Chapter 33: Lending Money to Kill Two Birds
Life at Shidinglou goes on as usual.
Song Jin bought a box, locked her private room, and the girls chatted in bed at night.
"Hey, didn't you say before that you wanted to renounce your citizenship? With this money, you should be able to do so, right?"
No one took it seriously before, but because of the sudden extra money, everyone felt that it was possible to achieve their goal.
"I do want to, but I still have my parents. Otherwise, it will be troublesome if I renounce my citizenship by myself."
"Yes, we women cannot buy land casually. Either you remove your father from the family, or you have to find someone to marry."
Speaking of this, Song Jin was also very depressed. Not only could this woman not inherit at will, she couldn't even own the property at will.
"Well, I heard that this woman can do it as long as all the people in her family are dead."
Caiwei's words caused Hongxing to nudge her with her elbow: "He's still alive and well, yet you're talking about death. And you're talking about inheritance, what can we inherit? Slavery?"
Caiwei knew that what she said was unlucky, so she stuck out her tongue and didn't argue.
"Don't think too far ahead," Hong Xing reminded Song Jin, "Just think about whether you can keep the silver. I heard that some mean masters, knowing that their servants have become rich, will use the method of appraising their wealth. No matter how much you earn, it will eventually end up in the hands of the master."
Song Jin was shocked. She knew that the money was hard to keep, and she also knew that Wen Ya was not a generous person. The IOU for two thousand taels was just a way to trap her.
Caiwei turned over and went to sleep: "If you ask me, we should just live a good life now. I think the Chai family is good. They gave us such generous rewards. If they come to have a few more banquets in the future, we can also eat good food. As long as we keep our mouths shut, the grandmother will never know what's going on here."
Several people laughed when they heard this. They wanted to share the good news together, so naturally no one went to gossip in front of Wen Ya.
Song Jin was not worried about the people in front of her, but she thought of Wen Xinlai from Ma Ti Lane, who might not be an easy person to deal with. She had earned such a sum of money, and she was bound to save it, so they would inevitably meet in the future.
When she thought about it carefully, she hadn't seen Wen Xin for a long time. She didn't know what he was busy with, and it would be best if he forgot about her.
There were not many customers in Shidinglou that morning. Song Jin and A Rong settled the store's accounts, took the twenty-five taels of silver they got from the Chai family and went to Mati Lane to settle the bill.
Song Jin only paid twenty-five out of seventy taels of silver, and no one said anything. After all, they had eaten the chicken and drunk the wine, and Song Jin hadn't offended anyone.
Coincidentally, when Song Jin arrived, Ma Ti Lane was very busy, with several porters carrying things outside.
Song Jin glanced at the box and then at the wooden stick, and he knew that there was silver inside, and it was not light in weight.
"Master Wen."
Song Jin entered the yard and saw Wen Xin talking to a man wearing a sandalwood-colored Taoist robe in the hall.
The man was not young, but Song Jin had never seen him before.
"Hey, Brother Zijin, why are you back? Come on, I just finished my work here."
As he spoke, he winked at the middle-aged man beside him. The man understood the situation and immediately stood up and bowed, saying, "Mr. Wen, that's all for today. I'll take my leave now."
After saying that, he bowed to Song Jin again and led his servants out.
Song Jin walked into the hall and said with a smile, "I went to Mr. Chai's house for a banquet two days ago. He gave me a lot of silver. The store can't use it for the time being, so I just put it here."
As he spoke, A Rong placed the bag of silver on the table: "A total of twenty-five taels, all here, please check the bill, young master."
Wen Xin smiled and sat down at the top, not in a hurry to weigh the silver: "I heard that your shop is doing well. What kind of chicken do you sell recently? Are you good at cooking chicken?"
After hearing this, Song Jin suspected for a moment that this person was also a time traveler and was cursing her in a roundabout way.
"Who was that person who just went out?" Song Jin didn't respond and changed the subject directly.
"Oh, an old acquaintance."
Song Jin smiled and said, "I figured it out. They can carry away the silver."
After hearing this, Wen Xin stopped smiling and said, "Why, Miss Mancao, do you have any objection to my actions?"
When Song Jin heard this, he stopped pretending and just called her Mancao. Wasn't he just trying to use the status of the young master of the Wen family to put pressure on others?
"How dare I? I just remembered that I borrowed two thousand taels of silver from my grandmother, and there are still more than a thousand taels left here. I'm afraid Master Wen has made the wrong choice."
Wen Xin said with a fake smile: "This silver has no name or surname on it, so it doesn't matter which load you carry. It's on the account, so are you afraid that I will default on it?"
Song Jin said, "Your last name is Wen, and this money belongs to the great grandmother. Even if you want to blame me, you won't blame the great grandmother, right?"
Wen Xin snorted and said nothing. Song Jin was too lazy to stay and asked him to weigh the silver and put it into the account. She still had to go to the market to buy vegetables.
After the transaction was completed, Song Jin took A Rong out of Ma Ti Lane, and he became angrier and angrier along the way.
"Arong, do you know that person just now?"
Ah Rong shook his head: "When I was at the Bai family, I was also in the accounting office. I didn't come into contact with many outsiders, so I didn't recognize him."
Song Jin did not give up: "What can you do with all this money? Buy medicinal herbs?"
