Wan Xueying and Shen Yu went back to the county town and paid a deposit to order a batch of bricks and tiles as well as materials needed to expand the house. They also bought some food and asked the pawnshop to help keep an eye out for houses and shops in the county town.
Passing by a study, Wan Xueying thought that once she finished building the canal, Gu Ming would have time to teach An Ping and An Fan. She spent a painful amount of money on brushes, ink, paper, and inkstone. These items, especially the paper, were ridiculously expensive.
"Why does the price of this paper seem to be more expensive than in the capital?" Wan Xueying couldn't help but complain to Shen Yu after leaving the study.
Shen Yu explained, "Northern Xinjiang is relatively poor, and military education is valued over literacy. Those who can afford to study are mostly from well-off families. Furthermore, there are no paper mills here, so paper is shipped in from the south, so the price is naturally high."
"Now that you mention it, it reminds me. Northern Xinjiang doesn't have all the workshops in the south. Even if they don't have land and don't need to grow crops, people in the south can still make money with their skills. Northern Xinjiang relies entirely on the weather. This year, the weather is not good, and the people in Northern Xinjiang are almost starving."
"Do you have any new ideas?" Shen Yu asked with a smile.
Wan Xueying smiled and said, "I haven't thought it through yet, but I want to build a few workshops." The first one I want to build is a papermaking workshop.
Who makes paper expensive?
In her previous life, she was taught a simple ancient papermaking technique. She couldn't guarantee that it could produce very good paper, but at least it could be used for writing or as toilet paper.
However, in the next period of time, expanding the house will be their top priority.
To express his gratitude, the chief of Liushu Village came over to say hello and said that as long as Wan Xueying and her team could gather the materials for expanding the house, the strong laborers from their village would be there immediately.
Wan Xueying had helped their village solve a difficult problem for their boss, effectively saving the lives of their entire village. Without even the Willow Village chief giving any orders, the villagers, young and old, men and women, rushed to help.
Wan Xueying was very moved after hearing this and was grateful for the enthusiasm of the villagers of Liushu Village. However, before they arrived, there was a wall that had to be demolished by their own people. That was the stone wall near the stable, pigpen and chicken coop.
From the first day she visited the house, Wan Xueying noticed something different from stone in the stone wall. She initially determined it was a small wooden box.
Thinking of some things that happened in this house before, she suspected that what the group was looking for was hidden in it.
Wan Xueying told Shen Yu about this, and Shen Yu didn't find it strange, nor did he have the slightest doubt. Ever since Wan Xueying saved him, he knew she had special abilities and a huge secret. Not only would he not tell anyone else, he would help her keep this secret, even if it cost him his life.
Finally, there was business coming to their door. The company that ordered the bricks and tiles and the remaining materials quickly gathered them together, and the owner even personally brought people to deliver the goods to their door.
After confirming that there were no quality issues, Wan Xueying happily paid the remaining balance to the shopkeeper in one lump sum. The shopkeeper took the banknote with a smile and praised Wan Xueying for her openness.
Demolition and groundbreaking were major events in this era, and Wan Xueying was no exception. Before the demolition began, she consulted an experienced village elder to calculate a date.
They also needed to send people to dig a canal, so they started work early that day. Wan Xueying and Shen Yu followed them as they tore down the wall. When Shunzi and Nanying were tearing down the wall behind the pigpen, Wan Xueying and Shen Yu became even more focused.
The moment the stone wall was pushed down, Wan Xueying used her spiritual consciousness to silently move the rectangular wooden box that she had been locking tightly into the space without anyone noticing, so fast that even Shen Yu didn't notice it.
It was only after the people from Liushu Village came to help that he took the time to quietly ask Wan Xueying, and only then did he find out that Wan Xueying had already put the thing away.
In the following days, in order not to alert the enemy, they did not rush to open the wooden box. It was not until the brokerage sent someone to inform them that they had carefully selected more than ten houses and shops for them to view that Wan Xueying gave the wooden box to Shen Yu in the carriage on the way to the county town.
Even before opening the wooden box, one could tell from the intricate patterns and exquisite carvings on it that this wooden box was no ordinary object, nor was it something from the Great Flame.
Before Shen Yu was about to open the wooden box, Wan Xueying used her mental power to carefully explore it, and only after confirming that there were no mechanisms or poisonous gas inside did she let him use a dagger to pry the lock on it.
This lock is also for the protection of gentlemen but not for the protection of villains. The lock is not easy to pick, but the top and bottom locks are not easy to pick!
Shen Yu only took a few tries to open the wooden box.
Inside was a bright yellow scroll and a pitch-black token.
"Could it be an imperial edict?" Wan Xueying asked.
