90 Chapter 90
◎Son◎
Xiaoliu came running back from outside with a basket, his forehead covered in sweat and his hair wet.
Yu was in the kitchen. Just as she took a look into the basket, Xiaoliu ran away like a gust of wind.
"Mom! Mom!" Xiaoliu didn't see anyone in the east wing, but heard voices in the west wing.
"mother!"
"Xiaoliu is back." Cheng Mu, Guier and Xiaoqi were all sitting on the kang.
Xiao Liu looked at them peacefully and frowned, "Something happened!"
"You came back by yourself?" Cheng Mu asked her. "Where's Aunt Xu?"
Yu came after them with a basket in hand. "That's all you've picked up?" She showed it to Cheng Mu. "Madam Cheng, is this all you need?"
There are only two.
After all, it was Xiaoliu who picked it up excitedly. Cheng Mu said, "Crack a few eggs and fry them together."
"Oh, Mom, why are you still worried about eating ground ear?" Xiaoliu said anxiously, "Badou was almost beaten to death by his father."
"What?" Gui'er was surprised.
Cheng Mu grasped the key point: "Has your Aunt Xu gone there?"
Xiaoliu nodded. "Brother Da'an went to Aunt Xu and asked her to take Badou away. Otherwise, Badou would really be beaten to death by his father."
Daan is Badou's elder brother.
Yu held the basket, a look of melancholy on her face. "Alas, how can this child..."
Gui'er sneered, "Brother Zhao Gen, beating a child is nothing compared to his skill."
"Mom, what should we do about Badou?" Xiaoliu hurried back to find Cheng Mu, hoping that Cheng Mu could think of a solution.
Cheng Mu hugged Xiaoliu tightly in her arms, "Don't worry, didn't your Aunt Xu take someone there?"
Xiao Liu was worried, "After we get him back, will his father still beat him?"
Only after the meal was ready did Xu Xiuying bring Badou back.
Badou's face and body were covered with wounds, new and old, it was a horrible sight.
"The child is lucky," Xu Xiuying said. "Maybe it was Zhao Shu's spirit that protected him from being beaten to death by his biological father."
"Let me look for it. I should have some medicine on hand." Cheng Mu searched around and found that she had misremembered. It was Fan Qingsong who went to buy the medicine a few days ago.
She asked Xiaoliu to go get it from Fan Qingsong.
Xu Xiuying fetched water for Badou to wash, but Badou kept his head down and refused.
Until Fan Qingsong brought the medicine, he said: "The boy knows shame, it's okay, I'll take the child to apply the medicine, you guys take it first."
Yu handed Xu Xiuying chopsticks and said, "Xiuying, eat first."
"Mom, I'm done eating." Xiaoqi finished his meal quickly, put down his bowl and chopsticks, and went to chase Badou and the others.
Xiaoliu also wanted to go, but he remembered what Uncle Fan said and knew it was not convenient for him to go, so he ate slowly.
Xu Xiuying pulled aside a bench, sat down, and sighed, "Ah. Once this woman leaves, our family will be gone."
Yu continued, "Who says it's not?"
Xu Xiuying told them, "Zhao Gen is now convinced that Badou killed Xian'er. He beats her to death every time and won't allow the children to intervene. Da'an came to me today and begged me to take Badou away. I went to talk to Zhao Gen and told him that Xian'er's death was an accident and that Badou was only more devastated than he was. Now he has taken half of Badou's life, and he has paid what he owes him. I will pay him 20 dan of wheat as compensation and take Badou away. From now on, Badou will no longer have him as a father, and he is not allowed to say that Badou killed his mother."
Cheng Mu asked, "Did he agree?"
Xu Xiuying sneered a few times, and everyone at the table looked at her. Xu Xiuying smiled at Xiaoliu and said, "Sixth Miss, go see if Badou is applying the medicine properly."
