I traveled back to ancient times, but I was able to lie down and relax.

"Why?" Liu Nanjia asked, puzzled. As far as she knew, Aunt Wang's family wasn't well-off, and they didn't own much land.

"Oh, it's all because of your Uncle Wang," Aunt Wang quickly explained. "If you ask me, it's a great thing. My family only has five mu of land, and those two boys are at the age where they can eat a lot. But ever since your Uncle Wang became a foreman for you, he's become obsessed with building houses. He already loves tinkering with bricks and tiles at home, and after being encouraged by those people he worked with last time, he said he wanted to form a construction team to build houses for people. That's why he doesn't have time to cultivate more land."

"Oh, I see." Liu Nanjia chuckled. Had Uncle Wang found a career inspired by her? That's good.

"He's over 30, I don't know what he's doing all this time," Aunt Wang sighed, seemingly not supporting Uncle Wang's idea.

“So what if you’re over 30? You’re still young,” Liu Nanjia advised, genuinely thinking it was a good age.

“Building a house is a skill, much better than just farming. Look, my house was only built in a little over ten days, and Uncle Wang and Da Hu’s wages… have already been more than half a tael of silver, haven’t they? Isn’t that much more than before? If there were jobs like this to do often, Aunt Wang, wouldn’t your family’s life soon become prosperous?”

Aunt Wang thought about it and realized it made sense. Her husband used to work at the docks carrying heavy loads, which was really hard work, and he didn't earn as much money as he did a few days ago.

"Also, what Uncle Wang and his team are doing is just a small-scale operation. They've only built these few houses, and they're paid by the day. If Uncle Wang and his team really get going and become famous, then the money won't be calculated by the day; each house will be worth tens or even hundreds of taels."

Aunt Wang laughed at Liu Nanjia's words, "You little girl, you're so young, how do you know so much? I wouldn't dare dream of tens or hundreds of taels, I'd be happy if I could earn a few taels. Then I'll trust him this time and not object."

Liu Nanjia chuckled, admitting that what she said was a bit of an exaggeration. If Uncle Wang only intended to be a construction worker, he wouldn't earn much, but if he could secure a foreman position, he could indeed earn quite a bit.

"By the way, Aunt Wang, since you're not renting out your place, could you please ask around in the village for me about a family that does this? And you should also tell me how the profits will be split."

"Okay, I'll go ask around for you. It should be easy to rent. As for the profit sharing, it's usually split 50/50 after the rent is paid, but it also depends on who bought the seeds and whose farm tools were used. We need to discuss that in detail."

"I see. We probably won't be involved in the fields and don't have any farming tools, so let's just leave it all to them and give them a bigger share."

"Okay, we'll talk about that once we find the person," Aunt Wang said before hurrying away.

Sure enough, just as Aunt Wang said, it was easy to find someone who wanted to rent the land. She came back again in just two days.

“Nanjia, I’ve found a good family,” Aunt Wang said with a smile. “It’s the Zhao family in our village.”

"The Zhao family?" Liu Nanjia was a little confused. She felt that the family was familiar. Right, they also had a younger aunt who married someone with the surname Zhao. But didn't they make money and move to town?

Seeing Liu Nanjia's expression, Aunt Wang knew she had probably misunderstood, so she explained, "It's not your uncle's Zhao family. They just came to the village a few years ago. They don't have much contact with the villagers, so it's normal that you don't know them."

“When you were building your house, their family came too.” Aunt Wang described one of the people’s appearances roughly, “That’s their second son.”

Upon hearing this, Liu Nanjia remembered that there was indeed such a young man back then. "Oh, I remember him. He didn't talk much, but he was very proactive in his work."

"Yes, that family is pitiful. It seems they encountered some trouble outside and only moved to the village a few years ago. I heard they spent all their money to build that house and buy two acres of land. But they have a lot of people in their family, three sons and one daughter, how can two acres of land be enough to feed them? Their eldest son works at the dock in town every day carrying heavy loads to earn money. That work is so tiring, I don't even want your Uncle Wang to do it."

“I’ve met with Sister Zhao a few times and thought her family was nice. Last time when we were building a house, I went to ask them about it and had her second son come. Sister Zhao’s husband also wanted to come, but he wasn’t in good health, so your Uncle Wang refused. However, I heard that her husband is quite good at farming, so this time I thought of their family again, and when I asked, they were indeed willing. They even said that as long as we rent to them, we don’t have to worry about anything, and we’ll still split the profits fifty-fifty.”

Liu Nanjia felt that this family was having a hard time, and since she trusted the person recommended by Aunt Wang, she called Liu Yanxi and Song Chen over, discussed it briefly, and then agreed.

"Alright, I'll go and get back to them now. It's almost time for planting."

Not long after Aunt Wang left, she returned with several more people, presumably the Zhao family. They seemed to be in a real hurry.

Among the visitors was a couple who looked older than Uncle Wang and Aunt Wang, especially the man, who was very thin and appeared to be in poor health.

There was also his second son, whom Liu Nanjia had only seen in the yard before and had not had much contact with.

Looking at them now, they are still very thin. In fact, most rural people at that time were poor and few were fat. However, this family was even thinner, almost as thin as the three siblings who used to be malnourished.

"Nan Jia, Yan Xi, I've brought the Zhao family with me. You two can have a chat," Aunt Wang called out as soon as she entered the courtyard.

"Please come in, everyone. Let's talk inside," Liu Yanxi said as he came out to greet them.

After the group entered the main room and sat down, Uncle Zhao began to speak: "I've heard the general situation from Sister Wang. Like I said before, if you're willing, we'll take care of everything in the fields, and we'll split the final harvest 50/50. I can't guarantee anything else, but I'm quite good at farming."

“We trust the people Aunt Wang introduced. We also saw how well Brother Zhao worked at our house a few days ago. We’ll leave the land to you to farm this year. Our family members are all quite busy and don’t have time, so you can handle buying seeds and farm tools. We won’t interfere with anything. But we won’t take advantage of you. Let’s split the profits 40/60. We’ll take 40%.”

This is what Liu Yanxi is saying. Liu Nanjia feels that her brother should also do some other things and not just study all the time. These are all things they just discussed.

“Oh, no, no,” Uncle Zhao waved his hand. “Those landlords rented their land to tenants and at least split it 50/50. How can we take 60%?”

Liu Yanxi smiled and said, "You said those are landlords, but we are not. My brother and I are not very old and we are not good at farming. We also have little time. We mainly wanted to rent out the land so that we could get some grain and not let it go to waste."

"Moreover, we're only leasing it for one year for now. What happens next year will depend on your performance this year. Of course, if you do a good job, we'll continue to lease it to you in the future."

"Well, then we'll take advantage of this." Uncle Zhao was a little embarrassed, but he assured him, "Don't worry, I'll take good care of these three acres of land for you."

"If there are no problems, let's sign a document." Liu Yanxi took out two pieces of paper.

Because we didn't expect them to arrive so quickly, and we hadn't prepared in advance, we started writing on the spot.

Write down all the conditions you just mentioned, in duplicate.

Uncle Zhao watched from the side and couldn't help but sigh, "No wonder he's the son of a scholar, young master Liu's handwriting is really good."