Upon hearing the sound, Lin Yan forgot all about blushing and her heart pounding.
Her instincts as a healer made her get up quickly.
After lighting the candles, she reached out to him and whispered:
"What's wrong? Is your leg bothering you?"
In the dim candlelight, her cool and aloof face appeared gentle and tender.
Because of their posture, the two were extremely close together.
Xie Muqing could even smell the faint fragrance of a young woman emanating from her.
Just then.
The commotion in the east room escalated.
An inexplicably awkward and embarrassing atmosphere unfolded inside the room.
Even if Xie Muqing had many schemes during the day.
But at this moment, he seemed to have lost even the most basic language skills.
"I...I'm fine, my knee just hurts a little."
"Pain is inevitable during bone healing and repositioning, especially since you're still growing. Just bear with it, and you'll be able to stand up again in a little over two months."
Worried that he might be hiding something, Lin Yan immediately took his pulse.
I was relieved to know that he was indeed alright.
After blowing out the candle, she climbed back onto her bunk.
She lay there for a long time but couldn't fall asleep, and Xie Muqing beside her seemed to be the same.
His heart may not be at peace for a long time because of the slightly intimate physical contact just now.
Lin Muyan, who was at the end of the kang (a heated brick bed), was already fast asleep.
After a long time.
The commotion in the east room finally subsided, and he fell into a deep sleep.
Meanwhile, a newlywed couple in the west wing stared at the roof in the darkness.
I can't fall asleep for a long time...
Early the next morning.
Lin Yan, sporting dark circles under her eyes, discussed building a house with Lin Zhenghong.
She did the math a couple of days ago.
Building a traditional courtyard house with blue bricks and tiles in the village would only cost about twenty taels of silver.
There just happened to be an empty lot next to their house.
Ten ounces of the goji berries I sold last time were given to Xie Zhi and his sister.
She still has about 105 taels of silver left.
That's more than enough to build a house.
Lin Yan finished drawing the blueprints a couple of days ago.
The main house has three rooms, the east and west wing rooms each have three rooms, and each wing room has a bathroom. There are two side rooms, three rear rooms, one kitchen, and two toilets.
In addition, her requirement was that the yard be big enough.
The wall is high enough.
"Father, could you please hire a few more reliable craftsmen, preferably more than ten, at 35 coins a day for each of them? That way, the process will be faster and we can move into our new house sooner."
Lin Zhenghong had built houses for people before, so he knew the villagers quite well.
He readily agreed upon hearing his daughter's request.
"Don't worry, honey, no problem. Your dad knows who did a good job and who didn't. I guarantee that none of the people we've hired will try to cheat or shirk their duties!"
"Then I'll have to trouble you, Dad!"
Lin Yan entrusted him with all the tasks of purchasing materials and hiring craftsmen.
She herself simply washed her hands of the matter.
She can now focus on tending to her goji berry garden with peace of mind.
She planned to build three houses as staff dormitories in the thirty-acre goji berry garden, so she hired several craftsmen.
Worried that someone might steal goji berries in the middle of the night, he asked the craftsmen to build two doghouses next to the dormitory.
Building a house is physical labor.
The villagers generally ate poorly.
Lin Yan was worried that the craftsmen wouldn't have enough to eat at home and would be too weak to work, which would affect the progress of the project. So she asked Aunt Wang to come and cook lunch for the craftsmen, paying eighteen coins a day.
Adhering to the principle of keeping the good stuff within the family, Lin Yan made a special trip to her maternal grandmother's house.
I shared my thoughts with them.
Her eldest maternal uncle, Ye Mei, was two years younger than her mother and had two sons and one daughter; her second maternal uncle, Ye Zhu, was twenty-eight years old and had one son and one daughter.
The youngest uncle, Ye Jun, is only eighteen years old and unmarried.
Because of his handsome appearance, he got a job as a waiter at an inn in town.
The monthly wage is one tael of silver, and room and board are included.
He usually comes back during holidays, so naturally he wasn't home this time.
“Uncle, you can bring Aunt with you to work. I will pay each of you one and a half taels of silver per month. For now, you will need to work hard and travel back and forth. Once I finish building the house over there, you can live there directly.”
Upon hearing that it would cost one and a half taels of silver per month, Ye Mei and the others were startled and hurriedly waved their hands in refusal.
"One and a half taels of silver?! That's too much. You don't earn money easily. Just give us lunch. What kind of uncle asks his niece for money?!"
“Uncle, this is different. This is the wages I paid you, and this money has to be paid eventually. If I don’t give it to you, someone else will have to.”
After hearing her explanation, the group reluctantly agreed.
To make sure the wages their niece paid were worthwhile, they immediately grabbed hoes and followed her to Xiaolin Village to reclaim wasteland.
In the following period, the reclamation of thirty acres of wasteland and the construction of new houses proceeded in an orderly and vigorous manner.
Lin Yan was very fortunate.
She has a very good memory, so much so that she remembers the steps and precautions for planting goji berries very clearly.
If you use goji berry seeds for seedling cultivation, it will take two to three years from seed germination to fruit production.
However, if propagated by cuttings, it can bear fruit in the second year.
In other words, if she plants them now, she can harvest ripe goji berries next summer!
She was very careful in this matter, and only took her parents and younger brother into the mountain to the wolfberry field.
"Dad, Mom, little brother, now follow my steps and remember to make neat cuts, just like I did."
Lin Yan took a pair of scissors and cut a branch about 15-20 centimeters long from a mature goji berry tree.
The three of them took the scissors and imitated her actions.
After all, he had experience doing farm work.
They only cut poorly the first two times; the rest of the cuts were perfect.
It took the four of them half a day to fill all six baskets.
It was already getting dark.
Taking advantage of the fact that no one was around, they secretly made their way home from the foot of the mountain.
Upon arriving home, they immediately placed all the branches they had carried down from the mountain in a cool, well-ventilated spot in the yard to dry the cut ends.
It took the four of them three whole afternoons to finally prune the black goji berry branches almost completely.
Another advantage of choosing cuttings is that if the new goji berry branches fail to grow, at least the large area of black goji berries in the mountains will not be affected, and they can still grow fruit normally the following year.
Since building the house, Lin Zhenghong has become much busier these days in order to make things easier for his daughter.
They had to help build the houses, buy food for the craftsmen, and keep an eye on them to prevent them from slacking off.
Therefore, Lin Yan appointed Lin Wende as the head of the organization for the construction of the wolfberry garden's walls and dormitories.
He was tall and organized, and could intimidate people.
During this period of time.
Because everyone has income now.
The oppressive atmosphere that had hung over Xiaolin Village due to the high taxes seemed to have been swept away.
Of course, some people are happy while others are sad.
Seeing Lin Yan building big houses and buying so much land, some people in the village immediately became restless and started to have wicked ideas.
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