Chapter 14 A Foothold But at least, her preparations for setting up a stall...

Ding's face stiffened. She was about to find a reason to refuse when she realized that the reason she had been able to marry off several daughters well in recent years was not only due to her own savings, but also because three or four tenths of the money came from the monthly rent from Shen Er's shop. Now that she had to pay back the interest she had earned for three years, she suddenly felt a pang of heartache.

Unexpectedly, Uncle Shen suddenly spoke up generously: "We didn't intend to take it. It's just that Ji-ge is still young, and your family entrusted us with managing the shop a few years ago. Since we're going to rent it out, we had no choice but to keep it for him. Now that you're back, it's only right that we return it to you..."

These words infuriated Madam Ding. She still had a daughter who wasn't married yet! She hadn't even saved enough for the dowry, and now this perfectly good shop was just going to be thrown away like that? She couldn't help but pinch Uncle Shen hard under the table, making his face contort in pain. But Uncle Shen still insisted on finishing his sentence: "All these years, without you around, no one mentioned it. I almost forgot about brotherly affection. Now that you're back, I've remembered all the things my second brother did in the past..."

Before he could finish speaking, he was already choked up.

Shen Miao was taken aback. Those last words about Shen's father had such a powerful effect on Shen's uncle? Shen's uncle suddenly burst into tears, sobbing as he said, "Wait here, I'm going to get the land deed and house deed, and I'll also give you a packet of silver..."

Before she could finish speaking, Ding kicked over the chair Shen Dabo was sitting on, and grabbed his ear in a rage: "Shen Dalang, have you lost your mind? What nonsense are you spouting! My brother's shop is burned to the ground, and even if he wanted to sell it, it would be difficult. The deed to the house and land is fine. But if you want to pay, you'd better ask this rolling pin in my hand if it agrees!"

Uncle Shen trembled from the scolding and dared not say another word. He slunk back to the main room and retrieved a paper package. Shen Miao took it and saw that it was indeed their family's land deed and house deed.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

Now that she's got it back, the trip wasn't in vain. With this, she, Ji-ge'er, and Xiang-jie'er finally have a foothold in Bianjing.

As for the rent over the past three years, since it has already gone into Ding's pocket, it's difficult to clarify the matter, which is why Shen Miao didn't ask for the rent.

Knowing when to stop, she made a quick decision and took her two children to leave. Ding Shi, with a livid face, didn't even come to see them off, but Uncle Shen saw them to the door. Shen Miao told him to stay and not to see them off, but he grabbed Shen Miao's hand instead.

He looked around furtively, then quickly slipped a roll of copper coins into Chen Miao's sleeve like a thief, before dashing off: "Uncle, I won't see you off any further. You should all go back now!"

It's foolish not to take money, especially Uncle Shen's money, which is something you definitely have to take. Shen Miao didn't stand on ceremony and swiftly stuffed it into her sleeve.

Anyway, this is something Uncle Shen owes to Ji-ge and Xiang-jie!

She clutched her sleeves tightly and hurriedly took the two children back by taxi. She had lingered at Uncle Shen's house for too long, and if the South Vermilion Bird Gate of the inner city was closed, she wouldn't be able to get back.

Fortunately, the journey home went smoothly. As soon as they got home, Shen Miao pulled Ji Ge'er into the quilt to count the money. She had been afraid of being robbed the whole way, so she had crumpled the oil paper wrapping the money in her hand. When she opened the oil paper wrapping, there were two strings of coins neatly wrapped inside, which amounted to two thousand coins!

This was a drop in the ocean for Uncle Shen, but it was a timely help for Shen Miao and her two siblings.

The brand-new, gleaming coins caught the eyes of all three. Shen Miao then discussed with Ji Ge'er, "Let's take out a string of coins to repair the walls, doors, and windows of our back room. Otherwise, we can't lock the doors at night. We only have two children and a woman at home, and we're afraid thieves will target us."

“Sister’s concerns are valid.” Ji-ge’er agreed, then lowered his head somewhat awkwardly, “I just regret that I am too young to guard the house for sister.”

“I appreciate your kindness, but you are so young, there’s no need for you to force yourself like this,” Shen Miao said earnestly, looking at him. “You are already very sensible.”

