They talked late into the night, and the next day both of them slept in. Zhao Peilan worried about them and knocked on the door several times. Lu Yang needed to take his medicine, so he answered and went out, rinsed his mouth, stuffed half a flatbread into himself, swallowed his pills, and then went back to sleep again.
Lu Liu couldn’t be woken at all—he only woke up because he was hungry. After eating, he lounged lazily against the kang cabinet. He wasn’t going out today.
He’d brought his embroidery basket with him, full of shoe patterns.
He wanted to make his brother a nice pair of shoes. Recently he’d been busy making clothes, shoes, and socks for Li Feng—since Li Feng was heading to the prefectural city, he needed to look presentable. Now that his hands were finally free, he could make something for his brother.
After the wheat harvest came autumn.
Autumn shoes didn’t last long, so Lu Liu was making a pair of padded boots that would cover the ankles.
He’d seen that his brother wore long robes, and he’d imagined the whole outfit. In winter there was a kind of padded trouser that was roomy at the thigh and narrow at the calf, so it wouldn’t press down on the shoes. A slightly longer padded jacket on top, paired with a cloak, would look good.
Dressed like that, the shoes would be visible, so he planned to embroider more little flowers on them.
Lu Yang watched him for a while and called out, “Liu-ge’er, feeling any better? Want to go to the theater?”
Lu Liu didn’t have the energy today. He shook his head.
He looked at Lu Yang and smiled sweetly. “Don’t worry, Brother. I’m fine. I just cry easily.”
Once he cried it out, he’d be fine.
Lu Yang had seen how he’d cried last night and didn’t believe that for a second now.
His younger brother kept things bottled up inside. A lot of things really hit him deep, but he usually didn’t want to talk about them. He always chose happy things to share, so the people around him would be cheerful too.
Lu Yang asked, “Do you usually act cute with that Li guy?”
Lu Liu didn’t understand why he was asking. “Mm, I do.”
Lu Yang said, “From what I see, that Li guy totally eats that up. In the future, if you have thoughts or worries, don’t be afraid he’ll find you annoying. He’d love nothing more than for you to throw yourself into his arms and cling to him for life. He’d be over the moon.”
Lu Liu’s cheeks flushed. He smiled and agreed, but still looked troubled.
Li Feng was very busy. In the second half of the year he’d be traveling back and forth between two places a lot. Bringing him these little worries—especially all this overthinking—Lu Liu wasn’t sure if Li Feng would get impatient listening to it all.
Lu Yang told him to try anyway. “I’m good at reading people. He’ll definitely be surprised, then he’ll feel sorry for you. If you start crying, could he possibly blame you? He’d feel guilty to death! Don’t hear me say this and then swallow everything back down. I’m telling you, showing weakness at the right time makes a man want to protect you—it’s good for both of you. You’re usually soft and gentle anyway, he’s used to that. But when you really lay your heart out, that’s when he realizes you’re a living, breathing person.”
Lu Liu protested quietly, “He does treat me like a person.”
Lu Yang couldn’t help but laugh. “What I mean is, a living person has changing emotions—someone who can flip moods at any time.”
Lu Liu tried very hard to “flip” his expression. He set his sewing aside, covered his face with both hands, then opened them—smiling face. Closed them and opened again—crying face. Closed them once more and opened—blinking, playful face.
Lu Yang burst out laughing.
“Alright, alright. Say whatever you want—I totally fall for that!”
Lu Liu laughed too, having successfully cheered his brother up.
Lu Yang had already made arrangements with Boss Ding. After the wheat harvest, he would take him out to the countryside to buy wheat.
This deal benefited Lu Yang more. He could earn goodwill among his relatives, making people think he was capable and impressive. For Boss Ding, there wasn’t much advantage—his distillery bought wheat every year anyway, no matter who he bought it from.
For the first transaction, Lu Yang planned to accompany him.
Boss Ding’s distillery wasn’t very large. This time he wanted fifteen thousand jin of wheat. Each household had to pay grain tax and keep grain for themselves to eat, so no single family could supply that much. According to plan, Lu Yang first took him to Shangxi Village.
Lu Yang didn’t particularly like this village, but Lu Lin had married there, and Zhang Tie was honest enough. The couple worked in the shop and didn’t go back to the village often. Setting other things aside, at the very least, Zhang family’s grain should be shown to Boss Ding.
Last year, when Lu Yang had painted a rosy picture in the village, people still remembered it. No one expected him to actually come. When they saw him leading Boss Ding into the village, people gathered in clusters, all wearing looks of surprise.
Lu Yang knew the way well and headed straight for the Zhang family.
Passing by their old house, he glanced inside.
