Chapter 56: Shopkeeper Jia Who Ran Away Upon Meeting

With two taels of silver in hand, Jiang Wei left Yuelai Restaurant with Jiang Xiaoxiao, feeling satisfied.

As soon as they went out, they saw Shopkeeper Jia of Zuixianju at the street corner opposite.

He had a gray-white complexion, and two small servants were following him, trembling as they helped him out of the herbal medicine shop next door.

In a trance, his gaze drifted over and happened to fall on Jiang Wei.

In an instant, Shopkeeper Jia seemed to have seen a ghost in broad daylight and turned around and ran!

The two small servants were stunned and confused, but still hurriedly followed.

Jiang Xiaoxiao: "..."

What happened??

She silently turned her head to look at her mother.

That night, what exactly did her mother do to Shopkeeper Jia?

Sensing her gaze, Jiang Wei shrugged lightly and said: "I just tied him to a tree, threw a mouse into his collar, and then let a few snakes crawl into his clothes... I didn't expect him to be so timid that he peed his pants on the spot."

Jiang Xiaoxiao: "..."

This wasn't a question of being timid or not; anyone would be afraid if this happened to them.

The ten major tortures in ancient times: sawing, oil frying, snake pit, tongue cutting, eye gouging... one of them was snake biting.

Being tied to a tree and unable to move, with more than ten snakes crawling around on his body, slippery, and biting him from time to time—this alone was very scary... No wonder Shopkeeper Jia turned and ran when he saw her mother.

"Don't worry, those snakes are non-venomous. Even if they bite him a few times, it won't kill him." Jiang Wei said calmly, but it was enough to give him a shadow for the rest of his life, and he would never dare to come and destroy their business again.

Jiang Xiaoxiao silently gave a thumbs up to her mother.

After delivering the goods, the mother and daughter went to the carpentry shop to inquire about the news of building the house.

The carpenter's apprentice was using a plane to push the wooden board. Seeing them, he hurriedly threw down what he was doing and went to the backyard to call someone.

After a while, people came out. Besides the carpenter boss from last time, there was also an old man wearing a long gown and leather boots.

Jiang Xiaoxiao noticed the leather boots on the old man's feet at a glance; it seemed to be a pair of deer leather boots.

In this day and age, few people could afford to wear even cloth shoes, and most people wore straw sandals. Leather boots were extremely rare and precious things, and generally only people with status or who were not short of money could afford to wear them.

But thinking about it, the status of carpenters and masons in ancient times was quite high. They had a craft in their hands, especially those who built houses for people and provided safe building city walls for the country and the imperial court, would be appreciated by noble people and get many benefits.

"This is the master I mentioned to you before, he is surnamed Zheng." The carpenter boss introduced enthusiastically, "He just came back from the capital and saw the construction blueprint of the new house you want to build, and was just about to find you to discuss it."

Master Zheng took out the blueprint from his sleeve, looked at Jiang Wei, and said: "Is this the house construction blueprint you drew?"

His tone carried a slight surprise.

He didn't expect a young woman to be able to draw such an exquisite and wonderful house construction blueprint. The lines were smooth and clean but not complicated, making people understand at a glance the first time they saw it.

"Can this house be built?" Jiang Wei glanced at the blueprint. She drew a modern two-story small building with a high terrace on the roof, a bit like an observation deck, which could take in the situation in the distance and nearby.

"Of course." Master Zheng nodded.

He had been in this line of work for more than thirty years. Although people nowadays were building five or six-room bungalows, he had also presided over the construction of many two-story and three-story buildings.

Several restaurants in town were from his hands.

"But the materials needed for this two-story small building you want to build are not few." Master Zheng gestured with the blueprint and said, "Just the first floor you drew has four rooms, the second floor has three rooms, a house has four walls, each wall needs to be built with two layers of blue bricks, and every layer needs eight blue bricks every three feet, so one wall needs more than two thousand blue bricks..."

Jiang Xiaoxiao, who was listening on the side, couldn't help but gasp.

To build this small building of theirs, it would take forty or fifty thousand blue bricks. One blue brick costs seven wen, and two hundred taels of silver might not be enough!

Moreover, her mother also requested to build a courtyard wall more than three meters high around the house, which was another huge expense.

"However," Master Zheng pinched his goat beard and said again: "The volume you are building is large, I will give you a discount of two wen per blue brick, five wen per piece is fine."

Jiang Wei nodded to express her gratitude: "Alright, Master Zheng, just prepare the materials as soon as possible. Don't worry about the silver."

Master Zheng opened his mouth and didn't say anything more.

For such a blue brick tile house, even rich merchants in the county town would have to think carefully before building one, and ordinary people wouldn't even dare to think about it. And this young little lady in front of him, she is from Yuhe Village, right...

A peasant woman who digs for food in the countryside, how could she take out so much money?

He didn't dare to believe it when he heard about this business from his apprentice at first, but now it seems that this person has a decisive expression, and she must have made up her mind.

Forget it, he wouldn't encounter such a big business in a few years, so he would just build the house well for her.

"Since that's the case, I will order my apprentices to prepare materials for your house comprehensively, but don't worry, blue bricks are not easy to burn, the burning furnaces in town are not enough, I have already asked my apprentices to go to other towns to borrow burning furnaces."

Jiang Xiaoxiao knew this point. Blue bricks were considered relatively good building materials in this era, with advantages such as good breathability, wear resistance, and beauty, but the production process was fine and cumbersome, time-consuming, and required drying and burning. The burning temperature even had to reach more than one thousand degrees. Without a large number of burning furnaces, it was impossible to produce so many blue bricks in a short time.

Finally, after some discussion, the time for building the house was set for the period when autumn entered.

Jiang Wei added a deposit of sixty taels of silver.

Seeing her take out so much at once, Master Zheng's heart was completely put down.

When leaving the carpentry shop, Jiang Xiaoxiao was still calculating the silver. Adding the previous fifty taels of deposit, this was a total of one hundred and ten taels of silver. Now her mother should have less than seventy taels of silver in her hands...

It hadn't been many days since she started selling ice cream and snow cakes, and the money earned wasn't much, but the expenses over the past month were not small.

"Sigh, if I had known, I would have sold that river deer yesterday." Jiang Xiaoxiao sighed gloomily.

Although the river deer wasn't as valuable as a deer, it could still be sold for dozens of taels to cope with the emergency.

Or, if only they could catch another deer...

In this era, deer are very valuable, especially male deer with deer antlers, which are known as extremely precious tonics, and almost only royal relatives can afford to eat them, existing like tribute.

They were lucky to catch a deer that time, but such good luck wasn't always there. Jiang Wei went up the mountain several times, even hit a river deer, but didn't encounter a shadow of a deer.

(End of Chapter) ===== CHAPTER 57 =====