The Lucky Heiress

Wei Ruo will have to negotiate with the village chief of the nearby village to use this cave for mushroom cultivation.

Although the mountain is barren and anyone can cut wood and collect herbs from it, a long-term lease agreement for the cave would require the agreement of the villagers.

She’ll assess how to proceed after investigating all the details.

###

Xie Jue and Xie Ying returned to the Xie Family’s separate property first.

Xie Jue had the collected herbs taken care of – those that needed to be dried were dried, and those that needed cleaning were cleaned.

“Brother, don’t mess up these herbs,” Xie Ying warned.

“Don’t worry, sister. I’ll take good care of them since you collected them yourself,” Xie Jue said with a smile.

And give me back that ointment from earlier, don’t think about hoarding it.” Xie Ying stretched out her palm, demanding the ointment from Xie Jue. This time, Xie Jue did not readily give it to her, but began to plead with Xie Ying.

“Yingying, leave the ointment to me.”

“Brother, what do you want it for?” Xie Ying asked curiously.

Nothing much, I just like its scent and want to keep it for the fragrance. Besides, when it’s hot at night, I’m often bothered by mosquitoes while reading. Applying this ointment might help me avoid this annoyance.” “You can have it if you need it.” Xie Ying was always generous to her own family. As long as Xie Jue had a legitimate reason, she would not be stingy towards him.

Then Xie Ying added, “But don’t forget, you need to return a gift to Ruoruo. Last time, I asked you to bring something nice from the capital, you haven’t done that yet, leaving me without a gift to give.”

Xie Jue cried injustice, “Sister, you’re wronging me! I haven’t stepped out of Xmgshan County since last time, let alone going to the capital. How could I bring something back for you?”

“Then what are you doing lazing around Xingshan County all this time? Haven’t you finished what you need to be busy with?” Xie Ying asked.

“Some of it is done, but there are still some things that need to be dealt with,” Xie Jue replied.

The war has temporarily ceased and he should indeed return, but due to affairs related to the Seventh Prince, his grandfather has ordered him to stay in Xingshan County for a few more days.

“How about this, I’ll be going to Taizhou prefecture in a couple of days. The Seventh Prince is currently in the government city; I need to take care of some matters there. I’ll spare some time to buy some interesting things for you and Miss Wei of the Wei Family,” said Xie Jue after pondering for a while.

“Alright, but you need to make good choices. My gift isn’t important, but she’s given me gifts several times, and my return gift needs to be appropriate so as not to bring disgrace,” Xie Ying instructed.

“Rest assured, I won’t let you lose face,” Xie Jue assured laughingly.

The siblings joked and laughed for a while, then left the separate property with their harvest from the day and returned to their main Xie Family estate.

###

Upon receiving Wei Ruo’s instructions, the wet nurse immediately took action; she instructed her husband to purchase what Wei Ruo needed, while she represented Wei Ruo to discuss matters with the village near West Mountain.

The negotiation process was surprisingly smooth; as soon as the wet nurse mentioned hiring people from the village and offering a monthly wage of 150 coins, the village chief immediately agreed.

To respect the village chief, the wet nurse, according to Wei Ruo’s intentions, gave him the right to nominate suitable and capable young people from the ’ village.

At first, the village chief tried to refuse, but after hearing that if they succeeded and needed to expand in the future, requiring more people to be hired, he readily agreed.

Because selecting just one or two people would be difficult for the village chief. But, if there could be job opportunities for a dozen or twenty people, he would have an easier time arranging that, and would not worry about the villagers complaining about his arrangements.

For their little poor mountain village located west of Xingshan County, this was good news. They had no special skills and only had few acres of thin farmland. Even if they had good weather, their harvest was not enough for their livelihood, let alone in recent years.

Having a job to do and earning two hundred coins per month would be enough to fill a family’s belly.

After the materials were collected, they were prepared according to Wei Ruo’s given proportions.

They prepared many cylindrical culture media, like dry pieces of wood.

Then, they carried them into the cave, and the subsequent work was assigned

to the hired villagers, Li Erniu and Hen Dong.

The job was not complicated; they were mainly responsible for overseeing that no wild animals or people would enter the cave and cause destruction. They also had to observe the growth of the mushrooms and report regularly.

Seven days later.

The first batch of shiitake mushrooms grew. The wet nurse personally ran over and after setting a standard for picking, she let Li Erniu and Hen Dong, who were in charge, pick all the mushrooms that met the standard size criteria. Then, she sent people from her shop to transport them down the mountain.

Then, the wet nurse sent some mushrooms to the Wei Residence for Wei Ruo.

Seeing the first batch of externally cultivated shiitake mushrooms, Wei Ruo was overjoyed.

Having a harvest after a mere seven days, shiitake mushrooms certainly have a much shorter growth cycle compared to other crops!

Miss, how should we deal with these mushrooms?” Xiumei asked.

“Take them to the market for sale immediately,” Wei Ruo instructed, “then tell Uncle Xu to look for more caves like the one we found, in the same area, to increase our planting scale.”

“Miss, shiitake mushrooms aren’t a staple, and they won’t keep for long. If we plant too many and can’t sell them, we’ll be stuck with them,” Xiumei worried.

“Don’t worry, once we expand the scale, I don’t plan to sell them all. The mushrooms we can’t sell, we’ll dry into dried shiitake or make them into shiitake sauce. These methods can greatly prolong the shelf life of the mushrooms.” Wei Ruo already had countermeasures.

Dried shiitake and shiitake sauce? I’ve never tasted those before, looking forward to it!” Xiumei was intrigued.

“When they are ready, you’ll be the first one to taste them!”

“It doesn’t matter who tastes them first. As long as the Miss can grow more

crops and earn more silver, that will be great!’

As Wei Ruo and Xiumei were happily discussing about shiitake mushrooms someone from the front yard came by to notify them that Miss Xie had sent’a gift and was waiting for Wei Ruo to personally sign for it.

Before they left, they specifically mentioned that Miss Xie sent quite a few items, suggesting Wei Ruo bring more people to help with the pick-up.

Xie Ying has been clamoring to give Wei Ruo a return gift for quite some time now, so Wei Ruo wasn’t very surprised when she heard about this.

However, she wondered what gift Xie Ying had prepared for her.

When Wei Ruo arrived in the front yard, there were already many people standing there. Even Yunshi and Wei Qingwan were there.

“Miss Wei,” a kindly-looking elderly man came forward, saying with a beaming smile, ”1 am the butler of the Xie Residence. I have been ordered to deliver a return gift to you by our young master and his sister.”

Wei Ruo looked at the horse cart loaded with goods behind the Xie Residence’s butler, and asked, “Is this all?”