Beautiful Peasant Girl: The Young Marquis's Beloved

When they arrived at the cloth shop, there were still quite a few customers in the shop. Ling Zhijie was busy, and when he saw Liu Xu coming, he greeted her warmly, "Xu girl, here you are, have you had your meal?"

"Yes, Uncle Ling, business is booming!" Liu Xu replied with a smile.

"Hahaha, thank you for your good words! Can you go in and have some tea first and wait for your uncle for a while?" Liu Xu smiled and nodded, and Ling Zhijie ordered: "Huzi, take the young lady inside to rest."

"Okay, please come this way, miss!" Hu Zi said respectfully.

When the customers in the store saw her, they looked at Liu Xu twice out of curiosity, thinking that she was the child of the shopkeeper's relative.

Liu Xu smiled back generously and left with Hu Zi.

Unlike Cuijinlou, Jixiang Cloth Shop has a special reception room, which should be where Ling Zhijie usually discusses business. Hu Zi asked the maid to serve tea and snacks to Liu Xu, and then left.

In just a quarter of an hour, Ling Zhijie came over. The smile on his face was much warmer than the last time he came. Liu Xu was a little strange. Before she could think about it, Ling Zhijie said, "Girl, the day after you left last time, a group of foreigners came to the store, saying that you introduced them, and they directly bought half of the cloth in my warehouse! Uncle Ling really doesn't know how to thank you!"

Liu Xu's heart skipped a beat when she heard this. Good thing, half of the warehouse... No wonder he was so enthusiastic. You know, her family bought so many things, and Ling Zhijie was only a little more enthusiastic than ordinary customers, not like today.

However, Liu Xu was humble and polite. "No, no, I just met one of their managers by chance. I knew they needed cloth, but I didn't realize that Uncle Ling's cloth was good, so I just mentioned it casually. Uncle Ling, you are too polite."

She wasn't talking nonsense. He Lei had said that Jayne's uncle was the manager of their caravan.

Ling Zhijie didn't care. Seeing Liu Xu like his own niece, he immediately said that the price of cloth and cotton her family wanted would be reduced by 20% from before. This made Liu Xu very happy. 20% meant that coarse cloth only cost 200 coins and fine cotton less than 500 coins. You know, the quantity her family wanted was quite large. As a result, Liu Xu's eyes became much warmer.

The two exchanged a few more pleasantries, and Liu Xu stated the purpose of her visit today, and the two then got down to business.

Then Uncle He and his friends brought in the cotton-padded clothes and quilt covers for Ling Zhijie to see. Liu Xu also told him that she was going to open a home textile store after the New Year, but promised that if he wanted them, she would charge him at cost price.

With the previous incident as a prelude, Ling Zhijie was much more straightforward than Su Ke. He directly ordered 500 sets of cotton-padded clothes and 500 sets of four-piece suits, and also asked Liu Xu to prepare 200 sets for the students of the academy. Liu Xu realized that the Ling family had more capital than she thought.

Although there are several academies in the county, how close a relationship must one have to be able to order a quilt cover directly from the academy?

He immediately ordered another 1,000 rolls of coarse and fine cotton cloth, 200 rolls of silk, 5,000 kilograms of cotton, and spent more than 1,300 taels of silver on needlework. Of course, he also took away all the scraps of cloth from the Jixiang Cloth Shop.

Ling Zhijie also paid her half of the deposit, and agreed that except for the part for the academy, he would have someone pick up the rest on the 20th day of the twelfth lunar month, and the part for the academy after the New Year.

He wanted to invite Liu Xu to have dinner. But since it was already afternoon and Liu Xu was in a hurry to go back, he could only politely decline and say he would come back next time. Ling Zhijie then gave her several rolls of tight-colored fine cotton and asked the servants to pack a few packets of snacks before letting her leave.

Without any delay, Liu Xu arrived home at the beginning of the evening today.

Seeing that Xu Ruolan and her colleagues had not finished work yet, she went straight to the room where they were working to look for them, then pulled her mother back into the room and told her everything. Xu Ruolan was overjoyed to hear that her daughter had taken such a big order after just one trip out, but then she became a little worried.

"Xu'er, this order is so big, can we deliver it on time?" Although Alan and Mrs. Zhuang have told her these days that many people in the village are asking when they will recruit more workers, Xu Ruolan is still a little worried about the shortage of manpower. That's a full 600 sets of cotton-padded clothes and nearly a thousand sets of quilts!

"Mom, we can't rely on the people you have now. We need to recruit more workers. At least fifty people, half of whom will make cotton-padded clothes and the other half will make quilt covers. In addition, we need ten people with good embroidery skills to do the embroidery. Although the patterns are simple, we can't be careless. After all, we have your samples in front of us. If they are too bad, it will be like destroying your own reputation." Liu Xu said seriously.

"Well, simple needlework is easy, but I don't know if we can find someone with good embroidery skills in our village. I have to ask your Third Aunt and Aunt Zhuang!" Xu Ruolan frowned, feeling a little annoyed that she hadn't interacted much with the women in the village in recent years.

