TATLC Chapter 83 — Little Sweet Potatoes

When Wang started cursing people on the first day, the villagers didn’t argue back, which gave her the wrong idea that the villagers would just take whatever she dished out. So on the second day, she cursed even worse.

Several villagers put up with it until the second evening, but finally couldn’t stand it anymore. They went to find Old Man Lu and demanded him to pay their wages for the two days because they didn’t want to work anymore.

“What’s this all about? Why are you quitting?” Old Man Lu asked, clearly annoyed.

The leader of the group replied, “Old Man Lu, we came here to earn money, not to be insulted. Pay us our wages, we’re done working.”

Old Man Lu frowned, feeling conflicted. Deep down, he thought that since he was paying people to work, what was wrong with them hearing a few curses? Getting yelled at by the boss while working was normal. Old Man Lu had managed to buy so much land and was one of the most respectable people in the village, so privately he looked down on the villagers.

When several workers united against him, Old Man Lu felt his authority was being challenged, which annoyed him even more.

When Wang heard several people pestering her husband for money, she immediately exploded. “You didn’t even work properly, and you still want payment? You should be grateful I’m willing to pay you at all!”

The villagers weren’t pushovers either. Her words immediately angered them.

“What’s this? You want to skip out on paying us?”

“All you do is slack off, and you still have the nerve to ask for wages. You should consider yourselves lucky we hired you at all!”

Zhang Danian, the leader, scowled and said, “Old woman, how can you talk like that? There are plenty of places hiring people this season. We can work for anyone. Just look at how little you’re paying us. Did you expect us to work day and night for you?”

“Exactly! The people who worked at Granny Shen’s place before got thirty wen a day, plus two steamed buns at noon.”

“We’ve been working hard for the Lu family, and we don’t even get a bowl of hot soup at lunchtime. All you do is nag and rush us.”

When they mentioned Granny Shen, Wang completely lost it. Since Shen Chi had been engaged to Chen Xiaocai, she saw Granny Shen as being on Lu Lin’s side. She secretly believed that Granny Shen was spending Lu Lin’s money, which had made her furious before.

Wang got into a big fight with the workers. Her sharp tongue lashed out at them, leaving the slow-witted men red-faced and speechless.

One man got so worked up that he brought up how Wang had driven her son to death and then went to steal money from Chen Xiaomi’s house.

Wang hated it most when people mentioned her stealing money, because she really hadn’t done it, but nobody believed her.

Wang and the villagers huge fight almost turned physical. In the end, the village chief had to step in to mediate before things calmed down.

The result was that Old Man Lu paid the workers their wages, but deducted five wen from each person because Wang felt they hadn’t worked hard enough. If the village head hadn’t stepped in to mediate, Wang would have wanted to deduct even more money.

Old Man Lu privately thought his wife talked too much and had provoked everyone, but he also felt the villagers were too unreasonable. He was paying them to work, not to cause trouble. In his view, his wages were more than generous, and these villagers were both incompetent and greedy.

The men all felt angry, but they didn’t want to make a big fuss over five wen. However, the Lu family’s reputation in the village was completely ruined after this incident.

When the men went home and told their families what happened, their wives naturally felt upset too.

Some villagers started gossiping, saying Old Man Lu was shameless. He spent dozens of taels without blinking to get his grandson a wife, but when poor villagers worked for him, he would deduct even a few copper coins. They called him “rich but heartless.”

When several villagers quit, Old Man Lu didn’t take it seriously. In his mind, if they had money, why worry about not being able to hire people? But when he tried to hire new people, he found no one was willing to work. After asking around, he discovered that rumors were spreading among the villagers that he liked to skip out on payments. They said anyone working for him should be cautious. If something went wrong, all their wages would be deducted and they’d end up working for free.

Several villagers on the road pointed and whispered about Old Man Lu, making him furious.

With no one willing to work for the Lu family, the village head finally stepped in to help find workers. However, the new workers demanded to be paid first before working and wouldn’t accept having money deducted for poor work.

