Rebirth: Making a Fortune in Ancient Times

"Mother, where is Aunt Ma?" Xia Yu asked Liu Shi after her parents finished speaking.

"Uncle Ma came back and said that Zuixiaolou needs fifty catties of hot pot ingredients tomorrow. She took the seasonings with her to the pond after finishing cooking and said she would stir-fry some first. Aunt Ma has already stir-fried the twenty catties you arranged before."

"Oh, then I'll just stir-fry some more here later." After saying that, Xia Yu told Zui Xiao Lou about selling the recipes for fish balls and fish tofu.

As he spoke, he took the 280 taels of silver notes out of his pocket and placed them on the table.

"Why so much? What was the price you negotiated with Manager Liu?" Liu asked after checking the banknotes.

“Of course she negotiated it herself! I went to check out the carriages with Uncle Ma, and when we came back she told me she had sold the two prescriptions to a restaurant.” Zhang Youtie said with a smile, looking at Liu Shi.

"Actually, it wasn't really me who negotiated it. Manager Liu himself offered the price, and I thought it was acceptable, so I sold it to him. However, we can't make and sell these two items anymore; we can only make some for ourselves at most," Xia Yu said, a smile playing on her lips as she recalled the scene of negotiating the price with Manager Liu earlier that day.

"Of course! They spent so much money to buy it, how could we possibly make money off it!"

"Today we sold forty-five copper pots and twenty catties of each type of hot pot base, which totaled seven taels of silver. Manager Liu gave me one hundred taels, and I'll deduct three taels for the next batch of hot pot base." As she spoke, Xia Yu took out a silver note from her bosom and showed it to Liu Shi.

"You can keep it yourself, why give it back to me?" Liu said to her daughter, looking at the silver notes.

"Dad, Mom, I don't think it's right to keep all our money here. What if... I mean, what if something happens to me? We'll just lose all our money. It'll be safer if we keep it all separately." Xia Yu had never thought about this before, but after seeing and hearing about Xiao Hua's situation again today, she realized how unpredictable life could be. What if something happened to her? Her parents would be left with nothing. She kept thinking about this on the way back. You can't put all your eggs in one basket, and the same goes for money.

To everyone's surprise, Liu's eyes reddened upon hearing Xia Yu's words. She recalled how her daughter had fallen and injured her head, and how her brother had carried her home. At that time, she truly believed her child wouldn't be able to overcome that hurdle. Hearing Xia Yu say such ominous things now made her even more unwilling to accept the silver notes. If she accepted them, wouldn't she also feel in her heart that something bad would happen to her daughter?

Seeing that Liu's eyes were moist, Xia Yu quickly snuggled into her mother's arms and acted coquettishly.

“Mother, Mother, don’t be sad. I was just saying it casually. How could anything really happen? Besides, didn’t the old monk say that once I pass the tribulation at age eight, I will live a peaceful, glorious, and wealthy life?”

After saying that, she looked up at Zhang Youtie and said, "Dad, you need to comfort my mother."

Hearing her daughter speak like that, Liu, who was still feeling upset, couldn't help but gently pat her daughter's head and scold her, "You even talk about your parents' jokes. You're really getting more and more mischievous as you grow up."

"Mother, don't be sad. It hurts me to see you cry." As she spoke, she hugged Liu's neck and leaned against her mother obediently, truly like a little girl.

Seeing his daughter clinging to his wife, Zhang Youtie put down the large bowl in his hand and said, "Xiaxia, hurry up and eat, or the porridge will get cold."

Hearing her father's words, Xia Yu released her mother's neck and obediently sat down to continue eating. However, she still grabbed the silver note and stuffed it into her mother's arms.

Seeing her expression, Madam Liu knew that the child's stubbornness had returned, so she didn't say anything more and neatly folded and put away the silver notes in her arms.

The next day, early in the morning, Tian Guihua from the village brought over several puppies.

"Third Sister-in-law, these babies are just over a month old. I picked out a few strong and healthy ones for you and brought them over. What do you think?"

