Goldfield
Chapter 201: Mountain Manor

Afterwards, Empress Jing and Madam Fang began to mince words. Since settling in the seaside residence, he has hardly ever left home because of his health. He listened as Madam Fang spoke of Dongshan Village, which was surrounded by mountains and the sea. It had an amazing sight, and from time to time, one could also meet a cute little animal. After hearing his explanation, he was eager to see it in his heart.

After sending Lady Fang and her daughter, Empress Jing pondered about how this was not her youngest son's last sea voyage. He knew the character of his youngest son very well. Even if he tried to stop her from leaving, he still would not change the decision he had made.

‘Ay, I want to know who is’er similar ah!’ His father was polite and refined, while he was gentle and polite. The eldest son and both also had relatively gentle temperaments. Only his youngest son was different. She was still fine before the age of five, gentle and adorable. But, after the age of seven or eight, his face looked paralyzed. He had a cold expression all day, and his eyes grew sharper.

‘It was all his father's fault. Why did he get a martial arts teacher for the kids? Look how they all changed. One stopped being a scholar and wanted to go to the border to join the army, while the other went on a journey without fear at all.

While traveling, it seemed like he could not return in three to five months. So, how could he not worry about her? Dongshan Village was close to the sea, so he could see far into the distance of the sea while standing on the top of the mountain slope. He should be able to see immediately when Yang’er returns, right?

Therefore, Empress Jing made the decision to build a mountain palace in the Western Mountains. Although there were no hot springs, good farmland, or beautiful surroundings in the Western Mountains, it was a place that made him feel as if he was closer to his youngest son, he said, that's what he needs! (Author's note: No wonder the second son is dissatisfied. As a mother, she was actually more biased towards her youngest son. Moreover, he was extremely biased ah!)

Once Empress Jing made her decision, it was almost impossible to change her mind. As long as it made sense, most people also did not want to disappoint him. When the news reached the capital, Prince Jing immediately agreed. Not to mention a small noble house, even if he wanted to build three or five mountain villas, as long as the princess consort was happy, would he, the dignified Imperial Prince Jing, be, not spending money to build it?

As a result, Prince Jing mobilized a number of landscape architects from the Ministry of Works, hired several famous residential architects in the capital, and sent them all to the small town of Tanggu with the artisans. Making use of his rest days, he took another ten days and went to Tanggu City to personally make arrangements for the early stages of the project.

Princess Empress Jing had decided to build a mountain manor on a hillside near Dongshan Village, which was not too far from Madam Fang's residence. The doctor who accompanied Princess Empress Jing also said that it was good for the princess's health to climb mountains and exercise regularly.

The Prince of Jing Empire would naturally not agree. He personally took landscape architects and craftsmen, and chose a place in the Western Mountains with excellent fengshui. It faces south with its back to the north. After that, he recruited more workers from the nearby village. Within a few days, construction began to run smoothly.

On the way back to Tanggu City, Prince Jing was afraid that the bumpy mountain roads would make the precious empress uncomfortable, so he ordered a group of people to fix the road. Masons were specially employed to repair the most rugged parts of the mountain roads. Even if they had to carve it, they had to make a smooth and flat road.

When generous gifts are offered, brave men will surely come forward. Prince Jing's estate was not short of money, so they could offer high salaries. Although there was a limited construction period, it still attracted a group of people. The road construction is going very fast. By the time the Xiaocao family watermelon came out of the market, there was a smooth path that directly led to the city from Dongshan Village. It used to take a horse-drawn carriage more than an hour to reach the city, but now it took less than forty-five minutes. All the villagers around him praised Prince Jing for doing a good deed.

Speaking of Dongshan Village, when they heard that a prince was going to build a palace in their village, they felt honored and a little uneasy. They were afraid that high officials would like their small land and snatch it from them. Seeing that the nobility had chosen a place in the Western Mountains, the villagers of Dongshan Village slowly felt relieved.

Now, the head of Dongshan Village walked everywhere with his back straight. Their Dongshan village is definitely a valuable area with excellent fengshui. Otherwise, why would so many members of the imperial family love this place so much?

The village chief had interacted with the manager of the Prince Jing Plantation several times. He felt that the servants of the Prince Jing Plantation were quite reasonable and did not have the bad habits of the other noble house servants.

The village chief had personally sent a lot of good things to the undertaker and asked him to convey some kind words about Dongshan Village in front of his master. As the saying goes: ‘easier to enjoy the wind while leaning on the big tree’. In the future, if some unwise person came to cause trouble in Dongshan Village, the people in the mountain manor would not ignore him, right?

The mountain house of the Prince Jing Household was busy with construction. After more than a month of bustling business, the Yu Family watermelon finally sold out. That night, when Yu Xiaocao took out an account book and summed up the totals, the entire family had shocked expressions on their faces.

With the mystical stone water as a trick, each melon field had produced over ten thousand catties of watermelon. So, three mu of land has produced over thirty-five thousand catties of watermelon! In addition to selling them in their own melon shop, they also sold some to Wang Ergou and Xiaocao's maternal uncles at wholesale prices. They have sold nearly ten thousand catty melons as wholesalers. If they were to count them based on one catty worth one hundred and fifty copper coins, then the total would be one thousand and five hundred taels. Twenty-five thousand catties of the rest are sold in watermelon stores at slightly higher prices. This way, based on Xiaocao's simple calculations, they had earned nearly ten thousand taels !!

