91 Hiring Workers
“240 taels,” Zhou Xiaoli repeated.
“Cough cough cough!”
This time, Zhou Yu choked on his own saliva and kept coughing.
Zhang Lan was also shocked. She was stunned for a long time before rushing over to pat Zhou Yu’s back.
He was excited and nervous. He was afraid that someone would hear him, so he only dared to speak softly, “More than 200 taels. How, how much is that! I’m afraid farmers like us won’t be able to earn so much in our lives.”
“I told you, Li’er is our lucky star!”
Zhou Yu finally recovered and stopped coughing. He wiped the water off his body and said in a serious manner, “Little Li is indeed our lucky star. Ever since she came to our house, our entire family has prospered!”
Zhang Lan nodded in agreement. “That’s right. When our Li’er was born, the sky was shining brightly. She was a blessed child to begin with!”
“Everyone in the village said that Li’er’s fortune was suppressed because Madam Lai treated us badly!”
Now that she was talking about Madam Lai, Zhang Lan was no longer afraid. Instead, she was visibly dissatisfied and angry.
Zhou Yu knew that his wife had misunderstood his words, but he did not explain it to her. He followed her words and said, “That’s right. Our Li’er is a blessed child.”
He did not intend to tell Zhang Lan that Zhou Xiaoli was not his biological daughter.
Although he had always known the truth, deep down inside, he always felt that the current Zhou Xiaoli was his daughter. It was just that she had arrived a little late and in a different way.
At this time, Zhou Xiaoli had already taken out two silver notes, which were in fact, bank notes. However, they all called it the silver notes over here.
“Father, Mother, here are 200 taels of silver.”
As she spoke, Zhou Xiaoli handed the two silver notes to Zhou Yu and Zhang Lan.
It could be said that the two of them had never seen what silver notes looked like since they were born. Now that they saw this piece of paper, they were extremely curious.
Zhang Lan held it preciously and looked at it from left to right. “This is the first time I’ve seen it. There are so many words on it.”
“This piece of paper worth 100 taels of silver?”
Zhang Lan could not figure it out.
Zhou Xiaoli smiled. “Of course. With this piece of paper, you can go to the designated bank and collect 100 taels of silver.”
Then, she asked Zhang Lan or Zhou Yu to keep the silver notes, but both of them rejected her repeatedly.
Zhou Yu: “The woman should manage the family account and money. Besides, you earned the money. You can keep it for yourself.”
Zhang Lan agreed. “Your father is right. You can keep this money for yourself. There’s no need to give it to your father and me.”
“Moreover, there’s so much money. Mother can’t manage it all. It’s not safe to leave it at home either. Just leave it in your alternate space. No one can steal it then.”
Since the two of them insisted, Zhou Xiaoli did not refuse.
She had already informed the two of them about the stone. Next, they got to the main topic.
“Father, Mother, for the past few days, we’ve been busy making sugar with beetroots. Second, we’re a little tight on money. We just bought 23 acres of land, but we did not have the time to deal with it yet.”
“Now, the sugar-making business has entered the official stage and we have some money on hand. I thought that Father should hire a few people to help us cultivate the 13 acres of forest land first, either tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.”
When Zhou Yu and Zhang Lan heard that Zhou Xiaoli had wanted to hire someone to work for them, their first reaction was to disagree as they were used to doing all the work themselves.
“Child, you can’t squander just because you have some money. It’s just 13 acres of forest land. Your father and I will work hard and cultivate it ourselves. There’s no need to hire people. Isn’t this a waste of money?”
Zhou Yu also agreed. “Your mother is right. If we hire a worker to work, we would have to pay each person more than 30 copper coins a day. We haven’t even started earning money, but we’re already spending money.”
“Besides, how can farmers like us hire people to work? If word gets out, I’m afraid the villagers will criticize us for being lazy.”
For the two of them, who had done honest work as farmers for their entire lives, hiring people to work had never been an option.
Therefore, their reaction was completely within Zhou Xiaoli’s expectations.
Hence, she pulled out the famous saying, “If you don’t know how to lead a team, you would work yourself to death.”
She tried to convince them using emotions at first. “Father, Mother, we have the sugar business to take care of now and I have to go up the mountain to take lessons from the Master. How can you take care of it all? Should the two of you become burnt-out or something happened, how sad will my siblings and I be?”
Then, she continued to reason with them. “Why would hiring people to work be considered as being lazy? This is called saving time to do more valuable things.”
“Look at Landlord Wan and his family. Aren’t they also responsible for supervising others to work? Why can’t we?”
After hearing Zhou Xiaoli’s words, the two of them loosened up a little, but they still couldn’t accept hiring someone to work for them.
“Landlord Wan is a landlord. How can we compare them to farmers like us?” He objected.
“That’s right. We’re ordinary farmers. We have to work hard.”
Zhou Xiaoli immediately shook her head. “No, no. Didn’t Landlord Wan and his ancestors also start off as ordinary farmers? It just happened that they had much more money and bought a lot of land, so they became landlords.”
“Of course. As long as we hire people to work and pay them some remuneration, they can help us earn more money. Then, we can use the money we earn to buy more land. In this cycle, won’t we also be able to become landlords?”
Both of them were stunned by Zhou Xiaoli’s words.
Zhang Lan: “Girl, why are you so good with words?”
Zhou Xiaoli chuckled and went forward to hold Zhang Lan’s arm. She said coquettishly, “Mother, I’m worried about you and Father. It’s already very tiring for you to make sugar every day. If you take time to cultivate the forest lands as well, what if you’re overly exhausted?”
“Now that we have money, we can just hire a few people. We won’t hire too many. Let’s hire three or four first and give it a try. If we don’t earn enough money, we won’t hire them.”
This time, Zhou Xiaoli even acted like a spoiled child.
As expected, Zhang Lan relaxed. She looked at Zhou Yu and said, “Why don’t we listen to Li’er first?”
Zhou Yu could only shake his head helplessly. “Alright, alright. We’ll listen to our lady. I’ll go and find out tomorrow if anyone is willing to do it.”
After the matter was settled, Zhou Xiaoli immediately smiled brightly. After putting the money into her alternate space, she said with a smile, “Father, Mother, I’ll go see what Little Fishy and Brother Jun are arguing about outside.”
With that, she ran out.
Zhang Lan’s eyes reddened as she watched Zhou Xiaoli walk out of the room. She felt like crying.
Zhou Yu could not help but worry. “My dear wife, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
Zhang Lan wiped the corners of her eyes. “I’m happy. Li’er hasn’t acted coquettishly with me for a long time.”
“Ever since we moved out of the Zhou family, our Li’er has automatically taken over the running of our entire family. She seems to have grown up overnight. Her independence makes my heart ache.”
“It’s good now. Our bodies have recovered. With us in charge of the family, our Li’er also knows how to act her age again slowly. How good.”
