Chapter 90 Daily Trivial Matters
Although I had already decided to move to a different house.
But Guo Baiwen only managed to find some time that evening, after finishing his homework due the next day, to start calculating the money he had on hand.
I've spent quite a bit of money lately on buying books and practicing calligraphy.
Although he unexpectedly received the fifty taels, he spent another eight taels of silver to buy a donkey cart.
He currently has a total of 101 taels and 237 cash on him.
Grandma Guo is in charge of the shop's current cash flow and the rent paid by the tenants. He had just looked at the accounts a few days ago.
The shop's profits were agreed upon beforehand to be kept by Grandma. Besides paying the Yang siblings' wages, Grandma would also give him and Xiaohua some pocket money every month.
As for the rent he collected, apart from keeping enough for his family to eat for a year, he sold the rest to rice shops, and took the opportunity to sell a batch of his own saved fine rice.
However, due to concerns about attracting attention, the amount of polished rice produced was not very large.
In the end, he received a total of 23 taels and 670 cash.
This amount of money excludes small change and my monthly allowance.
Not only do we need to set aside half of the money for the next exam, but we also need to set aside another ten taels in case of any unexpected expenses in the next six months.
In the end, he could only use fifty-two taels.
Fifty-two taels...
How much did he spend on this house back then?
...I always felt that this amount of money would be a bit tight if I wanted to move to a bigger house right away.
So Guo Baiwen kept the idea of moving to a different house in mind, but he hasn't told his family about it yet.
The academy is keeping a close eye on things lately, and we don't have enough money on hand, so there's no use in being anxious.
When I rest later, I'll take some things to Granny Sun and ask her to keep an eye out for any good ones.
As for now, studying is still the most important thing.
Perhaps because the exams had just ended, the academy assigned a lot of homework during this period. I had to practice poetry and prose and memorize the classics. For the next few months, I went back and forth between the academy and home.
Occasionally, when he went out, it was either to buy books at a bookstore or to return books to the Chen family.
As time went on like this, Guo Baiwen would occasionally think back to his school days in his previous life when he turned off the lights to rest at night.
If I had worked as hard as I do now back then, would I have been able to get good grades in the end?
But that's just a thought, since I don't need to learn any other subjects like English now.
When he woke up the next day, he put the idea out of his mind.
This completely different learning routine from his previous tutoring school surprised even Grandma Guo, who had previously strongly supported his studies. She was taken aback by his unusual approach to learning.
Worried that reading too much would make people stupid, Grandma Guo kept nagging while she had already killed several chickens to prepare a good nourishing meal for the family.
Stewed chicken, stir-fried chicken, chicken soup—we eat a different dish every three to five days.
Seeing that Guo Xiaohua was eating well, Guo Baiwen's face was still thin and bony.
If it weren't for the fact that he has grown quite a bit taller these days, Grandma Guo would probably have suspected that those chickens died in vain.
His efforts were not only noticed by Grandma Guo, but also by Master Guo and Master Cao.
"You have only recently begun studying the Four Books and Five Classics. Compared to the other students in the academy, you started learning a little later, but fortunately, diligence can make up for any shortcomings."
The Four Books have relatively few characters, and in addition, regardless of whether it is Class A, Class B, or Class C, they are all taught in small classes.
So there weren't any problems learning this part.
However, the Five Classics contain more and more complex content. It's unknown how much extra time Guo Baiwen spent in private to catch up with the current learning pace.
The poems and essays that Master Guo is holding in his hand are Guo Baiwen’s new works. Compared to his earlier works, the progress is significant.
Especially in the mid-year class placement exam at the academy, Guo Baiwen not only maintained his Class A performance, but also climbed from the bottom fifteenth to ninth.
Even though this was partly due to two people leaving Class A midway through the season, it was still a solid improvement of four places.
So Lin Zhongbin, who was originally sitting next to him studying, also started to bury himself in his studies.
Even Master Cao couldn't help but praise him, saying, "If he can continue on this momentum, next year's exam might not just be a chance to accumulate experience."
But these words were clearly more encouraging than encouraging.
If passing the imperial examinations were really that easy, all the students in the academy would have failed long ago.
