Lu Liu had only ever cared about feeding three mouths, so when the fish soup was cooked, there was never enough to go around. It was his first time realizing that having more people around also brought its own disadvantages.
No wonder they always say making money is for supporting the family, not just to fill the stomach. With one more mouth, there’s one more bowl of soup, and not even one bite per person is enough.
Li Feng heard him muttering and couldn’t help but smile. These everyday grumblings made him feel quite content inside.
He finished a bowl of dumplings and went to the stove to take the fried dumplings out. The fried dumplings, cooked in onion oil, were delicious on their own, and Li Feng didn’t need any dipping sauce—he just picked them up with chopsticks, one at a time.
He was extremely hungry and ate five or six fried dumplings before mentioning the sales of rice cakes that day.
“The money’s all with me. We’ll divide it tomorrow at the new village, and later I’ll let you help me count it.”
Lu Liu looked up, his eyes sparkling with the shine of coins.
“Count the money!”
Lu Liu asked, “Can I count it too?”
Li Feng nodded. “Of course.”
Lu Liu was so eager he quickly washed the dishes and tidied up. When the two of them sat down, Li Feng set up a small table and two baskets, and even brought out a balance scale to weigh the money.
This was the first time Lu Liu had seen such a setup.
Li Feng’s cloth bundle contained full bags of copper coins, while the small silver pieces were kept in his gloves.
Lu Liu saw there were so many copper coins that he went down to get some hemp rope and scissors. Tonight, the two of them had the task of counting and stringing the coins.
Li Feng said, “A hundred coins per string. No need to string a thousand coins, it’s too much.”
Lu Liu nodded eagerly. “Mm-hmm!”
It was the first time he had seen so much money. The dull copper coins and silver pieces, piled in the open baskets, gleamed like the sun. He was so fascinated by it.
Count the money, count the money, count the money.
Lu Liu knelt on the bed, one hand holding the hemp rope, the other holding the coins. He grabbed them in handfuls, strung them up to a hundred coins, tied a knot, cut the rope with the scissors, and placed them in an empty basket.
Li Feng started by weighing the silver.
The price of rice was between four and six coins per pound, and glutinous rice was nine coins per pound. They had made an agreement with the rice merchant to sell the rice cakes to them. The glutinous rice was sold at a good price, eight coins per pound.
They had bought five hundred pounds of glutinous rice for the first batch of rice cakes, with an eighty to ninety percent yield. Some was lost during production, and some eaten, but they brought four hundred and twenty pounds of rice cakes to the county.
The rice cakes could be sold for twenty coins per pound, more than double the price of the glutinous rice.
According to their agreement, they sold the bulk to the rice merchant at sixteen coins per pound.
They sold one hundred and twenty pounds at the market, with the market scales always favoring them, so they made an additional two thousand three hundred seventy-four coins.
The three hundred pounds sold to the rice merchant brought in four thousand eight hundred coins, which was equivalent to four taels and eight coins in silver.
Some people at the market paid with small silver coins, so Li Feng first weighed the silver from the rice merchant to confirm it was correct before calculating the total from the market sales. There was an additional five coins in silver.
After adding everything up, the copper coins came to a total of one thousand eight hundred seventy-four coins.
He kept the account in his head and pulled out an old abacus from the cupboard at the head of the bed.
They had spent four taels of silver on the glutinous rice, leaving a balance of three taels and one penny.
The five families were partners, with Chen Guizhi as the head. Their family held two shares, and the five families divided six shares, each worth five hundred twenty-nine coins.
This year, the Ertian family didn’t contribute any money to buy the glutinous rice, so both shares were considered Li Feng’s.
Since they had made the rice cakes at his place, the expenses for food and firewood were deducted. In the meantime, they had earned nearly a tael of silver.
Not bad.
Li Feng nodded, put down the scale and abacus, and joined Lu Liu in stringing the copper coins.
They strung nineteen sets of coins, but the last set was less than a hundred coins.
After they finished, the couple double-checked twice to ensure everything was correct.
Lu Liu, looking across the bed at Li Feng, grinned foolishly. “This is the first time I’ve seen so much money.”