After Xiaoliu left, Xu Xiuying told them, "Why didn't Zhao Gen agree? It's worth more than ten taels of silver, but he wants thirty shi. He said that his children at home are useless and he can't take care of it alone, and he wants to marry another wife."
"Are you asking you to find him a wife?" Gui'er snorted. "I thought he was truly heartbroken over Sister Xian'er's death, but in the end, it's all about himself."
Yu was not surprised, "All men are like this."
Gui Er couldn't help but say, "Badou is registered under Brother Zhao Shu's name. You can take Badou back. If you want to settle the score, hold him responsible for beating someone up like this. Why are you giving him the wheat?"
Cheng Mu put the food she had picked up for Badou into the pot to warm it up, and turned around and said, "Sister Xiuying is also thinking about Badou."
Badou picked up castor beans and soaked them in water not because he knew they were poisonous or intended to harm people, but because he was soaking the seeds. Badou had been interested in soaking seeds and germinating them since he was a child. He had heard and seen about it when he was following Xu Xiuying, but after returning home, his parents would not let him "make trouble", so he picked the fruits outside and soaked them secretly.
"Badou will have to live in the village in the future. We can't let his father personally confirm that he killed his mother. Don't waste your words on things that can be solved by spending food." Xu Xiuying also learned Cheng Mu's magnanimity.
Cheng Mu exchanged a glance with her. "You and Badou have a deep connection. Even though you were kicked out of the house, fate still managed to bring him here to be your son."
"Who said it wasn't?" Xu Xiuying sighed.
The sky is clear and blue, the wheat fields are rolling, and it is the wheat harvest season again.
This time, nearly a hundred acres of wheat were harvested, but not a single grain was stored in the warehouse. After the wheat was ground, the dust was blown away by a windmill, and then it was weighed according to the receipt and returned to the villagers.
"Madam Cheng, my family has harvested the wheat, so there's no need to rush to pay it back."
"Yes, Madam Cheng, you have a big family here, so take care of yourselves first. It's not a big deal if I don't return the one or two dan."
"We are all from the same village. Madam Cheng, please return it to someone else first..."
At first, every family was embarrassed to "collect the debt", but under Cheng Mei's repeated insistence, they finally accepted the debt reluctantly.
Since they had to pay it back anyway, Cheng Mu planned to pay back the scattered households first, starting with the nearby ones and then the distant ones.
Although the harvest was much this time, about six dan per mu, it was only enough to cover the 3,500 dan. It was not enough to pay back the grain, let alone double the amount.
During this period, Cheng Xi secretly transferred a lot of things from the space and mixed them in.
The only consolation is that the number of IOUs in my hands is getting fewer and fewer, so few that I can count them on one hand.
There was no need to rush to pay back the thousand shi from the horse farm, and there was no need to rush to pay back the five hundred shi each from the four wealthy families, as everyone had just harvested the wheat.
"Take your time," Xu Xiuying said. "We'll be able to pay it off within two years."
She saw Cheng Mu often riding horses around the fields in the countryside these days, and her face was not happy, so she thought she was worried about returning the grain.
"Don't worry." Cheng Mu smiled at her, and after calculating the food debt, she calculated the wages.
Xu Xiuying managed the Songzhuang area, and all the long-term and short-term workers had records of their working hours. Cheng Mei quickly calculated how much each person was paid, counted the money, and handed it to Xu Xiuying, saying, "You pay the wages yourself."
Xu Xiuying said enviously, "Madam Cheng calculates so quickly, she doesn't even need an abacus. When will I be able to do that?"
"It's very simple. As long as you want to learn, I'll teach you when I have nothing to do."
"Can I learn it?"
"How can you not learn it? Even Xiaoliu can do this level of calculations now. How can you be worse than Xiaoliu?"
Xu Xiuying gained confidence and asked, "Can I learn even if I can't read?"
"How can you learn to read if you don't learn? Look at these receipts. If you can't read, and someone writes something down to fool you, won't you be at a disadvantage?"
