The System Wanted Me to Be a Landlady (GL) - Chapter 45: Private Money

Chapter 45: Private Money

Song Yuyan knew full well whether she had a wooden head or not, even if others did not. She was not completely oblivious to what Song Zhu meant, but since she had never entertained any such thoughts herself, she had not delved deeper into it.

To her, Tang Zhi was a childhood friend, the little girl next door, a good companion, and someone she needed to treat kindly. It was just that in her eyes, Tang Zhi was still an immature young girl, so her rational mind would not allow her to develop any romantic feelings toward an underage maiden.

Song Yuyan did not dwell on it much. She gathered her thoughts and first went home to discuss the school arrangements with Ye’er.

When Ye’er saw her return, he darted back into the room like a puff of smoke, then came out hugging a small jar. With the heartbroken look of lovers in the heat of passion forced to part, Ye’er reluctantly handed his “little sweetheart” the pottery jar over to Song Yuyan.

Song Yuyan found his “hero severing his wrist” expression amusing and took the small pottery jar from him with a smile. Once the jar was in her hand, it felt quite heavy. When she opened it, she discovered over a hundred copper coins inside. She had always known this little turnip head was stashing away private money, but she had not expected him to have saved up so much.

“What is this for?” Song Yuyan asked with a laugh.

“Tuition.” Ye’er replied concisely.

“Fine!” Song Yuyan did not stand on ceremony with him and boldly emptied his entire stash.

Ye’er stared at the small pottery jar being handed back to him and suddenly felt a desolate sorrow, as if bandits had robbed him clean. But after the sorrow passed, he scampered back to his room with glee to pack up his brushes, ink, paper, and inkstone, preparing to go see Qi Ru with Song Yuyan the next day.

Song Yuyan paid no mind to the drama of joy and sorrow playing out in his heart at that moment. She tucked the money away, then pocketed the paperweight and armrest to go find Tang Zhi.

When Tang Zhi saw her approaching with a smile, she knew the matter of Ye’er studying was settled. She said, “All arranged?”

“Hmm, Uncle Thirteen confirmed that I truly intend to send Ye’er for enlightenment studies, so he will return to the clan and handle the subsidy for us.”

Tang Zhi asked Song Yuyan a bit more about the private school Ye’er would attend, then suddenly thought of Bing’er. She asked, “Did Bing’er not say she wanted to go to the private school?”

From what she knew of that little turnip head Bing’er, anything that piqued her curiosity, she wanted to get involved in.

“She thought going to private school was some fun game. As soon as she heard it meant studying, she shook her little head like a rattle drum. I had asked around at some private schools before, but without exception, they would not take in girls.”

Song Yuyan was well aware of the limitations of this era, but when she had gone inquiring about private schools back then, she still asked directly. The responses were either outright refusal or stares as if she were some monster, like she had spouted utter nonsense.

Besides, even if someone had been willing, she would not dare place an eight-year-old girl in an environment full of males. So she planned to educate Bing’er herself. Bing’er had no need to take the imperial exams, so guidance from her would suffice.

Tang Zhi of course knew no private school would accept a girl, and she knew Song Yuyan was not refusing Bing’er for that reason. She just wanted to know if Bing’er would give Song Yuyan a headache over it. Fortunately, Bing’er seemed quite well-behaved.

Song Yuyan remembered the purpose of her visit and took out the set of paperweight and armrest that Tang Haogen needed. The paperweight was engraved with a Spring Bamboo Scene, while the armrest featured a corner from the Great Treasure Mountain Panorama she had sketched on the day they went out for Flower Morning Festival sketching, capturing the early spring vista of mist-shrouded clouds and all things reviving.

Tang Zhi recognized it at a glance. Though she could not paint, Song Yuyan’s work from that day was etched in her heart like a carving, so whenever she saw it again, she always recognized it.

“This is…”

“Clerk Tang asked me to engrave it. The prefect wants to match it with the brush holder as a set to give to the new prefect.”

Tang Zhi had not known about this. Upon hearing it, she suddenly understood. “No wonder my brother carried that brush holder to the yamen every day before, but these past few months I have not seen it, and he hemmed and hawed without explaining. So the prefect took it!”

Song Yuyan asked, “Clerk Tang did not tell you, little miss?”

Tang Zhi shook her head. Song Yuyan suddenly understood why Tang Haogen had looked so hesitant that day. Though he said the county magistrate bought these stationery items from him with money, given that toadying county magistrate’s character, she strongly suspected Tang Haogen had paid out of his own pocket to satisfy the man’s demands.

