Transmigrated Farmgirl's Scheme to Get Rich - Chapter 238
Saying Farewell
After hearing Ms. Liang agree to let Mo Zenian come back, Mo Yan thought that it was best to only return home sparingly even more.
On the first day of the New Year, Cao Zhang and Lu Junming both used the opportunity of New Year’s greetings to come to the Mo family. The two didn’t say anything at the Mo family to each other, but left together.
Lu Junming said, “Yan’er doesn’t want to keep in contact with you that much, stop pestering her.”
Cao Zhang retaliated, “What right do you have to interfere in her matters!”
Lu Junming admitted to himself he had no right to care about Mo Yan’s business, but how could he not?
On the third day of the new year, Mo Yan returned to town. She immediately went to the workshop and asked Ze Wu to find Jin’er, telling her to pack up her things and send them over.
However, the person who delivered Mo Yan’s things to her wasn’t Jin’er, but Lu Junming. He placed her things in her room before opening his mouth, but he was at a loss for words.
Mo Yan said, “Let’s split our business! It’ll be better if we don’t spend so much time together in the future.”
“Yan’er, do you have to be like this? If you’re unwilling to be with me, I’ll just go.”
Mo Yan smiled faintly, “What else can I do? Do I have any way of hiding? Since your father is so insistent on marrying you to someone else, he will remove all other obstacles in his path. In his eyes, I’m no better than an ant.”
Lu Junming gritted his teeth, “He dares?!”
Mo Yan laughed lightly, “If he’s even willing to rebel against the emperor, what else will he not dare to do? It seems like the rumours of him making the situation of his father-in-law worse after he no longer had use of him were completely true.”
Lu Junming had been treasured by his father since his youth. He was unwilling to believe that his father was such an unscrupulous person, but Mo Yan had a point.
The storefront had just been reopened for business when Duan Caimei hurriedly rushed over. She said that she had gone to Mo Yan’s home, but didn’t see her.
Mo Yan said, “I’m living in the workshop now, so all of my stories are in there.”
Duan Caimei handed over the story she had finished reading, “No, I’m here to say goodbye to you. My grandfather reclaimed his official position, so we’ll be going back to the capital soon.”
The political world was inherently unstable. Being able to be re-appointed to his official position less than a year after he was dismissed showed that Sir Duan was truly an exceptional person, and must have spared a lot of effort during this time.
This time, Duan Caimei didn’t hang around Cao Zhang, but just looked at him once and sighed. Everyone thought she didn’t want to leave him.
Mo Yan walked her to the exit, and Duan Caimei tugged on her hand, “Can we still keep in touch in the future?”
“Of course, why can’t we?”
Duan Caimei truly wasn’t a coy one, and said straightforwardly, “The reason my grandfather could reclaim his official position was due to the machinations of Lu Hong. However, he had a condition, and wanted me to marry into his family.”
So the person Lu Hong wanted Lu Junming to marry was Duan Caimei. No wonder the two both came back here one after the other.
“Do you like Lu Junming?” Mo Yan asked.
Duan Caimei smiled bitterly while shaking her head, “Officials’ daughters are destined to give up everything for the men of the family. When we are married we listen to our husbands, and before we are married we listen to our fathers and brothers.”
In reality, it wasn’t just daughters. Whether or not you had money or status, you couldn’t escape the arrangements of destiny.
Mo Yan went back to the storefront and discussed how to split the business with Liang Lan.
“To be honest, all of the businesses were opened with Lu Junming’s money, and I didn’t have much investment in them. The commercial firm and storefront should both belong to him, I just want the smithy.”
Liang Lan was the first to disagree, “Based on what? You’re the one managing the businesses on a day-to-day basis. If it wasn’t for you, not to mention the current thriving state of the businesses, this storefront might not even exist. If you give all of it to him, it’d be like deliberating closing your door on good fortune.”
