Transmigrated Farmgirl's Scheme to Get Rich - Chapter 222
Second Grandma’s Passing
Mo Yan and Zhao’er were just outside and heard their conversation clearly, and they were infuriated when they heard their words.
She went over and said, “Second uncle, you’ve come. Come in and see second grandma!”
Mo Zelin reluctantly went inside and came out after a moment. He looked at Mo Yan with a smile on his face, “Yan’er, what do you sell in your commercial firm?”
Mo Yan said coldly, “Just some common things, nothing new or exciting.”
“Your business is so big, you must have made a lot of money!”
“That business belongs to others, I’m just helping to take care of it.”
“Helping take care of a business means that you have the final say on it. You’ve seen my little cloth shop. It’s pitiful. It’s not even worth a hundred and eighty silver taels even if you squeeze every dollar out of it, I haven’t been able to import any decent goods. You have a big business and a good eye for merchandise. When you go far away to import goods, can you help you import some as well?”
“Sure! Silk, Shu brocade, cotton and linen, what kind do you want and how much of each do you want?”
Mo Zelin smiled even wider, “Get some of each, and I’ll try to see which ones sell better.”
“Okay! Local cotton and linen cost one hundred dollars per bolt, ordinary silk ranges from 500 to 1,500 dollars, and Shu brocade ranges from one tael to over ten taels. Which one do you want? I’ll let Mr. Cao work out the figures later, then send you the cloth.”
“Can I hold off on sending the money for a while? I’ll pay you back after I sell the goods.”
“I think the second uncle should give the money for the coffin first! Three taels.”
Mo Yan stretched out her hand towards him. Mo Zelin looked at her outstretched hand and patted the coffin next to him,”It’s such a thin coffin, it’s only worth two taels at most. How can it be sold for three taels…”
Before he could finish speaking, Mo Yan changed her words, “I remembered it wrong, it was two taels, hand it over! You’ve come back to see second grandma for the last time, don’t tell me you didn’t bring any money with you, right? If word gets out, who will want to do business with you anymore?”
Mo Zelin had no choice but to take out two taels and hand it over, “So…”
Mo Yan put the money into her purse and put it away, “We have all kinds of goods, and you can choose from them. However, the boss has said we can’t put money on anyone’s tab!” After that, she turned around and went back inside.
Zhao’er asked, “Sister, this coffin was obviously worth three taels, why did you only ask him for two taels?”
“If we can ask for two taels, that’s still two taels! If I had insisted on three taels, I might not have been able to get anything.” [1]
At this time, she heard second grandma let out a long breath on the kang. Zhao’er just said “Not good” and ran over to get her pulse, “Sister, your second grandma is gone!”
?There was no crying, no reluctance, no sorrow, she just left this world.
Mo Yan came outside the house, “Second uncle, the second grandma is gone, it’s time to arrange the funeral!”
Mo Zelin spread his hands and said, “I haven’t been back for many years. I’m not familiar with the people in the village, and I don’t know who to ask for help.”
“There is a special funeral shop in the village, we can hire them.”
“Doesn’t that cost money?”
“Then leave it here! I don’t live here anyway, so I can’t smell it when the corpse starts to rot.”
“I see that you were very concerned about your second grandma’s affairs just then. Why have you stopped caring now?”
“I only care about my relationship with living people. Now that she’s dead, we no longer have any ties. As for what happens after she dies, it’s your reputation that’ll suffer. Second grandma won’t know about it, so why should I care?”
After saying that, Mo Yan called Zhao’er and left the back courtyard.
Mo Zelin pulled on Mo Zenian while saying, “Why is your daughter so disobedient? How did you teach her?”
??The first person who protested having a dead person inside the courtyard was the old woman in the north house. She was eager to get rid of the corpse as soon as possible.
“Zenian, deal with that woman quickly, her corpse is making me anxious.”
?Mo Zenian first went to the front courtyard to call Ms. Liang and Mo Feng, and then went out to call governing official Wu and asked him to help find someone.