However, seeing students studying diligently and striving for excellence always brings the teacher a greater sense of comfort.
"The academy's reading room preserves records of the county and prefectural examinations from previous years, including collections of articles from the county itself, several surrounding counties, and even the prefectural and provincial capitals."
"Most of them are articles from the top three. If you're planning to participate next year, you can borrow them to read and study them when you have time."
Beside the collection of articles, there are also many annotations, some of which are the insights of scholars from various regions, and some are interpretations given when the papers were distributed.
Such annotations are rarer than simple articles.
Therefore, these books can only be read in the reading room and cannot be taken out of the academy.
The rule stipulated that each person could only borrow one volume per day. With multiple collections of articles from different places and years, people could take turns borrowing from each other, which made it manageable.
"Be very careful when you flip through it, or you'll get a beating with a ruler!"
"Yes, Master!"
The academy's mid-year assessments are over, and the holiday will be here again soon.
It was only because the learning pace had eased up a bit during this period that Grandma Guo found a spare moment to talk to him about something.
Since the family acquired a donkey, it has become much more convenient for them to travel out of town to return to Guojia Village or to purchase materials and visit their tenants.
In addition, Guo Baiwen had written many Spring Festival couplets and given them away to the villagers for free during the previous Spring Festival, so the villagers remembered his house again.
The old house at the entrance of the village can't be left idle forever.
So the village chief first approached Guo Shitou, and then discussed with Grandma Guo whether or not the old house in Guo Family Village should be renovated.
If so, after the autumn harvest season, we can get the villagers together and find some craftsmen to help repair the house.
Whether you choose to live there yourself in your spare time or want to rent or sell the house, it's up to you.
If you don't want it, the house is at the entrance of the village after all, so it's fine to leave it empty. But it would be better to flatten those two crooked houses first.
There are many children in the village, and there are always a few mischievous ones running around playing.
If the house collapses and crushes someone, then no matter how hard you try, you won't be able to explain yourself.
So Grandma Guo came to discuss with him what to do with the house.
"Houses in Guojia Village can be rented out?" Guo Baiwen was very surprised to hear this.
"That's right." Grandma Guo understood his meaning when she saw his expression, and couldn't help but laugh. "But the rent definitely can't be compared with that in the county town."
It's said that renting it out would probably bring in an extra 600 yuan a year.
However, renovating the house would definitely cost more than that.
The 600+ RMB is supposedly rent, but it's more like hiring someone to help look after the house.
After all, a house needs people to maintain it.
No matter how well a house is renovated, it will easily fall into disrepair and become unbearable to behold if no one lives there for a period of time.
Grandma Guo was also hesitant, although she secretly preferred to renovate the old house.
After all, it's an old house that's been there for decades; she's spent half her life there.
“Our house has been vacant for almost a year now,” Guo Baiwen said, pulling out a scrap of paper he had used for practicing calligraphy. He found a clean corner and roughly listed a few items.
If we follow Grandma Guo's suggestion, we can simply demolish the crooked sections of the wall, reinforce the remaining walls, rebuild new ones, and then have a bricklayer plaster all the walls...
It's not a major overhaul; it should only cost about one or two taels of silver to fix.
But since the repairs were already done, Guo Baiwen thought he should make the house tidier, rebuild two layers around the well, raise the outer wall, and replace some of the windows with new ones.
In addition, if you hire someone to do work, you should provide them with lunch. All these miscellaneous expenses should not cost more than two taels of silver.
As he calculated, Grandma Guo pulled up a bench and sat down, helping to add to his calculations.
Once everything was listed, it belatedly became clear that the house renovation had already been planned.
Just as they were checking to see if there were any oversights, Xiaohua returned from school with Lin Niangzi.
She skipped and hopped into the room, and greeted the two of them, "Grandma! Brother! Brother Banshan was just looking for you outside."
Upon reaching the entrance, they saw that Guo Banshan had somehow brought Douhua, the granddaughter of the tofu shop owner across the street, to the shop's door. The two, one tall and one short, one big and one small, were looking at the two baskets of vegetables and talking to Yang Qiaomai on the steps.
