The System Wanted Me to Be a Landlady (GL) - Chapter 16: Turning Over a New Leaf

Chapter 16: Turning Over a New Leaf

Song Yuyan wouldn’t be so tactless as to ask Tang Zhi if something happened to her brother. She quietly waited for a moment. Tang Zhi sniffled and asked, “Why do you ask?”

“There are some matters I want to consult him about.”

Although Tang Haogen didn’t have to work night shifts, if the county office had business, he might return home very late. Instead of waiting every day for him to pass by her house after work, Song Yuyan figured it was better to ask Tang Zhi directly when he would be free.

Tang Zhi wasn’t interested in prying into what they wanted to discuss. She said, “He won’t have a day off for two more days, but if the office has something to deal with, he might not be free even then.”

“Then I’ll come back in two days to find him,” Song Yuyan said, but she didn’t leave.

Tang Zhi found it odd and asked, “Do you have something else?”

Song Yuyan hesitated, then asked, “Does Miss Tang know where around here there’s a bamboo grove that can be cut down?”

At this, she blushed a little. “The kind without an owner.”

She felt her implied meaning was—where can I get a free lunch?

She was raised to believe that one shouldn’t take advantage of small gains or casually claim ownerless things. So, even though the grasses and trees in these mountains and forests were ownerless and people could freely cut them, she still felt ashamed of her actions.

Of course, she had no burden picking grass by the roadside, riverside, or barren hills. But in later times, bamboo and wood were considered public property, and even if ownerless, they couldn’t be casually cut.

People nowadays didn’t have the concept of public property. Except for places with registered deeds at the county office, the remaining mountains and forests were treated like people’s backyards, where they freely took things. Sometimes the authorities would intervene to prevent overcutting, but most of the time, they turned a blind eye.

Song Yuyan couldn’t bring herself to secretly cut bamboo, so she planned to discuss it with Tang Haogen first to get the authorities’ approval. Even if the authorities didn’t care, she would feel less burdened knowing she had gone through proper channels.

As expected, when she asked this, Tang Zhi froze for a moment, then looked at her with a puzzled expression, as if wondering why she would ask such a brainless question.

“Two miles northeast of the county, at Kan Peak, there’s a bamboo grove stretching to Puji Lake. Cutting one or two stalks is fine, but if you take too much, the authorities will investigate. Three miles southwest, there’s also a bamboo grove at Tower Mountain, and ten miles south at Baozi Mountain, though some of the land there belongs to the Chen family…”

Tang Zhi said a lot, but her main point was simple—if you want to secretly cut bamboo, the farther from the county office, the better.

Song Yuyan, afraid Tang Zhi would think she was returning to old habits, quickly explained her plan. Tang Zhi, hearing this, first asked, “You know bamboo weaving?”

Song Yuyan, forcing herself to lie, said, “Hmm, I learned it along with grass weaving.”

Tang Zhi gave her a deep look but didn’t press the point. Instead, she said, “Are you foolish? Who goes to the authorities to say, ‘I’m going to secretly cut bamboo’?”

Song Yuyan replied, “This isn’t a crime announcement. It’s asking for permission.”

Tang Zhi didn’t quite understand her words. “What?”

Song Yuyan had to explain in detail, “I’m asking for the authorities’ permission. If they don’t allow me to cut bamboo, I’ll buy it. If they allow it, and one day someone reports me, I’ll have their permission, so it won’t be a crime.”

“So you’re looking for my brother for this?”

“Yes, but I’m not asking Officer Tang to plead for me. I just want to know how the authorities have handled this in the past, so I can prepare.”

Tang Zhi thought it over. One large bamboo stalk was worth twenty or thirty coins, and it could be made into dozens of woven baskets. The leftover bamboo tips and scraps could also be sold for four coins per ten pounds.

But considering Song Yuyan’s situation, buying bamboo might lead to a loss. So she said, “When my brother comes back, I’ll let you know.”

Finally, she asked, “Are you not weaving mats anymore?”

“I’m weaving, but with the rainy season coming, I need to find more work to support the family.”

Tang Zhi nodded, suddenly at a loss for words. Used to clashing and bickering with Song Yuyan, she didn’t know what to say now that Song Yuyan radiated positivity.

Song Yuyan didn’t know Tang Zhi’s thoughts, but in her memory, Tang Zhi rarely seemed so down. Out of kindness and for the sake of their newly improved neighborly relationship, she asked, “Have you run into some trouble? I saw your eyes were red earlier.”

