You are unlucky and I am tough

Chapter 212: Five Thousand Taels

A team of police officers rushed in aggressively, shouting, "Who reported the incident? Where is the liar?"

When the teahouse owner saw the police coming, he was afraid of being implicated, so he raised his hands and shouted, "Officer, officer, the liar is here! This liar is cheating people in my building. Arrest him quickly!"

The counterfeit just wanted to run away but was held down by two teahouse waiters. The people in the audience kept throwing books at him, shouting for their money back, and some even rushed onto the stage and kicked him a few times.

The crowd made way for them, and the police went over to arrest the man and ask what exactly happened. The teahouse owner and the people at the scene began to talk at once.

The chief officer frowned at the chaotic scene and finally became impatient. He asked the teahouse owner to go back and testify and then opened the court to try the case.

But the people who bought the storybooks surrounded the shopkeeper and refused to leave. The person who just helped collect the money was the waiter in the teahouse, and the crowd clamored for a refund first.

The shopkeeper wiped his cold sweat and asked his clerk to return the money quickly. He turned back to find Wei Qinglang and asked the officer to take him to the county government office, but the young man was nowhere to be seen.

Fortunately, he still had the manuscript paper given by the young man in his hand, and with the words he would say when he exposed the counterfeit, he could ask the people from Moxiang Bookstore to testify. He could also go to the county government office to explain the matter clearly. He could only blame himself for being unlucky.

Cheng Shuang and Wei Qinglang took advantage of the chaos when the officials came in and quickly slipped away. They found an empty alley and bought the medicine that He Zhou needed from the mall. They also bought two live crucian carps and some tofu on the street, preparing to go back and make soup for the patient to supplement his nutrition.

After buying everything, the two of them carried them to the ferry. Cheng Shuang was in a good mood and hummed a little tune.

Wei Qinglang raised the corner of his mouth and asked her, "How was my performance just now?"

Cheng Shuang smiled and said, "It's quite interesting, more exciting than storytelling."

Because of the sudden appearance of the counterfeit, it was already noon when we returned to the village.

The two men got off the bamboo raft and walked home carrying the medicinal herbs. They met villagers who were returning from the market to sell food. Now, the brothers Lai Fu and Lai Cai, who drove ox carts in the village, had to make several trips back and forth every day to pick up and drop off people doing business in the village.

The people rowing rafts on the river were all from other villages, and it cost two cents for a ride. The brothers' ox cart only cost one cent, and their business was very good. Every day when they took the villagers to the county, people from other villages would stop their carts and take a ride when they passed by.

When the people in the car saw the two people coming back on the raft with medicine in their hands, they curiously asked who in the family was sick. Cheng Shuang laughed it off and said it was just some tonic medicine.

Every household in the village was still busy planting in the fields, leaving only a few children and elderly people who could no longer work to wander the village. As the money from selling their land improved, each family started raising poultry, and the village was filled with chickens, ducks, and geese running around.

No one kept a dog. Everyone in the village knew that Cheng Shuang was afraid of it, and the headman's dog Wangcai was given away when they moved.

From a distance, the two saw Wei Nanxing brushing the horses by the river. He had bought another carriage from the provincial capital that day, so there were three carriages and four horses in his family. Wei Nanxing was a horse lover, and he was pulling them all to the river and brushing them one by one.

When he looked up and saw two familiar figures coming from afar, Wei Nanxing quickly dropped the brush and ran over, "Brother, sister-in-law, you're back. My master woke up this morning, ate something, and just went back to sleep."

Seeing the bag of herbs in Cheng Shuang's hand, he reached out and said, "Sister-in-law, give me the medicine. I'll go boil it."

"No need." Cheng Shuang said, "You don't know the dosage. I'll boil the medicine. You can go ahead and do your work."

What she bought from the mall were just the various necessary medicinal herbs, which were not prepared properly, so she needed to go back and prepare the medicine herself.

In the yard, Cheng Guqiu, his two daughters, Cheng Pan, and Wei Xinyi were counting money around the table. After closing their stall, they bought a pound of pork belly and a pigeon at the market, spending 130 coins. Pigeon meat is expensive, and a small pigeon costs 100 coins.

The remaining copper coins were all scattered on the table and strung together with twenty-one pieces of string, totaling five hundred and twenty coins.

The snails were picked up from the river at no cost. Excluding the ten cents for renting tables, chairs and benches, and the spices used to stir-fry the snails, the total profit today was six hundred cents.

Cheng Guqiu was very happy and counted again after the children finished counting for the first time.

Cheng Shuang shouted as she entered the room, "We're back."

Wei Xinyi quickly ran over to see what they had bought. Cheng Shuang handed her a bag of snacks she had picked up on the street, "Go share it with your sister."

Cheng Guqiu also stood up and walked over. He saw Wei Qinglang holding a wooden barrel with two live fish in it. "Oh, you guys bought some fish too. Are you going to make soup for Master He? I also bought a pigeon to make soup for him."

