Chapter 127

After arriving at the town, Xu Ran asked Gao Quan to drive the carriage to the Zhuo Mansion, while he and the village head went to Yamen to deal with the matter of buying land.

By this time, Xu Ran hadn’t gone through any tax exemption formalities, so few people knew that he was a Xiucai. And now he entered Yamen as usual.

The Yamen registrar was clear about the policy, but as Xu Ran did not mention it, he did not pursue the matter. As before, he helped Xu Ran go through the formalities. Instantly, Xu Ran had another 40 mu of land under his name and became a lord.

After everything was settled in Yamen, Xu Ran took the village head to the Zhuo Mansion. Since they had come to the town together, Xu Ran felt it was not good to let him go home alone instead of inviting him to go to visit Zhuo Yun together.

Not many people came to celebrate Qingshu’s full month (a traditional activity to celebrate a baby’s completion of its first month of life). Apart from some of Zhuo Yun’s close friends, only the Qins and Xu Ran’s family came.

But at lunch time, there were still many guests who were arranged to sit at five or six tables respectively. Zhuo Yun was wild with joy, and he praised his baby Ge’er in front of every visitor.

Qingshu was indeed beautiful. There were many people who wanted to become his in-laws, but they were all rejected by Zhuo Yun, who announced that he would let his baby to choose the person he liked. At the moment, he was too young to make such a decision.

Xu Ran also agreed with Zhuo Yun. Who knew what kind of person the child would like after he grew up? And it was more likely that he liked someone with the same gender? Anyway, who would know?

Most of Zhuo Yun’s friends went back after dinner, leaving only Xu Ran’s  and the Qin families. The Qin Family did not intend to go back today. At the moment, all the Ge’ers and boys there were divided into two groups, each chatting happily.

In modern times, next they would gather together to play mahjong. Here, however, there was no this kind of thing, mahjong, so they could only sit and chat.

Liu Tong and Shao Yu also got together with a group of Ge’ers there.

Xu Ran just joined those men naturally. While everyone was enjoying themselves, Qingshu suddenly cried very loudly.

Qin Shuwen got up and coaxed the baby in his arms. After twice of walking back and forth, the baby still cried. Qin Shuwen lifted his clothes to see if he had peed, but he didn’t. Thus he guessed the baby was hungry.

Zhuo Yun then quickly asked the servant to get some ewe’s milk.

Seeing Liu Tong’s belly, Xu Ran had felt that he might have forgotten something. Until this moment when he heard Zhuo Yun mentioned the ewe’s milk, he realized that he had wanted to buy an ewe home. As he was so busy these days that he had forgotten about it. Liu Tong probably thought that the baby could drink rice-water, so he never mentioned such kind of thing.

It was October now. If time was fast, the baby would be born before the year. Xu Ran felt he should be quick to buy an ewe.

After feeding Qingshu the milk, Xu Ran pulled Zhuo Yun aside and asked, “Zhuo Yun, your housekeeper bought the ewe back, right? How about this way? Just let your housekeeper go with me to buy an ewe for my family? You see, Tongtong is about to give birth, so it’s the right time to buy an ewe back and raise it.”

“Yes, the ewe was indeed bought back by the housekeeper. When you go back later, I’ll let the housekeeper take you there for it.”

“Thank you,” Xu Ran said. After a pause, he went on, “By the way, a few days ago, I made something interesting. Later, I’ll make another set and send it here. You can see whether there is a market for it or not.”

“What is it?” Zhuo Yun asked curiously.

Xu Ran replied, “It’s called Chinese chess. It’s not the same as Go game with fewer pieces. They have only 32 pieces all together. This chess is suitable for old people. The chess piece is made of wood. It looks very beautiful when it is colored and polished. You haven’t seen them yet, so you don’t know what they really look like. I’ll show them to you when I’ve got them ready. ”

“Okay, anyway, I have no idea about them at all only by hearing here.”