"It doesn't matter, mother. If our village doesn't have it, there are other villages, right? However, whether it's cotton-padded clothes or embroidery, it must be the ones with good skills. It's better to have no one than to have something of poor quality. For those from other villages, it's better if they are introduced by people from our village. We must make it clear that those who are sneaky and dishonest are not welcome. Moreover, if there is any problem with these people, the introducers will be punished collectively." This is what she thought on the way back. This is the first batch of goods from her family's workshop, and the quality and quantity must be guaranteed. Moreover, when opening a home visit store in the future, there will be no shortage of people who want to come, so it's better to be prepared for everything.

Time was tight, so the mother and daughter didn't say much. Xu Ruolan immediately went back to work and told Chen Lan about the matter. The three of them discussed it again and told the others about the job opening tomorrow.

That night, the women of Liujia Village were all excited and were ready to go to Liu Xu's house early the next morning. This included Liu Juan, who had recovered from her injuries, and the widow Liu, who had always been at odds with Xu Ruolan.

Liu Juan has been learning embroidery from Chen Shuman since she was a child. Although she had a bad character before, her embroidery skills are still quite good. Moreover, after what happened before, she has become a much more sensible person now.

At least since she was able to move, she has taken good care of her Liu Dongcheng and her younger brother Liu Chengcai.

But although the family now has houses and land, they have no money. The only few hundred coins were secretly given to her by Zhang Shi to buy medicine for her father. Although Liu Dongcheng's leg was fixed by Chang Yifei, it took a hundred days to heal the broken bones, and now he can only lie in bed to recuperate. Liu Chengcai is only six years old now, and she is the only one who depends on him at home. So when she heard Zhuang Bo Niang tell her that her second aunt wanted to recruit an embroiderer, she was moved.

This was actually Xu Ruolan's special instruction. Now that the first wife is like this, the hatred in her heart has been reduced a lot. If this girl really changes, then she should be helped. After all, she is her husband's niece. But if she still refuses to change, then don't blame her.

As for Widow Liu, after Liu Wulang passed away, if she hadn't embroidered handkerchiefs and purses to exchange for money at Cuijinlou, she would have starved to death with a blind mother-in-law and a baby who had just been weaned. Previously, Liu Xu taught everyone to grow mushrooms, but she didn't go because of her impulsiveness. Now every household in Liujia Village is getting more and more prosperous, how can she not be jealous.

Now that she heard that the Liu family wanted female workers to do needlework, although she was jealous of Xu Ruolan, she still wanted to try. After all, Xu Ruolan's wages were not low. If she could stay, it would be much more cost-effective than embroidering handkerchiefs at home. Moreover... when she found out what Xu Ruolan and her family made... humph!

I don't know where Liu Yumei got the courage from. She didn't even think about it. Not to mention whether the other party would want her, even if Liu Xu's family kept her, Liu Xu and Xu Ruolan would be stupid. Wouldn't they be on guard against you?

Meanwhile, at Liu Xu's house, Xu Ruolan and her mother were discussing where to work after finishing their meal. When Liu Xu was drawing the blueprint, he had decided to build the workshop next to their yard, allocating an acre and a half of land, next to their own wall, and with a special warehouse. Considering the lighting problem, it was built on the side of the road, and he specifically requested that the windows be made of glazed glass, and a lot of glazed tiles were used on the roof.

Although they had previously told Zhu Jiacheng to speed up the process, it was only two or three days after all. Even if it was faster, they would have to wait at least another ten days, and they couldn't afford to wait.

"Mom, talk to Third Aunt and let them use their old house first. The cotton-padded jacket will sit over there first, so Third Aunt can keep an eye on it. As for the quilt cover, we can cut and sew it in our old house. Bring Grandpa and Grandma over first and let them live in the east wing with me. Qiaoyun and the others can stay in my room for the time being. My room is very spacious anyway."

Why not the west wing? Liu Xu planned to use it as a guest room. Her brother was still young anyway, so at worst she could rebuild it for them when they grew up.

"Not right!" Xu Ruolan shook her head immediately after hearing that. Seeing her daughter's confusion, she explained, "Girl, how can you let the elderly live in the side rooms? If you tell others about this, they will definitely criticize us! Your grandfather and his family don't have to move. The elderly are tired of moving around. I'll let your uncle Ming and uncle Zheng move to the backyard first and free up two back rooms. Anyway, they have to look after the mushrooms, so let them live separately for now, and they can live there. They can move back when the workshop is built. For the time being, the embroidery will remain in the original workshop."

She didn't want the old couple to move in. Although the old couple were treating them well at the moment, it was easier to invite the gods than to send them away. Once they moved in, it would be difficult to ask them to move out. She didn't believe that her mother-in-law would really change. If they continued to live here and she made trouble again, it would be even more embarrassing.

Liu Xu didn't know what her mother was thinking, but after hearing her arrangement, she thought it was okay and agreed. However, she didn't forget to remind her mother to ask Uncle He to go to Second Grandpa's house early tomorrow morning and ask them to hurry up and make some tables, chairs and benches.

Xu Ruolan told her daughter about Liu Juan again. Liu Xu didn't think it was a big deal. As her mother said, if she still didn't learn her lesson after all this, then she shouldn't blame them for not considering their blood relationship.

The mother and daughter stroked their hair again and felt that it was almost done, so they went back to their rooms to rest.