Old Man Lu had no choice but to agree.

By the time he came to his senses, he realized his family had been called heartless over a few wen, and he could only endure it.

The Lu family’s harvest was bumpy, but they finally managed to get all the grain from the fields.

After the autumn harvest, several bouts of autumn wind swept through, and the weather grew increasingly cold, showing signs of the approaching winter.

Meanwhile, business at Lu Lin’s shop was getting better and better.

The dolls were proving even more popular than the book bags.

Many traveling merchants came to Lu Lin’s shop to buy goods and resell them elsewhere.

To make up for the shortage of workers, Lu Lin bought two more women skilled in needlework from a broker.

One woman was called Xi Que and the other was called Lin Chun.

Xi Que was twenty-six years old. When she was young, her family was poor and her parents sold her to a wealthy household, where she was given the name Xi Que. Over time, she even forgot her original name. She worked for that family in constant anxiety. Although she was only twenty-six, she looked like she was in her thirties or forties, probably from working too hard.

When she got older, the wealthy family fell into decline and could no longer afford to keep so many servants, so they sold her off again.

The other one, Lin Chun, was twenty-three. Her husband had died and her mother-in-law said she brought bad luck to relatives, so she sold her.

The arrival of Xi Que and Lin Chun greatly reduced the pressure on Granny Shen and Yun Niang. Lu Lin had Granny Shen teach the two women how to make dolls.

Granny Shen was getting old after all, and her eyesight was declining, making it harder for her to work efficiently. Some time ago, worried about delaying the Zheng family’s work, she had taken the initiative to ask Lu Lin to reassign her duties.

Now that Lu Lin had her teaching the new workers, Granny Shen felt greatly relieved.

With Shen Chi not around, Granny Shen felt a bit lonely. The two new women were both pitiful people, and she felt some sympathy for them. Spending time with them helped ward off her boredom.

Since Shen Chi was away, Xi Que and Lin Chun moved in to share a room with Granny Shen.

Lu Lin and Chen Xiaomi walked down the street, with Chen Xiaomi curiously looking around at everything.

This year’s harvest was good, and many farmers had bright smiles on their faces.

Lu Lin saw some mountain dwellers selling mountain goods and bought some wild delicacies.

Chen Xiaomi looked at what Lu Lin bought and pursed his lips, saying, “Actually, this kind of stuff is everywhere in the mountains. There’s no need to buy it.”

“In the past, mountain goods were very hard to buy, and what you could buy was very likely to be fake…” Chen Xiaomi knew that when Lu Lin said “in the past,” he meant another world. Chen Xiaomi always felt that was a very magical place where there was endless rice to eat, but they couldn’t get mountain delicacies.

Chen Xiaomi pursed his lips and said, “If you like it, you can buy more.”

“But there’s no need to buy too much.” Lu Lin glanced toward the distant market and happened to see a familiar person. “It’s Uncle Liu.”

Chen Xiaomi blinked and said, “It really is him. It’s been a while since we last saw him.”

Lu Lin had previously thought their house in the village was too small and had specifically asked Liu Guiyong and his team to renovate it. But now there were many things to handle in town, so they didn’t go to the village much anymore. Chen Xiaomi always felt it was a pity when he thought about their village house.

“Uncle Liu is selling sweet potatoes!” Lu Lin said with some confusion. Sweet potatoes didn’t sell well last year, so why did they still plant sweet potatoes this year?

“Should we make some sweet potato wine again?” Chen Xiaomi glanced at Lu Lin and asked.

Lu Lin nodded and said, “That’s a good idea.” Making wine brought in money quickly. Although the dolls sold well, they couldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. Having multiple sources of income was always a good thing.

“Uncle Liu.” Chen Xiaomi walked forward and greeted him.

“Lin-shao, Xiaomi-ge, it’s you two!” Huaxia Trading Company had a great reputation, and Liu Guiyong had also inquired about their situation. He knew that Lu Lin and Chen Xiaomi now worked for a big boss in town and earned a lot of money. Many people in the countryside now made money by doing embroidery work for Huaxia Trading Company.

