Chapter 444: Shock

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 Chapter 443: Attitude

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  Chapter 166: Trouble Knocks on the Door (9)

Mo Yan remembered that in her past life, after a house was renovated, it usually needed to be left vacant for about six months before people could move in. If their house had to wait for half a year as well, wouldn't they have to wait until next year to live in it?

Thinking that her daughter was eager to move into the new house, Mo Qingze smiled and said, "If you're in a hurry, once the house is decorated and the walls are dry, we can add some furniture and move in. Then, we can pick a good day to warm the house and invite friends and family to celebrate. If you're not in a hurry, we can move in on the day of warming the house."

So soon? Mo Yan was taken aback for a moment, then realized that this wasn't the modern era with chemicals and various additives everywhere. The paint and lime powder in this era were naturally processed and didn't contain harmful substances like formaldehyde. They could move in whenever they wanted.

"How long will the decoration take? Let's just decide on the day for warming the house while we're at it," she said, eager to move in.

Mo Qingze thought for a moment and replied, "Our house is quite large, so the decoration will take about half a month, and another half a month for the walls to dry. Plus, the house needs to be thoroughly cleaned, so altogether it will take more than a month. None of these days are quite suitable."

It was already May 20th. The farthest of these good days was June 28th, which wouldn't leave enough time for warming the house. There were no good days in July either. It would have to be in August at least.

Mo Yan also thought of this. August it is then. They had already waited for more than half a year, so she didn't mind waiting for these three more months. But since the house was already built, it was time to invite the carpenters from the city to measure the house and make furniture.

The father and daughter discussed some details and then went about their own business.

Mo Yan went to inspect each room in the house and found that the structure was exactly as she had envisioned it. Some details were even more perfect under Master Lu's careful craftsmanship.

She walked around in the courtyard, observing the progress of the workers, and made some suggestions to Master Lu about certain areas.

After careful consideration, Master Lu felt that these small suggestions would make the layout of the courtyard more harmonious with the house, and he would improve it according to Mo Yan's suggestions.

Mo Yan admired Master Lu's character. Although he was highly skilled in construction and was already a master in his field, he was not stubborn. When faced with the opinions of others, if they were good, he would gladly accept them and sincerely thank the person. If he felt that they were not suitable, he would patiently explain why they wouldn't work, always managing to convince others with his sincerity.

It was no wonder that within a few short years, Master Lu's construction team had become famous throughout the capital city. Even though he was just a humble bricklayer, people didn't look down on him because of his identity. Besides having real skills, there must have been some personal charm!

With nothing else to do, Mo Yan sat in the grass shed, bored, and looked at the account book her father had organized. When she saw the total cost of building the house on the last page, she couldn't help but be amazed.

Although she knew that building a house would cost a lot of money, she didn't expect that just building a bare house would cost nearly six hundred taels. The biggest expenditure was the purchase of bricks, stones, wood, and tiles, totaling four hundred taels. The remaining hundred or so taels were the wages paid to the villagers.

As for the wages of Master Lu and his team, they would be calculated separately after the house was completed. Based on their skills, they would need at least three hundred taels.

Mo Yan secretly calculated the cost of decoration and the subsequent custom-made furniture, which would probably require another six hundred taels of silver, nearly half more than her initial budget of eight hundred taels. No wonder she often saw her father sighing over the account book. It turned out that they had spent too much money.

Fortunately, they still had some savings at home. Otherwise, as soon as the house was built, they would immediately go from being landlords to poor farmers. The disparity was simply too great!

Although the money spent was quite a lot, Mo Yan felt that it was worth it to live in a spacious and comfortable house in the future.

Isn't the lifelong effort of a person all about having enough to eat, wear, live, and travel? If you have the ability to enjoy a high-quality life, why should you compromise and settle for less?

In Mo Yan's view, as long as what you earn is with your own hands, there's nothing wrong with eating well, living well, and dressing well, as long as you don't squander and waste recklessly.

"Don't stop me, today I must seek justice! The Mo family has made a fortune and built a nice house, but they want to harm their fellow villagers. I want to see if their hearts are black!"

As Mo Yan continued to flip through the account book, she heard the noisy voices outside, faintly hearing the loudest voice mentioning the Mo family. She quickly stood up and walked out...

▶▶The Peasant Girl’s Splendid Manor

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 Chapter 939: Large Dormitory

The Lai family had many siblings, so they had opened a food shop in town and were busy with it.

During busy farming seasons, Lai Jin Hai would usually go to Shishi Village to help his father-in-law, Lu Dasong, with some work. But now it seemed that he was driven here by Cui Hua to help with the house construction.

Cui Hua, as the eldest cousin, was truly worthy of being the eldest granddaughter of the Lu family.

When Shu Yu's carriage stopped at the mansion gate, the villagers of Shishi Village, who were resting, stood up and craned their necks to look this way.