…

As they wanted to go home as well as to buy an ewe, Xu Ran and his family didn’t stay for long. When they left, Zhuo Yun’s housekeeper also went with them to the market for an ewe first.

Gao Quan drove the Ge’ers and children home first. The village head went to the place where the ox cart was parked to wait for Xu Ran. And Xu Ran went to buy an ewe with Zhuo Yun’s housekeeper.

They knew that it was best to choose an ewe that was more than two months old, because ewes usually gave birth when they were about five months old. At the moment, an ewe of more than two months old would surely produce lambs when Liu Tong also gave birth. In this way, it was just the right time.

A pregnant ewe was more expensive, worth eight taels of silver. The price of the ewe that Housekeeper Zhuo had bought was almost the same, so Xu Ran didn’t bargain much. He knew it was hard for him to make the price go down further.

Xu Ran also asked the seller to teach him how to raise the ewe. After all, this ewe would take the responsibility of feeding his child, so he had to be careful in raising it.

The sheep seller told Xu Ran that there was nothing special in raising an ewe. As long as he fed the ewe with more tender grass, it would be okay. He reminded Xu Ran that it was better to have green grass in winter. If there was no green grass, he should prepare hay for the ewe.

This was not a problem at all. Xu Ran quickly bought the ewe, put it on the ox cart, and then they all drove back.

Not long after Xu Ran got into the carriage, he found that he had forgotten to buy happiness candies. He slapped himself and then told the village head, “Village head, I forgot to buy something. Can you wait for me a little while? I’ll be back in a minute.”

Seeing Xu Ran slap himself, the village head smiled and said, “Go ahead and I’ll wait for you here. I’ll help you look after the ewe, too.”

“Thank you so much, village head. I’ll be back soon,” Xu Ran said and ran away quickly.

There were a lot of candy shops in the town, but the kind that Xu Ran wanted to buy could not be found in many shops. After searching in several shops, Xu Ran got them at last.

Now that the weather was cold, the candies could last out for long. Xu Ran intended to buy more, so he asked for a whole sack of candies. Though the sack was not very big, it must be as much as twenty or twenty-five kilograms, which was enough to be distributed twice to each family in the village.

As the shopkeeper saw that he bought so many candies, he offered him a discount, ten pence per jin only.

This time the money he had spent was much less than when he had held a banquet. Xu Ran calculated all these in his heart, and then paid the money and happily left carrying the candies.

When he and the village head returned to the Xu Village, the sun had already set.

…

When Xu Ran went to return the ox cart to Wu Mei’s family, he gave them their land deed, too. When he was in Yamen, he specifically asked to make the deed for ten mu of land. His reason was that they had one more child in the family, so they could share the land easily in the future.

The registrar didn’t insist on anything, and he went through the formalities according to Xu Ran’s request.

Wu Mei gave Xu Ran twenty two taels of silver, and Xu Ran accepted it happily. In this way, Wu Mei and the rest would feel relieved. Otherwise, if Xu Ran’s name was always written on the deed and they didn’t pay for it, the land might have nothing to do with them if something unexpected happened in the future.

Although all this was just thinking at present, no one could be sure about its future.

Then, Xu Ran asked Xu An to make another set of chess for him, saying that he wanted to give it away. Although Xu An was a carpenter, he was also a man with brains. Last time, it was easy to understand that Xu Ran asked him to make this for Mr Hu to kill the time. But this time he asked for it again so that he could send it to others. Xu An guessed that Xu Ran must plan to do chess business.

Xu An thought about it and then asked, “Ran, do you want to sell chess? But no one knows how to play it. Can this work?”

Xu Ran didn’t expect Xu An to think of this as well. He replied, “I do have this idea, but I don’t know if it will work, so I plan to make a few sets first and send them to others first. I can teach people how to play chess. As long as someone likes it, there is sure a market for it.”