Ji Ge'er shook his head, feeling that there was too little he could do.

"Let's keep the last string of cash for now, and use it to find a teacher for your studies later." After allocating the money, Shen Miao led the two children out to have dinner and buy some things to use for setting up a stall in a couple of days. They also needed to find Old Man Yang and repair the doors, windows, walls, stove, and roof of the backyard.

While browsing the night market yesterday, she already had a good idea of ​​the commercial layout near Jinliang Bridge.

I've also figured out what to do for the time being.

***

It was late spring in Bianjing, with warm breezes and gentle sunshine. The willows were shrouded in mist, and the night market closed at dawn. But before daybreak, the streets and alleys were bustling with activity again, welcoming the morning market.

The shouts of peddlers and vendors moving through the morning mist woke Shen Miao. Still a little sleepy, she lay on the bed, wrapped in her blankets, in a daze for a while before she was fully awake.

In order to open her stall as soon as possible, she and her son Ji and daughter Xiang worked for two whole days. The two children became her child laborers, helping with all the work inside and out.

These past two days, she first summoned Old Man Yang, then had him recommend a good bricklayer. They negotiated the price and calculated the wages, then left Ji-ge and Xiang-jie at home to supervise the work. Shen Miao had prepared a large pot of Luohan tea and a pot of thick lean meat and millet porridge in advance, then had Ji-ge and Xiang-jie serve the craftsmen morning tea and breakfast, and kept an eye on them to ensure the courtyard was properly repaired.

Shen Miao went to the Street Office, paid fifty coins, registered, and obtained the so-called "Bridge Market Business License". Twenty coins were rent, and thirty coins were kickbacks to the Street Office's soldiers.

Many of the soldiers in blue robes from the Street Office were scoundrels who had been bought in by their families. When Shen Miao went in to do some business, she was verbally harassed for a while. Fortunately, the Prefect of Kaifeng was an incorruptible official like Bao Gong, so the soldiers did not dare to lay a hand on her and just joked around for a few minutes.

Shen Miao treated it as a dog barking in her ear, calmly finished her business, and got a green-painted wooden sign from the street office with the words "Bing Zuo Wu" in red paint on it. She guessed it was the number of her stall!

So I went to check it out on the way. Sure enough, the four tall pillars on the Jinliang Bridge were inscribed with the characters "甲乙丙丁". Counting five bridge piers ahead from the pillar with the character "丙", there was an extremely narrow open space, no more than a foot wide. Apart from this space, everything else was squeezed so tightly that nothing could fit in.

Coincidentally, this spot was right next to the plump woman who sold incense drinks that Shen Miao had questioned earlier. The plump woman remembered her; with her sharp eyes, she immediately noticed the wooden sign in her hand and asked warily, "So, you were asking me all this earlier about this? What do you sell?"

Shen Miao smiled and said, "I sell baked cakes. I get thirsty after eating the cakes, so wouldn't it be perfect to have a bowl of your fragrant drink? It's fate that we can be neighbors and complement each other!"

The plump woman finally breathed a sigh of relief, and her gaze towards Shen Miao was no longer so hostile.

Having completed the formalities, found a stall, and smoothed things over with the neighbors, Chen Miao then purchased all sorts of ingredients needed for tomorrow's stall: flour, rice, scallions, star anise, seasonings such as oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, pork belly, sesame seeds, cabbage, eggs, chicken, red beans, pork intestines, pork liver, pork kidneys, and other offal...

It can be said that they have spent a lot of the original owner's remaining dowry.

Since there were too many things, they hired a porter to push them into the house in a cart.

After calculating, the repairs to the courtyard wall, doors, and windows cost a total of 913 coins; the purchase of a cartload of charcoal cost 200 coins; the purchase of ingredients cost more than 300 coins; and adding the expenses incurred on the way, the total came to 2 strings of cash!

We're strapped for cash, and we're just going to run out of money!

Shen Miao sighed and patted the empty purse at her waist.

After returning home, she brought some fresh fruits from the market and went to the Gu family's house. She told Aunt Gu that she wanted to borrow their cart for a while the next day. Gu Tusu agreed without saying a word, and said that the cart was too heavy to push, so he would come to take her there early in the morning.