Ah Rong smiled and said, "So that's what you're worrying about. You don't have to worry about that."
Song Jin was puzzled: "Why?"
"Businessmen like to get involved in everything. Think about it, can the grandmother's huge sum of money just sit there? Although you are doing business, this business requires you to do it step by step, which is not as convenient as theirs."
"They? Convenient? What do you mean?"
"My dear aunt, you are lending money, can't you see that?"
The words awakened Song Jin from his dream and he came back to his senses instantly.
Wen Ya would not leave the money she helped get from the Bai family unused. In addition to letting Song Jin do business and earn money, she also let Wen Xin lend it out to collect interest. And the money lent out probably included the money Song Jin had borrowed.
One chicken, two meals a day.
While collecting interest from Song Jin, he also lent out another wave of debt to collect interest. He is quite smart.
Wen Xin can handle this, but Song Jin finds it difficult.
For private lending, the ability to recover debts is more important than having money to lend. Therefore, anyone who does this business has someone behind him.
Either he has connections or he has thugs, but neither of them is something Song Jin can do now.
If you think about it carefully, it's quite discouraging. Some people make money better than people like her who have nothing and rely entirely on their own strength.
Thinking of this, Song Jin sighed and took A Rong to the vegetable market.
There were many fresh vegetables on the market in July. Song Jin saw peanuts and corn, but unfortunately he didn't see potatoes.
If I remember correctly, potatoes were introduced during the Wanli period. I wonder where they are growing in the fields now.
As for sweet potatoes, they were still in the Philippines this year and had not been brought over. As for tomatoes, Song Jin hadn’t even seen their shadow.
When he came to a stall selling peanuts, Song Jin stopped and squatted down to look at the peanuts.
The peanuts were dried in the sun. I grabbed a handful and shook it, and they made a gurgling sound inside.
"Sir, would you like to buy some peanuts to try? They are grown in my own fields and dried in the sun yesterday. They are very fresh."
Song Jin asked: "How much do you want for these peanuts?"
"Ten copper coins per pound."
Song Jin took a look at the bamboo basket. There were quite a lot of them, probably about ten pounds.
"You have the shells on? Peanuts are being sold at the price of chestnuts."
"Sir, what are you talking about? How much are chestnuts and peanuts? If my peanuts were not in the shell, they wouldn't be this price. It's better to keep the peanuts in the shell. They are easier to store with the shell. As long as they don't touch water, you can still eat them in the winter."
This is true, but Song Jin didn't want to carry it back by herself, and she didn't bring anything with her.
"How much do you weigh?"
"How much do you want to buy? I'll weigh it for you." When the man saw Song Jin wanted to buy something, he grinned, and his teeth looked especially white against his yellow skin.
Song Jin stood up and said, "I'm far away, so how about this? You carry these two baskets to my house, and I'll weigh them when we get home. I'll buy as much as you want. How do you think?"
"Okay, okay. You go ahead and I'll follow you. I promise to take you home."
Song Jin clapped his hands, then walked out with his hands behind his back.
When making scallion oil noodles, Song Jin had already decided that she wanted to make fried peanuts, a great dish to go with wine.
The three of them walked slowly on the street and went straight to Shiding Building. The peanut seller put the peanuts in the store, and A Rong went to find a scale to weigh them.
After weighing the two bamboo baskets, Ah Rong said, "Eighteen jin, let's count it as fifteen jin."
"Hey, how come three pounds of anger went out all of a sudden?"
"Look at your bamboo basket. I didn't cheat you by charging you three pounds." A Rong was not willing to be outdone.
Seeing that Ah Rong was not easy to talk to, the peanut seller turned to Song Jin and said, "Shopkeeper, how about two kilograms? This bamboo basket is not that heavy."
Song Jin didn't know how heavy the bamboo basket was. He looked up at A Rong. A Rong gave him a look that said yes. Song Jin said generously, "Okay, I'll give you two kilograms. I'll take all the sixteen kilograms of peanuts."
"Okay, thank you, shopkeeper."
While A Rong went to get the money, he asked the waiter to go in and get the frame. Song Jin sat in the store and talked to the man.
"Hey, little brother, besides peanuts, do you have anything else at home, such as corn and soybeans?"
"Yes, yes." The boy selling peanuts saw Song Jin asking and guessed that she wanted to buy some, so he hurriedly introduced them.
"The soybeans are still tender and sweet, and the corn is just ripe. How many do you want? I'll peel the soybeans and pick them out for you."
Song Jin smiled and said, "Even the shell is fine."
The elder brother was slightly disappointed, but it was fleeting: "Okay, it's more convenient to have it with the shell. I'll send it to you tomorrow as many as you want."
Song Jin thought for a moment and said, "Well, I want ten kilograms of tender soybeans in shells, ten kilograms of fresh peanuts in shells, don't dry them, and twenty heads of tender corn."
"Okay, okay, I'll give you whatever you want."
While the two were talking, A Rong counted out the copper coins and the waiter poured all the dried peanuts into his own bamboo basket.
The eldest brother counted out the copper coins, thanked Song Jin repeatedly, and went out carrying the empty bamboo basket.
Ah Rong was curious when he saw them: "Boss, what do you want those soybeans and peanuts for?"
Song Jin said mysteriously: "I want to make a new dish."
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