Chapter 34 Buying Mountain
After having some money, Gu Jiao started thinking about what to do with it.
The next day, Xiao Liulang returned home from school, and the family of three sat down to eat in the main room.
They were supposed to be a family of three, but they actually had no relation to each other, yet there was an eerie harmony between them.
The old lady took a bite of a large chicken leg, glanced at Gu Jiao, and said, "Speak your mind!"
Gu Jiao: The old lady has very good eyesight. How did she tell that she had something to say?
“I want to buy the mountain,” Gu Jiao said.
"Winter coat or autumn coat?" The old lady gave Gu Jiao a speechless look, as if complaining that such a small matter was worth fussing over.
"I'm not talking about clothes, I'm talking about the mountain, the mountain behind our village." Gu Jiao always picked wood ear mushrooms and wild mushrooms on the mountain and found that there were many good things there. If she bought them, she could pick mountain products, gather herbs, log trees, hunt... In short, the whole hillside was valuable, and she would definitely not lose money.
"Buy it!"
Surprisingly, the old lady didn't hesitate at all; when it came to spending money, she was impeccably generous.
If this were the original owner's own grandmother, Madam Wu, she would probably jump up and scold Gu Jiao: "You little jinx, you spendthrift woman, you even bought a mountain, does money grow on trees?"
In the eyes of most villagers, the mountain is worthless. At most, you can cut some firewood and pick some wild vegetables. Although there are mountain products and game, no one would buy the whole mountain for these things.
Gu Jiao has both the ability to recognize value and the capacity to handle any dangers in the deep mountains, so that mountain will be a huge treasure trove in her hands.
In the past, she could make her own decisions on such matters, and Xiao Liulang never interfered with any of her decisions. But ever since the old lady came, their way of getting along seemed to have changed in a subtle way.
"Are you talking about the mountain that goes up from behind Uncle Luo's house?" Xiao Liulang asked.
"Mm." Gu Jiao nodded.
Qingquan Village is surrounded by mountains on three sides. She had her eye on the mountain in the very middle, which was also the mountain that the villagers often visited. Uncle Luo's house was at the foot of the mountain.
“Okay, I’ll go ask the village head in a bit.” Xiao Liulang said without hesitation.
Gu Jiao scratched her head. It was her grandfather inside. She could ask him. She didn't tell him so that he would have to run around doing chores for her.
After dinner, Xiao Liulang went to the Gu family's old house.
Zhou and Liu were each given thirty strokes of the cane by the yamen, and they have been obediently resting in the house to recover for the past few days, making the house much quieter.
"Brother-in-law! What brings you here?" It was Gu Xiaoshun who opened the door.
“I’ve come to see the village head,” Xiao Liulang said.
Although he married Gu Jiao, he always addressed the old man as "village head".
"Oh." Gu Xiaoshun was only surprised that his brother-in-law came to visit, but not surprised by the way he was addressed as "brother-in-law." After all, the Gu family had forced his brother-in-law to get married first, and then squeezed his brother-in-law's hard-earned money. Each debt was a debt.
"Grandpa, brother-in-law is here!" Gu Xiaoshun led Xiao Liulang to Grandpa Gu's room.
Grandpa Gu glanced at Xiao Liulang with some surprise. If he remembered correctly, this was the first time Xiao Liulang had come to the Gu family's old house since his wedding to Gu Jiao.
"What's the matter so late?" Old Master Gu asked.
Xiao Liulang said casually, "I've come to ask the village head how much the mountain behind Uncle Luo's house is for?"
"Why are you asking this? Does anyone from your academy want to buy the mountain?" No matter how wildly Grandpa Gu imagined it, he would never have guessed that it was his own granddaughter who wanted to buy the mountain. "That mountain costs a lot of money... and it's not something anyone can just buy. That mountain isn't under the jurisdiction of our village, nor is it under the jurisdiction of the county government; it's land belonging to the temple."
"A temple?" Xiao Liulang frowned slightly, unaware that there was a temple here.
Grandpa Gu said, "That's right, it's a temple. You haven't been here long, so you probably haven't been there yet. It's on the other side of the mountain. You can walk around it from the foot of the mountain, and it takes about an hour to get there. If people from your academy want to buy the mountain, they have to go to the temple and talk to the abbot."
Thinking of something, Old Master Gu added, "Speaking of which, Jiao Niang was born in that temple."
When Xiao Liulang returned home, Gu Jiao greeted him and asked, "How did it go? What did the Gu family say?"
Xiao Liulang relayed Old Master Gu's original words.
“It’s the local earth god in the temple…” The original owner had never been to that temple either. No, according to Grandpa Gu, she was born in the temple, so that counts as having been there. “Didn’t they say how much silver it would cost?”
"He didn't say exactly, but one hundred taels might not be enough," Xiao Liulang said.
"Oh, I have more." Gu Jiao said, pulling a handful of silver coins from her pocket and placing them on the table.
The old lady paused in her act of cracking sunflower seeds.
But that wasn't all. Gu Jiao grabbed another handful, and another handful, and yet another handful.
The old lady and Xiao Liulang were both stunned. These silver coins must have cost at least twenty or thirty taels. Where did she get them?
Xiao Liulang composed himself and asked, "Did you earn all of this by selling mountain products?"
"Yes!" Gu Jiao opened her eyes wide, her face sincere. "It definitely wasn't from a fight!"
Xiao Liulang: "..."
In ancient times, students did not have many holidays. Apart from the ten-day break, the field break during the busy farming season, the clothing-giving break in September, there was only the annual break from December to January.
In the past, the annual leave was in the first ten days of the twelfth lunar month, but this year it has been delayed to the last ten days. And because the annual leave is coming soon, there will be no more ten-day breaks for the next half month.
Gu Jiao didn't want Xiao Liulang to ask for leave from the academy because of this, so she decided to go to the temple herself.
Learning from her previous experience, Gu Jiao didn't leave the food in the pot for the old lady this time. Instead, she went to Xue Ningxiang and asked her to take care of the old lady.
“Your great-aunt…”
"Her illness is not serious and is not contagious."
"Oh, that's not what I meant."
How could Gu Jiao not know that Xue Ningxiang had helped her cover up the lie? Naturally, she also guessed what Xue Ningxiang had figured out, but Xue Ningxiang did not report her or distance herself from her because of it.
Xue Ningxiang didn't ask Gu Jiao how she cured her leprosy; she just needed to trust Gu Jiao: "Don't worry, I'll take good care of your great-aunt."
(End of this chapter)
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