yao stood up, opened the door and looked out. Liu Ji was sweeping the dust in the yard with a broom. The four brothers and sisters of Dalang were sitting in front of the open window, reading quietly in the morning.

From the time they went to the provincial capital to the time they came back, the habit of morning reading had been formed. The brothers and sisters did not break it and got up early every day to read. They only slept in during the two days of the week when they had time to rest.

Dalang usually doesn't sleep because he has to practice martial arts and cannot neglect the basic skills for even a day.

Erlang couldn't stick to this and often slacked off. In addition, Qin Yao saw that he had no interest and stopped caring about his martial arts training, so he ended up working hard for three days and resting for two days.

But even so, Jiro's physical fitness is better than that of other children of the same age.

Qin Yao looked at Liu Jina, pointed at the spider webs on the window frame, and motioned him to clean it up. Not wanting to disturb the children's morning reading, she did not say hello to them, went back to the house, combed her hair, changed into light clothes, and walked towards the village well with the bucket.

There are two large water tanks at home, and it took three trips to fill them up, as a warm-up.

After the water was drawn, he went to the backyard that had been cleaned by Liu Ji and completed his daily exercise with Dalang who was already in place.

After finishing all this, Liu Ji's breakfast was just coming out of the pot. The family of six sat around the small low table in the yard, eating and talking about their plans for the day.

As soon as Erlang sat down, he raised his hand and applied, "Mother, can we go to the mountains to play later?"

Si Niang also tried to raise her hand like her brother, "Mother, mother, I want to go to the field with Sister Jinhua to pick wild vegetables, is that okay?"

Because it is not a rest day, even if the school has a long holiday and you don’t have to go to class, you still have to report in advance if you want to go out and play.

This is the rule set by Qin Yao. She is not often at home. Sometimes she is busy at the factory from morning till night. If the child runs around, she won't know where to find him if something happens.

So it was good to report in advance, at least she knew clearly where they were playing and it would be easier to find them.

If the process is correct, there is certainly no problem if you want to go out and play.

Qin Yao nodded and told them not to go into the mountains.

Dalang and Erlang looked at each other happily, and Sanlang also whispered to his two brothers: "Brother, take the bow and arrow with you."

Dalang nodded quickly, and fearing that Qin Yao might hear him, he immediately picked up the bowl and pretended to eat seriously. In fact, the three brothers' hearts had already flown to the mountains and forests, thinking about the joy of hunting birds and catching fish.

Liu Ji also wanted to go out for a walk. He finished his bowl of meat porridge, put it down, and raised his hand. "Madam, I plan to bring the cow back and then go to the town to inquire about the price of grain."

Ever since he knew that Qin Yao wanted to sell grain, his heart became active again. He thought, the evil woman is busy at the factory and has no time to go out and inquire, so shouldn't the matter of selling the grain be left to him?

Ever since Qin Yao confiscated all his private property during the dragon boat race in the capital city last time, his pockets have been cleaner than his face.

Anyway, he was fed up with being penniless, so he had to save some money this time!

Thinking of this, Liu Ji couldn't help but let out a hearty laugh: "Hehehe——"

"What are you laughing at?" Qin Yao glanced at Liu Ji suspiciously.

Liu Ji then realized that he had accidentally forgotten to control his facial expression, and quickly restrained himself and said nonsense: "I haven't seen our big blue ox for a long time, I miss it so much."

Qin Yao snorted, she believed his lies.

However, Liu Ji was going out and could help her with something.

Qin Yao instructed, "I am going to set up a reliable team of drivers. Please collect the information of drivers from several villages and towns near Jinshi Town for me."

As she spoke, seeing Liu Ji's excited expression obviously collapse, Qin Yao narrowed her eyes dangerously and asked, "Can it be done?"

If you can’t do it, don’t go out!

"The weeds in our vegetable garden are almost taller than the vegetables. We also have to take care of our rice and watermelon fields. I need to add fertilizer if there's not enough fertilizer, pull out the weeds if there's too much weeds, and watch over the canals to divert water if there's not enough water. There's so much to do. I think you should stay at home today and do the work in the fields."

"No, no, no!" Liu Ji quickly interrupted and said that he could do it. "Madam, your factory affairs are the top priority now. We can't delay them. I'll go and find out for you. The work in the fields can be done at any time. Don't worry. I'll sort it out slowly later."

Qin Yao nodded, put down her bowl and chopsticks, went into the house to get the plan she had written, and went out to get down to business.

The father and his sons followed Qin Yao out of the house one after another. The family surrounded the old house for a while, called their friends, and then dispersed.

In the past, Liujia Village was the busiest place in the country, with farmers busy in the fields everywhere.

Nowadays, the busiest place has become the stationery factory at the entrance of the village.

Before Qin Yao reached the stationery factory, she saw from afar a group of people, under the command of Uncle Jiu, lifting heavy wooden beams to put up the beams for the new factory building that was about to be completed.

The factory drawings she had sent over earlier have now been restored almost 90 percent.

In order to save time and facilitate construction for workers, the new factory building was built outside the original factory building, surrounding it on all sides, enclosing the original factory building in the middle.

In this way, only a passage needs to be left between the original factory building and the existing factory building, and the two sides will naturally become a close whole.

Fortunately, the site chosen for the factory was large enough, which avoided the trouble of relocation.

Of course, as the land area increased, the rent also increased a bit, and two taels of silver needed to be paid to the clan every year.

Compared with the rent outside, this rent can be said to be quite reasonable.

If it were to be used outside, the annual rent for such a large piece of land would be at least 20 or 30 taels.

This time, we took the long-term approach and could not build the factory as sloppily as before. Led by a professional named Uncle Jiu, the main structure was made of half bricks and half adobe, and the roof was covered with tiles.

When Carpenter Liu got the design drawings, he exclaimed that it was extravagant. But then he thought that this was a wood processing site, which was afraid of water and fire, so he really had to use bricks and tiles just in case.

After the wood from Manager Fang was transported over, looking at the sun above his head that was so hot that it could burn people to the point of leaving illusions, Carpenter Liu left two people to take turns guarding the wood.

First, to prevent fire, second, to prevent theft.

Each of these ready-made materials is worth a lot of money, especially in this chaotic time when there are refugees everywhere, we must pay more attention to protection.

But there is a good side, that is, the factory is basically staffed by people from the village, so the probability of wood being stolen is greatly reduced.

Now, thanks to the hard work of Uncle Jiu and others, the new factory building on the periphery only has two final steps left: putting up the beams and laying the tiles. It is estimated that it will be completed within two days.

In order to keep the room dry and ventilated, each room has two open walls, and only the storage warehouse has four walls.

Taking into account the problem of increased manpower, a spacious canteen was built.

(End of this chapter)