The next day, while the New Year festivities were still ongoing, Lu Yang and Xie Yan went all over the county paying New Year calls. Even Magistrate Zhang, who had once given them the cold shoulder, received a formal calling card from them. After that, they went to ask the two brothers of the Luo family about craftsmen who made writing brushes, planning to pass the information along once Li Feng arrived in the county.
After the New Year visits, Xie Yan did not return to the private school for lessons. Instead, he often went to Wu Ping’s home to study and write essays with him. Lu Yang, meanwhile, went to the livestock market and selected two plow oxen, one male and one female, as well as a pair of donkeys, also one male and one female. From there, he went straight to the blacksmith’s shop to outfit himself with a full set of farm tools, then hauled everything to the estate. The farmland had just been purchased, so seeds still needed to be bought.
Lu Yang looked after relatives as well. He asked around the village to see which households had extra seeds, whether grain or vegetable seeds, and bought some of each.
Next came the construction of the mill. The ground had not yet thawed, making it difficult to build anything.
Lu Yang first had the tenant farmers put up the animal sheds. Then he asked clan relatives to lend a hand. Once the ground thawed, everyone could come over together. With more manpower, they would repair the houses and then build the mill. With many hands, work went faster, and finishing early would avoid delaying plowing and sowing.
The mill required stone millstones. These could be bought from other households or commissioned from craftsmen.
For farming families, this was a major piece of equipment. Unless they were truly unable to put food on the table, people were generally unwilling to sell them.
He bought two millstones to use for now. Once this place started earning money, he could continue buying more. He would also see whether the livestock produced calves or donkey foals and add equipment based on the number of animals.
There was no need to keep too many oxen. If calves were born, they could be raised and sold to households that wanted them. The donkeys would be kept for turning the mill.
Before the mill was even built, Lu Yang would look at the empty ground ahead and feel a sense of regret.
If he were just a little more ruthless, he could completely use this mill to process soybeans and make all kinds of bean products—a ready-made business right in front of him.
He sighed, shook his head, and stopped thinking about it.
He could not be too greedy. He could not want everything.
He had long said he wanted to inspect the drying grounds. After returning to the village, he went to Li Village again, bringing several gifts to visit the village head and formally meet him.
When doing business in partnership, no matter how the profits were divided, the village head’s status was there. Lu Yang was also a junior, so it was only proper that he come in person.
The village head took him to look around the drying grounds and asked whether he had any opinions.
Lu Yang did not raise any opinions for now. He had only come to take a look.
The drying grounds were built on a large scale, in a long, rectangular structure. Three rows of vertical rain sheds divided it into two drying areas. For sufficient light, the drying grounds were wide, with no obstructions nearby, so they could get sun all day long.
The outer “vertical rows” were rooms divided into compartments, most of them storehouses. Near the entrance were the kitchen, living quarters, and an accounting room. One separate room had been cleaned up for Doctor Hu to live in.
The place was simply built but sufficient for use. As Lu Yang looked it over, he felt that access to the drying grounds was too easy and that the storehouses were too close to outsiders.
He said he would not give opinions for now and left it at that.
The business had started too quickly. Problems were inevitable. Before the rainy season arrived, there would be time to adjust and work things out. For now, he would see whether the people of Li Village could handle things properly.
In the first lunar month, the first half was for social visits, the second half for making business arrangements. In the middle came the Lantern Festival. As promised, he had a meal with Lu Lin, counting it as a farewell dinner.
After the Lantern Festival, Xie Yan wanted to stay a while longer and then go to the prefectural capital with the family in the second month. Lu Yang agreed.
Starting on the sixteenth, Lu Yang took Shun’ge’er with him to walk around the estate.
Lu Yang summoned Miao Qing. This Uncle Qing was quick and sharp-tongued, skilled in social dealings, and well connected in the village. In the future, he would be able to manage people, keep sons in line, and watch over daughters-in-law and sons-in-law. During this period, Lu Yang explained all the estate’s affairs to Miao Qing, intending for him to serve as the estate manager.
The estate’s operations were being built from scratch. Shun’ge’er listened along from the side as Lu Yang laid out plans for the crops, then explained what each crop could later be made into, where it could be sold, and what it was used for.
After discussing the fields and crops, Lu Yang moved on to how the mill would make money. After next autumn’s harvest, they would also need to expand the animal sheds and build a breeding yard to raise more pigs and chickens.
Shun’ge’er’s eyes were spinning as he listened.