Li Feng packed the coins into small baskets. These were the money they were going to divide, so he didn’t touch them.
He went to the cupboard alone and brought out two strings of copper coins, handing them to Lu Liu. “Hold onto these for now. I’ll exchange them for silver for you later.”
Lu Liu was both surprised and delighted. He held the two strings of coins in his hands, unable to close his palms, and followed Li Feng, asking him several times, “Really? You’re giving them to me?”
When he came to the Li village, there hadn’t been anywhere for him to spend money.
The village didn’t have a market, and everything they needed—food, drink, clothes—was provided. If they didn’t go to the county town, they wouldn’t need to spend any money.
Li Feng told him, “The Laba Festival is coming soon. Yaofu Lang may ask you to go to the market.”
Go to the market!
He could leave the village, and maybe even sneak a visit to his older brother.
Lu Liu was overjoyed and nearly rolled around on the bed, if the table hadn’t been there.
He asked Li Feng, “Will you come with me?”
Li Feng wasn’t sure. “I probably won’t.”
In the month of La, they were going to sell rice cakes again and earn some money before the New Year.
Making rice cakes didn’t bring in as much money as hunting, but it was safer. During the festival, everyone gathered together and made money in a lively and festive way.
Li Feng observed that the villagers who went to the market could be divided into two groups.
One group was the men who went together to sell goods, and the other was the wives who went with their husbands to buy things, with no men accompanying them.
Li Feng said, “I won’t go with you. You should talk more to people when you’re there, meet some new faces, and you’ll have someone to chat with in the future.”
Lu Liu’s heart felt warm at the thought, and he put down the coins, leaning over to hug him.
“Dafeng, you’re really great.”
Li Feng smiled, packed up, and then went to wash his hands and soak his feet in warm water to relax. Afterward, the two of them crawled into bed.
Li Feng said, “By the way, I ran into your father in the county today.”
Lu Liu shuddered at the mention of his father. “What did he say?”
Li Feng gently patted his back to comfort him. “He didn’t say much. He just mentioned that they’re out of firewood and asked if I could get him some. We have plenty of firewood, so I’ll take a cart of it to him another day.”
When Lu Liu heard it was about Old Chen, he leaned closer to Li Feng again.
He didn’t want to send firewood to the Chen family. The two brothers were too lazy, and if they got firewood, they’d definitely want Li Feng to chop it up for them.
Why should he do that? It wasn’t like there weren’t others around, or they were too busy. How unreasonable was that?
Li Feng said to him, “I plan to take a cart of dry trees over for them. Let them chop it themselves.”
The marriage trickery had been settled, and the things he’d been schemed against still weighed on Li Feng’s mind.
The two families could maintain relations, but asking him to be a perfect son-in-law was out of the question.
Firewood could be given, but how it was chopped was the Chen family’s business.
To make things easier for Lu Liu, he could select the thinner, easier-to-chop logs.
Lu Liu couldn’t help but laugh, “That’s the way it should be! When they run out of firewood and feel the cold, they’ll chop it themselves.”
Li Feng still remembered Lu Liu’s second uncle and asked, “Which village is your second uncle from? I’ll take the New Year gifts with me when I go.”
Lu Liu paused, confused. “Why are you suddenly bringing up my second uncle?”
He answered in a soft voice, “He’s from Lujia Tun.”
Just as Li Feng had expected, since Lu Sanfeng’s surname was also Lu.
Speaking of Lujia Tun, Li Feng told him, “I did something good today. I sent a couple from Lujia Tun to Shangxi Village to see their child. They got married on the same day as us, on the twentieth day of the twelfth month.”
Lu Liu: ???
He was stunned into silence, and after a while, he gave Li Feng a “Good Person Card.”
Li Feng had made money today, done a good deed, eaten dumplings, and had been praised by his husband. His mood was excellent, so he treated Lu Liu to chicken. Lu Liu ate his fill, and his obedient nature couldn’t hold back his full stomach. He begged for mercy repeatedly.
lol how do both sides have a euphemism related to chicken. Good thing they switched because both Yang and Feng are too strong willed to survive being in the same room together.