Rebirth: Making a Fortune in Ancient Times

After finishing her meal, Xia Yu put the pots and out-of-season vegetables from the table into her spatial storage, and took the rest to the kitchen. She wiped the table clean and made sure the door latch was secure before taking the money box out of her spatial storage.

Upon opening the box, they found numerous silver ingots of various sizes and strings of copper coins, which gave them a headache. There were just too many to count!

"Dad, shouldn't we buy a scale so we don't have to check everything one by one?"

"You mean a steelyard? Using that to weigh these silver ingots won't work well. Let's just count them slowly. We'll each count our own and then add them together at the end." Madam Liu was somewhat tempted when her daughter mentioned buying a steelyard to weigh the silver. There were quite a few loose silver pieces here, which had never been weighed before; they were all roughly estimated.

Thus, the family once again experienced the bittersweet moment of counting money.

Half an hour later, Xia Yu, holding a charcoal pencil and a piece of yellow paper, recorded the amount of silver her parents had told her. In the end, the box contained a total of 431 taels of silver, 58 strings and 792 copper coins, and 2100 taels of silver notes. Of these, 1000 taels were from Lord Shen, 800 taels were from selling ginseng, and the remaining few small denomination notes were from selling watermelons and shrimp. Because of Xia Yu's muddled accounting, there was no accurate count of how much the family had earned and spent over the past few months.

So the Zhang family's current assets are 2,589 taels and 792 copper coins. Xia Yu paid a 50-tael deposit when ordering the hot pot, and another 50 taels will be paid upon pickup. Subtracting the remaining 50 taels leaves 2,530 taels. Xia Yu decided that from today onward, she would keep track of every single copper coin she spent, and could no longer be so careless.

Seeing the money on the table, Madam Liu knew that buying the land and building the house should be no problem, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She urged Xia Yu to quickly put the money away so it wouldn't be stolen.

Upon hearing her mother mention being robbed, Xia Yu put the silver into her spatial storage and then started talking about building a house.

"Father and Mother, I think we need to rebuild this courtyard. Having money in our hands makes us feel unsafe. Especially this wall, it's practically nonexistent now," Xia Yu said, revealing her plans.

Actually, this was something Liu had wanted to say that morning but hadn't. She felt her house was too conspicuous now; as the saying goes, it's not the theft itself that's scary, but the fact that someone has their eye on it. She also wanted to repair the yard and house, and now it all depended on Zhang Youtie's attitude.

Zhang Youtie listened to his daughter's words and pondered for a long time before saying, "My daughter is right. No matter how low we try to keep a low profile, the villagers will know that we bought an oxcart and a mule cart, and now we've even hired two servants. They'll just think we have a lot of money. We might as well use the money to build a house, and then borrow some more from the old house. That way, everyone will think that all our money has been used to build a house, and some people won't even have a second thought."

Liu naturally had no objections, so the family's plan to rebuild the house was put on the agenda. However, it was too cold to start construction today, so they had to wait until the ground thawed next year.

"Dad, Mom, let's go get a few dogs to guard the yard, and also keep two by the pond," Xia Yu suggested.

“Well, that’s easy. I’ll go to the village tomorrow and ask around to see if anyone has had puppies recently,” Liu said.

After the matter was settled, the group discussed some things about raising silkworms. Later, Xia Yu got sleepy and started yawning, so they all went to sleep.

Xia Yu felt it was only a little past eight o'clock, but her long-standing routine of going to bed when it got dark and waking up when it got light was making it harder for her to stay up late.

Lying in bed, I imagined what parts of the house would need to be changed and what would definitely need to be added during the expansion. Thinking about it, I fell asleep.

Who knew that in the middle of the night, Xia Yu was woken up by the noise outside, not knowing what time it was.

"Third Brother, Third Brother"

Xia Yu suddenly sat up in bed. Someone outside was calling her father.

"Who is it?" Zhang Youtie was also woken up and asked loudly while putting on his cotton-padded coat.

"Third Brother, it's me, Dayong!" Zhang Dayong's voice rang out from outside the courtyard.

When Xia Yu heard Zhang Dayong's voice from the village chief's house, she quickly put on her cotton-padded clothes and got up. Someone calling for someone in the middle of the night must have done something wrong.

The sound of Xia Yu's door opening was a "creak".

"Dayong, what's up? Why are you here in the middle of the night?" Zhang Youtie opened the door and found that the snowflakes outside were falling heavily, like cotton balls, clumps of them falling down.

"Third Brother, two houses in the village collapsed under the weight of the snow, burying the people inside. My father has taken other villagers to dig them out. He asked me to come and get you. We need your mule cart in a bit; the injured people need to be taken to the clinic in town. My oxcart can't carry them all."

"Okay, Dayong, wait for me a moment, I'll hitch up the car right now." When Zhang Youtie heard that someone had been buried under a house, he didn't dare to be careless, and his still somewhat confused mind instantly cleared up.

As he spoke, he headed to the backyard to hitch up the car.

"Master, has something happened? I'll go too!" Uncle Ma's voice rang out from outside the courtyard again. It turned out that Uncle Ma had heard Zhang Dayong calling for help and quickly dressed and came over. He didn't hear what was said before, only that Zhang Youtie said to hitch up the cart, so he spoke up.

"Alright, Uncle Ma, come in. You can hitch a ride too, and we'll go together. We don't want to run out of space." These days, every family has a lot of people. Who knows how many people are in two families? Having an extra car won't hurt.

When Uncle Ma heard Zhang Youtie invite him in, he removed the brass ring from the fence gate and entered the courtyard.

At this moment, Liu and Xia Yu also came out dressed. They had heard Zhang Dayong's words from inside the house. Although he didn't say which family it was, they were all from the same village, and they were very worried.

"Her mother, you take your daughter to sleep. Lock the door, I'll go check on her. I'll be back when everything's alright." Then she said to Uncle Ma beside her, "Uncle Ma, please tell Aunt Ma when you get back, so she won't keep waiting and worrying."

"I told her when I came out that she could just go to sleep and not wait for me. Sir, please wear something warm, it gets very cold at night. I'll go hitch up the carriage first." Uncle Ma said as he walked towards the backyard.