Tang Zhi had no real troubles, but she never liked showing weakness in front of Song Yuyan. So when asked, she reacted as usual, hands on hips, brows raised. “You saw wrong. How could my eyes be red? Am I that delicate? I have no troubles!”

She was like a youthful version of Aunt Fierce.

Song Yuyan couldn’t help but imagine Tang Zhi turning into Aunt Fierce in ten or twenty years, which gave her a strange feeling. But whether Tang Zhi became like Aunt Fierce or not, both were undoubtedly good people.

Thinking of how Tang Zhi, at such a young age, had to support half the Tang family, Song Yuyan worried about hurting her confidence and said, “Yes, I saw wrong and spoke wrong. Please forgive me, Miss Tang.”

Tang Zhi: “…”

With no one to anger her or argue with her, she felt she could live years longer. But why did it feel so awkward?

“Aren’t you weaving grass mats? Go back already!” Tang Zhi, unsure what to say, quickly shooed her away.

Song Yuyan sighed, “This child is so honest, worrying that chatting with me will delay my weaving progress.”

System: No, even I, with no emotional intelligence, can tell she doesn’t want you around.

…

The rainy season arrived as expected, but it came quietly. If not for three days of drizzle, people might not have noticed.

The weather was truly bad. Sometimes it drizzled in the morning, stopped at noon, and people, seeing sunlight, happily brought out clothes to dry. But moments later, clouds gathered, and it started raining again.

The people’s joy was for nothing, and they could only worry over their wet clothes.

Song Yuyan was mentally prepared. Though her newly woven mats couldn’t be dried outside, they wouldn’t mold either.

The families selling mat grass were also affected by the weather. After all, didn’t the grass need intense sunlight to dry properly?

But the Shi family had prepared for the rainy season, storing plenty of processed mat grass. They weren’t worried about short-term sales, knowing business would pick up after the season.

Song Yuyan took advantage of a rainless moment to buy a lot of mat grass and stack it in the main room. The one thing she was satisfied with about the “extremely poor” Song family was that their house had a tiled roof, so she didn’t have to worry about leaks like in a thatched house, where heavy rain outside meant light rain inside.

When Tang Haogen heard about Song Yuyan’s actions from Tang Zhi, he took some free time to visit her. Upon entering, he saw the once bare main room now looking like a workshop, with mat grass piled so high there was no place to step.

Song Yuyan moved an eight-immortal table to make some space, and he finally sat down steadily.

Song Yuyan poured him a bowl of water and didn’t chat idly. Tang Haogen got straight to the point. “Ah Zhi told me you had something to discuss and that you wanted to know the authorities’ stance on cutting bamboo.”

When Tang Haogen first heard Song Yuyan’s idea, he thought, “Is Song Dalang foolish?” But he soon understood her intention.

Although neighbors sometimes turned a blind eye to someone taking a bamboo stalk, that didn’t mean the authorities approved. If they investigated, the charge of theft was serious.

If caught stealing, a ring was tattooed behind the ear. Three thefts meant a tattoo on the forehead and a three-year sentence. Five or more thefts led to the death penalty—that was why the Tang family never reported Song Yuyan to the authorities.

Song Yuyan’s actions were enough to warrant the death penalty several times over.

Cutting bamboo wasn’t as serious as theft, but it wasn’t exactly honorable either. Since Song Yuyan planned to turn over a new leaf, she shouldn’t leave any loose ends.

With this in mind, Tang Haogen, for the sake of Song Yuyan’s mat, went to the lumber market and drank two bowls of wine with the supervising official, securing a promise before visiting her.

Mingzhou had a large commercial port and a shipyard, which needed timber, so a lumber market was established. The market not only bought local wood but also timber from elsewhere, providing enough materials for shipbuilding.

If the lumber market handled it, the authorities wouldn’t interfere. Tang Haogen didn’t need the official to provide Song Yuyan with large amounts of bamboo—just half a stalk when the market went to cut wood.

For such a small matter, the supervising official naturally agreed and even waved off Tang Haogen’s suggestion that Song Yuyan pay for it.

Song Yuyan owed the Tang family another favor but had no means to repay it now. She could only keep it in mind and told Song Yuban and Song Yuzhuan, the two little ones, “The Tang family, though not related to us, is willing to help us. We must remember this kindness and repay it in the future, got it?”

Song Yuzhuan nodded.

Song Yuban was still thinking about how to give the grass mat she wove to Song Yuyan to sell to Lin Yongming. Though she didn’t want to hear Song Yuyan’s lecture, she absentmindedly agreed.