"50 sticks?!"
Fifty silver moons are equivalent to five gold suns. For anyone present, let alone taking them out, just thinking about them would be an unbearable sum of money.
People stood up, craning their necks to look at the mysterious headmistress of the convent who had just arrived in Muxi Town a few days ago.
Todd's face lit up with joy. His first thought was that Rachel and Karin had really helped him a lot. After calming down and thinking for a moment, he could understand Karin paying for it, but why did Rachel have to invest so much money?
Looking at the woman completely shrouded in a nun's robe, the faint smile on her face gave Todd a sudden jolt, and the scene from that evening's banquet flashed back into his mind.
Although he didn't know what Rachel was thinking, a vague unease lingered in his mind. Just to be on the safe side, after much deliberation, Todd revised the rule he had previously stated: "To ensure that everyone has the opportunity to purchase, no single person may possess more than 10 relics."
Rachel pursed her lips, seemingly displeased with Todd's change of heart, then nodded: "Ten then."
After taking one last deep look at the superintendent of the convent, Todd loudly announced to the crowd, "Two sisters, each of you will purchase 10 relics. I myself will also purchase 10."
So, if we do the math, Rachel bought 10, Todd bought 10, and Karin bought 10, then a total of 30 sacred bones have been purchased, making the rest much simpler.
Harkins and his "acquaintances" bought 10 bones together, Alfonso and his squires bought 5 bones, Edgar and Jerry bought 5 bones, and the remaining 50 bones were bought piecemeal by the residents of Twilight Town.
In front of everyone, Todd took out a book from the church and carefully copied down the names of those who purchased the "Muxi Mutual Aid Fund" and the number of relics. The final part of the "tea party" was the routine mass. After completing all this, the priest hurriedly returned to the church, looking at the money in the wooden box in front of him while thinking about his grand plan to make money.
100 silver moons may seem like a lot, but in reality, they can't buy much.
A nobleman's servant earns about 30 copper stars a day; a good meal for four people in a restaurant in Silver Ring City costs about one silver month; a fine warhorse, black with no blemishes, six years old, and free from disease and injury, is worth as much as 90 gold stars.
Converted to the currency of the previous life, one copper star has a purchasing power of about 5 yuan, and 100 silver moons are worth about yuan.
What can Yuan do?
If, as suggested at the "tea party," the money were used to develop agriculture, it might be spent on a few oxen, a flock of chickens and ducks, a dozen or so farm tools, and half a cartload of seeds, leaving nothing behind. And it would take a year or two to reap even a meager return.
This is not the outcome Todd wanted. What he wanted was a high return, low risk, generating the first profit within three months, and preferably with some connection to the local environment of Muxi Town.
That evening, 32 farmer representatives, including Sassoon, came into the chapel and stood quietly beneath the huge cross, waiting for the priest's instructions.
Holding the Bible, Todd spoke earnestly and solemnly to everyone present: “As you have seen today, the believers of Muxi Town have raised a sum of money and are willing to lend it to you, so that you poor people may first enjoy the Father’s blessing upon Muxi Town. You should be grateful for this.”
The farmers nodded in agreement.
Todd continued, “Starting tomorrow, I will teach you how to benefit from the Father’s blessings. You must be devout, without any distractions, and you must not share it with others. Now, please recite the vow of keeping your promise aloud with me.”
So-called oaths are nothing more than keeping secrets and not revealing them to outsiders; if one breaks the oath, one will be condemned to eternal hell.
These words, if spoken on the internet in the past, would probably be repeated more often than drinking water. But in the Middle Ages, they represented an inviolable bottom line in one's life.
The next morning, Todd first summoned Huggins and gave him 30 silver moons from the "mutual aid fund," instructing him to discreetly purchase roses, buying healthy, unopened plants of as many varieties as possible, requiring them to be free of branch galls and root scars.
Although the other party accepted the task, he seemed hesitant to speak. Under Todd's repeated questioning, the man only said one sentence.
"If you need money, just let me know."
Todd felt a warmth in his heart. The reason he hadn't told Huggins about the fundraising yesterday was because he knew that once Huggins found out, he would definitely try his best to raise enough funds for him, which was not his intention. Therefore, he hadn't mentioned the "Twilight Mutual Aid Fund" to him before.
After offering a few words of comfort, Todd went to a farmer's shed outside town. Seeing the farmers and women already waiting outside, he gave them the following tasks: the men were to dig up a plant called "wild rose"; the women were to stay behind and empty a large warehouse in town that stored hay.
Todd plans to use the money from the "Twilight Mutual Aid Fund" to carry out a large-scale "rose grafting".
Grafting is the technique of attaching a branch or bud of one or more plants to the stem of another plant, creating a single plant with multiple plants growing on it. The scion is called the graft union, and the rootstock is called the rootstock. Simply put, it's a way to allow multiple plants to grow on a single plant.
This technology was documented in ancient China and Rome as early as the fifth century AD.
However, in medieval Europe, it wasn't until 1667 that someone submitted an article to the *Proceedings of the Royal Society* describing a peculiar orange tree in Florence that bore fruit that was half lemon and half orange, seemingly joined together. This report, however, was met with ridicule and skepticism from numerous scholars and professors, with some even calling it a "clumsy and tedious hoax." The Royal Society was subsequently forced to issue a disclaimer regarding the article in its proceedings.
In this other world, the technique of "grafting" doesn't even exist. Todd couldn't find a suitable word to match the concept in either Latin or Common.
Roses are a type of flower with many varieties, high survival rate, strong ornamental value, and low cost, making them one of the best choices for grafting scions. Wild roses, on the other hand, are characterized by vigorous growth, strong disease resistance, good recovery ability, and similarity to rose varieties, making them the best rootstock for rose grafting.
As evening fell, Huggins and the farmers returned from their outdoor activities. Huggins brought back three large truckloads of roses, almost emptying the stock of nearby villages and towns; while the farmers dug up a large number of wild rose plants from the surrounding woods.
Todd then laid out dry cloths and lit a fire in the large warehouse that had been emptied of clutter. He also placed razor blades, wooden skewers, clips, formaldehyde solution, alcohol, and other items on the table, making all the necessary preparations for the grafting work.
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