Chapter 101.3 - Buying Jiang Xiaomei
However, Butcher Jiang was not willing to sign his name on that document, so in the end, it was Jiang Chengwen who came forward to sell his sister. This document was written by Jiang Chengxiang.
When the document was written out and signed, Jiang Xiaomei became Zhao Jinge’s servant and now had nothing to do with the Jiang family.
Jiang Zhen threw down fifty silver and left without looking back.
Jiang Zhen gave this deed of sale to Jiang Xiaomei as he promised before saying, “Before you get married, you should take it and hide it well so that those people will not come to take you back.”
Jiang Xiaomei could not read, but she also knew that this was her deed of sale. Holding that piece of paper, she burst into tears.
Jiang Xiaomei cried for a long time, and when she was having dinner that day, she was still sobbing incessantly. However, although she was crying, her speed of eating had not slowed down at all. She couldn’t help it, Zhao Liu’s cooking was too delicious!
Zhao Liu specially picked up a fish, which was some variation of silver carp. People in Hexi generally called it baotou fish or big-headed fish because its head was so big.
Zhao Liu stewed tofu with the fish head and then braised the rest of the fish with sweet and sour sauce. In addition, she asked Zhao Fugui to go to the county town to buy a piece of pork and made braised meat.
In fact, Zhao Liu had also made several vegetarian dishes. She and Zhao Fugui hadn’t even gone to the Jiang house to watch the fun because they were so busy cooking and preparing the food.
However, in Jiang Xiaomei’s eyes . . .she only saw the couple of meat dishes laid out.
She didn’t eat much; she only ate meat. How delicious it was to taste the meat in her mouth! But after a few bites of green vegetables, the flavor was gone!
What’s more, this fish was so delicious . . . Old lady Jiang was too reluctant to put oil in the fish while steaming it, but what about the fish Zhao Liu cooked? She fried the fish head with oil, and not only did she put oil in the fish, she also put sweet and sour soy sauce on it!
Jiang Zhen watched Jiang Xiaomei sobbing while eating and gave her a piece of fatty meat; obviously, Jiang Xiaomei preferred the fat meat.
As for Zhao Jinge . . . Jiang Zhen cut the meat and cut off all the fat before giving it to him to eat, saying, “You should eat more fish.”
When Zhao Liu saw this scene, she was somewhat surprised. “Jinge is pregnant with a child, so even his taste has changed?” He didn’t like fat meat anymore?
“Mmm . . . ,” Zhao Jinge responded, not saying that he actually loved to eat fatty meat, but Jiang Zhen did not allow him to eat more . . . However, although Jiang Zhen did not allow him to eat more fatty meat, every day, he gave him fish and meat. In the whole Hexi, probably no one else was able to eat like this. For better or worse, he really didn’t like fatty meat as much as he used to.
“Mom, Dad, you should prepare more chicken, ducks, and fish in the future . . . Don’t sell our chickens and ducks anymore. We can eat them all by yourself,” Jiang Zhen said. He thought it was healthier to eat chicken, duck, and fish.
“How can we finish eating so many chickens and ducks by ourselves?” Zhao Liu was startled.
“One a day,” Jiang Zhen said.
This . . . who eats chicken and ducks every day? Although Jiang Zhen at least brought back some money when he went out this time, he spent 50 silver to buy Jiang Xiaomei so there were no more than 100 silver left . . . to eat a chicken and duck every day.
In order to solve Jiang Xiaomei’s matter, Jiang Zhen did not have time to tell Zhao Liu that he has made a lot of money this time. As for Zhao Jinge . . . he simply slept all afternoon.
Although Zhao Liu was worried, she considered the fact that Jiang Zhen and Zhao Jinge had just returned and that Jiang Xiaomei was also there, so she didn’t ask.
When her son went out, he probably didn’t eat or drink well. Jiang Xiaomei also suffered . . . A few days of eating chickens and ducks was nothing at all . . .
That night, Jiang Xiaomei was assigned to live in the house that Jiang Zhen had asked the Jiang family to build for him.