They each held a small bowl of water. On such a hot day, Ying Dong couldn't let them suffer from the long journey without even drinking water.

Lu Erbai got off the mule cart and immediately spotted Liang Wangsheng standing at the corner. Seeing how much thinner he looked than before, Lu Erbai felt a tinge of sadness.

He patted Lai Jin Hai's shoulder and then greeted Fan Da Bao and the others, "It's hot outside. Don't stand here. Come inside and rest for a while."

Everyone was carrying their bundles, so at Shu Yu and Lu Erbai's words, they followed them into the mansion.

They had already noticed how large the house was from the outside, but now, as they passed through the shadow wall and looked up, they realized that their imagination had been narrow.

Was this really a three-section courtyard?

Some of them had worked in the three-section courtyards of wealthy families before, but no one had seen a house better than the one before their eyes.

They whispered among themselves, marveling at the prosperity of the Lu family. Lu Erbai had almost bankrupted himself trying to find this daughter, but perhaps even Heaven couldn't bear to see that. Now, the compensation they received was truly the envy of others.

Apart from the servants of the Lu family, there were also Zheng Gong and the group of laborers who arrived yesterday.

These people had been busy working since yesterday. Now, upon seeing Lu Erbai arrive, they just raised their hands to greet him before getting back to work.

The villagers from Shishi Village, seeing this, didn't want to be outdone and immediately rolled up their sleeves to join in.

They had come here to work, not to visit.

Lu Erbai quickly stopped them and pointed to the bundles in their hands. "There's no rush. Put your things down first."

As he spoke, he led them to the reception room.

The reception room originally had several rooms with broken doors and windows. But yesterday, materials were delivered, and they had hired workers, so Lu Erbai had them repair the doors and windows and tidy up the rooms.

However, the conditions were naturally limited, and they were all sharing a large dormitory.

Lu Erbai stood at the entrance of one of the rooms and said, "This is where we sleep at night. We'll be working for a while, and although there are rooms available, many of them haven't been fixed yet, so we'll have to squeeze for now. There are about three rooms like this, and you can discuss among yourselves where to stay."

"It's already great," He Ping said as he walked around the room. "When we used to work for other employers, their rooms weren't even this big. They were cramped dormitories where it was hard for ten people to even turn over."

But now they had three rooms, and with eighteen people sharing, each room would have six people, which was quite spacious.

The others nodded in agreement.

Lu Erbai smiled at their response. It was true, he had experienced such living conditions in the past.

"Alright then. If you need anything, come find me. If I'm not around, find Zheng Gong or Ying Dong."

Everyone agreed and quickly discussed which room to stay in. Then they put down their bundles and prepared to start working.

Seeing this, Lu Erbai could only assign tasks to them.

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  Chapter 165: Trouble Knocks on the Door (8)

Once the water boiled, Mo Yan put the raw chestnuts into the pot, added a small amount of salt, covered the pot, and after about five minutes, she took out the chestnuts and cut them open with a knife. With a peel and a strip, the chestnut skins came off along with the shell.

After removing all the chestnut skins, Mo Yan put them into a steamer to steam. In no time, they were cooked. She then cut these chestnuts into small pieces, ground them with a rolling pin until they turned into fine powder, and mixed them with glutinous rice flour and regular flour in a ratio of three to two to one.

After adding some Spirit Spring water and honey and thoroughly kneading the dough, she shaped it into a round cake and placed it in the steamer. When the water boiled and the steamer was put on, the sweet fragrance of chestnuts soon filled the air.

The sweet aroma of chestnuts was very strong. As soon as the hot steam rose, Xiao Hua couldn't wait any longer. It licked its lips and ran over, circling around the steamer eagerly, listening to the bubbling sound inside the pot, wishing it could use its claws to lift the lid and take a look.

After steaming for a while longer, Mo Yan removed the remaining firewood. Once the chestnut cake in the steamer had cooled down, she picked up a knife and cut the whole cake into matchbox-sized pieces, arranging several plates of them.

"Here, this plate is all yours." She placed a plate in front of Xiao Hua, whose saliva had already dripped onto the ground.

Xiao Hua whimpered excitedly, pouncing over and devouring one-fifth of the plate of chestnut cakes.

Mo Yan chuckled and tried one herself. Hmm, the taste was better than the chestnut cakes in the pastry shop, not as overly sweet, with a richer chestnut fragrance.

After they had their fill, they exited the space. Mo Yan lay on the bed, lost in thought, while Xiao Hua obediently lay on the cotton mattress under the bed, licking its lips contentedly and soon fell asleep.

The next day, Mo Yan took Xiao Hua and went to Liuyang Village with Li Zhong. These days, the new house was being built, and the yard needed to be arranged. Some details needed to be adjusted, and she had to go and see for herself.