It was a big house, shared by two households. Lu Lin and her husband rarely came back, so the Zhang family’s second branch lived there alone, spread out comfortably—east wing, west wing, plenty of space.
Lu Yang looked only once before withdrawing his gaze. He found the Zhang family patriarch—now the village head of Shangxi—and had him gather people to inspect the grain.
He’d already discussed it with Boss Ding: they wouldn’t buy all the grain in Shangxi Village. The bulk would come from Lu Family Village, to give his two fathers and his uncle some face. That way, if anything came up in the village later, things would be easier to handle.
By August, all the grain had been dried.
Boss Ding was easygoing when it came to selection. The grain was carried out to the main road, where he randomly picked a few sacks, opened them, and checked the grain.
Boss Ding’s distillery sourced most of its raw materials locally. Prices varied by region. His main products were yellow rice wine and local brews; other types were fewer, though he also made famous wines like Scholar’s Red and Daughter’s Red.
They mostly used wheat to make yeast, and sometimes brewed wheat wine as well. According to him, wheat-based brewing required a lot of material and time and wasn’t very cost-effective—but local grain prices were low, which made it workable.
Local liquor was often the tail end of other wines—the cloudy liquor that flowed out last. It wasn’t very fragrant and tasted thin. The flavor varied slightly depending on when it was bought, and it was often diluted with water.
This kind of wine was cheap and made up the largest portion of their annual output. A wide range of people drank it—not just in the county town, but even rural laborers would buy it.
While they were inspecting the grain, Silly Zhu’s mother kept calling out to Lu Yang.
She’d followed Lu Yang’s advice before and done quite a few things. Her son Silly Zhu worked hard too, and Lu Yang had said that there were no grudges left between their families. She wanted to sell grain to Boss Ding as well.
Lu Yang told Boss Ding to keep looking at the grain, then went over to her and said, “Boss Ding won’t be buying much grain in Shangxi Village. If you really want to sell, have Silly Zhu carry a few sacks over to take a look.”
Silly Zhu’s mother immediately sent her two sons to help him, and sure enough, they carried over big sacks of wheat.
Boss Ding had brought eight workers with him. After inspecting the grain, they also needed to borrow ox carts and donkey carts from the village to haul it away. The households selling grain were all very enthusiastic.
He checked the goods without favoring anyone. All the grain he’d inspected, he weighed and bought. In Shangxi Village he bought three thousand jin. The Zhang family and Silly Zhu’s family each sold one thousand jin. The remaining thousand jin was made up from several other households scrambling to contribute smaller amounts.
Flour sold for only seven copper coins per jin—how much could wheat be worth? In previous years, selling to grain merchants fetched only four or four and a half coins at most. Only in years of poor harvests could prices double.
Boss Ding was a businessman. The price he could offer was four and a half coins per jin. Compared to selling to grain merchants, there was little difference—except that he didn’t haggle or force the price down to four coins flat. That alone was enough to make the villagers happy.
Unfortunately, he bought very little in Shangxi Village. Most villagers didn’t get a chance to benefit. When they saw him leaving, they were reluctant to let him go. Along the road, people called out for him to stay and take another look at their grain. Some even brought their grain out, begging Boss Ding to see how good it was. Others tried to strike up a connection with Lu Yang.
Lu Yang’s dealings with Shangxi Village ended there. When it was time to go, he left without hesitation.
After leaving Shangxi Village, Boss Ding remarked to Lu Yang about how hard farmers had it.
Lu Yang nodded. “I’m not cut out for farming. Even three or five mu feels like too much. When you go out to the fields and look around, you can’t even see the end of them. You have to plow all that land, then sow seeds, add fertilizer, weed, catch pests—you’re just running back and forth in the fields nonstop. I look at all that land and think it’s already more than enough. It’s exhausting! But how much grain do you actually get in the end? Every household wishes they could farm thirty or fifty mu just to live a decent life. I definitely won’t farm.”
Boss Ding listened and nodded. He found it rather interesting—most people, especially from scholarly families, would rather claim peasant origins than admit to being merchants. “Merchant” was a dirty word.
But Lu Yang was always frank. He openly loved money, liked making money, and enjoyed the process of earning it. That was why the two of them could get along so well.
“Compared to manual labor, doing business really is more comfortable,” Boss Ding said. “Look at me—I sit in my shop all day, drink tea, chat a bit, and the day’s over. No matter how much you’re exploited, you still hold more silver in your hand than a farmer. It’s just that you have to read people’s faces and endure being looked down on. At my age, I’ve seen through it all. Being able to eat your fill and stay warm—that’s real ability. Status and reputation are just empty things.”
