Transmigrated Farmgirl's Scheme to Get Rich - Chapter 250
Collecting Cotton
After returning to Qianshui Town, Chi Jie told Ze Wu not to tell anyone about Mo Yan’s stealing the groom under any circumstances.
At night, Mo Yan sat under the lamp and read the dictionary to find a name for Zao’er.
She wrote down the words with good meanings and then carefully considered them from the perspective of their pronunciations and meanings.
Xi, Xi, Ye… [1]
She was reading the book when Mo Ling coaxed Zao’er to sleep and came to her room. “Yan’er, today I saw you and Mr. Chi came back together, talking and laughing. Did you…”
“Sister, I just talked with him a bit, is this against etiquette?”
“No, I just think…”
“I won’t discuss marriage, I won’t marry, if my hand is forced, I will find a monastery and become a nun.”
“Okay, okay, I won’t ask further, but if you need anything, please tell me.”
Mo Yan picked up the paper on the table. “These are the names I thought of for Zao’er, see which one you like.”
Mo Ling glanced at the paper. “These characters are so difficult to write, I don’t know any of them. Now you’ve asked me to read them, are you making fun of my illiteracy?”
Mo Yan put the paper down, “It’s my fault, why not let Zao’er choose by himself tomorrow?”
“He can’t even speak a complete sentence, how can I choose?”
Mo Yan folded the paper in half from the blank spaces between the characters and tore off the characters one by one, “Just like the grasping ceremony, whichever he grabs is the one. Sis, don’t worry, the meanings of these characters are all very good, I picked them out personally.” [2]
“That is a pretty good way of doing it.”
The half moon climbed up the sky, the sound of insects outside the window rose and fell, a crow cried, and a black shadow flew past the window.
The order was for 60,000 winter clothes, each of which only needed 4 taels of cotton, but they had to be sewn tightly.
In the winter in the north, winter clothes with 4 taels of cotton wouldn’t keep out the cold anyway. Why did this order go to their unknown small workshop?
Mu Yan didn’t dare to think any further. She was now the general manager of the workshop, and would be held responsible if the order was delayed.
The next day, Mo Ling had brought Zao’er to Mo Yan’s place before she had woken up. After being woken up, she found that it was already noon. Mo Ling couldn’t wait any longer to go to the shop.
She saw the names she wrote last night on the table in front of the window, so she took Zao’er over and said, “Zao’er, pick one and choose a name for yourself.”
Zao’er looked and touched each, as if he was really choosing carefully. Finally, he picked up the character “Ye” and gave it to Mo Yan. Mo Yan smiled and said, “You like this word, great! Then you will be called Zhong Ye in the future, which means prosperity and vitality.”
Zao’er could already speak very simply and said, “I’m hungry.”
Mo Ling had left rice in the pot. After Mo Yan and Zao’er ate, she pushed him to the workshop in his stroller. The workshop was large, convenient for Zao’er to play in. Once the door was closed, he could not run out.
In the office, Mo Yan and Chi Jie discussed how to complete the order. The first priority was to collect cotton.
One winter coat required four taels of cotton, and sixty thousand required twenty-four thousand kilograms of cotton. One hectare of land produced three thousand kilograms of cotton, so eight hectares’ worth of cotton had to be purchased.
This was not difficult. A notice was posted, and cotton farmers were paid a deposit of fifteen silver taels per hectare. The remaining money would be paid after the cotton was delivered. This way, there would be no fear of not being able to receive cotton by then.
This was the first time that someone had paid a deposit to buy the crops before they were harvested. The cotton farmers were very happy, while those who didn’t plant cotton regretted their decision.
The news was passed back to Chenzhong Village. Mrs. Liang kept complaining that she could not benefit from Mo Yan’s policy. If she had known earlier, she would have planted cotton on their two acres of land, which was more valuable than wheat.
Government official Wu’s family had planted two acres of cotton. Xiaoyue usually took time to take care of it with her sister Xiaomei, and didn’t expect there to be such a good market for cotton this year.
Knowing that the workshop had received another large order, Xiaoyue said happily, “This time, it must be the same as last time, and I can take the work home to do.”
Dagan said, “You can’t exert yourself too much now. Just stay at home to take care of the baby, and I’ll earn money for us.”
Xiaoyue found out that she was pregnant only after they had been married for more than a year. Both families were very happy. As agreed on beforehand, the child still took Dagan’s family name. Seeing that the villagers didn’t say anything, Dagang’s mother was no longer bothered about her son living with his father-in-law.
Now her two younger sons had grown up, they could do the work in the fields, and go out to make money in their spare time. She worked as a helper in the Cao family, and had a monthly salary, so their days were much less painful than before.
As life got better, people became more open-minded. Her relationship with Mrs. Liang was no longer hostile. They could talk and laugh when they met, and became good neighbours.
When Mo Zenian heard that the workshop had received a large order, his first reaction was that they had made a lot of money!
Xiuying was extremely jealous, causing her to be disgruntled at Mo Ling and her husband. Whenever they smiled, she thought that they must have gained a massive benefit from Mo Yan.
Mo Yan had been close to her sister since she was a child, and now they lived together every day, her money was Mo Ling’s to spend. In Mo Yan’s eyes, her sister-in-law was just an outsider, and she wasn’t even as close to Xiuying’s son.
Mo Yan took care of Zao’er every day, and paid attention to his affairs, but she had never cared about Jing’er.
Xiuying was busy running their small store all day but they didn’t make much money. She had the idea of ??going back to the workshop again, and wanted Mrs. Liang to take care of the shop.
When she went home and told Mrs. Liang, she didn’t disagree. After all, Xiuying just wanted to make more money. But Mrs. Liang didn’t know if she could take care of her grandson and the shop alone.
Her son was really just a decoration. He looked fine standing in the shop, but as soon as he moved, his movements looked awkward.
Xiuying went to Mo Yan and said she wanted to go back to the workshop. Mo Yan didn’t think much about it at the time, since Xiuying just wanted to go to the workshop to work and earn a salary, so she agreed.
Mo Ling looked at the people in the shop opposite hers. It had gone from Xiuying to Mrs. Liang, but Mo Feng was still as lazy as before.
Mo Jing was playing in his stroller, Mrs. Liang was making side dishes in the storefront, while Mo Ling was also doing the same opposite her. After a while, customers came in, looked at both shops, and finally bought from Mo Ling’s.
Mrs. Liang was puzzled. Mo Ling learned how to make side dishes from her, so why did those customers buy from Mo Ling instead of her?
Mrs. Liang couldn’t help it, so she went to the shop opposite to take a look. There were not many side dishes on display there that were the same as theirs. They were all freshly prepared in the morning, and the ones with the least left were coir cucumbers, assorted vegetables, cold bean curd sheets, dried tofu and celery, etc.
“These tofu products are so popular, prepare some for us tomorrow.”
When two businesses are opposite each other, it would cause drama for one to copy from the other, and Mrs. Liang actually went to Mo Ling’s door to ask for stock. But she was Mo Ling’s mother. Mo Ling didn’t want to have a quarrel with her in front of everyone else.
“Okay, how much do you want?”
“Just the same amount you sell every day, roughly the same is fine. We live close to each other anyways, and you can send me more if it’s not enough.”
P.S. Will be busy this weekend, so please don’t expect a chapter for the rest of the week. Thanks for reading!
[1] The English spellings are the same, but I promise it’s not a typo, those two ‘Xi’s are two different Chinese characters.
[2] The grasping ceremony is a crude translation of an ancient Chinese ceremony where a newborn grabs one of a few items in front of it. Whichever item it grabs is symbolic of the child’s future occupation, like a book for a scholar.