Chapter 45: Chapter 45 Auntie Comes_1
Chapter 45: Chapter 45 Auntie Comes_1
Lin Yue had no idea that a “love rival” was scheming to deal with her. At the moment, she was holding her first earnings since arriving in the Great Zhou Dynasty, laughing happily and carefully tucking it into her purse. Although it was not a lot of Silver Coin, starting from now, she was finally not penniless.
“I took your purse to the Embroidery Workshop, and the Manager there praised the purse you embroidered. Normally, the purses I embroider would only earn me four or five coin each, but yours fetched eight coin from the Manager. Since you provided your own materials for the embroidered purses, the Manager added an extra four coin for each, selling them at twelve coin each. You gave me twenty purses total, which sold for two hundred fourteen coin. The Manager also said that next time you have embroidered goods, just bring them straight to him, and he won’t shortchange you on the price,” Chunxi said, conveying the Manager’s words to Lin Yue with a mix of envy and admiration.
“Really? That’s wonderful news. In the future, I’ll still need to trouble you, Sister Chunxi, to deliver my embroidered goods for me. Did you manage to ask if the Embroidery Store needs any other embroidered items besides purses?”
“I asked the Manager. The Embroidery Store will take any kind of embroidered item you can think of; they accept all sizes. However, the finer and more novel the piece, the higher the price they’re willing to pay. The Manager thinks you have a great skill for embroidery and suggested that you work on larger pieces, like screens and wall hangings. Although they take longer to make, a single piece could sell for several taels or even up to a hundred taels of silver if it’s well-made.”
Hearing this, Lin Yue had a plan in mind. Once she had embroidered more pieces and her skills were more polished, she too intended to work on larger items. For the time being, she decided to keep embroidering smaller items like purses, sachets, and other hanging ornaments. The embroidery fabric at home were remnants and scraps she had bought from the fabric store last time, large enough to embroider a fan only. To embroider larger pieces, she would need to buy good fabric from the town, and she would also need to purchase a set of better embroidery tools.
The fabric and thread needed to be chosen by herself to be appropriate, but embroidery tools could be purchased by Chunxi to bring back to her. If she wanted to embroider fan faces, her old, worn-out little embroidery frame would not be adequate. And so, the Silver Coin that Lin Yue had only just received not long ago, hadn’t even warmed in her hands before she had to, though pained, hand it over to Chunxi.
There was an art to making money, and Lin Yue felt joyful. She didn’t want to stay inside the home, and her mind was restless, so she followed Zhao Erhu to the fields. It was just the right time for her to learn more about her family’s situation, to avoid being ignorant of how much land they owned and where it was located.
“Brother Erhu, let me come to the field with you,” Lin Yue said upon seeing Zhao Erhu heading out with a hoe and quickly followed him.
“Sure, if it makes you happy, follow along,” Zhao Erhu, who had always spoiled his young wife and never let Lin Yue work in the field, readily agreed this time, unlike before. The reason was that Erhu thought that if his wife found something to do, she wouldn’t keep thinking about going to the market to sell food. Ever since she brought it up, she had pleaded with him several times. Zhao Erhu was truly exasperated by Lin Yue’s insistence and thought it would be good if she found something else to do. With him watching over, she could pick up stones in the field and do some light work without him worrying about her getting tired.
Lin Yue had originally planned to help Zhao Erhu with the work in the field, but him treating her this way made her lose interest. She didn’t stay long before returning the way she came. Before she reached home, she spotted a plump woman marching towards their house with an air of aggression. As Lin Yue was wondering who she might be, she heard Sanlang’s cautious warning, “Aunt’s coming! Aunt’s coming!”