Wei Qinglang said, "That's fine. Let's stew the pigeon first. The fish are still alive so we can keep them in the water tank first."

Three servants in the kitchen were preparing lunch for the family. Wei Qinglang brought the fish in and poured it into a large water tank. He gave the tofu to Wu Junniang and asked her to cook it directly at noon. He also told them the method of braised pork belly with tofu.

Cheng Shuang checked on He Zhou, who was still sleeping, and went back to the room to prepare the medicine, preparing the sufficient amount for three days.

At this time, someone knocked on the door. Cheng Shuang said, "Come in," and Cheng Guqiu pushed the door open.

"Aunt, is there anything wrong?" Cheng Shuang raised her head from the table full of medicinal herbs.

Cheng Guqiu placed a money bag on the table and said, "Shuang'er, this is the 520 coins I earned from selling snails today. Keep it."

Cheng Shuang blinked in confusion, "Why would you give it to me? This is the money you and your two cousins ​​earned, keep it for yourselves."

"No, you keep it. Bai Jinhu came to our house to cause trouble before." Cheng Guqiu sighed, "In the end, you guys had to pay 5,000 taels of silver to the young master of the Xie family. I don't have that much money now, but I will definitely find a way to work hard to earn money in the future, and give you all the money I earn."

Cheng Shuang frowned and shook her head, "No, aunt. First of all, Bai Jinhu and his son came to cause trouble. It was his shamelessness. What did you do wrong?"

"Besides, Xie Shuyu's helping me was his own initiative. I don't have to compensate him for the jade pendant. I insisted on compensation only because that kid is a playboy who looks like he deserves a beating. I don't want to owe him a favor. How can you think it's your fault?"

"But no matter what..."

"Nothing to worry about." Cheng Shuang interrupted Cheng Guqiu and stuffed the purse back into her hand. "Just keep the money you earn. Five thousand taels is nothing. We have a soap workshop now. I can earn back the five thousand taels in less than two months.

I suggest you set up a stall because you can learn how to deal with all kinds of people. Whether you make money or not is not important at all. You can set up the stall as long as you want. If you feel tired, you can leave at any time.

After saying that, Cheng Shuang picked up a set of medicine and said, "I'll go boil the medicine first."

She went out to the kitchen, took a small stove and started to make a fire. After living here for so long, Cheng Shuang was now very good at making a fire.

After the medicine boiled and the medicinal aroma came out, it was simmered on low heat. Cheng Shuang asked Peng Xiangsui to watch the stove and cook for another quarter of an hour.

At lunch, the whole family enjoyed the delicious pork belly and tofu. After the meal, Cheng Guqiu took his two daughters to pick snails and decided to continue setting up the stall tomorrow.

Cheng Pan took the latest account book to Cheng Shuang and asked her to check if there were any problems with the records.

Wei Qinglang took the alcohol that Cheng Shuang gave him to the warehouse and took a tour of the rooms in the workshop.

The workers in the workshop work four hours a day, with an hour for lunch and rest at noon. When I went there, only the gatekeeper was there.

The workshop is now guarded in three shifts, with someone guarding it twelve hours a day.

After taking a walk, he suddenly found Wei Changgui peeking around outside. When he saw him come out, he ran back home.

Wei Qinglang was puzzled. Didn’t Wei Changgui go to the city to do business? He wanted to stay in the city every day and never come back. Why did he come back today?

How could he know that Wei Changgui was just bored of staying in the shop. The noodle shop's business was pretty good, but it was almost entirely due to his two daughters-in-law working hard, while he and his two sons just sat in the shop every day doing nothing.

He either drinks, eats meat and eats melon seeds, or talks to guests and brags, or strolls around the streets and spends money lavishly.

The two daughters-in-law are now able to make money and have confidence, and they dare to complain to them even if they are dissatisfied.

They had a quarrel a few days ago and the two daughters-in-law went on strike and refused to open the shop, so Wei Changgui didn't like to stay in the shop and didn't go with them today.

Just now he was sitting at the doorstep eating, and saw a group of people from the soap workshop going home for lunch after work, saying something about getting paid soon. So he had nothing to do, so he wandered around the workshop, wanting to see what it was like inside and what soap was.

However, the workshop wall was built very high, and there were broken porcelain pieces stuck on the top, so Wei Changgui didn't see anything.

He was regretting it so much now. If he had known that Wei Qinglang bought his land to build a workshop, he would have at least tripled the price when selling it to him.

Now they bought his family's ground-building workshop to make money, and they don't even ask their family members to work there and don't give them any advantage. If he could beat Wei Qinglang, he really wanted to slap him to death.

Wei Qinglang didn't know what Wei Changgui was thinking at the moment, but he knew that this man was not a good person, so he gave a few instructions to the guards, not allowing him to get close to the workshop gate.