525 Where To Start?
Xue Yan said, “I’ve already drawn the design of the house and I know the size of the plot of land. It’ll be pretty big because I want it to be more spacious. We will pay for it. Don’t worry.”
“Sure, sure. As long as you’re aware of it.” Chief Lu replied.
When they arrived at the empty space next to Xue Dagui’s house, Chief Lu instructed Lu Zhuangniu to mark the place as he listened to Xue Yan’s instructions.
They used fire ash, which is plant ash, to draw a line on the ground. In the future, the house, including the yard, can not exceed the line drawn by the plant ash.
Seeing that a huge piece of land had been drawn and marked with a wooden stake, Chief Lu immediately sighed, “Your house is pretty big. You will have to pay a lot of money for this. Since your family dared to make it like this, I’m sure you can afford the charges.”
He then used the rope to measure the line drawn in gray. After measuring it three times and seeing that it was the same, he stopped measuring.
The villagers were still surprised to see such a large piece of land being marked even though they knew that Jiang Yue and Xue Yan’s family could afford such a big house.
He was even more shocked when he heard that it was going to be a house made of brick.
When they returned to the village head’s house, Xue Yan drew a map of the land, indicating the location of the land and the size in great detail. It was done in one go, which was much better than the caterpillar-like way that Chief Lu usually drew one stroke and then another.
Chief Lu looked at it and nodded his head repeatedly. Seeing that there was no problem, he signed and stamped his thumbprint.
Chief Lu calculated how much they had to pay for the extra size a few times to make sure he was right before he said to Jiang Yue and Xue Yan, “You have to pay nine silver and two hundred and eighty coins. You can give it to me later so that I can give the money and the title deed to the chief. Otherwise, the government won’t stamp it. They will only stamp it after you pay the money for the excess size.”
Only those with the official seal were real title deeds.
“There’s no need to wait, I have it on me now.” Xue Yan took out the money bag and started to count the money.
Chief Lu fell silent. He was just a child, but he carried so much money with him.
Jiang Yue helped to count the coins.
Nine pieces of silver, then two hundred and eighty coins.
Chief Lu counted once to make sure there were no mistakes before keeping the money. “I’ll go find Lizheng later. He’s going to the county tomorrow, so I think you’ll be able to get the title deed of that land before dark tomorrow. Oh right, there’s something else I need to say…” He hesitated. “I don’t even know how to tell you, but Lizheng has come to find me a few times.”
“What’s the matter?” Jiang Yue and Xue Yan looked at Chief Lu calmly, not surprised at all. Before the plot of land was drawn, Lu Zhuangniu had told them that Lizheng had been asking Chief Lu to go over for the past few days.
Chief Lu looked as if he didn’t know what to say. After a long while, he spoke again, “The thing is… Lizheng is saying that our villages are too poor. Even if many people have the strength, it’s difficult to find work in town. If your family needs to hire people to do work, try to find people from our villages instead. He also told me that if you hire people from the surrounding villages to work and those people don’t work properly and cause trouble, you can go to him and he will deal with it.”
Jiang Yue and Xue Yan looked at each other and felt their hearts turn warm from the suggestion.
Xue Yan gestured for Jiang Yue to speak, and Jiang Yue replied calmly, “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t ask our people instead. Lizheng is also thinking for the villagers. However, our family has always been hiring as many people as possible from the villages. You and Lizheng can rest assured about this. I’m sure you can see the meaning behind this.”