From Hoarding to Time-Travel: My Supplies Saved Him

Chapter 323: Chapter 324: The Dilapidated Small Manor

Gu Benluo’s little face turned serious. "Mother, I’ll stick close to you. I won’t let the kidnappers snatch me away."

Jin Qianqian patted his head but still ordered someone to call for a few more guards. It would put her mind at ease.

"Mother, where are we going?" Gu Benluo saw the bustling crowds on the street and had long been eager to get down and run around, but the carriage just wouldn’t stop.

Jin Qianqian handed the sleeping Gu Ben Can to the nanny beside them and watched the scenery outside with Gu Benluo. "Yesterday, Mother just acquired a small estate. Since we have some free time today, I thought we’d go take a look."

Gu Benluo’s expression fell. "What’s fun about an estate? You can’t even buy anything there."

Jin Qianqian bent down to his eye level. "Is buying things the only thing that’s fun?"

"Yes. You can buy things we don’t have at home."

Jin Qianqian asked, "Then does Luo Luo know what you need to buy things?"

"You pay with silver," Gu Benluo blurted out without a second thought, looking at Jin Qianqian with a smug expression. ’That question is way too easy.’

Jin Qianqian continued, "And where does this silver come from?"

Gu Benluo paused for a moment this time. "Father and Mother both have it."

Jin Qianqian pressed on, "Then does our Luo Luo have any silver?"

Gu Benluo scratched his head, finally pointing at Jin Qianqian. "Mother gives it to me."

Jin Qianqian asked, "Then where does Mother’s silver come from?"

Gu Benluo grew anxious now. He shook his head; this question had truly stumped him.

Just then, Jin Qianqian spotted a porter carrying vegetables on a shoulder pole, struggling forward. "Luo Luo, look at that old man. Do you think he’s having a hard time?"

Gu Benluo watched the sweat drip down the man’s face. "He must be. But Mother, why is he carrying so much?"

Jin Qianqian adjusted his collar. "To make a living. You see this whole pole full of vegetables? It might be the only thing his family has to trade for copper coins."

As she spoke, Jin Qianqian asked Li Qiu for a money pouch and took out two copper coins. "Just two copper coins like this can buy two bundles of vegetables. Now, think about it, how many copper coins can you get for one tael of silver?"

"I know this! Mother taught me before—one thousand cents." Gu Benluo finished counting on his fingers and covered his mouth. "Then that can be traded for so many bundles of vegetables."

Jin Qianqian then pointed to the street vendors outside. "The copper coins each of them earns through hard work must support their whole family. So, how many copper coins has our Luo Luo earned? Will you be able to support your father and mother in the future?"

Gu Benluo looked at his small hands, his expression downcast. "Mother, Luo Luo is still little. I can’t earn silver yet."

"Then do you have any silver taels in your hands to buy things with right now?" Jin Qianqian probed again.

Gu Benluo pursed his little lips. "But I don’t want Father and Mother to work so hard. I don’t want to buy things anymore."

Jin Qianqian kissed his little cheek. "Mother isn’t saying you can’t buy things. It’s just that some things are necessary, and some aren’t. Like last time when you went out with your father, you bought that huge pile of things. What happened to them all in the end?"

"Well..." Gu Benluo thought of the melted sugar figurines, the kites he had broken, the lanterns... He lowered his head, secretly glancing at Jin Qianqian out of the corner of his eye.

Jin Qianqian patted his back. "Do you feel like you bought too much last time, and a lot of it went to waste?"

Gu Benluo nodded. Because of his greed, he had bought several of many items, and in the end, he didn’t manage to keep a single one.

Jin Qianqian knew this child was already showing his intelligence in many ways. Some things just had to be taught slowly, guiding him to see the world’s many facets.

Even if he didn’t fully understand now, if she talked to him about it enough times, he would gradually come to a realization.

The carriage had now passed through the city gates. Jin Qianqian lifted the curtain and pointed to the mountains and waters in the distance. "Can you feel how much cooler it is here than in the city?"

The sweltering heat of early summer dissipated significantly with each gust of mountain wind. Gu Benluo’s tense face relaxed. "This is nice."

Jin Qianqian said, "In a little while, when we get to the estate, Mother will show you how they live. Your father and I used to live like this, too."

"Like back in our old hometown?" Gu Benluo still remembered Gaoling Village. Although his uncles at home didn’t farm anymore, he had seen the other village elders busy in the fields.

Jin Qianqian hadn’t expected the boy’s memory to be so good, that he could still remember everything about Gaoling Village. "Yes. In the Rong Dynasty, sixty to seventy percent of the common people are farmers who make a living by tilling the land.

They have the hardest and most tiring lives. They rely on the heavens for their food, and even then, they aren’t guaranteed to have enough to eat."

Gu Benluo asked, "They can’t all fill their bellies?"

Jin Qianqian patiently explained to him about the harvests of various crops and the taxes. Sometimes, if the heavens weren’t kind, after paying their taxes, a family could only survive on a meager amount of grain and wild vegetables.

The carriage finally arrived at the small estate. It was truly a small estate, with forty to fifty mu of paddy fields, all divided into high, medium, and low grades.

A dilapidated two-courtyard house, with a few dozen mu of barren mountains behind it, constituted the entirety of the estate.

"This place is too run-down," Jin Qianqian said with some disdain as she stood in the courtyard. Other people’s courtyards were planted with flowers and plants for a touch of elegance, but while this one also had many things growing, they were, unfortunately, all wildflowers and weeds.

Not long after they entered the courtyard, they were nearly swarmed by mosquitoes. Jin Qianqian had no choice but to have the nanny take the two children back to the carriage first.

"The master hasn’t come here for a very long time," the estate foreman, who had hurried over after being notified, said with an apologetic smile. "The previous owner never gave us the keys to the courtyard, so we couldn’t come in to tidy up. I’ll call a few people over to clean it up right away."

When Jin Qianqian had entered, she had seen the rusted lock, so she knew the foreman was telling the truth. "Then have them clean this place up first. I’ll send people over to make repairs later."

Looking up at the roof, which was riddled with holes, she was already wondering, ’Should I have it torn down and rebuilt, or just repaired?’

She had assumed that even if an estate near the capital’s suburb was small and dilapidated, it couldn’t be all that bad. This was truly an unexpected surprise.

"What did the previous owner do? Even if the estate is small, it shouldn’t have been left this derelict."

Li Zhuangtou replied, "This estate was bought on a whim by the youngest son of the wealthy merchant Liu Family from the Northern Land. But he’s a man who loves his fun and completely forgot about this place for a long time.

It wasn’t until a few years ago, when the new Madam entered the household, that the master remembered these deeds.

Unfortunately, after the new Madam sent people to inspect it, she found the place very distasteful, which is why they finally sold it off."

At this point, Li Zhuangtou anxiously added, not wanting the new owner to get the wrong idea, "Our tenants here are all honest folk. We’ve delivered the harvest to the Liu Family every year, but their family is so large and their business so prosperous that they never paid any mind to such a small amount.

Besides, the land here is quite good. After paying taxes, the annual harvest still brings in some income."