Chapter 297: You Must Prepare Enough Money
Old Mrs. Chen nodded repeatedly as she listened. "Zhancai, you're right. It was that damned girl who ruined our good fortune. If she hadn't gotten involved in some trouble, your second brother and his wife, with their silly personalities, would never have tried to separate the family from us."
"If you had listened to me and not sold Erbao, this wouldn't have happened to our family!" Old man Chen couldn't help but sigh.
When Mrs. Chen heard this, she got angry and kicked him.
"You feel uncomfortable if you don't get scolded for a while, don't you? If you can say something, just say a few words. If you can't say anything, just shut up and listen. You always talk after the fact. If you had just been quicker and not wasted time, you wouldn't have been discovered."
Old man Chen was kicked hard on the buttocks, and he grimaced in pain.
"Look at what you are doing, old woman. I just said it casually, why are you moving your feet?"
"You're the one who deserves a beating. You can't do your work, but you do a lot of nonsense."
"I, I, I, I, can't I just keep quiet?"
Old man Chen felt aggrieved. This old woman was becoming more and more unreasonable. It wasn't enough to just curse her, but now she was even hitting him.
I've really spoiled her. Don't think that honest people are easy to bully. If you really make her angry, I'll give her a good beating when I get the chance.
Seeing the two of them bickering again, Chen Zhan rolled his eyes in annoyance.
"Alright, both of you, stop talking nonsense. Instead of wasting time, think about where to get me the money!"
When Old Mrs. Chen heard this, she became worried. Her son’s future couldn’t be delayed, but the family was extremely poor now. How could they afford to let him take the exam? What should she do?
I've been thinking about it so much that my head hurts, but I still can't think of a solution.
Seeing that she didn't say anything for a long time, Chen Zhancai became a little impatient.
"Mom, time is running out. You must find a way to get the money. I have to leave two months early. If the imperial examination is delayed, my son's career and your prosperity will be in vain."
"My dear son, I understand all of this, but I really can't think of any good solution right now."
"Oh my dear mother, you are such a smart person, how could you be stumped by such a small matter!"
"Son, what do you mean by this?" Old Mrs. Chen frowned, looking puzzled.
Chen Zhancai smiled softly, "Mom, think carefully about what valuable things we have at home."
"What valuable things do we have at home? Apart from broken pots and jars, there's only..." Old Mrs. Chen suddenly remembered something and her eyes widened. "Son, are you talking about our six acres of land?"
Chen Zhancai smiled and nodded, "Mom is indeed a smart person, she really understood it immediately."
"That won't do. We only have these six acres of land. If we sell it, we'll be left with nothing. How will we eat in the future?"
"Yes, Zhancai, those lands are the ancestral property left by our ancestors who worked hard day and night, and we must not sell them anymore!" Old man Chen couldn't help but object.
Chen Zhancai snorted in dissatisfaction, and the pie became smoother and smoother,
"You are so short-sighted and have no foresight. You only see the tiny benefits in front of you. It's just a few acres of land. What's so hard to give up?
Selling land for money is to make me glorious and glorious, not to be used for eating, drinking and having fun. As long as my son can pass the imperial examination, money will come like a tide. When the time comes, don't talk about a mere six acres of land. I will promise you a hundred acres of good farmland. That should be fine, right?
After hearing Chen Zhancai's irrelevant words, Old Man Chen couldn't help but frown.
"You make it sound easy. As the saying goes, if you can afford to eat and wear, you'll be poor, but if you can't plan well, you'll be poor. If you pass the imperial examination, that's fine, but what if you fail? Without land and food, we'll be left with nothing!"
"Oh my dear father, I don't blame my mother for always scolding you. You are a good person in every way except your mouth. There are so many "what ifs" that you can't say something auspicious!"
"That's right, you're the only one with a stinky mouth. What nonsense are you talking about?"
Old Mrs. Chen also stretched her neck and glared at Old Man Chen.
"I'm telling you, if my son really doesn't pass the exam, I'm going to tear your stinky mouth apart!"
"I just don't agree to sell the land, why are you all glaring at me?"
Old man Chen subconsciously moved his butt toward the edge of the kang, fearing that he would be kicked again.
Old Mrs. Chen glanced at him with annoyance. "If you don't agree to sell the land, then find a way to get money for your son to take the imperial examination."
"Where am I going to get it? You're making things difficult for me!"
"Look, you're already at a loss when it comes to business!" Old Mrs. Chen sneered disdainfully, "If I weren't in this family, someone like you would starve to death."
Old Man Chen was so angry at her words that his ribs hurt and he really wanted to slap her in the face.
He gritted his teeth and cursed secretly, this self-righteous and wasteful old woman, if she hadn't been so arbitrary, the family wouldn't have been living in such poverty now,
I really regret not having trained her properly, letting her become more and more arrogant.
Seeing her makes me feel like a mouse seeing a cat. Even a fart can scare me to the ground.
If I were 20 years younger, I would never have lived with him...
The more he thought about it, the more aggrieved he felt. He simply turned his head and faced Old Lady Chen, "I've never been the master of this family. Do whatever you want!"
"Look at you, you're such a jerk!"
Old Lady Chen cursed him and ignored him. She turned to Chen Zhancai and said,
"Son, as the saying goes, 'Leave three steps in front so you can walk, and three steps behind so you can walk.' How about this? We have six acres of land, right? Why not sell half? That way, you'll have money to take the imperial examination, and we'll still have some land to support ourselves. Is that okay?"
Chen Zhancai was speechless when he heard this. He calculated in his mind that the normal price of three mu of land was thirty taels of silver.
Apart from food, drink, toilet and other miscellaneous expenses on the road, fifteen taels of silver is more than enough.
But if you want to go to the red light district to experience the rumored foreign customs, this amount of money is far from enough for entertainment.
As the saying goes, "When you are happy, you should be happy; when you are romantic, you should be romantic." It is not easy to travel thousands of miles to Nanjing, so you must prepare enough money.
Thinking of this, he shook his head in embarrassment.
"Mom, you don't know yet. It takes two or three months to get from here to Ningjing, crossing mountains and rivers, and going back and forth.
It's so good to be at home, but it's so hard to go out. No matter what you do, you have to spend money.
If my son has no money to return home halfway and starves to death in the wilderness, what good will it do him even if he passes the imperial examination...?"
Liu Fengjiao sat on the edge of the kang in a depressed mood. After listening to Chen Zhancai's words, she became more and more disappointed with him.
She was really blind before. How could she fall for such an irresponsible thing?
The Chen family only has six acres of land left. If they sell it all, the old man and his wife will starve to death before winter.
He actually expected his precious son to pass the imperial examination. That was simply wishful thinking.
Others may not know, but Liu Fengjiao knows it better than anyone else.
For more than a year, Chen Zhancai said that he was studying in the town, but apart from going to the academy during the day, he never read or wrote when he returned home at night. He either slept in or went out to eat and drink with his friends.
If someone like him could pass the imperial examination, even a toad could eat swan meat.
Although she disliked Chen Zhancai, she thought that she had no better way out.
If he really sold all his land and failed to pass the imperial examination, he would probably suffer in the winter.
In order to prevent her baby son from starving, she had to bite the bullet and interrupt him to persuade him.
"Zhancai, what mother said makes sense. Why don't we sell three acres of land?"
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