Chapter 545: The Peasant Girl’s Splendid Manor
Chapter 545: Hidden Malice (4)
Grandpa Ding’s joy was contagious to Mo Yan. She invited him to sit down and said with a smile, “When they first gave me the rice seeds, they only mentioned that it was a new variety that could save a lot of seeds. I didn’t expect the yield to be so high! Please keep this matter confidential and remind the villagers who helped not to spoil the rice out of envy.”
It wasn’t that she was overly cautious, but in this era, a yield of a thousand catties per mu of rice was extraordinarily incredible. If this news spread, it would cause a huge uproar, and as the owner of such high-yield rice, she would naturally become the target of others' attention.
Although she had the backing of Yan Junyu, generally, people wouldn’t dare to target the high-yield rice. However, the prestige of Young Master Yan didn’t deter certain people in the imperial family. If someone wanted to interfere, even Yan Junyu wouldn’t be able to stop them.
“Don’t worry, young miss. I’ve already instructed the villagers not to talk about it. They won’t gossip,” Grandpa Ding promised readily without asking further.
Though he was just a simple farmer with little worldly experience, he could guess the implications. Before he fled, someone in his hometown developed a delicious sauce, and others coveted the recipe. The person who made the sauce intended to build a workshop and gather funds, but the workshop caught fire as soon as it was completed, and the whole family of six perished in the blaze. It was a tragic end!
A single recipe could destroy a family, let alone rice with a yield of a thousand catties per mu. The Mo family had always been benevolent. Who in the village hadn’t received help from the Mo family? If it hadn’t been for the Mo family providing food and cotton cloth during the winter two years ago, his own family of seven or eight might have starved or frozen to death.
Mo Yan didn’t know what Grandpa Ding was thinking but felt she had found the right person. After some thought, she discreetly took out a purse containing fifty taels of silver from her space and handed it to Grandpa Ding. “Master Ding, the rice will be ready for harvest soon. After the harvest, you can distribute this fifty taels of silver as wages to the workers.”
...This novel is translated by the Eternal Novel Hits translators. Please read it at https://www.eternalnovelhits.com
Grandpa Ding, staring at the heavy purse in his hand, nearly dropped it when he heard there were fifty taels inside. He hurriedly tried to return the purse to Mo Yan, refusing to accept it. “Young miss, this is too much, too much. I can’t accept it, really can’t!”
Mo Yan smiled and explained, “This fifty taels of silver includes wages as well as a red envelope for everyone. Without your careful attention, the rice wouldn’t have grown so well. This is what you all deserve. Besides, you’ll need to continue taking care of the fields next year!”
Managing over a hundred mu of rice fields required regular weeding and irrigation, and sometimes dealing with pests under the scorching sun. Although the wages were considerable, they were earned through hard work. Compared to the value of the rice, fifty taels of silver was not much. Giving more was also to ensure that the workers wouldn’t leak the news before the harvest.
After some more protests, Grandpa Ding understood Mo Yan’s intentions and finally accepted the purse. When he returned home with the heavy purse, he immediately gathered the forty to fifty villagers who usually helped and instructed them to keep the matter confidential, telling them that once the rice was safely stored, each person would receive a tael of silver as wages.
The villagers were thrilled upon hearing this. Just working hard for ten days or half a month to earn a tael of silver was a great deal. In the city, it would take a month and a half or even two months of hard labor to earn that much!
Leaving the villagers in high spirits, Mo Yan had dinner and then went back to her room with the three beasts, closing the door behind her. She proceeded to her space as usual to check on the black lingze and the two old ginseng plants.
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