The beloved baby has a space

Chapter 97 Old Wang's Family Buys Land

Grandma Wang quietly moved to the side to avoid Village Chief Hu spitting water at her again.

She said calmly, "You heard me right. We want to buy land worth 500 taels of silver. How much public land is available in the village right now? If it's not enough, we can buy it from other villages."

“Enough, enough, enough, how could it not be enough?” Village Chief Hu calculated in his mind for a moment, and then said, “What kind of land do you want to buy? There are still several hundred acres of land in the village.”

Even the worst plot of land costs two taels of silver, so 500 taels of silver is naturally enough.

"I only want first-class land, no second-class, and I won't bother with anything worse." Old Mrs. Wang thought to herself that the guardian spirit behind Little Ayu wanted land worth 500 taels of silver, so it must be good land. The spirit would definitely not want ordinary land.

Moreover, Old Mrs. Wang had already planned that the high-quality grain that Little Ayu gave her would be planted in these superior fields.

Originally, Old Mrs. Wang was a little unhappy, feeling that it wasn't good to use Ayu's water. But now that the land was purchased at the behest of the guardian deity, it was essentially Ayu's land. It was perfectly reasonable for her to use her water on her land.

But Old Mrs. Wang had to figure out how to tell her family, so that others wouldn't suspect Ayu too much, and even more so, so that the villagers wouldn't find out the truth.

As the saying goes, it's not scarcity that's worrisome, but inequality. The villagers naturally hope that their family's life is good, but it absolutely cannot be too good.

Grandma Wang never intended to share the money with the villagers; she wasn't that generous.

As for Ayu's divine water, that's even more impossible. If she could, she would rather Ayu keep the water hidden forever, as if it never existed.

"They all want fertile land?" Village Chief Hu was a bit troubled. "Our village only has 80 mu of fertile land now, of which 50 mu are not allowed to be bought or sold. The government sent tenant farmers over a couple of days ago. You know, it's the area near the river at the village entrance."

First-class fertile land is the most expensive, currently costing 10 taels of silver per mu. Second-class land costs 6 taels, third-class land costs 3 taels, and mountain land costs 2 taels.

After discussing it with Old Lady Wang, Village Chief Hu decided to sell 30 mu of land in the village to Old Lady Wang for 300 taels of silver.

The remaining 200 taels of silver would have to be deducted for handling fees, so it couldn't all be used to buy land.

If you still want to buy first-class land, you can probably buy another 15 mu.

“If you don’t mind the trouble, I can go to the next village. Dahe Village next door also has a lot of fields. They are near the river and their fertile fields are better than ours.”

Actually, there are quite a few in Shanyang Village, but Village Chief Hu doesn't plan to associate with the people from Shanyang Village.

That place has really corrupted its social customs; you should avoid associating with people there if you can avoid it.

Old Mrs. Wang placed the 500 taels of silver notes directly in front of Village Chief Hu: "You are the village chief, I will listen to you, please handle this matter. Here is 500 taels. I have reserved 30 mu of land in the village. I will trouble you to talk to Dahe Village and buy as much as they can. I will also trouble you to run errands for all the necessary paperwork."

"We're all from the same village, so it's too formal to say that."

Old Mrs. Wang thought that with the remaining 50 taels of silver, she would take out another 20 taels to do a favor for Village Chief Hu.

When Village Chief Hu received the 500 taels of silver notes, his hands trembled.

This is a real, genuine 500 taels of silver!
However, he still had to go to the money exchange in town to withdraw the silver first, and then take care of this matter in town as well.

If handled properly, they might even be able to earn a few more acres of land for Old Wang's family.

Since Old Mrs. Wang hasn't mentioned giving Village Chief Hu any benefits, Village Chief Hu doesn't care about such things at all.

Village Chief Hu didn't usually talk about these rules of gift-giving. The villagers weren't very wealthy, so they couldn't afford to be skimmed off.

However, the villagers wouldn't let him do the work for free. Those with money would give him some money, and those with things would give him some things.

"By the way, all the land in our village is registered under Lao Si's name, while the land outside the village is registered under A Yu's name," said Grandma Wang.

These words truly surprised Village Chief Hu.

“I can understand if you want to register it under Lao Si’s name, but what about registering it under A Yu’s name? No woman in our village owns land.” What Village Chief Hu said was true. In Dachang Kingdom now, women basically don’t have any assets under their names, and no one would register assets under a woman’s name.

Of course, whether those high-ranking officials and nobles would leave assets to women is another matter.

Village Chief Hu has only one granddaughter, who is still a lively and adorable child, so he doesn't have any particularly strong feelings of dislike towards girls.

However, the phenomenon of generally looking down on women was very common, including the practice of not passing down land to women unless the family line ended or the family was run by women.

Grandma Wang only said, "This money in the family was all earned by Ayu. It's fine to register all the land in her name, but that would be too conspicuous."

"Did Ayu really earn that?"

"What benefit would I get from lying to you?" Old Mrs. Wang retorted.

"..."

Village Chief Hu then thought of the enormous python, which remains an unsolved mystery in the village to this day.

In fact, if the Wang family hadn't witnessed it with their own eyes, no one would have believed that a girl who looked only two years old could kill such a huge python.

However, rumors were already circulating in the village that Xiao Ayu was sent by heaven to save their village.

That's their village's lucky baby; everyone should love and protect him/her.

They didn't treat her like an ordinary girl at all.

It seems normal for her to earn 500 taels of silver—what a load of rubbish!

That's so bizarre!

"Don't tell anyone about those lands outside the village. Just keep them to ourselves," said Old Mrs. Wang before Village Chief Hu could ask further. "If those lands are registered under Ayu's name, it'll save us trouble later."

Grandma Wang was thinking that if Ayu grew up, she would use those lands as Ayu's dowry.

Land is something that exists forever. As long as Ayu doesn't commit any heinous crimes that lead to the confiscation of her property and the extermination of her clan, that land will remain with her forever, and it can even be passed down through generations.

“Don’t worry, I won’t go around talking about this. But I don’t know if any of the land outside is planted with grain. If it’s not, you’ll still have to plant it, and then other people will find out.” Village Chief Hu analyzed, “Your family has the most people and the most labor force, but if you have to plant so many acres of land all at once, you’ll probably be exhausted. We’ll still need to find people.”

Grandma Wang said, "This will also trouble the village chief. Let the land outside be cultivated by outsiders according to the rules outside. We'll see how much we can harvest. Let's focus on tidying up the land in the village first."

Grandma Wang had already thought it through: villagers couldn't just farm public land, but they could rent their land to other villagers.

Their family bought 30 mu of fertile land in Hujia Village at once, and naturally they would cultivate this land from then on.

If the family's ordinary fields are not enough to cultivate, they will hand them over to other villagers to cultivate. Everyone will just give them a little bit of grain as a token gesture, as long as the land is not left barren.

After Grandma Wang explained her idea, Village Chief Hu went to carry it out.

In the end, he suppressed his curiosity and did not ask Xiao Ayu how she earned so much money.

Old Wang's family finally earned some money, and although he was a little envious, he at least knew that it was someone else's way of making money.

However, before leaving, Old Mrs. Wang said to him, "Dr. Hu knows where our family's money came from. The weather is fine now, so the connections might still be there."

Recently, Grandma Wang has decided not to let Xiao Ayu go to the mountains to look for truffles anymore, because she is afraid that it is the child's bad luck that has brought her this.

Old Wang's family prospered too quickly; it might ruin the children's luck.

(End of this chapter)