Without waiting for Mo Yan to say anything, Lu Junming strode in and said, “Your cousin is right, giving these businesses to me would be akin to flushing them down the toilet. Before leaving this place to join the army, I already made arrangements to leave everything here to Mo Yan. Aside from the commercial firm and the storefront, every other business will belong to Mo Yan alone.”
“Are you also going to the capital?” Mo Yan asked.
Lu Junming shook his head, “No, I’m going to the army and I’m formally enlisting. This time, I won’t be under my father’s banner.”
He bade farewell to Liang Lan to Cao Zhang, “Now that I won’t be here, please take good care of Yan’er. I’ll be going now.”
He turned to leave, with extremely fast steps and without even looking back. Mo Yan rushed over, but didn’t call his name, just watching his horse gallop away.
The last time he left, he didn’t dare say goodbye because he was afraid of seeing Mo Yan’s sorrowful look. This time, he brazenly went to bid farewell, because she wouldn’t find it hard to say goodbye anymore.
On the eighth of the new year, the junior smith of the smithy Xiaowu came back to work, and Mo Yan asked him, “Can you make knives?” [1]
Xiaowu replied frightfully, “It’s a criminal offence to privately make weapons.”
“Who’s telling you to make weapons? I’m talking about vegetable and meat cleavers.”
Only then did Xiaowu let out the breath he’d been holding and raised up a hiltless vegetable cleaver on one of the racks, “Naturally, see, here’s a vegetable cleaver I made.”
Mo Yan took the cleaver blade and looked at it. It was just a commonplace vegetable cleaver used by any villagers, large and clumsy, with a dull blade. It would need to be sharpened thoroughly to chop meat.
“Brother Xiaowu, can you make it sharper?”
“Of course, after all, making iron into steel just requires a few more temperings and a few more heat treatments. With the additional effort and materials needed, the price will naturally also be higher. You obviously know how villagers are reluctant to spend money.”
“Just worry about the smithing. Aside from a sharp blade, the patterns also need to be more intricate. Don’t worry about the sales, I’ll take care of that.”
Xiaowu went to the back to light the forge and start hammering the iron, while someone delivered a new plaque for the smithy, “Humanity’s Smoke and Flames Knife Shop.” You could tell just by looking at the plaque that this shop sold knives.
Xiaowu worked the forge at the back, while Mo Yan watched over the store in the front. After half the day, Xiaowu made a new cleaver, attached a hilt, and sharpened the blade. Mo Yan wanted to find something to cut in order to test the edge.
She thought about how Ms. Liang tested her newly-sharpened scissors on cotton whenever the sharpener arrived. To test if a blade was sharp, it needed to be tested on something with elasticity. So obviously, she had to cut meat, especially animal skin.
There was meat at the Zhou family’s braised meat shop, so Mo Yan went over with her cleaver. Carrying a cleaver so brazenly on the road caught the eye of passersby.
There were people in town close to the Duan family, so they knew about the matters between Duan Caimei and Lu Junming. Seeing Mo Yan briskly walk with a cleaver, they thought she was going to seek revenge on the Duan family.
When Mo Yan arrived at the braised meat shop, she had already amassed a crowd of people behind her. When Zhou Liangsheng’s father saw this, he was shocked, “Yan’er, we haven’t had any transgressions towards each other, right? Why are you carrying a knife to my doorstep, what’s the reason?”
Holding her knife, Mo Yan looked at it and also thought something was off. Looking behind her, she saw a crowd of people follow behind her.
“Why are you following me?”
No one responded, so she was too lazy to care and handed the cleaver to Manager Zhou, “Uncle Zhou, this was the cleaver my smithy just forged, I want you to test whether the blade is sharp or not.”
When he heard she had come for this reason, Manager Zhou replied, “Don’t worry, it’s best to use pork skin to test the sharpness of a blade, I’ll try it out.”
P.S. The story just oscillates between ancient and modern thinking…thanks for reading.
[1] The same word is used for knife and cleaver in Chinese.