Wang Shijing still sat there. Watching Shao Yunan bring a basin of water in, he immediately wanted to get up. “There is no hot water. I will warm some. This water is too cold.”

“It’s for you and I don’t think you’re afraid of the cold.” Shao Yunan put the basin directly next to Wang Shijing. Anyway, the quilts were all wrapped up, so he was not afraid of wetting the bed. He wrung the cloth towel and gave it to Wang Shijing saying, “In the future, you don’t need to wear an eye patch if there are no outsiders around. The eye patch is not breathable and not good for your eye. You are the father of Wang Qing and Nizi, they need to get used to it. You wipe your eye and cover it for half a day. There is some dirt in the corners of your eyes.”

Wang Shijing vigorously squeezed the eye patch in his hand, then put it on the table before taking the cloth towel to wipe his eyes. In the meantime, Shao Yunan was busy saying, “Leave some water in the cloth, don’t twist it too dry.”

Wang Shijing wiped the corners of his eyes. He also knew that he had a lot of dirt in the corners of his eyes every day. He just hadn’t thought that Shao Yunan would get water for him to wipe his eyes. He didn’t know if it was because the water was prepared by Shao Yunan, but the water felt very cool when he wiped his eye. The burning pain and swelling that had been troubling him since the beginning of his injury had been eliminated by a lot.

“Wipe it a few more times, I’ll continue to speak.”

“Then speak.” Wang Shijing obediently wrung the cloth towel again and wiped his eyes.

“I told Aunt Wang that the money I got was from selling the stones and it was not entirely a lie. I had a few rare stones in my hand and I wanted to sell them for money. It was more convenient for me to hide a few stones instead of silver in the Shao family. Those few stones were peculiarly shaped, so I directly took them to the Butterfly Jewelry Pavilion to sell them.  Things are precious when they are rare, so the owner of the Butterfly Jewelry Pavilion offered me 500 taels of silver for the three stones. He also bought the design of these three stones, which they thought could be carved out of jade and sold for a large price. So I sold them.”

Wang Shijing’s one eye was full of surprise. Shao Yunan took out the piece of flesh stone that fooled Aunt Wang and said, “Here, I have another piece in my hand. It’s very special, isn’t it?”

Wang Shijing took it in amazement. This is a stone?”… “This is a stone?”

“Yes. Aunt Wang even took a bite to make sure it wasn’t meat.” Shao Yunan smiled wickedly. Wang Shijing’s brow wrinkled. “It’s a pity to sell such a peculiar stone. I should have given you the money earlier. How about seeing if you can redeem it? Those pawned jewelry can earn a lot of silver.”

Wang Shijing’s reaction exceeded Shao Yunan’s expectations, making his expression soften in an instant. He thought, ‘In fact, this person was a very honest and sincere person at heart.’

Shao Yunan said, “The three pieces I sold are not as peculiar as this one, so I had no problem with selling them. This jewelry can’t be pawned. It’s an antique and will be worth a lot of money in the future. You said that I will now be in charge of the family, then listen to me.” Please forgive Shao Yunan for unconsciously looking at jewelry from thousands of years ago with the eyes of a modern person.

Wang Shijing twisted his cloth towel and wiped his eyes for the third time.  He still wanted to say something else, but was interrupted by Shao Yunan. “You have been a soldier for three years, so you definitely had some adventures. It’s also normal to find some rare things and people would believe you if you said it. I might have to use it as cover in the future” 

“There are some things I can’t tell you about right now, but I will tell you everything when the time is right. So how could I explain to outsiders? When people ask, all you have to do is nod. If I say I picked up the stone, someone will inevitably ask where it was found, so it is more appropriate to put it on you. If there is something difficult to explain in the future, it would also be better to put it on you.”

Wang Shijing nodded, indeed it would be better to conceal Shao Yunan’s involvement. He also believed that the other side would tell him about those unknown things as their days together grow longer.

Shao Yunan then said, “You just said that you want to buy land to build a house. I mean, we can buy less land first and buy the house we live in first. It can always have other uses in the future. But the house we settle down in in the future should be bought somewhere else. I want the area to be bigger and quieter. I also don’t want so many residents around.” Wang Shijing replied, “I will listen to you. I will buy ten acres of land first.” 

“Well even if you buy more we can’t take care of it so it would only stir up some gossip. After all, we have no income. Umm, no income in the eyes of others. If we spend too much money, they will start to think about how much we sold these stones for. The house can still be built after the spring according to the original plan, but I will earn money openly and honestly before then.”

Wang Shijing said, “What do you want me to do? Just say it. I don’t have the same skills as you, so I’ll do whatever you want for the family.”

Shao Yunan restrained himself from raising the corners of his mouth and just raised the piece of paper he was writing on. “I thought of a few small businesses to earn money, but they are not my most ideal way to earn money. We can do some small business first and accumulate some original capital. When we get the opportunity, we can then do what I want.”

Wang Shijing immediately asked, “What do you want to do?” Shao Yunan was not shy in answering. “I want to sell tea and wine. I  have different tea-making skills and I can also brew different wines. But all this requires time and resources. It takes having your own tea trees and good grapes to make wine, so we need to find some seedlings first.”

When Wang Shijing heard this, he became extremely surprised. “You know how to make tea? Grapes? I have seen people grow grapes at the border. They would also make wine out of grapes, but they are very sour. I have tasted it and it doesn’t taste very good.” He deliberately ignored the obvious suspicion of how Shao Yunan, a person from Qingshan Village, could make tea and wine.

Shao Yunan became excited. “You have seen wine?” Wang Shijing nodded. “Some people would drink it, but it wasn’t very good. Sometimes there was also wine in the property we seized. It was said that this wine could only be bought by princes and aristocrats and was very expensive. There are merchants in this dynasty who also buy and sell it. Although it is not good, from what I heard, it is very valuable and only available in the capital. This is what I heard others say when we had nothing else to talk about.”

Shao Yunan became even more excited. “Then do you know where we can buy grape seedlings?” Wang Shijing said, “They are sold in the north, most being  closer to the border.”

“I want to go…” Shao Yunan was very excited. He had excellent grape seeds of his own, but he couldn’t take them out so abruptly. “Brother Shijing, can you find a way to help me get a batch of grape seedlings? Even grape seeds are fine, I know of a way to grow them.”

Wang Shijing nodded forcefully. “I have a brother in the army who is from there. I’ll write a letter and ask him to help me get some. Seedlings die easily, but seeds shouldn’t be too difficult. Which kind do you want? There seem to be many kinds of grapes.”

Shao Yunan wanted to shout, but he almost screamed out, “All of them!”

“Okay, I’ll write tomorrow.” After a moment of silence… “You write, I can only write a few words.”

“No problem!” Shao Yunan didn’t expect it to be so easy. Then, Wang Shijing gave him another big surprise when he heard him say, “There are wild tea trees in the mountains around here. Some villagers would pick tea leaves and sell them. You can move a few plants and then cultivate some seedlings. The mountain on the west is not far from the village and there are no wild animals in the mountains, but I have seen wild tea trees there. You can remove all the ones over there.”

Edited by: Jaisland

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