Chapter 37 How about we rent this land out first...?
Guo Xiaohua, who was enjoying a rare moment of relaxation in the evening, overheard some diners from lunch saying that there would be dragon dances and stilt walking activities on the evening of the Laba Festival in Xiuning County.
So ever since the store closed, I've been really looking forward to it.
In addition to dragon dances and stilt walking, there are also Laba markets where many people gather to celebrate the festival.
I heard that people were specially hired to perform acrobatics and storytelling at the City God Temple in the county town.
These are things that don't exist in the village.
In previous years, in Guojia Village, being able to go to the "New Year's Market" a few days after the Spring Festival and watch the dragon and lion dance performances was considered to have joined in the New Year's festivities.
Xiaohua was really eager to join the celebrations in the county town before the winter solstice.
So I closed the shop early today and distributed some homemade sausage, egg glutinous rice cakes, sweet glutinous rice wine, and Laba garlic as a Laba Festival allowance for Yang Qiaomai to take back.
After tidying up the house, Grandma Guo finally managed to get Guo Xiaohua to sit down and helped her pickle three or four jars of "Laba Spicy Food".
Guo Baiwen set out offerings such as Laba porridge and dried fruit, praying for the blessings of his ancestors while also paying respects to his grandfather and father.
While Grandma Guo and Guo Xiaohua were bickering and not paying attention to their own actions, he also paid his respects to Guo Bawen.
The Master did not speak of strange phenomena, physical prowess, disorder, or spirits.
I just hope that after he sees this, he can put his mind at ease and stop worrying about this family.
The two of them had just finished soaking the chili peppers and garlic, and hadn't even finished pickling the ginger yet.
Guo Xiaohua just couldn't sit still any longer.
Grandma Guo stopped pressuring her and sighed heavily, deciding to shoo her away rather than bother her. "Go on, go on, your heart has already flown away. Grandma doesn't need your help with the rest."
Fortunately, there aren't many people in her family, so she can make the Laba spicy dish by herself, which is meant to be eaten as a side dish. It's all about the family getting together and having a festive atmosphere.
Guo Xiaohua had been waiting for Grandma to say those words. She smiled broadly, her eyes crinkling, and affectionately rubbed her cheek against Grandma's. "I knew it! Grandma is the best to Xiaohua!"
Grandma Guo pretended to be angry and put on a stern face. After obediently rubbing her face with Xiaohua, she waved her hand and said disdainfully, "Go away, all you do is try to make Grandma happy. You've rubbed all the oil from your face on mine."
Hahahaha—
The response to her disdainful words was Guo Xiaohua's unrestrained laughter.
She ran upstairs with a laugh. She had already decided what to wear tonight as soon as she learned that the store would be closed for the day.
With more money in the family, they had more choices of fabrics. Fine cotton cloth, which they could only look at before, could now be bought in half or a whole bolt occasionally.
However, neither Grandma nor she had the extra time to make several new outfits for themselves to change into.
When Yang Qiaomai heard about it, he patted his small body loudly and said that his older sister was now taking on sewing and mending jobs.
If the clothes aren't too complicated, his older sister can make them too.
It's cheaper than buying ready-made clothes directly from the fabric shop, or buying fabric yourself and then having the embroiderers at the fabric shop make the clothes.
Once the garment is finished, it's much easier to embroider patterns on it or adjust the size yourself.
So Guo Xiaohua took some money from her monthly allowance to make clothes, and persuaded Grandma Guo to join her, and they ordered two sets of clothes from Sister Yang Qiaomai.
The cloth was a whole bolt of coarse blue cotton fabric, which she and Grandma Guo had taken back with them, along with their tailoring patterns.
Since the fabric is only used for making short jackets and skirts for outer wear, there should still be a lot of fabric left over after making clothes for two people.
Yang Qiaomai originally wanted to bring back the leftover fabric, but Guo Baiwen thought that since he was working in the store, the clothes he wore represented the store to some extent.
Looking at the workers at the tofu shop across the street, they were all wearing their own work clothes.
Although the material wasn't very good—it was coarse linen—the workers and shopkeepers looked more energetic and spirited when they were dressed neatly.
So Yang Qiaomai simply took the remaining fabric and made two short browns to alternate wearing while working at the shop.
As for any leftover scraps of cloth, he'll keep them all himself.
It doesn't matter whether you're making handkerchiefs or sewing shoes.
After discussing the cost of the materials with Xiaohua, he did give her the money to make up for it.
So she rushed upstairs to find this new outfit.
Ordinary people like them usually wear clothes in shades of gray, blue, and black, or simply the original color of the fabric, such as linen or a half-yellowish white.
However, this blue can be either a bright blue or a dull, grayish blue.
The blue cloth that Guo Xiaohua bought was specially chosen to be bright and vibrant. After bringing it back from Yang Qiaomai's house, she washed it and then added pinkish-blue silk thread and hibiscus flower patterns to the collar, cuffs, and hem.
The patterns are quite complex, and she can only add them little by little in her spare time each day.
Ever since the embroidery was finally finished, she had been looking for an opportunity to wear the dress out.
As for the shoes she would wear, she had already decided on them: the pink cotton shoes that her brother had given her before.
So while she was busy upstairs, Guo Baiwen came over to lend a hand to Grandma.
Grandma Guo has gradually begun to accept Guo Xiaohua's current love of beauty.
When her family was poor, she only liked to make some cloth flower hair ties. When she made a lot, she could sell them when a peddler came to her house.
It was still a form of income, so although Grandma Guo didn't say anything, she tacitly approved of it.
Now that the family is better off, Guo Xiaohua's love of tinkering has only intensified.
