Chapter 122: What Was Waiting For Her
Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
“I think I’ve been feeding you guys too much recently, so you guys have the mood to think about some meaningless things. When 1 go back tonight, I’ll tell Uncle Hea to stop giving you guys meat for a few days first. What are you all still doing? Get up and work.”
When that large group of people heard this, their bodies trembled and they subconsciously stood up to work and began working frantically.
“Leader, what do you think the Mistress means? Is she going to get rid of us or not?”
Number One pondered for a moment and said, “Mistress said that our thoughts are meaningless, which means that she doesn’t intend to get rid of us. Get back to work! Get back to work! Otherwise, we really won’t get any meat to eat. If I so much as get one less mouthful of Old Man Ilea’s cooking, I’ll be starving like mad.”
“If you say so, Leader. Let’s get back to work. Get back to work.”
The next morning, Su Ying saw Li Laosan and a few other people waiting for her in the field the moment she reached there.
When Li Laosan saw Su Ying, he smiled and said in a somewhat embarrassed but honest way, “Madam, you said yesterday that you wanted to look for people to work for you. After I went back and told my family, everyone wanted to come over and ask if you still needed people. We don’t want 40 catties of coarse grain a month. 30… just 30 catties is enough.” In the northern wilderness, good, solid grain was still more attractive than silver. Sometimes, even if you had silver in hand, you might not be able to buy grain, so they would rather have grain than silver.
Su Ying’s eyes swept over them. Most of them were men of about the same age as Li Laosan. Some of them were younger, but all of them looked sallow and emaciated. It was obvious that they had been malnourished for a long time.
“Alright. I do need people. Since you guys want to do it, then stay here and try it out. But 1 have a one-month trial period. During the trial period, 1 can provide you with one meal at lunchtime. Those working during the trial period will be paid 20 catties of coarse grain for a month. If you are willing to accept these terms, you can stay.”
“Willing, willing! We’re willing to accept!”
Su Ying nodded and called Cheng Ming over. She told him to arrange tasks for them and to observe who was more suitable to retain.
After Cheng Ming acknowledged her instruction, he led Li Laosan and the others away to work.
With more manpower, Su Ying’s progress in digging the fish ponds was much faster. She dug until noon and left, saying that she had to go to the Tiger Base to get something.
In fact, she wanted to take out some useful stuff from the interspatial store.
Now that there was a large population, their food was consumed very quickly, so Su Ying had to bring out the rice and flour she had stored. In addition, she had also stocked up on a few jars of wine and some tiger bones previously.
When the sky was about to turn dark, Su Ying pulled the two carts she had gotten from the Tiger Base and went home.
In the kitchen, Hea Shouyi looked at the almost empty rice jar and his slightly white, aged brows knitted together.
This amount of rice should be enough for tonight’s meal and he would only be able to make watery porridge for tomorrow. He had already told Su Ying about this in the morning and he didn’t know how she would be able to find a way to buy food back.
Just as Hea Shouyi was worrying about this, he heard knocking on the gate in the courtyard. He quickly answered the door.
The moment he opened the gate, he saw Su Ying dragging two carts full of goods in.
“Mistress, where did you get so much stuff?” Hea Shouyi was pleasantly surprised. He was still worrying a while ago that there would be no more rice to put in the pot.
Su Ying said with a smile, “1 got Tiger Might’s people to help me get them back. Quickly get the rest to help me carry the things in.”
“Alright. Sure, sure.”
Hea Shouyi chuckled and called Wang Su and the rest over to help. There were more than twenty sacks each of coarse grain and fine grain on this cart, enough for them to eat for a long time.
However, there were close to a hundred of them now, and they consumed food at an alarming rate every day. Su Ying felt that even though they had already planted food, it would still take a long time before the crops could be harvested. Furthermore, winter was coming, so she had to think of a way to increase their food reserves.
Su Ying entered the house with two bags of snacks. The three children had just come out after their class ended.
“Mother, you’re back!”
“Mother…”
Su Ying squatted down and hugged the two little ones.
“Mother brought some snacks for all of you. Here, take them and eat.” Su Ying gave them each a kiss on their chubby cheeks and placed the oilpaper package in their hands.
The two little fellows ran off happily with the snacks.
“Mistress, what are these things?”
Lin Zhuyu patted the gunnysack. It was all bloated and full, but it felt soft to the touch. She didn’t know what was inside.
“It’s cotton.”
“Cotton?” Lin Zhuyu untied the rope and saw that it was indeed filled with fluffy white cotton.
“It’s very cold in the morning and at night now. You guys can use the cotton and fabric on the cart to make winter clothes during this time. Give priority to the children first. If the cotton and fabric are not enough, I’ll ask Tiger Might to buy more.”
Lin Zhuyu didn’t expect Su Ying to be so thoughtful. “1 understand, Mistress. We’ll make all the cotton-padded clothes as soon as possible before winter.”
Su Ying felt that the cotton wasn’t enough even though there were so many of them. Although there were warm pads in the interspatial store, she couldn’t possibly stick one patch on everyone’s body every day in the winter. Hence, she had to solve the problem of winter clothes and quilts.
She planned to use the gold and ask Tiger Might to get her some cloth and cotton tomorrow.
The next morning, Su Ying got up and went to the Tiger Manor to tell Tiger Might her intention.
Tiger Might naturally agreed readily, and he even said that he didn’t want Su Ying’s gold.
Su Ying did not stand on ceremony with him either. She looked at the guards of the Tiger Base and said, “Prepare more. Make sure you have enough materials for at least four hundred sets of winter clothes.”
Tiger Might was very puzzled. Why did Su Ying need so many sets of winter clothes?
Su Ying only said that she needed them and left.
She had already handed over the task of digging the fish ponds to Cheng Ming. She wanted to go up the mountain today.
Before she came to the northern wilderness, she had already felt that she had stored a lot of supplies. However, after moving two cartloads of stuff out yesterday, she found that the area where she stored supplies had suddenly become much emptier. This made her realize that the speed of consumption of the supplies was faster than she had imagined.
Su Ying reached the inner part of the mountain two hours later. She wanted to see if she could catch a wild boar today.
Su Ying took out the detector from her interspatial store and started to check for prey on the mountain. She looked around but couldn’t find anything nearby, so she could only walk deeper into the mountain.
The deeper she went into the mountains, the dimmer the surrounding light became. Su Ying stopped in her tracks and looked at the red light flashing on the detector. She slowly moved in that direction.
As soon as she walked further in, she noticed that the number of red dots on the detector was increasing and moving in her direction at an extremely fast speed.
Su Ying narrowed her eyes. From the detector’s screen, it was definitely a horde of animals that was running toward her. Only a natural disaster or something that terrified them could make these creatures flee collectively in this manner.
Su Ying surveyed her surroundings and felt that the latter possibility was more likely. Her eyes lit up as she went in the direction against the stampede.
She wondered what big fellow was waiting for her!
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