“This is also a way. Then I’ll make a few more sets. Anyway, now that I’ll make one set of chess, I can easily make a few sets more.”

“Okay,” Xu Ran nodded, “Thank you so much then.”

After leaving Xu An’s house, Xu Ran went to send the land deed to the other two familes.

He also asked them to help him distribute candies tomorrow. There were more than a hundred households in the village, so he really didn’t know when he could finish the task if he did it by himself. More importantly, he was unwilling to go to some people’s, such as his eldest uncle’s and his third uncle’s.

…

The next day, Wu Mei,  Liu Qing and the others came to Xu Ran’s house after breakfast. Xu Ran took out the candies and then handed out a bag of candies to each of them.

Xu Ran asked Liu Tong, “Tongtong, how many candies should we give to each person get? Four? ”

Liu Tong said, “There’s nothing particular about this. As long as it’s an even number. Generally speaking, you can give two candies to each person. Otherwise, do you have enough candies to send each person four? ”

Now that there was nothing particular about how many candies to give to each person, Xu Ran packed a small bag for each of Wu Mei and the others, “Then you just give each of the person in the village four candies. At the same time, remember to tell them why the candies are sent. Otherwise, many people will ask me to treat them to a good dinner.”

Liu Qing asked, “How shall we say that? You know we’re stupid. You can just teach us directly, and we’ll just follow suit. ”

Xu Ran thought about it and then began to choose his words, “You just say that my baby will be born soon. I’ll treat everyone in the village to dinner when he is a hundred days old. And I just held a banquet when moving to the new house. If I have another banquet because of the birth of my child this time, it’s too frequent, not good.”

“Alright, let’s say this way.” The three people nodded.

“Thank you,” Xu Ran said politely.

“You are welcome. And I have never done such things like sending happiness candies. Let’s try it today. Alright, let’s go. We’ll try to finish our job early and go back to do our work at home.”

Wu Mei waved his hand and the others went out together with candies.

Many people in the village were still unable to react when they received the happiness candies. They all asked who had a happy occasion in the village and why they sent candies.

Then Wu Mei and the others repeated what Xu Ran had prepared for them to speak out.

The villagers were very disappointed after hearing this. They had hoped to have a good meal to celebrate the birth of Xu Ran’s baby, but now they were only settled by a few candies, even though they had never eaten this kind of candies.

Although they felt regretful about it, they still looked very happy. They praised Xu Ran for his great ability and that the candies he sent were rare and sweet, because after all, Xu Ran specially sent them happiness candies,

After they finished their candies sending task, Wu Mei and the rest were very tired. It was not because of the journey, but because of the same question from all the villagers. They had to answered them one by one.

In fact, they understood  that these people, like themselves, were looking forward to the meal in Xu Ran’s family very much,

Returning to the Xu Ran’s house, Wu Mei and his partners told Xu Ran the reaction and responses of the villagers, and let him know that the villagers bore in mind his words of inviting them next time.

Hearing this, Xu Ran didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. How could he have thought of this?

In modern times, when people heard who was going to get married or who would have a full month activity, they would feel quite helpless. Few people liked to attend that kind of activities, except for those who had a good relationship with the hosts. To them, going to an event like this meant that they had to spend money for gifts. No one would look forward to a be invited to such kind of dinners like these people.

No matter how small the gift was, as a courtesy, it had to be sent to the host of the banquet. And it was really not good for these people to always think about going to other people’s dinners, was it?

Thinking of these, Xu Ran forced himself a smile and said, “Thank you for your hard work. I know about this. In the future, I will pay attention to this when inviting guests for dinner. As for silver, what should be saved is still to be saved. ”

After they left, Xu Ran hugged Liu Tong for comfort.

Liu Tong pushed him away. “People in the village are like this. Don’t think too much.”

Xu Ran nodded. “I know, but I am just not used to it. Anyway, I’ll pay attention to it in the future.”