She's skilled in medicine, martial arts, and even understands animal language—the abandoned dau

Lanxiang entered the room and brought out the smallest jar of honey, placing it in front of the two of them.

Manager Liu, who accompanied Zhu Jing this time, was a very useful person under Master Zhu. He often accompanied Master Zhu on his travels and had rich experience and a keen eye for identifying various goods.

He carefully lifted the lid of the honey jar with a focused expression and then examined the honey inside.

After a moment, he nodded slightly and said with satisfaction, "Your honey is indeed of the highest quality. I wonder how much of this you have in stock? We would be willing to buy it all."

Just before setting off today, Zhu Linyuan had already informed him of the price he had agreed upon with Shen Man.

He felt that honey of this quality, let alone in the capital, would sell for at least five taels of silver per pound, even in the county town. Knowing it was a sure-fire way to make money, the more he had, the better.

Upon hearing this, Lanxiang was overjoyed and smiled as she said, "It weighs about 130 or 140 jin in total."

Manager Liu nodded in satisfaction. "Not bad, the quantity is also acceptable. Our master will take all of this honey, and the price will be the same as we agreed before."

Lanxiang was even happier to hear his words and quickly agreed: "Did you bring any containers to store the honey?"

"Yes, I'll have someone install it!"

The two servants who were driving the carriage today were both under Manager Liu's command. They unloaded about a dozen empty jars from the carriage to handle the honey.

In front of Lanxiang and Shenman, they weighed all the empty jars, and after sealing the honey, they weighed them again.

"Subtracting the weight of the jars, the weight of the honey is 158 jin!" one of the shop assistants said to Lanxiang, holding up the counting slip.

Lanxiang couldn't count, but she glanced at Shen Man discreetly, and Shen Man nodded imperceptibly.

"Yes, yes, that's the number!"

"Well, based on the price of two taels of silver per catty, we need to pay you three hundred and thirty-six taels of silver."

"Give us three hundred and thirty taels, and the remaining six taels can be given to Steward Liu and the two young men to buy wine!" Shen Man said generously.

"Hehe, then thank you very much, young master!"

Manager Liu was surprised that Shen Man was so adept at interpersonal relationships at such a young age, and couldn't help but laugh.

"Manager Liu, you're very knowledgeable. I'd like you to help me find out where I can buy jujube saplings. My family has a large plot of land lying fallow, and we'd like to buy some jujube trees to plant." Shen Man pressed her advantage and quickly stated her request.

“That’s easy. I’m going to Linxian next door to collect silk in a few days. There’s a market there that specializes in selling all kinds of saplings, and they should have jujube saplings for sale,” Manager Liu said. “I’ll bring some back for the young master. But jujube trees are not easy to grow; they need careful tending in the early stages.”

"Then I'll have to trouble Manager Liu," Shen Man said with a smile. "If you have any, I'd appreciate it if you could order two thousand large saplings for me in advance, and have them delivered to me next spring. As for the deposit, I'll settle the account with you when we meet again."

"No problem." Manager Liu waved his hand and said with a smile, "Young master, why did you think of planting jujube trees? I've heard that jujube trees grow slowly, taking at least three years and at the slowest five to eight years to bear fruit!"

Shen Man smiled slightly and explained, "Jujube trees have a long flowering period and are a very good source of nectar. I need their flowers for bees to collect nectar."

"Oh, I see. I didn't expect you to know so much at such a young age. It's truly an eye-opener for us all!" Manager Liu couldn't help but give Shen Man a thumbs up, full of praise.

Shen Man replied modestly, "I only heard about it by chance from someone else. I'll have to trouble Manager Liu with this matter!" She thanked Manager Liu again.

"It's just a small matter. Young master, do you have anything else to do? If not, we should head back to town!" Steward Liu couldn't help but tease, seeing Zhu Jing staring intently at Shen Man.

“No, that’s all. Man’er, next time you go to town, you can just come find me.” Zhu Jing quickly looked away and replied.

"Okay, be careful on your journey!" Shen Man gave them some instructions, watched their carriage leave, and then went back to her house.

"Man'er, that's six taels of silver! How can you just say you don't want it?"

As soon as Shen Man entered the room, Lan Xiang immediately grabbed her hand and asked anxiously.

Shen Man smiled slightly and comforted her, "Mother, don't worry. As the saying goes, 'It's easier to see the King of Hell than to deal with his underlings.' Since Master Zhu has entrusted this matter to Steward Liu, we must maintain a good relationship with him. If we are too calculating, wouldn't it be difficult to do business with them in the future?"

They benefited from me today, so they'll give us some face in the future. We'll earn back those six taels of silver very quickly.”

Lanxiang listened to her daughter's words and felt that there was some truth to them, but she still felt bad about losing those six taels of silver.

She sighed and said, "Well, I know you have your own plans. But six taels of silver is no small sum. I hope you can earn it back soon, as you said."

Shen Man nodded and said confidently, "Don't worry, Mom. I know what I'm doing and I won't let us suffer. As long as we manage it well, things will definitely get better and better in the future."

Looking into her daughter's determined eyes, Lanxiang's worries gradually dissipated. She trusted her daughter's abilities and judgment and decided to support her decision.

So she gently patted Shen Man's little hand and said with a smile, "Okay, then I'll listen to you. As long as you think it's right, Mom will support you."

"Mother, you have over three hundred taels of silver now, how do you plan to spend it?" Shen Man teased her.

"Of course, I'll save it up and spend it slowly."

"Mother, if our business grows bigger and bigger in the future, wouldn't it be a bit unreasonable if we didn't even have a place to entertain guests?"

"Man'er, do you mean you want to build a house? The land we live on now belongs to the village. The village head took pity on me and built a house for me to live in temporarily. If we want to build a house, we'll have to buy land again."

“Then let’s go talk to the village head and see if we can buy this land along with the empty space in the backyard,” Shen Man said after thinking for a moment.

Lanxiang nodded in agreement, "That's a good idea. The open space in the backyard is quite large; building two or three houses shouldn't be a problem. Let's go find the village headman later."

After making up their minds, the mother and daughter took a small jar of honey from home and headed to the village head's house.

Upon arriving at the village head's house, Lanxiang presented him with honey and explained her purpose.

After hearing this, the village head smiled and said, "You two are really successful. You've made quite a bit of money this year selling medicinal herbs and honey. However, the land you live on now is village estate land, which is different from the wasteland on the mountain. If you want to buy it, you need to register your household in the village first."