Good heavens—only twenty-five mu of land, yet how could there be so many things to do…
His own family had previously had sixteen mu of land…
Lu Yang also called the tenant farmers over and told them what would be planted in each season, asking if they had any questions.
The seasoned farmers did have some comments, mostly about adjusting the planting times for a few vegetables. For major crops like wheat and soybeans, the timing Lu Yang gave was correct.
With this arrangement, the shop could be supplied with vegetables year-round, grain could be harvested, and during the farming off-season, they could earn money from the mill.
If the animal sheds were completed by the end of the year and people were diligent and not afraid of trouble, they could buy chicks in early spring. Chicken coops were easy to build. After the large animal sheds were finished in autumn, the chickens could be moved there. That way, eggs and chicken meat could be supplied within the year.
For now, Lu Yang did not plan to spend the money earned from this place. He intended to use it all to add to the ancestral fields and property—buying more millstones in the future, adding more livestock, and purchasing more good farmland.
Lu Yang also would not spend the income from the county shop. He would continue adding to it, saving up money to decide later whether to buy a residence or a storefront. Once purchased, it could be handed over to a broker to rent out. It might not pay for itself in one or two years, but that was fine. This was a fallback for the future—the foundation of the family.
The silver he had left on hand would be the startup capital for the move to the prefectural capital.
His starting point was the business name “Living Off the Mountains,” as well as the bookshop that was about to open.
At the end of the first month, Li Feng and the others returned from deep in the mountains, packed their belongings, loaded up the goods, and prepared to head to the prefectural capital to make the first deal of the year.
On the second day of the second month, the Dragon Raises Its Head.
That day, the Xie family—three people and one dog—packed their luggage and set off with the convoy for the prefectural capital.
They had stayed in this county for more than a year. When everything was packed up, it all fit onto a single cart.
Lu Yang sat beside Zhao Peilan at the back of the cart, watching the road behind them grow more and more distant, his heart filled with boundless emotion and openness.
He had been to the prefectural capital before and seen the wider world. This was not his first time leaving. Yet the invisible threads that bound him seemed to have been cut only today. From now on, the seas were vast and the sky boundless.
At this moment, in Li Village—
Lu Liu had coaxed the children to sleep, set up a kang table, and sat cross-legged on the heated brick bed. He spread out the account books and abacus, laid out some paper for notes, checked and recalculated the accounts, counted the remaining household silver, then put away the books and began writing.
Lu Yang had taught him that when something could not be thought through clearly, it helped to write it down and slowly sort it out.
In the past, Lu Liu wrote a lot, and messily. Now he wrote less. Often it was just a few words or phrases, circled and connected with lines, adding a few more words between them. Without realizing it, he had developed the same habit as Lu Yang.
The New Year banquets had eaten up all the chickens and rabbits at home.
There was no need to buy rice, flour, grain, or oil anymore—the small shop had it all. The cured meats made for the holidays did not need to be saved; a little could be cut for every meal.
Before, out of regard for relatives and brotherly ties, he had treated Chen Jiu very well.
Now that he was about to leave, he wanted to be a little willful and leave the small shop to Yao Fulang.
This was his best friend, someone who had taught him many things and kept him company for a long time.
Da Qiang’s ventures were always a step behind, never catching the freshest opportunities. There was nothing else he could give. He had already taught them how to raise chickens, and every problem he had encountered over the years, everything he could think of, he had shared with Yao Fulang.
His experience raising rabbits was limited, but he shared all of that as well. As for printing books, that could not be handed over—it required large capital, and the village did not have such purchasing power. His own family had been doing this business for a long time. If Yao Fulang took it over, it would only result in losses.
The small shop already had a reputation. People in the village were used to it. Even when they went to the county market, they would buy less elsewhere. Now it earned about one tael of silver a month.
Each month, Da Qiang went to the county to deliver firewood. While delivering, he could restock goods along the way, so the trip was not wasted.
With the small shop and the additional income from making fried paste, those two sources alone allowed Yao Fulang to earn around one tael and five qian of silver per month.
They could also raise chickens and rabbits, enough for Da Qiang to experiment with beekeeping, setting up hives in the mountains. In the future, their household would be able to get by.
Beyond that, Lu Liu carefully thought through the rest of the household arrangements.
At the beginning of last year, his mother had said she wanted him to manage the household. Over this past year, between studying and pregnancy, his thoughts had risen and fallen, his state of mind constantly shifting. Only now was he finally able, with a calm heart, to list everything out one by one.