The house that Jiang Zhen used to live in by himself had been vacant for a long time, but it could still be used by Jiang Xiaomei immediately without needing to buy anything.
After tossing and turning all day, Jiang Zhen was so tired that he went to fetch some water to wash up before falling asleep beside Zhao Jinge, who was not sleepy at all after napping all afternoon.
After putting Jiang Zhen’s hand on his stomach, Zhao Jinge yawned and slowly nodded off.
Zhao Fugui and Zhao Liu were old, and they didn’t sleep much, so they got up at dusk the next day and took the rice to the river to wash.
People in Hexi got up early, so when they saw Zhao Liu and Zhao Fugui, they all went to say hello. Some of them asked how much money Jiang Zhen made this time, and others said, “I don’t think Jiang Zhen brought anything back with him when he came back yesterday. I’m afraid this trip didn’t go well.”
Although Zhao Liu was always worried about Jiang Zhen, she was immediately displeased when others said so.
“It did not go well, and Li Yuan kid is gone . . .”
“But Jiang Zhen really likes to spend money. When he came back, he brought me several kinds of jewelry.”
“What’s more, he asked me to kill chickens and ducks for Jinge every day . . . How can you say that he is fooling around? There is no one who would cheat to eat chickens and ducks every day!”
She talked about Jiang Zhen for a while but didn’t dare to say anything more for fear that these people would really find out that Jiang Zhen did not make money, so she switched the topic to Zhao Jinge.
“It is true that Jinge is pregnant with a child, and he simply treats himself so well, giving Jiang Zhen all the food he doesn’t like to eat . . . Our Zhao family was never so picky about food.”
“Even the water he used to wash his feet yesterday, he had asked Jiang Zhen to carry it into the house!”
“Say, in our village, who is pregnant with a child and is more delicate than him?”
. . .
When Jiang Zhen came out of the house, he heard Zhao Liu showing off, and his heart was suddenly a little happy.
When Zhao Liu saw Jiang Zhen, she was a little embarrassed. Ordinary men, even if they were willing to do something for women at home, they were not willing to speak about it outside for fear of losing face.
“Mother, Jinge is not delicate. Besides, those are things that I should be doing anyway.” Jiang Zhen smiled at Zhao Liu.
Zhao Liu immediately had a sense of fulfillment, straightening her waist and looking at the people around with a smug look on her face.
The surrounding people: “. . .”
What are you so proud of? Jiang Zhen must have spent a lot of money to please Zhao Jinge . . .
The villagers were silently, sore in their hearts.
At that time, however, Zhao Liu asked Jiang Zhen, “Jiang Zhen, why did you already get up? Shouldn’t you sleep more?”
“He Chunsheng woke me up. He said that my ship was coming,” Jiang Zhen said.
“Ship? We haven’t seen it,” Zhao Liu said with some doubts. They were by the river and hadn’t seen any boats at all.
“It’s over the canal.” Jiang Zhen pointed in the direction of Zhao Dahu’s family house.
There were many things on that ship, so after thinking about it yesterday, he simply asked He Chunsheng and the others to take a trip today and sail the ship directly over here.
“Why is it over there? Did it go the wrong way? You can go and tell them to turn back the boat directly,” Zhao Liu said.
Jiang Zhen paused for a moment. “Can’t. The canal is too small.”
The author has something to say: Everyone look over here~.
The format of the deed of sale is from Baidu, copy and paste + modify.
In ancient times, there were sixteen ways to weigh but for the sake of this novel, I unified it as ten silver = one jin = 500 grams.
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Finally, let’s talk about silver~
Although this novel is fictional, it is basically written according to the Ming and Qing dynasties.
In fact, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, there was more and more silver; therefore, even a farmer’s family could make money. Apart from farmers, many officials were able to bury millions of taels of silver under their own houses, and salt merchants made even more money. Not to mention the big sea merchants in the south. At that time, all the money from all over the world was flowing into China.
Therefore, Jiang Zhen is not really rich at the present stage. There are some wealthy merchants that spend 100,000 silver a year on family expenses, so building a garden can use up all his wealth. However, although big merchants and officials were rich, ordinary people were still very poor.