After all, the county magistrate knew the brush holder was Tang Haogen’s cherished possession. If he wanted to spend money on a set of cloisonné-engraved stationery to give the new prefect, he could easily have had Tang Haogen ask her to engrave another piece.

Since he did not do that, it was clear any talk of buying was false. In reality, he had coveted Tang Haogen’s brush holder and wanted more, and Tang Haogen could not refuse, so he had to pay from his own pocket.

Naturally, Tang Haogen could not let his sister, who managed the accounts, know about this, so little miss Tang was completely in the dark.

Song Yuyan had only just pieced it together now, while Tang Zhi understood the moment she mentioned it. After all, she knew the county magistrate’s vile nature and her brother’s awkward position far better than the outsider Song Yuyan did.

Compared to Song Yuyan’s unresolved frustration, she seemed calmer and took such things in stride, so she prepared to buy the paperweight and armrest. She asked, “How much for these items?”

Song Yuyan smiled faintly. “Not worth much.”

Tang Zhi did not buy her nonsense! If they were not valuable, would the county magistrate have the gall to demand them? She pondered and took out a small wooden box containing several hundred cash, which did not look light.

“I do not know if this is enough. If not, ask me for more next month.”

Though she spoke with such boldness, this was actually her private savings from over half a year. She had planned to save up a string of cash and buy another mu of land to grow more vegetables. As Song Yuyan said, only by expanding operations could she increase income.

That way, whether it was for her brother to marry in the future or saving a dowry for her little sister, things would not feel so pinched.

Of course, this was not the Tang family’s entire holdings, but she had plans for the family’s revenue. Buying bamboo carvings counted as extra expense, so she could only use her private money to cover the gap for now.

Song Yuyan knew if she did not take the money, this girl would stubbornly insist, so she took one string of cash from the small wooden box.

A string of cash, also called “hundred cash,” was a unit of one hundred cash. But since the Five Dynasties, the court had lacked copper coins, so some strings fell short. Officially, it was tacitly allowed to use fewer coins to stand in for one hundred.

For example, the official standard was seventy-seven cash for a hundred, markets used seventy-five, vegetable buying used seventy-two for a hundred, and for books, paintings, and writing items, it was fifty-six.

Precisely because the hundred for books, paintings, and writing was so short on weight, prices for such things were very high.

Song Yuyan’s bamboo carvings fell into the books, paintings, and writing category, so she took fifty-six cash. In market terms, she had made over two hundred percent profit, but if she used that money to buy vegetables, she would still be short twenty-one cash.

Tang Zhi was no fool or pushover. She stuffed two more strings of cash at Song Yuyan and said, “Do not think I do not know the price of bamboo carvings.”

Song Yuyan smiled and did not refuse.

In modern times, she had some fame in cloisonné engraving. Though her pieces did not sell for as much as her teachers’, a brush holder at her peak could fetch around eighteen hundred.

The paperweight and armrest were a bit cheaper. Ones with more complex compositions, like this “Bamboo Cloisonné Great Treasure Mountain Panorama Armrest,” could sell for a thousand, while simple paperweights with basic designs went for two or three hundred.

So she was selling to little miss Tang at cabbage prices.

As for Tang Haogen being bullied by the county magistrate, Song Yuyan was angry but would not rush in with righteous fury to avenge him by sabotaging the carvings. She could tamper with the bamboo carvings to vent for Tang Haogen, but since he provided the bamboo, the county magistrate would easily take it out on him.

But that did not mean she would let it slide. She mentally pulled out her little notebook and jotted down a note against the county magistrate, to settle accounts with him when the chance arose.

____

After Tang Zhi put the wooden box back in her room, Song Yuyan mentioned another matter to her. “By the way, little miss Tang, on my recent trip home to the countryside, I noticed many more idle wanderers around. So do not patrol the vegetable garden at night anymore, and be extra careful during the day.”

She actually wanted Tang Zhi, Tang Haogen, and the others to realize the potential chaos ahead and take precautions, but it was also true that she had seen many idle people on the road back from the countryside.

In fact, as early as the fourth month, rumors of bandits in Dinghai County had already spread. These bandits were not mere petty thieves but the kind who killed and robbed outright, meaning the civil unrest that the original host had witnessed in her memories was quietly arriving.

She even thought Li Yao’s appearance might be connected. If he could still find decent work now and then as before, he would not have the time to come all this way demanding benefits from her. Unless many common folk were destitute and flooding into the city for jobs, increasing competition so much that Li Yao could not compete and got edged out.

Tang Zhi nodded and said, “My brother mentioned this to me too, and said some families have even suffered thieves at night. You need to be careful as well.”

