Crossing the Unknown Country

Su He knew that he was still young and his family's wealth could not grow rapidly all of a sudden, and his family would not be able to explain it to others. Now he could only do the few things he could do now. His family should build a house in a few months. It was not the right time to do it recently. After all, he had just bought a cow, and building a house right away would cause jealousy from other families.

Su He took some of the remaining cloth and dyed a few pieces for experimentation. The result was good, and some dark gray appeared. However, black would probably require lotus seed shells. Other materials such as Chinese tallow tree, soapberry, and gallnut were hard to find, and persimmons would only be available after October.

Su He just tried dyeing it, since they were all dark colors, it wouldn't be too bad. As long as they were new clothes, they didn't care about the color, after all, they used to wear patched clothes in all colors.

Su He took the opportunity to make two quilts with her mother, and also made a mattress with scraps of cloth. She bought some from people in the village who had surplus cotton, and used the old cotton from the quilts to make the mattress, and the new cotton to make the quilts. She wanted to prepare for the future, so that the family would not be cold. Besides, the bed was too thin and it was very uncomfortable to sleep on. As soon as the mattress was made, the second brother rolled around on it happily. Su He felt that this kind of life was also good. Seeing that it was getting better day by day, her mood was also particularly good.

The brothers and Su He had recently made time to go deep into the mountains once every ten days or so, and the farthest they could go was to the place where they collected ginseng. Knowing that there were snakes and unknown dangers, they did not dare to go any further. They searched around here, but did not see any ginseng. They did collect a lot of herbs. The value was not bad, and they could exchange for less than ten taels of silver each time. With the copying of books, they would still have an income of about thirty taels, and each family could get more than ten or twenty taels.

Three months later, Su He's family and Su Pei were ready to build a house together. This time, they planned to build houses next to each other. Finally, they agreed to buy two plots of land on the side of the village closest to the mountain to build houses. This way, they could save a lot of money by buying many things together, and they could also make furniture together, buy wood and bricks. They decided to build a house with stone on the bottom and brick on the top this time, so that the house would be safer in the countryside.

Su He's father took Su He to her grandmother's house, preparing to go to the village chief's house with Su He's uncle to discuss the purchase of land. Su He wanted to go with them, and her father wanted to take her with him. He felt that his daughter was blessed, and it might be smoother to take his daughter with him. They brought prepared gifts, a bag of snacks bought from the town and a piece of cloth they had dyed themselves.

They walked through the village and came to the village chief's house from a spacious area. The village chief's house was very grand and stood out among the adobe houses. It looked different. The village chief's father was originally doing business outside. He returned to his hometown in the countryside with a small fortune and built a house to start a family, laying the foundation for their family in the village. Later, his father successfully became the village chief through appointment, of course, it was related to money. His father retired, and no one in the village could compete with him. The village chief successfully succeeded his father as the new village chief because he had attended a private school for a few years. Of course, it was also because of wealth and surname. After all, he was a member of the Li clan.

Uncle Su He reached out to knock on the burnt red door, rang the doorknob, and heard someone come out. It was the village chief's wife who opened the door. Su He heard his uncle shout, "Aunt Li is at home! Let's discuss something with the village chief?"

The village head's wife smiled and said, "Your Uncle Li is at home!"

Then he shouted behind him: "Old man, brothers Cheng Xuan and Cheng Han are coming to see you!"

Leading them in, Su He also called out sweetly, "Hello, Grandma."

She praised Su He for being well-behaved and sensible, and took the gift from Su He's uncle, saying politely, "Come on! What are you taking? We are both from the same village, so don't be polite."

Uncle Su He smiled and said, "I just came here to see you two. It's just a token of my appreciation."

The village chief came out of the house with a teapot and invited Su He and the others to sit at the stone table in the yard. He shouted, "Old woman, bring cups to the children, ask them to drink tea with me, and bring Su He some peanuts."