Chapter 600: The Imperial Examination Family-Prosperity System (9)

Xie Yang took some time to go out alone for a short half-day, and returned clutching a jar of gold bars.

Her future in-laws were too poor, so she planned to lease a patch of mountain to start animal husbandry, then help her maiden family set up a braised food stall; breeding, braising, and selling—a one-stop service.

But her father had more than just her as a daughter; she had three older brothers and two older sisters above her. No matter how generous her dowry might be, he was ultimately just a small-town butcher, at best a middle-class level, and it was impossible for him to directly provide her with a Farm as a dowry.

So she had to do it herself!

Fortunately, she had mined gold in her previous two planes, and after the Mining Robot crushed, screened, and refined the ore, it had been pressed into gold bars of varying sizes.

This time, she counted out fifty two-tael gold bars, exactly one hundred taels, weighing about ten jin.

Earlier, at a shop selling all kinds of jars and earthenware, she had bought a small sample jar that the shopkeeper had long forgotten in a corner. After camouflaging it, she stuffed the gold bars inside, deliberately smeared a ring of yellow mud around the mouth of the jar, and rubbed some dirty mud all over the exterior to make it look like it had just been dug out of the ground, then excitedly carried it home.

The Xie Family were all shocked to see her go out for a stroll and return clutching a jar of gold bars.

"Good daughter, did you really find this?"

"Yes, Dad. Didn't I plan to lose weight? Dr. Cui suggested I exercise more, so I went running along Yingyue Lake outside town. While running, I tripped over something and almost bruised my knee. I was so angry that after I climbed up, I wanted to kick the culprit a few times to vent my frustration, but I didn't expect to dig up this jar, hehe!"

Xie Yang happily recounted the process of "discovering" this jar of gold bars.

The Xie Family listened, dumbfounded.

Xie Rong was the first to react: "Hahaha! I told you our precious girl is our family's lucky star! Besides her, who else could go for a run along the river and pick up a big jar of gold?"

Fang Shi was pleasantly surprised but also a bit worried: "Could it have been buried there by someone? Is it alright for our family to have picked it up?"

"Mom, who would bury things by the lake? It was most likely left by someone from a long time ago," said the eldest son, Xie Kuidong. "Didn't that Yingyue Lake form after a flood fifty years ago? Before that, that area was a summer villa for a high-ranking official; perhaps that official buried it."

"Big Brother is right! If it wasn't that official, it was buried by the official's family members. In any case, it couldn't be someone from our town; who in our town would have gold and run so far away to bury it by the lake? Aren't they afraid of someone picking it up?" The second son, Xie Kuinan, echoed his eldest brother's words.

The third son, Xie Kuixi, and the three daughters-in-law also nodded in agreement:

"It couldn't be someone from our town!"

"This daughter-in-law also thinks it was left by that official's family. When the gold bars were buried, that area must have been their own territory!"

"Exactly! Who would be so stupid as to bury gold bars outside!"

"There is another possibility," Xie Kuixi thought for a moment and said. "This is ill-gotten wealth. Someone obtained it and didn't dare take it home, so they buried it by the lake, intending to dig it up after the wind blew over."

"Huo! If that's the case, our family dug it back; will we be 'cracked' by that person?" Liu Shi shrank her neck in fear and made a throat-slitting gesture.

Xie Yang: "..."

She felt like covering her forehead.

Her family members had such vivid imaginations!

Even she, the owner of the gold bars, hadn't thought that far, okay?

Fortunately, to be realistic, she had printed an antique-style reign mark on the bottom of the jar in advance.

This dynasty was called the "Ning Dynasty," the current reign title was "Xihe," and it was currently the forty-sixth year of Xihe, while the reign title before Xihe was "Yong'an," and before Yong'an was "Xuanping."

The mark she had printed on the bottom of the jar was "Made in the Xuanping Year of the Great Ning."

She hurriedly showed the evidence to everyone: "Dad, Mom, brothers, sisters-in-law, look here."