Xia Yu looked at the several fluffy puppies wrapped in rags in the basket and couldn't resist reaching out to pet them. To her surprise, the puppies were quite spirited, baring their teeth and snarling at Xia Yu, trying to scare this stranger away. Looking at their adorably fierce appearance, Xia Yu couldn't help but burst into laughter.

Madam Liu was also watching from the side, and she was happy to see that her daughter liked it.

"Thank you, Auntie. The puppies look perfectly fine and strong. How much? I'll pay you."

Tian Guihua was happy to see that Liu Shi and Xia Yu liked the puppies, and when she heard Liu Shi offer to give them money, she waved her hand and said...

"Why would I give them money? There were seven or eight in this litter, and my family doesn't have that much food to feed them. If you like them, it will save me the trouble of finding homes for them all over the place."

Hearing her say that, Liu didn't insist on talking about money anymore. Seeing that the dogs had stayed, Xia Yu hurried to the kitchen to find the leftover millet porridge from that morning, filled a large bowl, and prepared to feed the dogs. However, as she left the kitchen, she ran into Aunt Ma who was coming in.

Aunt Ma saw the large bowl in Xia Yu's hand and asked curiously, "Miss, haven't you eaten yet?"

“I’ve already eaten. Aunt Guihua from the village just brought us some puppies that are only a month old. I’m going to feed them.”

Upon hearing Xia Yu say this, Aunt Ma quickly took the bowl from Xia Yu's hand and pulled Xia Yu back to the kitchen.

"Miss, please wait a moment. I'll go bring the puppies over, and we'll feed them here." Xia Yu glanced at the large bowl of millet porridge on the table and understood Aunt Ma's meaning. Looking at the still-swaying curtain, Xia Yu reflected on herself, realizing she had been too careless, wasting food like this.

Aunt Ma took the puppies out of the basket and put the bowl of porridge on the ground. Without any prompting, the puppies gathered around the bowl and began to eat. They seemed really hungry; the four puppies finished the large bowl of porridge in no time, licking the bowl clean.

Aunt Ma looked tenderly at the puppies running around in the kitchen and said to Xia Yu, "Miss, why don't you give these puppies a name?"

Xia Yu looked at the dogs on the ground that were all similar in color and was a little troubled. They really were born from the same mother dog, and they all looked almost the same.

However, upon closer inspection, there are still differences. One has a white right hind paw, which Xia Yu named Big Black. The one with a yellowish tail tip is called Second Black. The one with one ear erect and the other drooping is called Third Black. The last one, completely black without any other color, is called Fourth Black.

Upon hearing the names Xia Yu had chosen, Aunt Ma couldn't help but burst out laughing.

Xia Yu felt a little insecure after Aunt Ma's laughter. Looking at Aunt Ma somewhat embarrassedly, she asked, "Aunt Ma, aren't these names I came up with a bit too unoriginal? Let me think about it some more. Or maybe we can wait until my brother comes back from his holiday to come up with a name. After all, he did go to school."

"No, no, I wasn't laughing because of that. I just thought the name was very auspicious. And the characteristics of the dogs you found are very accurate, which is great. I didn't notice any differences between them at first, but after you mentioned it, I realized it really makes sense," Aunt Ma said seriously, rubbing her face.

Looking at Aunt Ma's expression, Xia Yu suddenly felt that Aunt Ma had turned bad; she definitely didn't mean it that way.

After Tian Guihua left, Xia Yu went back to the main room with Aunt Ma. Xia Yu told Liu Shi about the characteristics and names of the dogs again. Liu Shi looked at her daughter's serious expression, bit her tongue hard, and then said, "The names are good, and easy to remember."

Hearing Liu say the same thing, Xia Yu finally felt relieved. From then on, the four black dogs lived in the Zhang family's home. It must be said that although the name "Four Black Dogs" wasn't particularly catchy, their living conditions were definitely high-class in the Zhang family village's dog kennel, something many dogs could only dream of.