Expelled from the Duke's mansion, the fake heiress is richer than a country.

Yu Wanran's only aim was to make her presence felt in front of the Duchess and maintain any semblance of familial affection. She wanted to prevent Xiao Yao's malicious actions from causing trouble and to avoid the Duchess and Duchess becoming accomplices.

It would be best if we could live in peace in this life and avoid the bloodshed that happened in the previous one.

She is still in the early stages of her career, and although she has the backing of the Yan family's young master, the emperor is far away and distant, so it's difficult to provide immediate relief.

If we could win over the Duchess's affections and protect ourselves and the Yu family, why not?

Granny Xiong gripped the still-warm box in her hand, watched her walk away, and sighed almost imperceptibly.

After all this commotion, they drove away their gentle and compassionate former master and brought back a violent and unpredictable ancestor. Now the Duke's mansion is in chaos every day. I wonder if the Duke and Duchess have any regrets?

Anyway, she knew that some of the servants who had gone to great lengths to drive away the fake heiress were now filled with regret.

Yu Wanran finally wandered to a bookstore, spent over fifty taels of silver to buy a pile of writing implements, primers, and six kinds of gifts for his younger brother's education, and took them home. In this way, his younger brother can go straight to school tomorrow with his backpack.

In the following months, she ran around Dahong Village; occasionally helped her father supervise the construction of the house; and sometimes checked on Yu Wenrong's study progress, having her younger brother teach the family to read every day when he came home. A month flew by.

With the one-month deadline approaching, Yu Wanran once again took her elder brother and sister-in-law to Datong Village. They also hired several mule carts to transport the goods back to Qingping Village.

We have five acres of wasteland. We can build a temporary warehouse and store things for a couple of days.

In Datong Village, fearing there might be quality issues with the red straw mats collected, Hong Lizheng's family strictly controlled the quality.

Those that are simply rinsed with water to save time are not acceptable; those with poor craftsmanship are not acceptable; and those that have been stored for more than ten days or half a month and are not fresh enough are even less acceptable. Therefore, a spare room has been specially set aside to store this batch of red mats.

Yu Wanran and her elder brother and sister-in-law carefully inspected the goods and were satisfied. Among the villagers were many skilled craftsmen who wove red mats that could be sold as specialty straw mats.

Yu Wanran deliberately placed the woven fabric on top to conceal it from others.

After the settlement, the Hong family was very generous and received a total of 1,920 red mats, weighing about 9,600 jin.

Of course, all of this comes at a price.

It is said that the villagers dug up the hillside behind the village. Fortunately, Yu Wenbin and his wife managed to salvage some red velvet grass seeds in time, otherwise the red velvet grass would have become extinct due to the lack of cultivation.

Yu Wanran immediately increased the reward to thirty-nine taels, making the Hong family overjoyed. Even at the purchase price of fifteen cash per bed, they would still make ten taels of silver for free.

Moreover, when they were collecting the money, they deliberately made excuses to lower the prices offered to the villagers.

Yu Wanran ignored the filth within Datong Village, had someone help load the truck, and then escorted several truckloads of goods back to her own village in a grand procession.

This time, there's no way to keep a low profile even if you want to.

The news caused a sensation in Qingping Village. Everyone rushed to see the Yu family's second branch building a new house. Red straw mats were piled up like mountains and moved into the new warehouse.

You think the Yu family suddenly became rich? Not necessarily. The Yu family's new house was the kind of thatched hut where the roof would blow away in the wind and the walls would crack in a heavy rain. It wasn't worth much.

You might think the Yu family is poor, but they have spare money now, and they're buying up the red straw mats from the dilapidated roads in the neighboring village.

After pointing and gossiping, the villagers finally concluded that this was most likely the work of the fake heiress who had recently returned to the Yu family.

He probably took some private money from the Duke's mansion, and that's how he squandered it all.

The second branch of the Yu family is full of idiots, letting their ignorant new daughter cause so much trouble. The family's regrets are far from over!