After saying that, she thought again that the Song family’s walls were now much higher, so even petty thieves hitting the Tang home would skip the Song place. Aunt Fierce’s wall-building for the Songs had turned out to be a lucky accident.

Tang Haogen had not only cautioned her but also told her that if these jobless drifters kept increasing, even as a yamen clerk, someone might boldly steal from the vegetable garden then, so she should prepare mentally for major losses there.

Tang Zhi had already steeled herself mentally, but thinking of the vegetables she had worked so hard to grow, only for the money to end up in someone else’s pocket, left her feeling stifled no matter how she looked at it.

_____

That evening, when Tang Haogen returned from the yamen, unlike his usual relieved expression of “finally home and able to breathe easy,” his brows were furrowed almost into a knot this time. Tang Zhi saw his state and did not want to bother him with household trifles, so she simply took out the paperweight and armrest and said,

“Song Dalang asked me to give these to you.”

When Tang Haogen saw the two items, his glum look vanished in an instant, and he picked them up eagerly to examine them. But at that sight, his face fell again.

Tang Zhi asked puzzled, “Big Brother, I think these two pieces Song Dalang carved are far better than that brush holder. Are you not satisfied?”

Tang Haogen said, “I am too satisfied! It is precisely because I know these two pieces are carved better than the previous ones that I feel even more reluctant to give them away—”

He suddenly realized something and quickly corrected himself. “Cough cough, sell them.”

Tang Zhi looked at him with a half-smile. “Big Brother, since they are for the prefect, why hide it!”

“You know?!” Tang Haogen’s heart raced, and he tried to defend himself. “The prefect is not taking them for nothing. He said he would give me money.”

Tang Zhi snorted. “You did not get last month’s salary, so the prefect’s so-called ‘giving you money’ really means using the bamboo carvings to exchange for your pay, right!”

Though clerks’ wages were issued by the court like officials’, local yamen clerks’ pay was in the hands of superiors. If the superior was rotten, clerks might go unpaid and, to survive, end up bullying and extorting ordinary folk.

Since joining the yamen, Tang Haogen had rarely been docked pay. This time, if the county magistrate had not gotten the itch to flatter and eyed his brush holder, such a sordid scheme would not have arisen.

Tang Haogen kept his eyes on his nose and his nose on his heart, not daring to speak. His sister controlled the family finances, and he feared offending her so much that he would end up sleeping on the street and drinking northwest wind.

Tang Zhi chided him a couple of times but did not really hit where it hurt, since she understood her brother’s predicament.

Once that was over, Tang Zhi asked him, “Then Big Brother, why do you still look so worried after coming home today? What is the matter?”

Tang Haogen said, “What else could it be? The summer tax collection is in the fifth and sixth months, but the prefect went to Guangde Lake and East Qian Lake, and upon return, he wants each county to muster three hundred common laborers to clear silt and dredge the waterways. Those two lakes have little to do with our county, and right now is peak farming season. Where are we to gather that many hands!”

Though mustering laborers for river works came with subsidies, it only covered their three meals a day. And the work was grueling and dangerous: the lucky ones returned unscathed, but the unlucky might suffer minor injuries or, worse, drown in the river.

Doing such work in the slack season was tolerable, but in peak farming time, it was tantamount to taking farmers’ lives!

The new prefect probably knew fields needed hands during busy season, so pulling all from Yinxian County would surely cause trouble. Thus, he devised sharing the burden, having every county except Dinghai muster over eighty men.

Over eighty for a county was not many, but no one wanted to be one of those eighty, so trouble was bound to brew.

This was just one of Tang Haogen’s worries. The biggest was that some powerful rich families had secretly filled in Guangde Lake and East Qian Lake to make enclosed fields. The new prefect, upon arrival, surveyed the lakes’ areas, then pretended not to know those were man-made enclosures by the elites and treated them as “silt,” using dredging as pretext to “destroy fields and restore the lakes.”

This was bound to offend those powerful families. Tang Haogen was not siding with them; he thought the new prefect’s approach benefited country and people. But after years in the yamen dealing with such elites, he knew offending them could hinder the new prefect’s work greatly.

He hoped the new prefect would proceed gradually, step by step solving the issues. But as a mere county yamen clerk, he had no chance even to show his face before the new prefect, let alone offer advice.

The county magistrate might have a chance to remonstrate, but given his superior’s character, Tang Haogen knew it was impossible.

Tang Haogen sighed, then grabbed a jar of wine from home and ran off to chat with Song Yuyan.

Tang Zhi “escorted” him to the Song home. When Song Yuyan saw the siblings—one clutching a wine jar, the other with a “you know what to do” look—she figured she was in for another evening of tea-drinking.