Chen Ming took the silver and smiled, "I earned so much from these few acres of land in just over two months. I never thought I could do that in my dreams. But Dad also knows that I've taken advantage of Ah Fu again this time."
Chen Ahfu smiled and said, "The extra money will be used as a gift to my parents."
The family made money, and they rewarded the servants and farmhands. Zeng Shuang and Old Man Lin received the most, 20 taels of silver each, followed by Wang Laowu, 10 taels, then 2 taels, and then 1 tael. Everyone in Fuyuan was very happy.
Thanks to the good doctor's treatment and the Yanchen wood residue, Dabao's leg recovered very well.
In the blink of an eye, it was early July, and Dabao started to go to Tangyuan to study with Mr. Liao again, but Xue Dagui and Chu Xiaoniu took turns to carry him there and back.
The watermelons planted by Tangyuan, Chenye and Chen Mingjia have another good harvest. Because the temperature is high in summer, the watermelons grow faster than in spring.
Only half of the five acres of watermelons grown in Tangyuan were sold, and the remaining half was kept for personal consumption and for giving as gifts. Because there were so many watermelons, all were sent to relatives and friends in the capital as well as those in Shizhou Prefecture.
Now, this kind of watermelon has a special name, called Dingzhou Big Melon, because most of these watermelons are sent from Dingzhou or bought from Dingzhou by merchants, so they are called this.
Chen Ming's family earned more than 40 taels of silver from their three mu of land, and the eldest family's five mu of land sold for 70 taels of silver.
Their watermelons were mainly sold to other places through the Fuyunlai Trading Company in Dingzhou. Although they could not catch up with the watermelon prices of Chen Afu and his team before, they were still two cents higher than the prices of other watermelon farmers.
This made Chen Ye and Hu Shi very happy. Before, they could only earn ten taels at most from the five acres of land even if they worked hard for a year, but this time they earned so much in just two months.
Old Lady Chen, Chen Ye and Chen Agui bought gifts and came to Fuyuan to thank Chen Afu. Perhaps they were afraid that Mrs. Hu would talk nonsense, so they did not dare to bring her to the garden to be an eyesore.
Mrs. Hu also felt that she should not thank Chen Afu. In her opinion, if Chen Afu had asked their eldest son to plant watermelons together when he first started planting watermelons, they would have earned more money.
Chen Agui pushed his mother back at that time, "Afu told me at that time that I didn't plant watermelons because we didn't have any vacant land. I didn't know that these watermelons could make so much money, otherwise I would have pulled up the worthless crops long ago."
Now Chen Ye has also opened a small grocery store in Sanqing County, named Chen Da Gan Za. At the beginning, Chen Ye's family took some watermelons to sell in his own store, but due to the limited purchasing power of Sanqing County, he could not afford a good price. In the end, he could only sell them at a higher price through Fuyunlai Trading Company.
Chen Ye and Chen Agui both liked farming, but they were unwilling and unable to do business, so they did not go to the county to manage the dry goods store themselves. They also hired a shopkeeper who was also a waiter. It would definitely be a loss to hire people and rent a shop for such a small store. But because their store bought goods from Fuyunlai Trading Company, the goods were good and the purchase price was low, and because of the relationship with Constable Xia, no one dared to cause trouble in the store, so the store could make some money every day.
In Chen Ahfu's opinion, this small shop was meaningless. Half of the money he earned went to the shopkeeper and waiter, leaving him with less than one tael of silver per month. Instead of doing this, he would rather farm well, use the money he saved to buy more land, or hire someone to reclaim wasteland and grow good varieties of grain, and become a big landlord, and still make money.
However, Chen Ming told Chen Ye, but Chen Ye didn't listen, thinking that since his two younger brothers had their own shops, he should have one too. It was even harder to say about Chen Ahfu. If she said too much, the eldest wife might think that her Fuyunlai Company was reluctant to give them cheap goods.
So far, Chen Ming's Chen Er Grain Shop is still losing money, except for the money he made from selling watermelons at the beginning. Because he only sells grain and has a single product, the grain shops in the county are already saturated, and he has to pay the rent of the shop and the wages of the shopkeeper and the waiter, so he can't make ends meet every month.
Chen Ming wanted to close the shop or switch to selling sundries. Chen Afu asked him to hold on until the fields harvested good varieties of grain, and then their grain shop business would pick up. Although it was impossible to sell all the good grain to them, with good varieties, other grains would also be easy to sell. In this era, if a grain shop was well managed, it would make a lot of money. Moreover, a grain shop could not be opened casually. Chen Er's grain shop was opened only after Manager Luo found the county magistrate and the county magistrate gave special approval.
On the evening of July 19, just as Chen Afu and others were about to have dinner, Chu Lingxuan came again.
"Daddy."
"Brother."
"Daddy"
Not only Chu Hanyan and Chu Lingzhi shouted to Chu Lingxuan at the first moment, but even Chen Dabao started shouting.
Through this injury, Dabao truly realized that not only his mother, grandmother, grandfather, uncle, sister, fifth uncle and others cared about him, but also the animal home cared about him, and Uncle Chu also cared about him sincerely. He thought that this was the reward for his heart-to-heart exchange. Therefore, now he treats Chu Lingxuan more warmly and sincerely than before.
Hearing the children's surprised shouts, Chu Lingxuan's lips curled up. Seeing Chen Afu standing up and preparing to go into the kitchen, his smile deepened.
After dinner, it was still Old Lord Chu who went back to Tang Garden first, and Chu Lingxuan took the two children to continue playing in Fu Garden. Now that Dabao's legs were inconvenient, the children went to the west wing to sit and play with building blocks. Dabao and Chu Lingzhi had studied for a day, and this was the most relaxing moment.
Chen Afu and Chu Lingxuan went to the west room of the upper house. It had been so long since Dabao's accident, and she felt that she should talk to him about something. She also had a feeling that Chu Lingxuan seemed to have something to say to her.
The servants tactfully did not follow in, only Chu Huai stood in the corridor outside the house.
In the west room, the two sat at the round table. The sunset outside had not completely set, and the afterglow of the sunset shone into the room, still bright. But it seemed inappropriate for a man and a woman to be in the room, so Chen Ahfu lit the candle on the lotus jade cup. The candlelight was dim, and it flickered from time to time, shining on the faces of the two people, one bright and one dark.
"I……"
"I……"
They both spoke at the same time.
"You speak first." Chu Lingxuan said softly.
"No, you speak first." Chen Afu said.
"Okay, then I'll go first." Chu Lingxuan smiled, lowered his head, and moved his face closer to Chen Ahfu. He stretched out his hands and grabbed Chen Ahfu's hands on the table, and said, "Ahfu, although we haven't been together for a long time, I know you are a gentle, virtuous, and kind girl. Otherwise, you wouldn't love your adopted 'son' so much, and you wouldn't be so protective of my Yan'er. We are engaged and will get married early next year. I think there are some things I should tell you... These things, even my grandfather and I didn't know at first, and I only found out the day before our engagement. My second uncle, second aunt, even my mother and third aunt didn't know. After you hear it, you must bury it deep in your heart, and don't tell anyone."
Chen Afu didn't want to listen anymore. She didn't want to know too much.
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