Arriving at the construction site, Mo Yan took out a cloth bag filled with chestnut cakes from the space and hung it around Xiao Hua's neck, letting it take it to Da Bai to eat.

Xiao Hua licked her and then trotted away.

Mo Yan stood in front of the new house, looking at its structure, and felt a strange sense of satisfaction. From now on, this would be her home!

"Yan'er, come here, Dad has something to discuss with you."

Mo Qingze stood in front of the grass shed, beckoning to Mo Yan. When she approached, he took out a piece of paper and said, "These are the dates Dad asked the old man in the village to calculate. They're all auspicious days. Which day do you think would be good for the topping-out ceremony?"

Topping-out ceremony? Mo Yan suddenly remembered that there was still such a thing.

The topping-out ceremony was like a crowning ceremony for people, connecting the construction of temples, the universe, gods, and humans. The common people attached great importance to it. Not only did they have to choose the right day, but there were also a series of complex rituals, which couldn't be taken lightly at all.

Mo Yan took the paper from her father's hand and looked at the dates on it. She found that the nearest day was May 26th, followed by June 6th and June 22nd. Without hesitation, she pointed to June 6th. "Our house started construction on March 6th, so June 6th would be perfect for the topping-out ceremony."

Mo Qingze nodded with a smile. He also favored this day. "Alright, there aren't many things left to do at the construction site. Dad will go and prepare for the topping-out ceremony in a couple of days."

Mo Yan nodded. The topping-out ceremony was a big event, not something that ordinary women and girls could handle. Her father allowing her to choose the day for the topping-out ceremony already showed his openness.

"By the way, Dad, after the topping-out ceremony, the house will need some decoration. When do you think we can move in?"

▶▶The Peasant Girl’s Splendid Manor

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 Chapter 938: Excited Three

"Lu Shu You?" Shu Yu looked at Da Ya.

Zhao Xi immediately explained, "I think, for Da Ya, nothing else matters as much as being relaxed and carefree, free from the burdens of life. To live comfortably is the most important thing, right? 'You Ran Zi De' (leisurely and carefree) sounds suitable, doesn't it?"

Yes, Da Ya had suffered too much in the past few years, and the weight of life had made it hard for her to breathe. A carefree life was the best for her.

So everyone looked at Da Ya again. She wished she could bury her head in the ground, but everyone saw her gently nod and mumble, "I think... it's good."

Shu Yu secretly clicked her tongue. Her eldest sister was still too naive. Look at how proud Zhao Xi looked.

Seeing his smug expression, even Meng Yunzheng couldn't bear it. He stood up and said, "Since the names have been decided, we will take our leave now. It's getting late, and we'll disturb you another day."

Zhao Xi had already come for nothing tonight, so he nodded cleanly. He was afraid that if he stayed any longer, Da Ya would go back into hiding.

The three members of the Lu family's second household had changed their names and needed to go to the government office to update their records. They had a lot to do.

But the three people who changed their names were all too excited and fell asleep chanting their new names.

So the next day, when the old lady called for San Ya, the little girl immediately corrected her, saying, "Grandma, I'm called Lu Shu Ning now."

"So what?"

"So from now on, call me Ah Ning." She acted as if it were obvious, leaving the old lady speechless.

Shu Yu stood by and couldn't help but laugh. San Ya was truly "terrifying" when she had a new name.

San Ya was very proud of her new name and ran out to play with her little friends after breakfast.

Da Hu couldn't wait to grab his backpack and go to school. His intentions were clear.

Da Ya tried to remain composed, but the joy on her face couldn't be concealed.

Shu Yu chuckled and shook her head. She didn't expect changing their names to have such a profound impact on them.

After breakfast, Shu Yu went with Lu Erbai to the government office to register the name changes with Xiang Weinan.

Due to her special status, the county office quickly handled the matter, and their household registration was updated.

However, even so, it took some time. When they went back to the mansion, the uncles and elders from Shishi Village had already arrived.

Leading them was Fan Da Bao, the son of the village chief. He was quite well-known in the village.

But in the county, especially when he saw the grand mansion in front of him, he couldn't help but feel anxious and didn't dare to enter. Even when Ying Dong inside the mansion heard the commotion and invited them in, he waved his hand.

After all, he was familiar with the Lu family, but they were not present. He felt uneasy and insisted on waiting at the gate.

The others followed suit and huddled at the gate.

So when Shu Yu and Lu Erbai arrived, they saw eighteen or nineteen people standing at the gate.

Yes, in addition to the original thirteen people they recruited, there were also Liang Wang Sheng, the Li family's uncles and nephews, Liang family's uncle, and someone who surprised Shu Yu was Cui Hua's husband, Lai Jin Hai.

Shu Yu had only seen Lai Jin Hai once before. Afterwards, with so many things happening, she didn't even have time to meet Cui Hua.

It seemed that Cui Hua had heard the news and asked her husband to come and help.

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 Chapter 75: Scuffle

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