After entering the room, the flame grew bigger, and the room was no longer as dark.
Only then did Xu Sangluo fully come back to her senses, and she couldn’t help but laugh wryly.
She turned to look outside. In the pitch darkness, she couldn’t see anything, so she raised her hand and closed the door.
After putting her things down, she quickly jogged to the bed and pulled the blanket over herself.
The cotton quilt was not only thin but also somewhat heavy. It carried a faint strange smell and felt stiff, making her uncomfortable.
After thinking for a moment, she simply closed her eyes and entered the space entirely.
In her space, there had originally been a small villa.
It was a custom-built movable villa she had specially ordered for more than ten million yuan.
Now there was also the farmstay.
Inside the farmstay were also her office and resting room, fully equipped with everything she needed.
However, the farmstay was completely empty right now. She found it a bit eerie, so she decided to sleep in the villa instead.
Once she lay down on the soft bed with warm pillows, she finally let out a soft breath.
“Comfortable~”
“It looks like I need to improve my living conditions soon. Living like this all the time really won’t work.”
As the saying goes, it’s hard to go from luxury back to frugality.
Although she had endured hardships before, she had also enjoyed a comfortable life for a long time.
Returning to such a harsh environment now was truly not easy to adapt to.
It seemed she had bragged too much earlier and overestimated herself.
But after lying there for a while, she suddenly remembered something and sat up again.
She hadn’t finished counting today’s “spoils of war.”
She quickly got out of bed and brought over the things she had gathered from the Xie family today.
The most eye-catching were the stacks of red envelopes scattered across the plush carpet.
She sat cross-legged and began opening them.
Before long, a small pile of money appeared on the carpet.
Xu Sangluo counted it.
There were 2,689 yuan in Chinese currency, and the rest were U.S. dollars, totaling exactly twelve thousand.
The dollars had obviously all been sent back by Grandpa Xu.
At this time, the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and Chinese yuan was about 1:1.9.
That meant it was equivalent to more than twenty thousand yuan.
At a time when even households with ten thousand yuan were rare, this amount of money was quite astonishing.
Fortunately, Xie Huaishu had never used the dollars, or they would have long been squandered.
She stacked the dollars neatly and set them aside.
Then she took out Liu Xiuhe’s stash of private savings.
These savings were quite neat, all in hundred-yuan bills.
They were easy to count.
But the amount was still impressive—there were actually 4,500 yuan.
Over the years, Liu Xiuhe had only worked in a factory in her early days. Later, she simply lived comfortably as an official’s wife.
As for Xie Huaishu, she had never worked at all.
So the Xie family’s income basically all came from Xie Feng.
Not counting the red envelopes sent by Grandpa Xu, the mother and daughter casually had six or seven thousand yuan in private savings.
And there were also the two thousand yuan she had been given today.
Clearly, Xie Feng had earned quite a lot over the years.
Unfortunately, his study had always been tightly locked. Otherwise, she might have found some more “good” things there today.
She looked down at the stacks of banknotes by her feet and curled her lips.
Including the five thousand Liu Xiuhe had given her,
she now had more than twelve thousand yuan in her hands.
Having over ten thousand yuan at this time officially made her a “ten-thousand-yuan household,” able to accomplish many things.
“Not bad, though the time was too short.”
Otherwise, she might have found even more hidden savings.
After finishing counting the money, she felt more energized.
She decided to rummage through the storage to see if there was anything suitable for use right now.
The villa had two storage rooms.
One stored fruits and vegetables grown in the space.
The other stored various odds and ends she had accumulated.
She usually tossed things in casually without organizing them.
After rummaging for a while, she lost patience and only pulled out a large box of seeds.
Then she remembered that there were also several warehouses at the farmstay.
After all, it provided accommodation and followed a high-quality service model, so everything had to be prepared in advance.
Although the farmstay emphasized freshness—meat and vegetables were slaughtered and picked on the spot rather than stored in cold storage—
there were still many other ingredients and supplies in the food warehouse.
For example, instant noodles, self-heating meals, and various snacks.
These were meant to be sold in the small convenience store within the farmstay.
The farmstay wasn’t entirely high-end; reservations were open for everyone to compete for.
However, both the lodging and meals there were not cheap.
Especially the dishes in the restaurant—even a plate of hot-and-sour cabbage cost several dozen yuan.
Those with limited budgets could buy affordable food from the convenience store.
However, many of those foods weren’t suitable to take out right now.
She weighed the heavy bag of seeds in her hand.
It seemed the farmstay’s warehouse had also stored quite a lot of seeds.
At this point in time, they would be perfect to use.
Right now, most places had adopted the system of dividing farmland among households and contracting land.