"It should be an imperial edict, but it's not the imperial edict of our Great Yan." Shen Yu's face became extremely solemn.
"What is the token then?" Wan Xueying did not recognize the characters cast on it.
"It should be half of the tiger talisman." Although Shen Yu did not recognize the words on it, he could see from a small detail on the token that this was only one piece.
"Then which country does this imperial edict come from? It can't be from Xijiang, right?" Their place is adjacent to Xijiang, so Wan Xueying made this guess at the first moment.
"That's a real possibility. The old emperor of Xijiang Kingdom died suddenly three years ago. The prince he had originally chosen died of poisoning long before him, and the throne ultimately fell to the old emperor's younger brother. It doesn't take much probing to see that there's something fishy going on. If the box contained the old emperor's decree of succession left for the former crown prince or another prince, along with a tiger talisman, it would explain why the original owner of our house was being hunted down? And why did others who later tried to move into this house always run into trouble for no apparent reason?"
"Then why haven't you had any problems this time, even though you've been living here for several days?"
"I've thought about that. It's very likely that they searched the house thoroughly, even digging deep in some places, but still couldn't find the wooden box." But they never imagined that the wooden box was actually inside the most conspicuous outer wall. Shen Yu added, "I think they've decided to change their strategy this time and let us move in first, then keep an eye on us to see if we can help them find it." He wasn't being casual. After they thoroughly cleaned the room, they discovered that several blue bricks on the main floor had been pried open.
"Are we going to silence them once we find them?"
"It should be." Shen Yu nodded.
"So what should we do now?" Wan Xueying asked.
"From what we can see now, the person who sent people to hunt down the original owner of the house is most likely the current emperor of Xijiang State. This means that he could also be the one who would harm us. If we give this thing to him, given the suspicious nature of most emperors, he might still send people to kill us to silence us."
"That's right." Wan Xueying agreed with this point very much.
"If we give it to the enemy of the current emperor of Xijiang Kingdom, it will be even worse. It is very likely that both sides will send people to kill us."
Wan Xueying smiled bitterly, "I shouldn't have insisted on letting everyone move in even though I knew there would be trouble."
"We're already living here, so we can only find a way to solve the problem. But don't worry, this thing is both a death warrant and a life-saving talisman. As long as we can't find it, if the other party is really waiting to see if we can find it as I suspected before, then they won't take action that day."
"You're right. But haven't you ever thought about what to do with this?"
"We know very little about Xijiang Country right now, and with our current strength, we are far from the point where we can use Xijiang Country for anything. I'll keep this thing with you until we can use it."
"That's all we can do for now."
Several groups noticed that the pawnshop's business was not doing well recently, so they sold all the houses and shops they had accumulated recently to the two of them.
The brokerage firm originally didn't have high hopes, thinking that being able to sell a house and a shop would be quite good. Unexpectedly, Wan Xueying picked out two adjacent three-story houses and bought them all, and also bought five shops on the same street.
In the past, these houses and shops would have cost at least double what they do now. Prices in Northern Xinjiang were exceptionally low, with smaller shops costing only a few dozen taels, and the largest only three hundred. If she hadn't been so unsatisfied with the remaining shops, even though she was already struggling financially, she would have borrowed money from Shen Yu to buy them.
When she and Shen Yu walked back, Shen Yu asked curiously, "Do you plan to use those five shops for your own business or rent them out?"
"I want to use it for my own business right now." The largest room was originally a warehouse, and she planned to continue using it as a warehouse in the future. She would collect goods from Northern Xinjiang and several neighboring countries, renovate them, and then sell them to the south. She would also bring some of the more popular goods in the south to Northern Xinjiang to sell. This was also what she had thought of from the beginning.
She planned to continue her old business as a pharmacy in the shop located in the center of the street, specializing in selling ready-made medicines.
There was a two-story shop that had originally been a restaurant, and she planned to continue running it. Northern Xinjiang didn't pay much attention to food, and the flavors were mostly salty and simple. Madam Wu was very good at this, and giving Aunt Chen and Madam Wu a restaurant to run would ensure they had no worries about business in the future.
The reason why she wanted to let Aunt Chen and Nanny Wu manage the restaurant was because Aunt Chen always felt that she didn't have the confidence to eat Wan Xueying's food and live with Wan Xueying, and even proposed to move out with Nanny Wu.
In fact, they had always helped her a lot. At least she never had to worry about food. She planned to find something for them to do, so that they could earn more money. Once they had money, they would naturally feel more confident.
She hadn't decided what to do with the remaining two shops yet, so she bought them and kept them there until she had an idea.
As for the An family, she said from the beginning that she didn't want them to get involved in business matters. She would wait and see how An Ping and An Fan were doing in their studies before making a decision. In the end, she wouldn't let them down.
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