Chapter 981: The Peasant Girl’s Splendid Manor
Chapter 981: Autumn Harvest and Seeking a Physician (2)
Up to now, Mo Yan had never personally visited the farmstead. If Xin'er hadn't mentioned it today, she might have forgotten about it again.
Now that the crops on the estate were about to be harvested, it was indeed time to make a trip. So Mo Yan said to Xin'er, “There’s too much going on these couple of days, I don’t have time to go. Let’s wait until Father and the others return, then we’ll be free to go together and take a look.”
Xin’er cheered, clapping her hands in excitement. “Great! I’ve been wanting to see it for a long time! The whole estate is ours—maybe it even looks better than our home!”
Mo Yan gently tapped Xin’er’s forehead and said helplessly, “If you wanted to go, why didn’t you say so earlier? But last time the steward came by, he gave a brief report about the estate. Besides farmland, there’s also a very large residence. The scenery is said to be quite beautiful. If it’s really like that, we could stay there for a few days as a family now and then. It would be a nice change of pace.”
Xin’er replied a bit shyly, “At the time, Father was studying hard, Zhen’er and the others were rarely home, and you’re always busy, Sister. It wouldn’t have been any fun going alone.”
Mo Yan smiled, patted Xin’er’s head, and said, “Then wait just a couple more days. There’s still a lot to do at home right now.”
“Mhm, I know. The estate won’t run away—it’ll be there no matter when we go,” Xin’er said cheerfully, her bright eyes full of anticipation.
After chatting a while longer, the sisters parted ways. Mo Yan picked up the abacus and started tallying up the materials recently purchased.
Tasks like harvesting from the orchard and rice fields could be left to others, but the materials for building the housing for the three hundred soldiers and the third phase of the winery’s construction had to be handled personally by her.
Some payments for materials had already been completed, which made organizing easier. But there were still scattered items that hadn’t all arrived yet and needed to be sorted again. Doing the accounting this way was a bit tedious. Fortunately, Mo Yan was quick-minded and used modern calculation methods, so she managed to get things sorted rather quickly.
Just as she put down her pen and stretched, ready to get up and cut some watermelon, Yang Bao knocked on the door and entered.
“Yan girl, the wood beams we cut a while ago have dried out pretty well, and most of the bricks and tiles you ordered have arrived. When do you plan to start construction? Once the date’s confirmed, the villagers can also plan around the autumn harvest.”
Previously, Mo Yan had hired quite a few workers to go into the mountains to cut timber for beams, and that was when the villagers learned the Mo family was building houses again. Although they didn’t know where the houses would be or what they were for, just the three hundred wood beams drying at the site already made it clear the houses were going to be large-scale.
Building eighty to ninety houses in a month wasn’t an easy task—it required a lot of manpower. So Mo Yan had already spread word about the hiring ahead of time, and the daily wages were ten wen higher than in the city. As a result, not only did laborers from Liuyang Village aim for the job, but people from neighboring villages also came daily to inquire, hoping to earn a share of the wages.
That was exactly the effect Mo Yan wanted. In addition to the villagers who had helped in her previous house construction, she also asked the village heads of several nearby villages to help screen and recommend hardworking, capable laborers from their own communities. All of them agreed readily and quickly sent over lists of names.
Now, all the laborers had been gathered—a total of two hundred people. As long as there were no rainy days, the houses could be built within a month. After that, they’d be aired and ventilated for another month, just in time for the three hundred border soldiers to be brought back by Qi Nan.
Mo Yan had already planned out the construction start date, so she said to Yang Bao, “The sixth day of the eighth lunar month, which is the day after tomorrow, is an auspicious day for breaking ground. I plan to start construction then. I was going to inform the villagers tomorrow, but you’ve already come by, Uncle Yang. If building the houses will delay the autumn harvest, then let’s have everyone focus on the harvest first—it won’t hurt to start two days later.”
(End of Chapter)
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