Everyone crowded around, and the three brothers, who could barely recognize a few big characters, stumbled through reading the reign mark on the bottom of the jar, and were now completely relieved.

Even if it were a jar fired in the late years of Xuanping, it would be over a hundred years old by now. Who would be willing to use a hundred-year-old antique as an ordinary jar! Especially one fired during the reign of the founding emperor.

If the Xie Family had such a good item, wouldn't they have to scrub it clean and place it on an incense table to worship it?

"I said it was left by our predecessors."

"Little sister is so lucky! She can even pick up a jar of gold while going for a stroll!"

"That's not called a stroll, little sister said it's called morning jogging."

"Yes, yes, yes! Morning jogging! Little sister! You are truly our family's lucky star!"

"Good daughter, since you picked it up, Mom will wipe the gold bars clean and put them away, keeping them as your dowry!"

Xie Yang immediately indicated: "Mom, don't give it all to me, leave half for the family."

The gold-to-silver ratio in this dynasty was 1:10; one hundred taels of gold was equivalent to one thousand taels of silver.

She had already inquired about land prices in Guixiang Town and the surrounding areas; a small mountain like the one behind Qinghe Village could be bought for three or four hundred taels.

Buying a small mountain to build a Farm, and then enclosing a piece of land to build a residence like the Xie Family's, five hundred taels would definitely be enough.

As soon as she said this, the expressions of the three sisters-in-law looked significantly better.

Leaving it to the family meant that the three brothers would have a share; even if only half was left, that was still five hundred taels, and even if the three brothers split it equally later, each family could get over one hundred and fifty taels. After all, it was unexpected wealth, and they were very satisfied.

Besides, the parents-in-law doted on the little sister so much that even without this unexpected wealth, they would surely subsidize her privately when she married. Now that the little sister had obtained five hundred taels of unexpected wealth, the parents-in-law might be able to subsidize her a little less.

Only Xie Rong and his wife looked disapproving: "Good daughter, you picked this up, so there's no reason to leave it for the family. Take it! With this extra dowry, you'll have more support when you go to your husband's family in the future."

"That's right, good daughter. Don't say the family isn't short of money; even if we were, we couldn't use yours. If word gets out, where would your three brothers put their faces!"

The three brothers nodded in unison upon hearing this.

The three sisters-in-law: "..."

They actually didn't care about face.

Xie Yang insisted on counting out twenty-five gold bars and pushing them to her parents: "Dad, Mom, your daughter was ignorant before and always pestered you for this and that. Now that your daughter has grown up, this is the first bit of silver your daughter has earned, so it is only right to honor you. As for the rest, your daughter wants to buy a mountain in Qinghe Village to raise pigs and sheep. Dad, what do you think?"

She paused, fearing that her sisters-in-law would worry about her snatching the family's pig-raising business, as the current pigs at home were enough for the daily sales of the meat shop, and any more might not be sellable.

So she continued: "Dad, our family doesn't just sell raw meat; we can also sell cooked food. I heard a passing merchant say before that there is a braised food shop in Jingcheng that specializes in selling braised pig trotters and offal, as well as braised chicken and duck, and the business is incredibly good. When the time comes, I'll be responsible for raising the pigs and sheep and collecting chickens and ducks, and you can open a cooked food stall. The two of us won't need to rely on others for supplies, and we can get the cooked food stall up and running! Wouldn't we be able to earn more silver?"

Xie Rong laughed in spite of himself: "Good daughter, do you think Dad doesn't know that cooked food is more profitable? But to run a cooked food shop for a long time, you need a secret recipe. Who doesn't know how to stew things until they're cooked? How many people would spend their hard-earned silver to buy it?"

"Dad, look and see if this is a braised food recipe."

Xie Yang fished an aged oil-paper packet from her bosom, inside of which was a piece of yellowed rice paper that was about to weather away.

"Your daughter dug this up next to the jar of gold bars. Your daughter recognizes this 'braised' character."

"!!!"