After hearing these gossips, some members of the Yu family's eldest branch gloated while others were worried. Yu Tai made a special trip to find his brother and expressed his deep sorrow.

"Second son, I know you feel guilty about your daughter coming back from the Duke's mansion. But you can't just let the child do whatever she wants. She's immature, and neither are you."

"Big brother..."

Yu Man was at a loss for words: "We're not acting recklessly. There are indeed merchants in the capital who need these red straw mats..."

"Didn't you tell each other that the straw mats would fade quickly?"

Yu Tai looked at his second brother with disapproval: "You're cheating and swindling, it's immoral, and you'll get your comeuppance!"

Yu Man opened his mouth, almost blurting out the truth several times. But remembering the solemn oath he had sworn to his family, he ultimately remained silent. He watched helplessly as his elder brother walked away, leaving in a huff, filled with disappointment and frustration.

He had originally planned to remind his elder brother to leave some land to try planting red grass, but after some hesitation, he decided against it and would wait until he returned from delivering goods to the capital. Otherwise, he was afraid his elder brother would break his legs!

Yu Wanran deliberately postponed her trip to Beijing by two days to deliver the goods.

Because the new house was built. Even if it was just a thatched hut, she still wanted to tidy up her snow cave-like room and go with her family to find a carpenter to make some decent furniture. As for bedding and curtains, those also needed to be arranged.

Yu Wanran found it very inconvenient to travel long distances every few days and have to catch trains frequently.

So he discussed with his parents about buying a mule cart for easier travel. This would also save them the cost of hiring a cart when transporting goods to the capital.

Yu Man thought about his current financial situation and couldn't help but be tempted, but he had some objections to buying a mule.

"Buying a mule is not as good as buying an ox. An ox can help us plow the fields."

Yu Wanran figured that oxen would indeed be more useful to farmers, so she agreed. The family was currently short-handed, so they needed to focus on spring plowing first. She could consider buying a mule cart or horse-drawn cart later, once her business improved.

Buying cattle was the most important thing. The next day, Yu Man and his son excitedly followed Yu Wanran into the city. First, they sold the several bolts of fine silk that Yan Chengan had given them to a cloth shop.

This silk came from the capital and was a fashionable material. The cloth shop owner liked it very much and offered a high price of five taels of silver per bolt to buy it.

Then, at the market, after much searching, he settled on a newly matured black bull. Its four hooves were snow-white, its muscles were smoothly defined, and it looked incredibly strong.

After some haggling, the price was settled at fifteen taels of silver. They then spent another tael of silver to get a covered cart, which could be used for both hauling goods and carrying passengers.

Yu Man and his son were overjoyed, dancing with excitement. Only after their initial burst of exhilaration did they realize that neither of them knew how to drive. They'd never even had a chance to touch an ox before, because they themselves were like old, hardworking oxen. They were both dumbfounded!

Fortunately, the seller promised to teach them. Yu Wanran left her father and older brother behind to learn how to drive, and went to Zhenyuan Escort Agency to discuss the escort arrangements.

Wu Jian personally received them.

While slightly surprised by Yu Wanran's choice to go into business, it seemed quite reasonable. After all, with Yu Wanran's skills, escorting goods would be much more likely to succeed and more reliable than that of ordinary merchants.

He told Yu Wanran about the rules of the escort agency.

"If our escort agency were to provide the carriage, the escort fee would be 30% higher. Miss Yu, you can find your own carriages and horses willing to go to the capital, and our escort agency will only charge a fee for accompanying the carriage and protecting the convoy."

Yu Wanran didn't trust the people she hired from outside. Later, when she was traveling as a merchant, she would have her own men and wouldn't need a security escort agency. But right now, she had to rely entirely on one.

She said directly, "Head镖师 Wu, your镖局 (escort agency) should provide the carriages. You will be in charge of arranging the entire journey to the capital."

Wu Jian likes this kind of easygoing employer; it saves him trouble!

He smiled and asked, "May I ask what kind of goods Miss Yu is transporting? How many cartloads?"