Xu Xiuying puffed out her chest and said, "How could I let others deceive me? I'll start learning today!"
Cheng Mu casually wrote down a few Arabic numerals, "Let's use a secret code, from zero to ten, remember these numbers first."
Xu Xiuying looked at them one by one and asked, "Who is Madam Cheng paying wages for now?"
"Those escorts."
The five people left behind by Mu Yun did all the work. They just helped out on weekdays, but during the ten days of harvesting wheat, they worked as hard as if it were their own wheat. They got up early and went to bed late every day, and they were not lazy at all.
After settling the bill, Cheng Mu called Gui'er and went to find the escorts.
They brought back the last of the wheat straw from the drying yard and piled it into a large stack behind Zhao Datian's house, covering the top with rainproof felt. After piling up this stack of straw, the wheat harvest was completed.
Cheng Mu offered them wages, but they refused to take them, saying that they were already receiving wages from the escort agency.
"We obey Master Yu Yun. Helping Madam Cheng is Master Yun's order. Madam Cheng, you don't have to be polite."
"Don't you need to do the escort agency's work?" Mu Yun was not here either. They had stayed here for a long enough time.
The escort named Liu Jiang reiterated: "We obey the orders of Master Yun. Helping Madam Cheng is Master Yun's order."
"But you are escorts."
"Our order is to protect Madam Cheng." Liu Jiang bowed, "Madam Cheng, there is no need to be confused."
Gui'er stood aside, folding her arms and saying, "He's suffered a great loss, so he should take it to heart."
Cheng Mu's expression was calm, and her eyes glanced at Gui'er. Gui'er thought she was unhappy, so she put down her arm and was about to make amends.
Cheng Mu said to Liu Jiang and the others, "I have a letter to deliver to the headmaster. Could you please come and take me there?"
Liu Jiang said, "Feng Ping and I can deliver the letter. We can go back and forth in one day."
Cheng Xi nodded and said, "I'll go write a letter."
Gui'er followed Cheng Mu into the house, and Cheng Mu glanced at her.
"I'm writing a letter, what are you following me for?"
"Madam Cheng, you won't write to the boss and ask them to go back, right?"
Cheng Mu teased, "With you here, I don't need their protection."
"That's different. Even though they can't beat me, they can still help with the work. It would be a waste if we don't use them."
Cheng Mu sat cross-legged on the kang. Gui'er diligently moved the kang table for her. Cheng Mu spread out the paper and Gui'er hurriedly ground the ink. "Madam Cheng, don't you still want to build a dock and ask the boss to give you some more people?"
Cheng Mu glanced at her and asked, "Are you still concerned about this?"
"Of course. We haven't built anything in recent years, so we think there's still a long way to go. The loss of the three places on the first day of the new year sounded the alarm. All places are strengthening their defenses, and our Zhaojia Village cannot fall behind."
Cheng Mu wrote on the paper, "You can ask the clan leader about the construction of the fort in Zhaojia Village. My last name is not Zhao, so I don't care about it."
The pen made a rustling sound as it moved across the paper as Cheng Mu concentrated on writing the letter.
After finishing and folding the paper, Cheng Mu saw Gui'er staring at her. She said, "Sis Xiuying wants to learn arithmetic and calligraphy. How about you learn a few big characters a day?"
"Madam Cheng, please forgive me. It's ok if you let me supervise your work, but don't ask me to do the writing and marking."
"If you can't read, what will you do if someone writes something to fool you?"
Gui'er slammed her fist on the table, "Who dares to bully me? See if my fist will do me any justice!"
Cheng Mu shook her head. Gui'er's way of doing things was simple and rough, as long as her fists were strong enough.
Cheng Mu personally handed the letter to Liu Jiang and said, "If the boss has read the letter and has any plans, it would be fine for you to wait a few days before returning."
When Liu Jiang and Feng Ping were on their way to Yunzhou, a group of traveling merchants came into Zhaojia Village and stayed at Zhao Zong's house.
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