Yu Hai swallowed his saliva hard and took a deep breath. This past month has been very busy, but he never expected that growing watermelon would be so profitable!

Half a year ago, they were still living in poverty and did not even have enough grains to eat. Now, they had become rich people with ten thousand taels of silver! Even in the city, ten thousand taels was also considered a sizable amount of money for a family to have!

Yu Xiaocao looked at the stunned expression on his family members and said with a smile, “Dad, Mother! What are you planning to do with this money? Do you want to keep it in the bank, or use it to buy houses and land? ”

Yu Hai thought about it and said, “Take some to fix the old residence. As for the rest of the money, should we buy a good farm near the city? Your three lands our family too little! If we buy more land, we can plant more watermelon next year.

With her lips tightly clenched, Madam Liu smiled and said, “If there is a suitable store, we can also buy some. Two Xiaocao shops are located in a nice area! It is also easy to rent. Our melon shop just closed, but there were already people asking if we would rent it out. Just by collecting one year of rent, we can earn around a thousand taels for one storefront. If the children each had two sheds, they would not have to worry about their future livelihoods! ”

Yu Hai slowly nodded his head in agreement, “Mhm! Then let's buy some more shops.I think we can also buy a house in the city. In the future, we will probably spend more time in the city, so at that time, we will also have a place to live. After all, this is our ancestral home. Even if Little Shitou made a name for herself through her studies, she would still have to return to her hometown to pay her respects to her ancestors! ” Yu Hai is still quite strongly tied in the place where he was born and raised.

Yu Xiaocao said with a smile, “Let's expand the old residence in the autumn. However, the most important thing right now is to plow the soil and plant the yam! ”

Yu Hai nodded repeatedly and said, “That's right! I was so happy that I almost forgot about it! It is now early summer, so if we plant sweet potatoes, we can harvest them before it snows! Actually, growing watermelon is a very good idea. It does not affect the agricultural season at all!

The next day, Yu Hang asked Xiaocao to help collect marine items at home as he went to work in the fields with their parents. After they dug up the melon seedlings, they used two whole days to plow three mu of their soil. Xiaocao has also carried out the task of breeding sweet potato seeds. This was mainly because he wanted to use mystic stone water to breed seedlings. So, being in charge of this task will make him more comfortable using his cheat. After all, it was rather late to plant seedlings now.

Xiaocao cultivated a plot of land near his house to plant seedlings and asked Yu Hai to cover the area with a bamboo fence to prevent small animals from the mountain from damaging the plants at night. He took out carefully selected sweet potato seeds and neatly arranged them in the plowed soil, and then covered them with a flat layer of soil. After planting the seeds, Xiaocao immediately doused the fields with water mixed with mystical stone water in appropriate quantities. Fortunately, it was now early summer and the temperature was quite suitable for germination of sweet potato seeds, so he did not need to do anything to keep them warm.

When helping her daughter cultivate the seeds, Yu Hai kept nagging about how they should have thought of planting the sweet potato sprouts first, wondering if this would delay the farming period, and so on.

Fortunately, Xiaocao had a small holy stone as his secret weapon. Although it usually took him over a month to breed the seedlings, it only took him a dozen days to complete the task. In addition to the donation of mystical stone water, the small holy stone also helped a lot. Under Xiaocao's orders, he ‘uses his power’ on the buds that grow daily. Strong energy accelerates the growth of sweet potatoes.

Half a month later, when Yu Hai was urged by his daughter to gather sweet potato sprouts and plant them in the fields, he asked in surprise, “How does a sweet potato seedling grow so fast? Has it been twenty days? Cao’er, your breeding method is quite good. It saves a lot of time! ”

Yu Xiaocao replied indistinctly, “Perhaps because we are getting relatively suitable temperatures and rainfall lately. The weather is sunny for plants, so seedlings grow relatively faster. Looks like it's going to rain. Let's work faster and try planting all the yam before it rains! ”

Yu Hai stopped thinking about the problem about the growth period of the sweet potato seedlings. He quickly collected the first sweet potato seedlings, transferred them to the plowed fields, and planted them. With the whole family working, they finished sowing the sweet potato seedlings in less than a day. It was raining that night, so they did not even need to water the rice fields.

After being nourished with mystical stone water, sweet potato seedlings are not only resistant to drought and high temperatures, but also resistant to diseases and insects. The sweet potatoes in the Yu Family field look different every day and grow very well. All the villagers praised Yu Hai for being an outstanding farmer.

In the days that followed, the Xiaocao family lived a very happy life. Madam Zhang was still feeling scared, so she did not dare to come to make trouble. Although Madam Li occasionally came to chat shamelessly with Madam Liu, she was afraid to act wickedly due to the pretense of Xiaocao's godparents.

Madam Fang basically settled in Dongshan Village and rarely returned to the plantations in the city. The two families lived close together, so they increasingly interacted with each other. When the Yu Family was busy, Madam Fang would also change her fancy clothes to help collect vegetables, take care of the vegetable garden, and the others.

After more than a month of quiet life, Lady Fang fell in love with this relaxed and comfortable lifestyle. Every day, he would climb mountains, take walks on the beach, accompany the children to collect seafood by the sea, and then turn the seafood he personally collected into luxury food … Madam Fang felt very relaxed, both physically and mentally. He was much happier than when he had to go on the air to entertain all kinds of people in the capital every day, whether he liked them or not.