Seeing that Xiao Bao was still restless, I quickly coaxed him and told him that once he settled down, he could play with the older brothers and sisters.
What's more, once he settles down, he'll have 16 kids to keep him company, so he won't get bored.
With directions from others along the way, we quickly found the house where the village head was. Looking at the large courtyard in front of us, with a row of brick and tile houses, it seemed that the village head's family was not short of money.
He handed Xiao Bao to the puppet, and when no one was looking, he took out a curtain from his spatial storage and put it on his person.
That way, she wouldn't have to worry about others seeing what she looked like. All she wanted was to quietly raise her child and ensure the child's healthy development; she had no intention of attracting unwanted attention.
So, in order to have a quieter life in the future, this is the only way.
Then I took out a few pastries, a piece of pork with a bit more fat, and a small jar of homemade fruit wine from my space. I figured that these things wouldn't be too impolite to visit someone.
Tang Baozhu and her group were so conspicuous that they had already been noticed by others, so when they saw them going to find the village head, no one said a word and just followed behind.
They probably found this group of people too strange, because although the children following behind had gained some weight in the past two days, they were still noticeably thin.
Tang Baozhu ignored the people watching her outside and directly ordered the puppet to knock on the door.
A middle-aged woman came out. Seeing that the people knocking were complete strangers, she hesitated and asked, "Who are you? What can I do for you?"
Tang Baozhu stepped forward and said, "Hello, auntie. We are refugees from other places. After arriving here, we came here specifically to pay our respects to the village head. We wonder if the village head is at home?"
"Oh, I see. Father-in-law is home. Please come in. My husband's surname is Li. You can call me Aunt Li."
"Thank you for your help, Aunt Li. This is just a small gift, nothing more. I hope you won't find it offensive."
Unexpectedly, this aunt was the village head's daughter-in-law. I quickly handed her the things I was carrying and then went into the courtyard.
The yard was exceptionally clean, which showed that the woman in charge was a very clean person.
An elderly man in his sixties or seventies was sitting on a small stool at the entrance of the courtyard. He must be the father-in-law that my aunt had mentioned.
"This must be the village head, right? We've fled from other places. We originally planned to enter the capital, but the cost of entering the capital is too high, and we simply can't afford it. So we can only shamelessly hope that the village head will take us in."
Tang Baozhu didn't play any tricks and directly stated his purpose. Moreover, he felt that the village head was shrewd and should have seen through their intentions at a glance, since there was no way to hide the long line of children behind them.
Li Lizheng puffed on his cigarette, took a deep drag, and exhaled before saying, "We have quite a lot of space here, so we don't have any objections to people moving in. It's just that the people here are used to a simple life. As long as you don't cause any trouble, you're very welcome."
Tang Baozhu hadn't expected the village head to be so easy to talk to, and a smile instantly appeared on her face. Although it was impossible to see because of the curtain, you could tell from her eyes that she was in a particularly good mood.
"Don't worry, Lord Village Head. We are all honest and law-abiding people who live peaceful and stable lives. We will never cause any trouble for you."
The village head glanced at the old and the young, but he wasn't too worried. After all, there were so many children; only a restless person could have picked up so many orphans.
Although no one had a household registration, the village head hesitated a bit when it came to re-registering, but with money paving the way, there was nothing to hesitate about.
I also bought a piece of land in the village, about two acres in size, for three taels of silver, intending to build a house. Luckily, wasteland is not expensive, otherwise it wouldn't have been so cheap.
However, building the house would take some time, so they stayed in the village head's old house during this period. For this, they were given 500 coins a month.
When registering the children's household registration, all the children were also registered under Tang Baozhu's household registration, but no indentures were signed for them.
Although there was no indenture, she didn't believe they could escape her grasp.
The construction of the house was almost entirely contracted out to the village head, for which it cost approximately 80 taels of silver. She didn't know the exact amount; the village head had given her that it would cost roughly that much.
The house was exceptionally large, after all, so many people lived there. There were five main rooms in a row and three side rooms on each side. It must have cost a lot of money.
So after giving him 80 taels of silver, he also told the village head that he would make up the difference later.
Looking at the village head's happy expression, Tang Baozhu figured that he might deduct some benefits, but it shouldn't be too outrageous.
After all, I didn't sense that this person had any bad intentions. He probably just had some small-minded mentality, thinking that he could take advantage of any opportunity.
After moving into the old house, he began to actively integrate into the local village. In order not to make people think that he was strange for always wearing a curtain, he simply took the curtain off and then applied a lot of medicine to his body to change his skin color.
As the saying goes, fair skin can cover up a hundred flaws, but dark skin can ruin everything. When someone is extremely dark-skinned, they no longer have that attractive look.
After five days, Tang Baozhu had basically integrated into the gossipy villagers and learned the name of the place.
This village is called Sweetwater Village because of the sweet water from a stream that flows down from the mountain.
This stream is genuine mountain spring water, originating from a spring deep in the mountains. The water seeps out from the cracks in the rocks and never freezes or stops flowing throughout the year. In addition, the water is particularly delicious and sweet, so the village was named Sweet Water Village.
Most of the villagers are former hunters from various mountains who moved down from the deep forests to settle here.
The surnames in this place are particularly diverse; you could say that almost every surname is present, such as Zhao, Qian, Sun, Li, Zhou, Wu, Zheng, and Wang.
However, based on Tang Baozhu's observations over this period, she found that most of the villagers were very easy to talk to, or rather, they were not very cunning and were particularly straightforward.
The women in their family also seemed quite easy to talk to, which made Tang Baozhu feel that living here was a pretty good thing.
At the very least, she had never met anyone as vicious as the village woman in the village when she first transmigrated.
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