Chapter 283 Upgrading the Storage Space

“I need a head manager here, mainly to receive merchants who come from afar to place and pick up goods.” Cheng Wanwan went straight to the point. “If Manager Yan is willing, the wages are negotiable.”

Manager Yan was somewhat astonished: "I... I've never made any money in business. Sister-in-law Zhao, aren't you afraid I'll mess this up by entrusting me with such an important matter?"

“You’re not good at business because you don’t have the eye to spot business opportunities, but you have no problem with dealing with people,” Cheng Wanwan said with a smile. “Before the pigs and sheep grow up in the first half of next year, Manager Yan’s family may not have any income. Why don’t you let me be your manager for the time being? It would be even better if you could train a capable assistant for me during this period.”

Shopkeeper Yan felt a surge of heat in his heart.

He really knew nothing about farming, raising pigs and sheep. If he hadn't really had no other choice, who would want to settle down in the village?

What he liked best was being a shopkeeper, chatting with customers, drinking tea, and counting money. He enjoyed a carefree and leisurely life.

He nodded immediately: "After my house is built, I'll come and be the manager for Sister-in-law Zhao!"

Cheng Wanwan smiled and said, "Then it's a deal."

Shopkeeper Yan's family built a house with blue bricks and tiles. Firstly, it was winter, so it was not suitable to make adobe bricks and build an adobe house. Secondly, his whole family were city people who had lived in blue brick and tile houses since birth and were not used to living in adobe houses. The construction cost of more than one hundred taels of silver was something he could afford.

Over the past few days, the house has taken shape and should be completed in about half a month.

After seeing Manager Yan off, Zhao Dashan entered the room and brought in all the prizes he had won in the competition that day.

Wu Huiniang's 100 taels of silver, Zhao Sanniu's 10 taels of silver, and Zhao Ergou's 100 taels, totaling 210 taels of silver.

In the past few days, customers have been coming from time to time to pick up goods and pay the balance, as well as some deposits. All these various amounts have added up to a huge sum of more than seven thousand taels of silver in her hands.

With the money, she decided to do something she had always wanted to do—upgrade her storage space.

It takes five thousand taels of silver to upgrade once. Cheng Wanwan's heart was bleeding. How many soaps would that cost?

[Ding! The mall's storage space has been successfully upgraded, now with a capacity of two cubic meters!]

She looked at the blank panel.

Two cubic meters doesn't sound like much, but it looks quite spacious. It's a rectangular space that's two meters long, one meter wide, and one meter high. To put it more simply, if you used all two cubic meters to store grain, you could store about three to four thousand kilograms of rice.

If something unexpected happens in the future, this storage space can save lives.

Cheng Wanwan checked the requirements for the next upgrade.

[Ding! By spending 10,000 taels of silver, you can expand your in-game storage locker five times!]

Five times that is ten cubic meters, which is equivalent to a relatively small room, and can hold quite a lot of things.

Ten thousand taels of silver—it's a long and arduous journey. Let's keep working hard to earn money.

Cheng Wanwan took out paper and pen and did some calculations. Currently, the braised food business makes about twenty taels of silver a day, and the soap workshop produces a thousand bars of soap a day. After deducting costs, the daily profit is about four or five hundred taels of silver. According to this, her space will be able to undergo the next upgrade in about twenty days.

The soap workshop produces a large amount of crude glycerin every day, which can be used to make skin care products. However, it will require building another small workshop to extract glycerin, which will require a lot of workers. Currently, some of the men in the village are working at her house, some are building houses for Manager Yan, some are patrolling, and some are repairing the irrigation ditch dug in the summer. After these tasks are completed, she will need to hire people to dig the lotus pond during the winter when there is less rain. If another small workshop is built, it will be difficult to find people.

It wasn't that others were unwilling to come, but rather that she didn't want to hire two workers for one household. If it affected agricultural production, she, as the wife of the woman from Sui County, would have to work until the very end.

It seems we'll have to recruit workers from other villages, which is riskier.

Forget it, I'll think about this after winter is over.

The most important thing right now is Er Gou's marriage.

Back then, his family was poor, and Dashan and Huiniang got married without spending a penny. He got a wife for free.

Now that the family has some savings, and the future second daughter-in-law is from the renowned Cao family in Hekou County, we will definitely be more particular about the wedding arrangements.

Cheng Wanwan didn't know the specifics of it.

Since she's a single woman, she doesn't even know the specifics of modern marriage procedures, let alone those in ancient times.

It was still early, so she got up and went to Old Zhao's house. It would be most appropriate to ask Old Mrs. Zhao about this matter.

As you walk along, the village is bustling with activity.

It turns out that Old Lady Zhu made wedding cakes and was distributing them to every household.

She won first place today, and the county magistrate rewarded her with one hundred taels of silver. She took out two taels of silver to buy a lot of flour and made wedding cakes the size of a baby's palm, giving a few to each household.

"It's all thanks to the help of the villagers that I, an old woman, have been able to raise my grandson this far," said Granny Zhu with deep emotion. "Six months ago, there was a drought, and our rice jar was almost empty. The village headman collected three jin of grain from all over the place and brought it to our house. Another time, the whole village was digging for bamboo shoots. I, an old woman, didn't have the strength, and Hu Zi was too small, so I only managed to dig back a dozen jin. The villagers collected about a hundred jin and gave them to my grandson and me... If it weren't for everyone's help, Hu Zi and I would have starved to death long ago... These wedding cakes are just a small token of my appreciation..."

She was an elderly woman living alone in the village, and the village head and villagers did indeed help her a lot.

Now that she has the ability to give back, she naturally wants to express her gratitude. The wedding cakes are nothing; what matters is expressing her thanks.

The villagers gathered around to offer their congratulations.

"Good days are coming for the Zhu family!"

"With a hundred taels of silver in hand, I'll repair the house and find a wife for Tiger."

"Tiger is only twelve years old, what's the point of him getting married..."

"Twelve years old is not young anymore, we should start looking for someone sooner rather than later."

The villagers were in a lively atmosphere, and no one was jealous of Old Lady Zhu's hundred taels of silver. Even if someone was jealous, they wouldn't show it openly.

Nowadays, the village patrol team's management is becoming more and more standardized, and no one would be so foolish as to steal money from the Zhu family.

As Cheng Wanwan passed by, she was forced to eat several wedding cakes by Old Lady Zhu, and a group of women surrounded her to inquire about her.

"Auntie Dashan, Er Gou must be sixteen by now, how come we haven't heard anything about him getting married yet?"

"Ergou is becoming more and more promising. Have you thought about what kind of wife you want?"

"I have a second aunt's daughter who's from the city. She's efficient, good at everything, and pretty too. How about I propose to Er Gou?"

"..."

Cheng Wanwan kept smiling: "There's no rush for the child's marriage. We'll take our time and let everyone know when we have good news."

This is equivalent to a rejection that is neither too soft nor too hard.

The villagers dared not ask any more questions, after all, the mountain woman's identity was different now, and she was no longer from their world.

Cheng Wanwan walked to Old Zhao's house.

Grandma Zhao was just about to go to the soap workshop for the final inspection when she saw her come in. She immediately smiled and said, "What brings you here? Please have a seat."