They no longer had to farm under the unified organization of the production brigade.
If possible, she planned to contract some farmland to grow vegetables.
However, farming required a certain growth cycle, and it was currently winter.
Even if she planted now, the vegetables wouldn’t be ready for sale until at least the middle of next year.
Besides, she had never planned to settle here for a long time.
Once the Qin family returned to Kyoto, she would leave as well and find another place to develop.
So contracting farmland now wouldn’t really be worthwhile.
After all, farmland contracts at this time usually started at more than ten years, and in a few years they would even be extended to thirty years.
But there were still two years before the Qin family would leave.
If she did nothing during those two years, it would feel like a waste.
Of course, she could take vegetables to sell at the agricultural market.
But the distance was too far, and transportation was inconvenient.
Unless she moved directly into the city.
But if she did that, she would lose her reason to stay with the Qin family, and she wouldn’t be able to help support them openly.
After thinking it over and over, she decided to first find a way for the Qin family to increase their income.
Coincidentally, private businesses had been fully opened up this year.
They could start by setting up a small street stall.
But what should they sell?
The startup cost couldn’t be too high, and there had to be a market for it.
She lay back on the bed, turning over and over as she thought about it.
Suddenly, her eyes lit up.
“Got it!”
The next day, just as dawn was breaking, Xu Sangluo yawned while carrying a washbasin and pushing the door open to step outside.
The cold wind outside made her shiver, instantly waking her up a bit.
She had thought about too many things last night and hadn’t fallen asleep until the latter half of the night.
Then, worried that people would notice if she wasn’t in the room in the morning, she had set an alarm and left her space at five o’clock.
But the icy cold bed made it impossible for her to fall asleep again.
In the end, she lay there flipping pancakes for an hour before simply getting up.
“Sister Sangluo, good morning.”
Qin Zhishu’s gentle voice suddenly sounded.
Xu Sangluo paused, lowering the hand that had been covering her mouth while yawning. Looking carefully, she realized that Qin Zhishu was sitting under the eaves, holding a book and quietly reading.
“Morning,” Xu Sangluo replied softly with a smile after a brief moment of surprise.
Then she turned her head and noticed smoke drifting out of the kitchen.
Someone was inside too? Who could it be?
She had thought she had gotten up early enough, but it seemed several people had risen even earlier than she had.
Walking to the kitchen entrance, she saw a tall figure busy working amid the swirling smoke.
It was Qin Zhiyi.
“Good morning,” she greeted.
The smoke was quite thick, and she couldn’t help covering her mouth and nose.
Qin Zhiyi replied, “Morning. The smoke’s heavy—don’t come in. I’ll bring the hot water out for you.”
With that, he carried out a tightly covered wooden bucket.
Xu Sangluo thanked him and then asked curiously, “What are you doing? Why is there so much smoke?”
“I burned some mugwort to smoke out the mosquitoes. It’ll be done soon.”
The weather was cold, though not completely freezing yet, so mosquitoes tended to hide together.
Places like the kitchen—dark and cramped—were the easiest spots for insects to hide.
So in the past, Qin’s mother would always burn some mugwort to smoke out the kitchen before starting breakfast.
Xu Sangluo nodded in understanding and began scooping water to brush her teeth and wash her face.
Squatting by the small drainage ditch along the wall to brush her teeth made her feel a little embarrassed.
But once she finished, she felt much more at ease.
After putting her things away, she rolled up her sleeves and walked into the kitchen.
“Is there anything I can help with? What are we having for breakfast?”
“I made some cabbage porridge. We can eat it with the braised meat.”
Yesterday, Xu Sangluo had braised a big pot of meat.
Although the young men had eaten happily, they hadn’t truly eaten to their fill.
So that pot of braised meat would probably last another three days.
Xu Sangluo nodded and glanced Qin Zhiyi up and down.
His pant legs were rolled up, and there were spots of mud and bits of grass on him.
He had probably gone to the fields before dawn.
She didn’t know exactly how much farmland the Qin family currently had.
But only two mu had been planted.
Two mu of land wasn’t actually very much.
Each household in the brigade still had to hand over a fixed quota of public grain and state-purchase grain every year.
The former was handed over for free, while the latter was sold to the commune at a fixed low price.
Each household had a quota depending on their situation.
If they couldn’t meet it, they would have to buy grain at negotiated prices to make up the difference.
Two mu of wheat, based on current yields, could produce at most around six to seven hundred jin.
More than a hundred jin would be handed over as public grain, and about one-fifth would be given as state-purchase grain.
At this time, the purchase price for that grain was probably around one jiao per jin, meaning it would sell for about twenty yuan.
The remaining three to four hundred jin of grain only seemed like a lot at first glance.