It was already past 1 PM, and Zhou Laoda and his group were really hungry and needed to eat, so Zhao Guihua didn't stop them and even added a lot more rice to cook.
"You put in too much rice. We can't eat all of it. It's such a waste." Zhong Daya looked pained, but she was quite frugal.
"Not much, some people haven't come back yet, everyone's hungry, this is just right," Zhao Guihua explained with a smile.
Zhong Daya stood there thinking for a moment, then stopped stopping her, but asked curiously, "How many other people are there? Are they all as good-looking as that young man in white?"
Zhao Guihua raised an eyebrow. So her cousin is a sucker for good looks?
As evening fell, Zhu Qiuyu and his group of five returned. They said they had handed the group of children over to the government, but the prefect wanted to hand them back to him, saying there were too many children and nowhere to put them, and wanted him to take care of them for a while longer.
They had already taken care of him for half a month and consumed hundreds of kilograms of food. They had finally managed to hand him over to the government, so there was no way they would bring him back. Zhu Qiuyu and his fellow disciples made a decisive escape.
“They are all poor children, but we can’t afford to feed so many people. It’s not that we’re heartless.” Zhao Guihua muttered a few words, then turned and went to the kitchen to bring out the food.
Just then, Li Qian returned with three servants. Because it was market day, he had been busy until the afternoon. Usually, he would be back after a morning's work and wouldn't go out again in the afternoon.
"Brother-in-law, you're back! I didn't know, otherwise I would have come back sooner." Li Qian was surprised to see so many unfamiliar faces when he entered the courtyard. But when he saw Zhou Laoda, he forgot everything else and hurriedly went up to talk to him.
"It's a long story, so much has happened these past few months..." Old Zhou said briefly, chatted with Li Qian for a few minutes, and then invited everyone to dinner.
After finishing their meal, Zhou Laoda and Li Qian were finally in the mood for a proper chat in the main room. Zhou Laoda said, "I heard from my cousin that you're selling vegetables?"
Li Qian chuckled briefly. "I met a hunter at the market before. His home was quite far from the prefectural city. Plus, he was honest but not good with words. He would hide in a corner when he set up his stall, so it was hard for him to sell his game. I thought his things were cheap, so I took the initiative to buy from him. That's how we got to know each other after a while."
Originally, Li Qian had been thinking about finding a small business to do, but he hadn't found a suitable job. Later, he saw that the hunter was always unable to sell his prey, so he thought about it for a few days and came up with a solution.
He negotiated with the hunter to sell him the goods, and he would resell them. The hunter knew him and trusted him, so the two began to cooperate.
"That guy is quite capable, but he's not very talkative and has a rather quiet personality. When I meet him, I do most of the talking and he listens the most, but it doesn't affect our business dealings. We've been working together for over two months now."
He brought the goods over, and I ate them all. Sometimes we could sell them all, and when we couldn't, we'd take them home and make jerky. There were three other people in the family to help, so the work wasn't tiring.
After discussing business, Li Qian then talked about Zhong Daya's illness. "She got much better a month after you left. She stopped being crazy and was quiet for a month. Later, she could recognize people and even helped with housework. However, she doesn't know how to keep her mouth shut and always talks nonsense. She says whatever comes to mind. I get so angry with her every day. The three servants in the house are also often exasperated by her words."
Li Qian spoke of his wife with a mixture of helplessness and amusement, "But the doctor said that she should recover to normal in another six months. We have to take it one step at a time, so for now we can only be more patient."
Thinking back to Zhong Daya's rant during the day, Boss Zhou couldn't help but laugh. At the time, those words were really infuriating, but after thinking about it, he felt there was nothing to fuss about. If someone is mentally ill, are you going to argue with a sick person?
Li Qian then asked about Zhu Lin and the others. Boss Zhou gave a general overview of their identities, but didn't say much more.
"Have you taken care of everything at Quanshui Prefecture? Will you go there again in the future?" Li Qian asked.
"It's all sorted out. We don't need to go anymore. We won't wander around anymore once we come back." Old Zhou smiled with relief, finally able to live a peaceful life.
That night, Zhou Laoda and his wife discussed it and decided to develop their business in the prefectural city. The shop they had bought before was too small, and since the lease hadn't expired, they wouldn't take it back yet. Now that they had a lot of money, they planned to buy a larger shop.
Who would have thought that their escape would not only save their lives, but also allow them to earn several thousand taels of silver, even though they hadn't spent all their money. To be honest, the three taels of silver they had were a gift from Gu Yiqiao.
It was Xingxing and Zhu Qingruo who accepted it. The people from Xianwu Island had indeed helped the Gu family a lot. Zhu Qingruo accepted Gu Yiqiao's six thousand taels of silver notes without changing her expression, and then gave half of it to Xingxing.
Xingxing handed the silver notes to Zhou Laoda and his wife, telling them to use them to support their families.
"We need to discuss this with Xingxing. She earned the money, so we have to ask our daughter first," Zhao Guihua said solemnly.
So after breakfast, Zhou Laoda and his wife went to Xingxing to discuss buying a shop and opening a restaurant.
Xingxing waved her little hand and said very decisively, "Dad and Mom, the money is yours now. You can buy shops or open restaurants if you want. You don't need to discuss it with me. I don't know anything about this."
“I need you to know this. Your father and I don’t know many words, but once the restaurant opens, the manager will keep good accounts. You can check the accounts from time to time. The restaurant will be registered under your name,” Zhao Guihua announced.
Xingxing frowned. She was only six years old. Why should the restaurant be registered under her name? She didn't want to be the boss. Doing business was troublesome. That was an adult's business. She didn't want to get involved at all.
However, Zhou Laoda and Zhao Guihua didn't care what she thought. With Xingxing's consent, they took the silver notes and went out to buy a shop.
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