After the Scholar Rejected Me, I Married the Rogue and Got Rich - Chapter 19

That evening, the family sat around the oil lamp again. Lin Sang opened the heavy little wooden box once more. This time, there were even more copper coins inside than before, piled into a more impressive heap. The family worked together to carefully count them. For a moment, the only sounds in the room were the clinking of copper coins and everyone counting them quietly.

“Adding what I had left over from before and what I earned this month, the total is…” Lin Sang held a charcoal pencil and wrote the final number on the wooden board, her voice tinged with excitement, “Three thousand seven hundred and sixty coins!”

Nearly four taels of silver!

Wang picked up the few pieces of silver and weighed them in her hand. Looking at the copper coins scattered all over the kang (a heated brick bed), her eyes welled up with tears. “Heavens… it’s only been two months… In a good year when the weather is favorable, we’re lucky if we can save two taels of silver after expenses. If the year is bad… we might not even have enough to eat. It’s true, doing business is much more profitable!”

Lin Sang also felt this deeply: “Yes, Mother, the income from the land is the foundation of the family and cannot be lost, but if we want to live a comfortable life, it is indeed difficult to make a living by just digging in the soil.”

The younger siblings don’t have a deep understanding of money yet. They only know that when the family has money, they can eat meat. Seeing their mother and older sister happy makes them happy too.

After the initial excitement subsided, Wang asked her daughter, “Sangsang, now that all the chestnuts are sold, what are your plans?”

Lin Sang shook her head: “I haven’t decided yet. Let’s rest for a couple of days and see. Everyone has worked hard these past two months. Tomorrow I’ll go to town to buy some meat so we can have a good celebration. Now that we’ve made money, we can’t treat ourselves too badly. I’ll also check the prices of charcoal and cotton. If they’re reasonable, we’ll stock up and buy new cotton-padded jackets for our younger siblings.”

After thinking for a moment, Wang nodded in agreement, then turned back into the house and took out a slightly worn thick cotton coat: “I’ll take this to your father when I go to town tomorrow. It’s windy at the dock, so I’ll check on him and see how he is and whether he can handle it.”

“Yes, Mother,” Lin Sang replied.

———

The next day, Lin Sang took an oxcart to town alone. Knowing the way well, she first went to her usual meat stall and bought several pounds of good pork belly. She also bought all the large bones that had been cleaned and trimmed off.

Next, she went to the charcoal shop, inquired about the prices, and found out that they couldn’t afford the best silver charcoal, while ordinary firewood charcoal cost five coins per pound.

Lin Sang thought to herself that the house needed to be kept warm throughout the winter. However, the family had stockpiled a lot of firewood this year, which could be mixed together. If they used it sparingly, they would need about 300 catties, but that would still cost 1,500 wen, which was her monthly income from doing business!

But despite the heartache, I still had to use it. Isn’t the point of working hard to earn money to make life a little better? With a heavy heart, I ordered 300 catties of firewood and charcoal, and arranged for it to be delivered to Linjia’ao tomorrow.

After leaving the charcoal shop, she went to the cloth shop to look at cotton. Cotton cost fifteen coins per pound. To make a thick new cotton-padded coat and trousers for each member of the family, she would need at least twenty or thirty pounds of cotton, which would cost her another four hundred coins.

However, this time she didn’t immediately take out her money. Instead, she showed just the right amount of difficulty and pleading on her face, and softened her voice a bit: “Boss lady, you see, I’m a big customer. I can accept this price for so much money at once. But… could you please give me something more substantial?”

The proprietress looked at her shrewdly: “What kind of bonus would you like, young lady?”

Lin Sang pointed to the large sacks filled with scraps of cloth in the corner and smiled somewhat embarrassedly, “I don’t want anything else, I just have my eye on those scraps of cloth you left over from making clothes. You see, I have many younger siblings at home, and when I buy cotton to make new jackets, the cuffs, collars, and knees are the easiest to wear out, so I always need to patch them up. These scraps of cloth are just taking up space, so why don’t you give me some? I can take them back and piece them together to make some earmuffs for my younger siblings, or sew some beanbags for them to play with. At least they’ll be of some use. You can think of it as… adding a little something extra to my big business deal, and fulfilling my little wish?”

Her words were sincere and reasonable. The proprietress glanced at Lin Sang’s old but clean clothes, then looked into her clear and honest eyes, and weighed her options in her mind.

Nearly thirty pounds of cotton is indeed not a small business, and those scraps of cloth are not worth much money. They usually take up too much space when piled up. This girl seems sensible and good at managing a household, so it would be good to make a good connection with her.

Thinking this, the proprietress smiled helplessly but with a hint of appreciation, and pointed at Lin Sang with her finger: “You really are a calculating girl! Fine, since you bought so much at once, you can pick out a small bag of the scraps of cloth in that bag and take it with you, but you have to agree, don’t be too greedy!”

Lin Sang immediately beamed and thanked her profusely, “Thank you, ma’am! You’re such a kind person! I wish you booming business! I’ll just take a little bit, enough for the children to sew and mend!”

She quickly paid four hundred coins, and then carefully picked out some scraps of cloth that were of decent color and size from the sack. She folded them neatly and packed them into a small bag, not being greedy. This sensible manner made the proprietress think more highly of her, believing that this girl would definitely be able to support the family business in the future.

Holding the heavy bundle of cotton and the bag of fabric, Lin Sang walked out of the cloth shop with satisfaction.

In her hands, this bundle of scraps of cloth was more than just patching material; she wanted to make the most of every penny and every resource!

However, looking at her rapidly depleting purse, she couldn’t be happy and sighed softly, “This money really doesn’t last long.”

A gust of cold wind blew by, and she tightened her thin clothes. Remembering that she needed to hurry to the dock to deliver a cotton coat to her father, she turned around and went to her usual steamed bun shop. She bought five hot, oily meat buns and headed towards the dock, following the route she remembered.