This caused Aunt Gu to glance at her son's attentive manner again and again.

Shen Miao also sensed something and quickly thanked him politely, then added, "I also want to thank Brother Gu for telling me that there is an old man named Yang across from Jinliang Bridge who is a very good carpenter. I ordered a cart from him, so we won't have to go through this trouble again."

Before Aunt Gu could say anything, Gu Tusu interjected, "No trouble at all, no trouble at all. Just let me know if you need anything in the future."

Noticing that Aunt Gu's smile seemed a little stiff, Shen Miao hurriedly returned from the Gu family home, thinking that it would be best to trouble Gu Tusu less in the future... Although she felt that she was innocent and had nothing to be ashamed of, she couldn't help but worry about other people's suspicions. She was also a "discarded wife," so she should avoid suspicion.

But at least, she had almost finished preparing to set up her stall.

When Shen Miao returned, the backyard was still under construction. She had arranged with the bricklayer to build a wall of rammed earth and stone. The parts that hadn't collapsed before were all torn down. Naturally, this would cost more than a regular earthen wall, but the wall had to be sturdy and durable, so she decided to spend more money to build a better one so that she wouldn't have to redo it later.

At the gate, they found Old Man Yang and selected a very thick and hard piece of walnut wood. It was quite expensive, but Shen Miao really liked the beautiful grain of walnut wood. Moreover, its high hardness made it difficult to scratch, not easy to be affected by moisture and deform, and it was not favored by termites. In her previous life, Shen Miao's mother had given her a set of walnut wood furniture as part of her dowry, which had been used for decades and was still as good as new.

The leaky beams and roof of the kitchen were repaired, and the kitchen door was made of cheaper pine wood, which is lightweight, easy to work with, and half the price of walnut wood.

The commotion of Shen Miao repairing the courtyard could not be kept secret from the neighbors. Curious onlookers gathered together, naturally unable to resist eating melon seeds and gossiping, while also secretly pitying her: "...Do you know? The eldest daughter of the Shen family was divorced by her husband's family."

Why did her husband divorce her?

"I heard it was her mother-in-law who made the decision; her scholar husband... cough... has a habit of sleeping in the same bed as his mother..."

"Heavens above! How could such a beast exist?"

“Oh dear, isn’t that right! Now she’s all alone and has to raise her younger siblings… Her uncle is a scoundrel; he doesn’t care about any of his own brother’s children…”

Shen Miao innocently touched her nose. Were these aunties talking about her too loudly behind her back? She really could hear everything clearly, even through the half-finished courtyard wall...

But she pretended not to hear it, since such public opinion did not harm her.

She is not afraid of being talked about, nor is she afraid of being pitied.

This is also why she insisted on leaving Jinling. After all, Bianjing is Shen's hometown. The neighbors in the alley have dealt with the Shen family for decades and have watched her grow up since she was a child. Most of them have no ill intentions towards her.

Shen Miao watched the progress of the courtyard wall for a while longer. The bricklayer that Old Man Yang had found for her was surnamed He. He was a master craftsman in his fifties. He was very skilled and efficient. In less than half an hour, he knocked down the original dilapidated wall and built half of it in half a day.

She then instructed, "He Daizhao, when you're done with your work, I'll come over and tell you how to build that earthen kiln."

"Dai Zhao" was a respectful title for craftsmen in the Song Dynasty. This Dai Zhao He was very taciturn. He just nodded and continued working. This was something that had been agreed upon beforehand. He was to build walls and repair roofs for Shen Miao, and also help repair two stoves and a kiln.

Shen Miao was just afraid they would forget to give her instructions in their busy schedule, so she went back to the kitchen to prepare the ingredients.

She had already prepared half of the ingredients in the kitchen during a break. While tying her sleeves, she rotated her wrists and stretched her muscles.

Then, with one hand, he picked up the knife from the cutting board, and with a flick of his wrist, the blade spun in the air, creating a gleaming arc.

She has to serve lunch to more than a dozen people today, and she needs to make sure the food is delicious, filling, and inexpensive. She'll have to really show off her skills.