Although Grandma Guo didn't think there was anything wrong with it, she would sometimes complain to Guo Baiwen, "It's a good thing we have plenty of money now, otherwise we wouldn't have so many tricks up her sleeve."
'I don't know what's going on in her head, how she manages to come up with all sorts of novel ideas for dressing herself every day.'
As Guo Baiwen listened with a smile to his grandmother's words, which were ostensibly complaints and disdain but actually contained a hint of boasting, he said, "Xiao Hua is indeed very good at tinkering with these things."
She can use many methods to make even a simple piece of fabric look better than others.
In particular, when he was strolling through the night market in the county town last time, he also discovered that Xiaohua was actually very skillful with her hands.
Previously, the family business was not stable, so even if he had some small ideas, he could only suppress them. But now that he thinks about it, Xiaohua is at the right age to learn something.
"Grandma, have you ever thought about sending Xiaohua to an embroidery workshop or to an embroiderer's place to learn how to embroider silk flowers?"
Grandma Guo had previously considered sending Guo Baiwen to learn a craft, so she naturally understood what he meant. "Wen-zai, have you inquired about it?"
I have inquired about it.
Xiuning County is not a place with developed handicraft industry like Suzhou and Hangzhou. There are only three or four large embroidery workshops in the town, and it is rare to find apprentices.
The embroidery skills here are mostly passed down within families or among relatives and friends.
Therefore, he preferred to find a skilled embroiderer so that Xiaohua could learn from her.
This kind of program, where students don't need to pay tuition separately but still need to help out with the work while learning, is somewhat similar to the model of Hu the Carpenter's Woodworking Workshop.
If all else fails, you can pay some tuition fees to avoid having to do manual labor.
Basic embroidery skills can usually be learned in one or two years, but if you want to learn something more complex, it will take three to five years.
Because of the importance placed on girls' marriage in this era, only girls aged eight to twelve were generally accepted to study.
After completing the training, it will be very useful whether you take on jobs at home, start your own business like the master embroiderer, or use it as part of your dowry when you get married.
Guo Baiwen also thought that since Xiaohua liked this, it would be good for her to have a skill to rely on.
That's why I had the idea of sending her to study.
After hearing his explanation, Grandma Guo nodded in agreement. "It's good that she likes it and has learned something." When she has time, she'll ask around among the neighbors to see if there are any embroiderers taking on apprentices.
"But it's definitely not possible now," someone has to stay home for the time being, "and even if it's faster, it won't be until after the new year."
Grandma Guo started to calculate carefully, but when she mentioned the New Year, she suddenly seemed to remember something and slapped her forehead.
The crisp sound startled Guo Baiwen, who hurriedly grabbed her hand, "Grandma! What's wrong now?!"
“When people get old, they become confused,” Grandma Guo said anxiously. “These days I’m so busy that I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow at night.”
She looked up at Guo Baiwen and said, "Wenzi, Grandma has almost forgotten that the cracks in the field ridges of our two acres of land haven't been repaired yet! The ditches haven't been cleared for irrigation either. If we wait until next spring to plant, they'll probably leak even more."
The two mu of land in Guojia Village are terraced fields, and the soil fertility is not very good. Every year, during the off-season, farmers have to collect wood ash and compost to accumulate fertilizer in order to ensure the harvest of the fields in the following year.
But after they moved to the county town, they had no time to take care of their two acres of land, let alone their half-acre vegetable garden.
Thankfully, I haven't planted too many things in the vegetable garden these days.
But when it comes to land, this is, after all, the foundation of a farming family.
Grandma Guo was able to sit and talk, but as she spoke, she suddenly stood up in a hurry, without even grabbing the chair stick next to her, and rushed out of the house.
Seeing her in such a hurry, Guo Baiwen quickly pulled her back, "Grandma, don't rush. At this time of year, even if we go back to the village, it will probably already be snowing."
That's true. In previous years, it usually snows around this time.
Grandma Guo had originally planned to go back and till the fields, but after hearing what Guo Baiwen said, she couldn't help but sigh deeply, looking as anxious as an ant on a hot iron pot. "What, what should we do now?"
Guo Baiwen comforted her, "Grandma, it's alright. Even if there isn't much harvest from the fields this spring, the money we earn from the shop will be enough to pay the land taxes for this year."
"Besides, we live in the county town now. Even if we went back and forth to farm every day, we wouldn't have the time."
That's the truth.
But after all, they were peasants, and even though they weren't in a hurry to pay taxes, they couldn't bear to leave their land lying there empty.
However, the business in the shop is so good that, although these days have been hard work, it is still much easier than farming in the fields in previous years.
They earn even more.
So Grandma Guo felt half relieved, but the other half was still on her mind.
"It's all Grandma's fault. When I left the village that day, I felt like I had forgotten something, but I only remembered it now."
“It’s one thing if those old houses in the family collapse. But those two acres of land, your grandpa and grandpa used to take good care of them.”
"Last year, Grandma sold half an acre of land to pay her taxes, and she already felt very guilty towards Grandpa and Grandpa."
"Those few acres of land are the lifeblood of our family."
He spoke with frustration, wishing he could divide himself into several people to do the work at the same time.
Guo Baiwen's eyes welled up with tears as he listened to his grandmother's words.
After pondering his plans for a long time, he finally told his grandmother, "Grandma, you're so old now, and we've already moved to the county town. We're thinking of sending Xiaohua to learn embroidery, and we now have a stable source of income from our business—"
"...How about we rent out this land for farming?"
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Author's Note: When will this system of compensatory leave finally be abolished? *sobs* [crying emoji]
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