Chapter 136 Shop for Rent

Chapter 136 Shop for Rent

After finishing their meal, the two strolled back to Hao Yu's house to rest.

The next morning, after the two finished practicing martial arts, tidied up the room, put the bedding and other items back in their original places, and locked the door and the courtyard gate, Jiang Yuan accompanied Xie Wanniang to the shop she had just bought.

The shop has been open for business for a while now, and the restaurant owner and his family are all extremely busy.

Upon seeing Xie Wanniang, the restaurant owner hurriedly and warmly greeted her, bowing slightly.

Xie Wanniang smiled at him, "You go ahead with your work, we'll talk about the shop later."

She found a corner seat, ordered dumpling soup, braised noodles, and meat buns, and shared them with Jiang Yuan.

Seeing this, the restaurant owner quickly asked his son to bring over two more bowls of millet porridge and two small dishes of pickled vegetables. "Please enjoy your meal, gentlemen. These are complimentary and not worth much. Please don't mind them."

Xie Wanniang felt a little embarrassed, but seeing that the restaurant owner and his son were both a bit nervous, she nodded and accepted their gesture of goodwill, saying, "Thank you."

The restaurant owner secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Although he hadn't had much contact with Xie Wanniang, judging from the current situation, this girl shouldn't be difficult to get along with.

The father and son got busy again, while Xie Wanniang and Jiang Yuan sat there, slowly eating the carbohydrates on the table.

Xie Wanniang drank a bowl of dumpling soup and a bowl of millet porridge, and ate some pickled radishes and cucumbers. Jiang Yuan drank a bowl of millet porridge, ate a bowl of braised noodles and a meat bun, and finished off the remaining pickled radishes and cucumbers.

The two of them planned to wrap the two unfinished meat buns in oil paper and take them home later.

When the innkeeper saw them put down their chopsticks, he quickly asked his son to bring them a pot of tea and two teacups.

The two then sat there, sipping their tea intermittently, until almost all the customers in the restaurant had left. Only then did the innkeeper nervously approach Xie Wanniang to discuss renting the shop.

Yesterday, Xie Wanniang had consulted with the broker about the market conditions. The restaurant owner offered a reasonable price, so she agreed without much hesitation to continue renting the shop to them.

The restaurant owner was overjoyed. Neither of the two worst-case scenarios he had envisioned—Xie Wanniang taking back the shop or taking the opportunity to raise the rent—had occurred.

He successfully rented the shop from Xie Wanniang at the original rent amount.

Referring to the contract he had signed with the previous owner of the shop, the two drafted a new lease agreement for the shop, and then invited the broker and two neighbors to be witnesses.

The contract was successfully signed, and the restaurant owner took out money to pay Xie Wanniang the rent for the shop for one year.

Having successfully obtained the thirty taels of silver, Xie Wanniang carefully put away the contract and money, and bid farewell to Jiang Yuan and the broker.

Because she is moving to Yi County next year, she plans to entrust the shop to a broker for management.

Actually, the broker doesn't need to do much; all they need to do is collect rent for her every year and sign the contract.

After parting ways with the broker, Xie Wanniang, accompanied by Jiang Yuan, bought some pastries, candies, pork, eggs, brown sugar, straw paper, and lamp oil. Of course, she couldn't forget her favorite candied hawthorns.

With a large family, besides what she and Jiang Yuan bought, Xie Wan's mother also bought ten more skewers to take home.

After finishing their tasks, the two carried their bags to the carriage shop and hired a carriage to return to Mingfu Village.

From that day until the 20th of the twelfth lunar month, Xie Wanniang did not leave her house. She stayed at home, working on the embroidery orders she had received from Qin Niangzi, while also teaching her embroidery and medical knowledge to her group of "disciples".

Time flies by in the regular but busy daily life, and soon Xie Wanniang will be celebrating another Lunar New Year in Mingfu Village.

This year, she and Jiang Yuan did not spend the New Year with Hao Yu. Although they did regard Hao Yu as an elder, this year was, after all, their first New Year after marrying Chen Shi.

The two tacitly declined Hao Yu and Chen's enthusiastic invitation, citing the reason that "it's not good to leave a new house empty in the first year."

Considering that Jiang Yuan and Hao Yu could only cook simple dishes, and that Chen Shi was heavily pregnant and it was really inconvenient for her to cook, Xie Wanniang told Chen Shi and Jiang Yuan in advance that she would help them make braised pork, braised pork hock, salted duck, four-happiness meatballs, sweet and sour carp, and braised chicken.

The two men didn't stand on ceremony with her, but they didn't take her things for free either.

On the afternoon of the day she gave him her instructions, Hao Yu bought a large, fat pig and slaughtered it. He divided the pork, blood sausage, and stewed pork into three equal portions, giving one to his own family, one to Xie Wan's family, and one to Jiang Yuan's family.

Jiang Yuan brought over a lot of chickens, ducks, fish, rabbits, eggs, and tofu. He also stayed at Xie Wan's parents' house for a few days to help her with chores.

There's nothing he can't help with: cleaning, buying New Year's goods, making fried food, steaming rice cakes, bean buns, and mantou.

Xiao Yang, whose work had been taken away from him quite a bit, felt that his position in the family was becoming increasingly unstable.

However, she couldn't refuse someone who had eaten her food. Even though she felt threatened by Jiang Yuan's excessive diligence, she still honestly hoped for his arrival.

As for Xiaomei and Atai, the two little ones went home on the 21st day of the twelfth lunar month.

They need to go back to pay respects to their parents, clean their house, and connect with the clan leader, uncles, and neighbors.

There was no shortage of meat or firewood in the mountains, not to mention that their family also had straw produced from their own land. So they only bought couplets, window decorations, incense, paper money, pastries, candy, salt, brown sugar, wheat flour, rice, river fish, coarse cloth, lamp oil and other items to take back to the village.

Some of these items are for their own use during the Lunar New Year and for paying respects to their parents, while others are for them to take back and give away.

Besides their belongings, the two also brought back some money, not much, just enough for their immediate needs.

As for the millet and red beans used to make rice cakes, and what they eat every day, they can eat the grains produced on their own land, or trade grains and game with other people in the village.

After the autumn harvest, Atai did not bring all the grain produced from his family's fields to Mingfu Village. After all, he had to go back every now and then, and he couldn't carry some food into the mountains every time he went back.

Anyway, with his uncle's family helping to keep an eye on things, no one dared to enter his yard to steal.

However, that was in the past; from now on, Atai will no longer keep food at home.

Jiang Yuan has already told Atai that he will join the army at Zijing Pass after the New Year, while Xie Wanniang, Hao Yu, Chen Shi, and Xiao Yang will move to Yi County, which is closer to Zijing Pass.

Instead of directly assigning Atai and Xiaomei to follow along, he gave the siblings the right to choose for themselves.

To his surprise, Atai not only wanted to follow him, but also wanted to go directly with him to Zijing Pass to join the army.

The tragic experience after his parents' death has not faded from Atai's memory even though things have gotten better recently. On the contrary, he is even more eager to become stronger and to have the ability to control his own destiny and protect his sister.