After leaving the village chief’s house, Yang Rulin suggested taking Yang Ruxin and Xiaofeng to see the house first to check what needed to be fixed, so they would have an idea.
The old house of their great uncle happened to be next to the Gu Family’s, with a small vegetable patch separating the two houses; the land was divided equally between them. Currently, the Gu Family’s half was planted with vegetables, but the other half was lying fallow.
"The Gu Family are actually decent people; they haven’t taken a single inch more than their fair share of the land," Yang Rulin said, pointing at the vegetable patch.
Yang Ruxin just smiled. She was already quite familiar with the Gu Family. If they were not of good character, she wouldn’t have befriended them, but she didn’t plan on voicing this thought to Yang Rulin.
"Are you very familiar with the Gu Family?" Yang Rulin then asked.
Yang Ruxin’s eyes flickered for a moment before she looked up at Yang Rulin. After a few seconds of eye contact, she nodded slightly, "I’ve interacted with them before, they’ve helped me..."
Yang Rulin nodded but didn’t say anything more and instead began checking the condition of the old house.
After going around the yard and inside the house, they discovered a hole in the roof of the west room, a collapsed section of the west courtyard wall, and an overgrowth of weeds in the back courtyard...
"These are minor issues, they can all be taken care of in no more than two days," Yang Rulin glanced at Yang Ruxin, "The weeds can be cut down for firewood, and after airing the house out for a couple of days, it should be all right. Probably in about five or six days, you guys can move in..."
"Thank you, Brother Rulin," Yang Ruxin nodded, "Then, about the rent..."
"Let’s talk about that later," Yang Rulin waved his hand, "Great-grandpa said, right now you are in a time of need, so don’t rush it. We’ll discuss it once you are settled in..."
"I’ll bring my siblings over to pay our respects to great uncle another day," Yang Ruxin’s nose felt slightly tinged with sourness.
Although the great uncle only had one son, he did have two grandsons. When it came to his great-grandchildren, the family tree flourished even more, with six great-grandsons, all boys.
Yang Rulin was the eldest among the great-grandsons and had always been groomed by the great uncle to be the family head. Not to mention anything else, he was certainly destined to take over Yang Mancang’s role. As he was smart and capable, although he didn’t pursue scholarly honors, his craftsmanship as a carpenter was well-known within ten miles, which gave him considerable prestige among the great-grandsons.
To renovate the old house, having Yang Rulin and his younger brothers would have been enough, but people who heard the news all came to help, like Gu Yao, Little Liuzi, Tie Dan, and so forth.
Even girls like Li Xiang, Li Jiaya, and Liang Xiaoyu came over to help.
With so many hands, the work naturally progressed quickly, and in a day and a half, the house was tidied up.
Yang Baixiang, however, never showed up; Little Liuzi said he had been locked up in the house by Yang Anshi.
Yang Ruxin could only smile helplessly at this news.
Everyone re-thatched the roof of the house and added some tiles, reinforced the courtyard walls, applied a fresh layer of clay to the two kitchen stoves on either side of the main house and the two kang beds in the east and west rooms, cleaned out the chimneys, refurbished the wing rooms and the back courtyard’s woodshed and chicken coop, and repaired all the doors...
Finally, it was time to light fires to drive out the dampness. The straw in the backyard had been drying for almost two days and was ready to be burned.
Seeing the steam rising from the house everywhere, Yang Ruxin smiled. She felt a stirring of excitement; this would be their home from now on. If everything went well, they would live here for quite some time—at least until she could comfortably and rightfully become wealthy. It seemed they would be staying here for the foreseeable future.