Zhang Ya thought that the woman and her husband would be easy to sell, but the buyers were not philanthropists and were unwilling to bring along such a burden. He finally found a servant who was willing to buy her, so he couldn't let her go. So he said quickly, "Girl, the price of this strong male servant is fifteen taels of silver, and this woman is a cook, so she is also worth twelve taels of silver. I will sell this child to you for eight taels of silver, a total of thirty-five taels of silver, how about that?"
An Ning was thinking when she heard the boy say, "Miss, I can do a lot of things. Please be kind and buy our family!"
Seeing that the boy was quite courageous, An Ning nodded and said, "Okay, I'll take this family, but the house is too big, and I need to choose a maid and a cleaning lady." An Ning picked and chose, and finally chose a woman in her forties and a man in his thirties. After bargaining, he bought the five servants for sixty taels. Zhang Yaren and An Dashan went to the government to exchange the house deed and the contract of sale, while An Ning and Zhao returned to the Zheng family.
An Ning and Zhao returned home. An Ning said, "Aunt helped me a lot today. I don't know how to thank you. How about I cook dinner tonight?"
Zhao shook her head and said, "I appreciate your kindness, but you must be tired after walking around all day, so you should take a rest!"
Seeing this, An Ning said with a smile: "Okay, when we move to the new house, I will let you taste my cooking." Zhao agreed with a smile.
After a while, An Dashan came back. Seeing this, An Ning asked, "Dad, where are the people who were bought back?"
An Dashan said: "I have already asked them to go to the new house. It is already late today, so we can settle them in tomorrow."
An Ning asked, "Have you bought all the food?"
An Dashan nodded and said, "I bought rice, flour and vegetables."
Zhao, who was watching from the side, found it funny and said, "Look at you, you really look like a housekeeper." An Ning also smiled embarrassedly.
In the evening, Captain Zheng and An Yong came back. While eating, they talked about what happened today. Captain Zheng was sincerely happy for An Dashan and said, "Brother An, you have already bought a house here, why don't you move here?"
An Dashan shook his head and said, "It's hard to leave your hometown!"
Captain Zheng saw this and stopped trying to persuade him.
After dinner, An Dashan and his companions left the residence of Captain Zheng and went to see the new house. An Dashan gathered everyone in the main courtyard. Since An Yong would be the owner of the house from now on, An Ning did not say anything more and let An Yong give a lecture to everyone.
An Yong was worthy of being a general. He spoke with great momentum and shocked the servants with just a few words. After An Yong arranged the tasks for the servants, he set a monthly salary of one and a half taels of silver for each of the four adults. The child, who could not do any work, was given a monthly salary of 500 wen. After doing this, he let the servants go back.
When An Yong saw the servants leave, he turned to An Dashan and said, "Dad, this main house will be left for you and mom to live in. I'll live in the east yard, and Ningning will live in the west yard. What do you think?"
An Dashan shook his head and said, "Your mother and I will not live here for long. Besides, we cannot wrong the governor's daughter. You two can live in the main house, and your mother and I can live in the east courtyard."
Seeing that An Dashan insisted, An Yong did not continue the topic.
An Dashan said, "When you have time, take us to visit your future father-in-law and discuss the engagement."
An Yong thought for a while and said, "I'll hand in the visiting card tomorrow." Only then did An Dashan feel relieved.
The three of them discussed and decided that since it was urgent, there was no need to choose a date to move. They could just buy the bedding tomorrow and move in directly. Since the things in the yard had not been bought yet, the three of them went back to the inn directly.
Nothing happened that night. The next morning, after breakfast, An Ning told An Yong to go directly back to the new house in the evening, and then An Yong went to the military camp.
After An Yong left, An Dashan and An Ning packed up their things and checked out of the house, then went to the market to buy things. Since the new house already had furniture, there was no need to buy anything else, just some bedding and servants' clothes, so the two of them went to the cloth shop first.
It was still early, and there were not many customers in the cloth shop. The cloth shop owner was sitting behind the counter and yawning. When he saw An Dashan and An Ning coming in, he quickly greeted them warmly, "Please come in, two guests. What would you like to buy?"
An Ning said, "Boss, my family has just hired a few servants. Do you have any ready-made clothes for them?"
The boss smiled and said, "Yes, yes. Most of the servants' clothes in Yecheng are made here, so I always have some on hand." He then took out several ready-made clothes made of different fabrics, but the styles were similar, and they were all convenient for work.
An Ning touched the fabric of the clothes and said, "I'm buying clothes for servants, so I want this kind of coarse cloth. The men's must be this dark gray, and I need six sets. The women's must be this dark blue, and I need four sets." Then she gave the sizes of those people to the cloth shop owner.
The cloth shop owner took it with a smile, looked at it, pointed at the child's size, and said, "I don't have such a small size. Can I get you the smallest size and you can go back and alter it yourself?"
An Ning nodded and said, "Okay." Then he said, "Boss, I need some more bedding. Do you have any ready-made ones?"
The shopkeeper said, "Yes, there are, but the material is not very good. The best is ordinary fine cotton cloth, and the rest are coarse cloth."
An Ning thought for a moment and said, "First, bring me four beds of fine cotton, and then five beds of coarse cloth."
The shopkeeper's eyes narrowed with laughter, and he said, "Okay, okay, wait a moment, young lady, I'll get it right away."
After buying all these, the mule cart was full, and An Ning said, "Dad, let's send these to the new house first!"
An Dashan nodded and said, "Okay."
The two of them came to the new house and An Dashan knocked on the door. After a while, a little head popped out. Seeing that it was An Dashan and An Ning, they quickly greeted them.
The child's name was Wang'er. An Ning said, "Wang'er, go get them to move the things."
Wang Er agreed and ran to call for help. After a while, several people came out in a hurry, greeted the two people first, and then carried their things into the yard.
An Ning distributed the things she bought to everyone, and then asked them to go back and clean up the yard. Zhang Yaren had already sent someone to clean the yard, so they just wiped the dust off the furniture.
An Ning laid out An Yong's bedding for him, then returned to her own yard to spread out the bedding, and then tidied up her own room. Fortunately, most of An Ning's things were in the space, and only two pieces of clothing were left outside, so it was easy to tidy up.
An Dashan carried two quilts back to the east yard. Although Gao didn't come this time, An Ning and An Dashan also bought Gao's quilts.
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