The spring harvest had already begun at this time of year, and there weren’t many idle young people in the village. Governing official Wu wasn’t able to find anyone in short notice.
“Everyone is busy right now. When the workshop closes shop for the day, I will ask Dagan to come over and help with the burial.”
?Xiaoyue and Dagang have already been engaged. The wedding would be next month, so Dagan was practically already his son-in-law.
There was no mourning shed, and even the mourning clothes hadn’t been made. Mu Zelin only tied a white cloth around his waist, which counted as mourning clothes. Even the paper money he burned was brought by Liang.
At the funeral, governing official Wu shouted “spirit awaken” and handed a small paper flag to Mo Zelin. This flag was made by asking the elderly in the village to help him out. It only cost 20 dollars, and even the basket used to hold yellow rice had been found inside the house. [2]
??If it wouldn’t be detrimental to his own descendants, Mo Zelin would not even want to do this. They had heard from the villagers that he had three sons, but none of them had come back.
Governing official Wu called a few people and carried the coffin directly to the cemetery without even using poles. Fortunately, the Mo family’s cemetery wasn’t far away, and it hasn’t rained in the past two days. Otherwise, it would be difficult to carry the coffin out.
When walking from the family home to the cemetery, Mo Zelin never shed a tear, and the same was true for Mo Zenian, Ms. Liang and the others who followed behind. Only Mo Yan, who was walking at the end, could not stop her tears from falling. Mo Feng turned around and saw her crying. He glared at her and said, “Why are you crying? You wretched thing!”
Mo Yan stared back, “What person doesn’t cry when someone dies? Only animals don’t cry!”
?Her words offended everyone, and they all turned to stare at her, as if they wanted to eat her alive. She still stood up straight, not wanting to give in, let alone apologize.
After the coffin was hastily buried, Mrs. Liang asked Mo Zelin to have dinner with her. She had also made him meals in the past two days.
At the Mo family’s dinner table, Mo Zelin was still asking about Mo Yan’s business. Ms. Liang said, “Second brother, don’t listen to the nonsense other people say. How big of a business she can do as a child? It’s just a rumour that’s been blown out of proportion.”
After the grave was rounded the next day, Mo Zelin went back to Yi City. Before leaving, he rummaged through the southern house where second grandma lived and found a few dozen dollars and a pair of silver earrings, which he pocketed. He didn’t want the rest, as it was too run-down. The old woman in the north house went over, picked up everything else, and threw it all out.
Mo Yan knew that when Mo Zelin returned to Yi City, he would definitely stop by the storefront, so wanted to go back to the town in advance and tell Liang Lan and Chuzi that it was strictly forbidden for others to use her name to buy goods on credit.
?Passing the firewood gate at the back courtyard, she saw the old woman holding a hoe and tilling hard at the door of the southern room. What she was digging up was the hollyhocks planted by second grandma when she was alive. Mo Yan remembered that they were pink, white, and bright red. In the summer, many flowers would bloom, which were very beautiful.
“What are you doing?” She went in and stopped the old woman.
The old woman gasped for breath while saying, “She’s dead, and I feel upset when I look at her things. I want to dig up these weeds and throw them out.”
“Let me do it!”
Mo Yan took the hoe, dug around the hollyhock plant and dug it up from the roots, then went to second grandma’s house to find a rag, to wrap the roots of the hollyhocks in.
?Back in town, after Mo Yan informed Liang Lan and Chuzi, she took the hollyhocks back to “Lu Mansion”, her home, where she wanted to plant her second grandma’s hollyhocks.
P.S. Mo Yan just seems so…mercenary, and really doesn’t seem to care about her second grandma much up until the very end, which seems shoehorned in there. This feels about as strange as Lu Junming’s reaction to his mother’s death, and honestly, I’m not very enthusiastic about the current direction the story is taking. This has really been much more of a slice-of-life story until recently.
[1] This feels vaguely like extortion.
[2] I assume these are funeral rituals?