When Douhua saw Guo Baiwen coming over, she greeted him with a smile, revealing her missing teeth, "Hello, Brother Guo and Grandma Guo."
"I just came back from the village. I was planning to come to your house to return the donkey I borrowed." Guo Banshan straightened up as well.
It was harvest time, and the academy gave the monks a few days off for farming, so he borrowed Guo Baiwen's donkey and went back to the village.
Grandma Guo chuckled upon hearing this, "How are your parents doing?"
“It’s great! My mother told me to bring some vegetables over. She just dug them up from the ground this morning, and they’re still so fresh. There are several baskets of them!” Guo Banshan said as he pushed the baskets next to him into the basket.
As for the remaining basket, "Grandma said we can share some with the neighbors."
The academy provides meals, but he couldn't possibly eat that much food by himself.
So the original plan was to divide it into two baskets, one to give to Grandma Guo along with the homemade soybean paste, and the other to Yang Qiaomai, which also contained some wild fruits he had collected on the way.
He brought this fruit to Tianqiao last time; the little girl liked the taste.
So on his way back, he picked a lot more and brought them back with him.
Unexpectedly, the fruit attracted the granddaughter of the tofu shop owner across the street.
So he and Yang Qiaomai had just given her some more fruit to take home and eat.
Douhua twitched her ears, ignoring the conversation among the others, and stared at the sweets and pastries in Guo's shop, drooling.
Ever since the day the candy shop opened, and her father bought her candy a few times, she often moved a small stool to sit in the tofu shop across the street and stared at the counter here.
Yang Qiaomai and Guo Baiwen both recognized the little girl.
Seeing that Yang Qiaomai was about to take her back, she held the wrapped fruit in one hand and looked back at the candies on the ground with some reluctance.
They looked so pitiful yet adorable that Guo Baiwen couldn't help but sigh. Just as Yang Qiaomai was about to leave with her people, he called out to the two of them.
He always carried some sweets in his purse with him.
Grandma said that studying is mentally taxing, and eating something sweet can make your brain happier.
I usually share some with my classmates when I go to the academy, but I didn't go to the academy today, so I still have two untouched packets of sweets and pastries in my purse.
He rummaged around, took the item out, and handed it to the child.
"Take some back and share some with your older brother and sister. I'll also go to your house later to buy some freshly made soy milk and tofu!"
"Mmm," Douhua nodded hurriedly, took the oil paper package and couldn't help but swallow, but didn't open it. Instead, she happily thanked Guo Baiwen, then seriously took Yang Qiaomai's hand before running home.
Guo Baiwen wanted to give Guo Banshan some as well, but Guo Banshan refused, waving his hand repeatedly.
"I've been eating too many sweets lately, and I feel like my teeth are going to rot," he said, covering his face. "It's better to stop for a while."
After saying that, he helped carry the vegetable basket to the backyard, and originally intended to go straight back to the village.
Grandma Guo stopped him again and listened to Guo Baiwen tell him about the old house in Guojia Village.
Their family now spends most of their time in the county town, whether it's at the academy or the shop, and they only stay there for two or three days at a time.
However, it might be difficult to dedicate more time to traveling back and forth to the village to carefully oversee the renovation.
Thinking that Guo Banshan's family should be able to free up some time after finishing the harvest.
He only needs to help out occasionally in his spare time. As for the workers' lunch, Guo Baiwen will be going back to the village again tomorrow.
So they had a brief discussion, and Guo Banshan could tell Uncle Shitou when he went back later. Tomorrow, Guo Baiwen and Grandma Guo would take an oxcart back to the village to discuss it in detail.
Having said all that, Guo Banshan didn't think much of it and agreed, then rode his donkey back home.
After everyone left, Grandma Guo looked at all the dishes and felt a little emotional.
That's one of the inconveniences of living in the city; unlike in the village, where you can pick fresh vegetables from the ground whenever you want.
Although the vegetables sold at the market were available, they were still not quite the same.
Since they brought so many vegetables and soybean paste this time, we can use them to make some vegetable pancakes.
I just made some new chili oil at home, so using it with the filling of these vegetable pancakes will definitely make them taste even better.
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