Villagers always had a certain awe for the wealthy, so Liu Guiyong became somewhat reserved when he saw the couple.

“Uncle Liu, you’re selling sweet potatoes? Why not sell them to the grain store?” Chen Xiaomi asked.

Liu Guiyong sighed, looking worried, and said, “They’re too small. The grain store won’t take them.”

Chen Xiaomi picked up a sweet potato and looked at it, saying, “These small sweet potatoes aren’t even enough to eat!”

Lu Lin nudged Chen Xiaomi with his elbow, and Chen Xiaomi gave an embarrassed laugh.

Liu Guiyong didn’t mind and said with a bitter smile, “Xiaomi-ge, don’t judge our sweet potatoes by their size, but they’re especially sweet. However, they don’t look good, so they can’t be sold at all. Sigh, my family didn’t plant a lot, but many families in our village planted only this crop. If they can’t sell them, who knows how they’ll get through winter.”

Lu Lin looked puzzled and asked, “Didn’t sweet potatoes not sell well last year? Why did you plant so many again?”

Liu Guiyong said awkwardly, “Well… actually we were tricked by someone.”

Chen Xiaomi asked, confused, “Tricked by someone?”

Liu Guiyong let out a sigh and explained, “Last year’s sweet potato prices were low, so no one wanted to grow them anymore. Then, around New Year’s, a man named Liu Qi showed up.”

“Liu Qi said he had high-quality sweet potato seeds from the south. These sweet potatoes were much sweeter than our local variety and were very popular with the wealthy people in the south. He told us to plant them and he’d come collect them in autumn. He guaranteed that these sweet potatoes could sell for several times the price of local sweet potatoes, and told everyone not to worry.”

At first, no one believed him, but that man looked respectable and didn’t seem like someone who would lie, so they eventually trusted him.

Chen Xiaomi tilted his head. “Did he not show up this year?”

“He did come, but he said our sweet potatoes were too small and we definitely didn’t take good care of them. They didn’t meet standards, so he wouldn’t buy them.”

Chen Xiaomi looked confused. “But wasn’t it him who provided the seeds? If the potatoes grew small, that’s his fault. But why did they become small?”

Lu Lin chimed in, “It might be due to differences in the environment.” The climate in the south was different from here, and the terrain and soil should also be different, so the sweet potatoes that grew were also different.

Chen Xiaomi rolled his eyes and said, “Uncle Liu, do you know this Liu Qi? Does he have some relationship with your village?”

LLiu Guiyong nodded. “Yes. The Liu family used to be poor, but Liu Qi’s father left the village to become a merchant. Rumor has it he made a fortune, bought property and shops down south, and even took several concubines. His family is very wealthy now.”

Lu Lin blinked, roughly understanding why the villagers believed Liu Qi. Liu Qi’s father was a successful person who had made it big after leaving Dawan Village.

Chen Xiaomi glanced at Lu Lin. “If they really are this sweet, we could buy some.”

Lu Lin agreed. “We could.” They could use them to brew sweet potato wine. The size of the potatoes wouldn’t matter for brewing. If the sweet potatoes had high sugar content, they could even save some sugar.

Lu Lin bought a hundred jin of sweet potatoes to take back and had Yun Niang steam some for everyone to eat.

Chen Xiaomai loved the sweet flavor and ended up eating three in one go.

Qin Lang and Qin Ming, being growing boys with bottomless stomachs, were told by Lu Lin to eat as much as they wanted. The two devoured over a dozen potatoes between them.

Chen Xiaomi nibbled on a sweet potato. “They really are sweet, just a bit small. You finish them in just a few bites.”

“There are quite a few people waiting to eat here, and sweet potatoes aren’t expensive. They can be used as snacks too. If we can’t finish them, we can make wine, so nothing gets wasted.”

Lu Lin glanced at Chen Xiaomi and said, “If you like them, I’ll buy more.”

Chen Xiaomi nodded and said, “Okay.”