As for whether An Jing prefers sour or sweet, Xiao Changyi wasn’t really concerned, what he cared about was, "Being able to eat is a blessing."
As long as his wife could eat, it didn’t matter whether it was sweet or sour.
Upon hearing this, An Jing immediately laughed, "You didn’t manage to fatten me into a little pig before, maybe you’ll succeed this time."
Xiao Changyi looked at An Jing, who only had a bulging belly and whose body hadn’t gained weight anywhere else recently, and uttered one word, "Doubtful."
An Jing laughed even harder, saying, "If I really do get fat like a pig, what will you do if you can’t carry me? Have people lift me?"
An Jing imagined herself being carried like a pig and immediately felt a chill, quickly moving the conversation along, she said, "When Meng Lanqing comes, we’ll ask him for a thousand taels. Youbao said he paid him twenty-seven thousand taels a few days ago; he couldn’t have spent it all so quickly."
In fact, fixing the road would only cost three or four hundred taels, asking for a thousand was because they were out of money. After repairing the road, they would keep the rest for their own use.
"Mm." Xiao Changyi had no objections.
The next day, when Meng Lanqing visited, he first reported to An Jing and Xiao Changyi that he had opened three more branches for An’s Rice Shop. Now, counting the branches, An’s Rice Shop had six outlets in different counties. Then, he reported the profit and loss of each rice shop. Finally, when An Jing asked him for a thousand taels, he immediately took out the money and handed it to her.
After Meng Lanqing had left, An Jing then said to Xiao Changyi, "Husband, let’s get the road fixed before the New Year. The ground doesn’t seem to be frozen too hard. If we hire more people, we should be able to finish the road before New Year’s Eve."
"Let’s just find a contractor to hire workers. If something happens, we go to the contractor, and they’ll handle it. It saves us worry and effort."
"So, how many people do you think we should hire to fix the road?" An Jing asked.
Xiao Changyi said, "Winter might bring rain or snow any day now, making it impossible to work on the road. It’s better to hire more people and finish early. Let’s hire sixty workers. With sixty people, I reckon we can finish the road in ten days."
An Jing thought it made sense and had no objections, "Mm."
The next day, Xiao Changyi went to town to find a contractor and signed for sixty workers at a daily wage of fifteen coins each.
Seeing that Xiao Changyi was hiring so many people at once, the contractor even offered a Supervisor for free. If any problems arose during the road construction, the Supervisor would deal with them immediately.
On the eleventh of December, sixty strong men led by the Supervisor came to build the road, creating an impressive sight.
At first, everyone didn’t know it was road construction and, seeing so many people, thought something major had happened. Many even followed to watch, until they realized it was for building a road, then the interest died down and everyone went back to their homes.
However, the news spread that An Jing and Xiao Changyi were building a shortcut right from their doorway to the main road.
Everyone’s first reaction was to marvel at how wealthy An Jing and Xiao Changyi must be.
Then, people started to wonder. Couldn’t all that money just be saved and stored at home, why waste it on building a road?
This was especially the case for the people in An Village.
Firstly, An Village didn’t have the money to fix roads and, secondly, they had never even considered fixing a road. The path they used to reach the main road had always been narrow and steep, and it was easy to slip and fall when it rained.
Even though people always fell, no one in An Village had ever thought about fixing the road. However, on rainy days, they wouldn’t take that path anymore and would instead make a detour. They’d take a longer route, passing through Jiuping Village to reach the main road.
And the entrance of Jiuping Village was connected to the main road.