Traveling through the Republic of China, I married a dead person

The place Kong Dai was talking about was just to the north of the backyard of the Confucius Mansion, separated from the Confucius Mansion by only an alley about ten feet wide running east to west.

Su Bai knew that this courtyard was right outside the backyard of the Confucius Mansion.

The facade is quite grand, with a sign hanging on the door: Li Mansion.

The courtyard is very large. Its east-west dimension is almost as wide as the backyard of the Confucius Mansion and the ancestral hall combined, and its north-south depth is almost as long as the backyard of the Confucius Mansion and the three courtyards combined.

The Li Mansion is a large courtyard with two entrances. In the early years, it was considered a wealthy family in Longxing City. After the master of this family passed away, his son not only squandered all the family property by smoking opium and gambling, but also lost his life.

Now, only this dead man's wife and daughter are struggling to make ends meet in the mansion.

Kong Dai heard that the widow had originally planned to sell the compound and take her daughter back to her parents' home in Anqiu, but she had been unable to sell it after several years.

If it were a few years ago, perhaps this courtyard could be sold for some money, but now, most of the wealthy families in Longxing have moved to Linhua, and many courtyards in Longxing City are empty.

There are many such cases. Kong Zhengliang is one of them. After he died, his wife and children moved away. Fortunately, Kong Zhengliang left a lot of money before his death, so his wife and children had no worries about their lives.

It’s different in the Li Mansion. Most of the things that can be sold in the house have been sold.

Such a big yard cannot generate any money. Rich people won't buy it and poor people can't afford it. The lives of these mother and daughter are getting harder and harder.

"Uncle Kong means..."

“Buy the yard!”

"Could the widow Uncle Kong told me about be this Widow Li?" Su Bai was joking with Kong Dai on purpose. She felt that Kong Dai was too serious and needed to be taught to be more easy-going when interacting with others.

"No, no, no, Madam is joking." Kong Dai quickly denied it.

His meaning was simple. He wanted to buy this yard and move all the things in the ancestral hall and the basement into it. It would be safer this way.

"Is it safe?" Su Bai felt that what Kong Dai said was right. It must be much safer, but he couldn't not be at the front line of pharmaceutical production in person. Although Zi Yan and Niu Yanzi could complete most of the work in the entire pharmaceutical process, he still had to take action at some key points.

As long as he went out from the back door of Kong Mansion and entered Li Mansion behind it, Kong Li's people who were secretly monitoring him would find out, and then Li Mansion would be unsafe, even less safe than it is now.

"Young Madam, have you ever thought about digging a hole through here?"

The alley was only three meters wide, so the hole only needed to be five or six meters, or at most seven or eight meters, to get from the Kong Mansion to the Li Mansion behind without anyone noticing.

Although the wall of Li Mansion is not as high as that of Confucius Mansion, the interior of Li Mansion cannot be seen from the outside unless you stand on the roof of a nearby house.

We have three strong men in our backyard: Xu Tianyi, Adjutant Feng and Gao Erzhu. Their injuries have almost recovered. It will take only a few days to dig a hole that only one person can pass through.

The most important thing is that these three people are absolutely reliable.

In Kong Dai's heart, Adjutant Feng and Gao Erzhu are absolutely reliable, and he also knows that Su Bai trusts Xu Tianyi.

"Thank you, Uncle Kong. Let's do as you say. How much does it cost to buy this yard?" Su Bai asked.

Kong Dai said that if it were five years ago, this yard would cost at least 200 yuan, but now it is not even in demand. Kong Dai assured Su Bai that it could be bought for a maximum of 50 yuan.

The mother and daughter must agree, otherwise they won’t even be able to afford food.

"Aren't we just taking advantage of the situation?" Su Bai asked.

"Young Madam, let me say something disrespectful. You are too soft-hearted and not a business person. This is how business works. I will try to get you this yard for 30 dollars. Even if I take a step back, 50 dollars is no problem at all!"

Kong Dai was right. Su Bai also thought that he was not cut out for business. But after listening to Kong Dai's description, he felt sorry for the mother and daughter who had struggled for several years without any income after their husband died.

Su Bai gritted his teeth and said, "Just give them 200 yuan."

"What?" Kong Dai's eyes widened. "How can this be? Giving them 50 yuan is alms!"

"I'll give them 200 yuan, I've decided, but the prerequisite is that they must leave Longxing and go back to their parents' home." Su Bai asked Kong Dai again how far Anqiu, the mother and daughter's hometown, was from Longxing. Kong Dai told Su Bai that it was about 250 miles.

"Okay, just this one condition. As long as they agree not to go back to Longxing, I'll give them 200 yuan!" Su Bai emphasized it again. Kong Dai didn't want to say anything more, she had already made up her mind.

Kong Dai muttered to himself, not knowing whether he was insulting Su Bai or praising him: "No wonder people in Niujia Village say that the young lady is a living Bodhisattva. This 200 dollars... even a Bodhisattva can't take it out!"

"Buddha has no money, right?" Su Bai and Kong Dai made a joke, and Kong Dai also laughed.

After Su Bai exchanged the legal tender for silver dollars and gold bars, he only had 100 silver dollars in his hand besides the eight gold bars. He had to take out another gold bar and exchange it for silver dollars. However, he could earn ten to twenty silver dollars by doing so.

Su Bai asked Kong Dai to tell Widow Li not to exchange the dollars for legal tender at any time.

"Are you so sure that the French currency will be worthless, Madam?" Kong Dai still didn't quite believe it.

"You're right to listen to me. It won't be long before 10,000 French francs won't be able to exchange for a single silver dollar!"

Kong Dai was really dumbfounded. Just a few days ago, he was saying that in the future 100 French francs could not be exchanged for one silver dollar. Now it has become and even that cannot be exchanged. No one would believe it even if he told it to a ghost.

But he still said, "I believe in the eldest young lady."

He didn't know whether it was a true letter or a false one, but he would carry out Su Bai's instructions.

Kong Dai took a gold bar and went out, and did not return until evening.

For fear of being discovered, he knocked on the door of the Li Mansion after dark. At first, the mother and daughter were afraid and refused to open the door for Kong Dai. It was not until Kong Dai revealed that he was the steward of the Kong Mansion and wanted to buy her courtyard that they hesitantly opened the door.

"There was nothing I could do at the time. Now that I think about it, I didn't handle this matter properly." Kong Dai began to reflect on himself.

He should ask a friend to talk to the mother and daughter about buying the courtyard during the day, without letting them know that it was the steward of the Kong Mansion who bought the courtyard. This would be safer.

"Forget it, it's already like this, don't blame yourself." Su Bai also felt that Kong Dai's handling of this matter left a little hidden danger: "Have they agreed to return to Anqiu?"

After they agreed, Kong Dai said, the mother and daughter were so moved that they wanted to kneel down and kowtow to him immediately.

"They don't have much to pack, so they'll leave Longxing tomorrow."

"Well, I hope the mother and daughter have a safe journey." Su Bai said this, but his intention was not to pray for the mother and daughter, but for himself. He hoped that Kong Dai's revealing his identity would not cause trouble in the future.

Not long after Kong Dai came back, Gao Hu also came back.

Zhou Beiwang had handed the medicine over to Military Doctor Chen, but the gold bars were not taken back.

"Captain Zhou said that the ten gold bars were a joke between the young lady and him. How could there be something so valuable?"

"Say it again?" Su Bai almost jumped up: "What does this bastard Zhou Beiwang want to do, to steal someone?"