Taking Chen Jinyou back home, Qi Huan told him about her plan for the greenhouse.
"Qi Huan, I've seen cotton fabric and silk fabric, but this is the first time I've seen plastic fabric."
Caressing the smooth plastic cloth, Chen Jinyou's eyes were filled with curiosity: "Qi Huan, is this also left to you by your dad?"
"That's right!"
Qi Huan now lied without batting an eye.
After she answered with firm conviction, the system asked puzzledly: "Am I your dad?"
Instantly, Qi Huan reflexively retorted: "I am your dad!"
"Host, why are you insulting me?"
"I'm not insulting you." Qi Huan blinked her eyes innocently: "I was insulting the system."
"Besides, you insulted me first."
After being accused by her, the system complained: "Host, you're wronging me... The plastic cloth was given to the host by me, yet the host said it was given by the host's dad, so does that mean I'm your dad?"
"Don't you want points anymore?"
"Oh, you are my dad."
Delighted to be a dad, Qi Huan was in a particularly good mood. When explaining the greenhouse cultivation plan to Chen Jinyou, her tone was light and gentle.
"Master Chen, after we build the greenhouse, we can grow off-season vegetables and send them to the towns near Mo County through merchant caravans, selling them at high prices to wealthy merchants. We'll split the profits three ways. I'll provide the greenhouse film, the Yunyingshang Caravan will be responsible for transportation and purchasing seeds, and you'll provide the farmland and labor. How about it?"
It sounded like she contributed the least money and effort, but the greenhouse film was the key to greenhouse cultivation, so taking one-third of the profits was not too much.
Chen Jinyou and Li Shuchen had no objections to her arrangement.
In contrast, Chen Jinyou was more concerned about what was for dinner.
Just as he was about to order some crispy pork, the servant Xigua came to report: "Young Master, the Lady is calling you home for dinner."
"Oh."
Chen Jinyou hung his head, shrugged his shoulders, and reluctantly headed home.
His mother preferred a healthy diet and cooked plain dishes. Eating one meal was fine, but eating every meal like that would make his mouth bland as a bird's.
As he approached the Qi family's door, he leaned against the door frame and instructed wistfully: "Qi Huan, I'll come to your place for lunch tomorrow. Remember to fry me some crispy pork!"
After he finished speaking, Li Shuchen slammed the door shut with a bang. Turning to Qi Huan, he said, "What would you like for dinner? I'll do the cooking for the next two days."
"I want to eat you."
Gazing at the jealous Li Shuchen, Qi Huan harbored a desire to tease him and took the greasy, earthy flirtatious remark to the extreme.
Hearing her say that, the usually calm and composed Li Shuchen rapidly developed a suspicious flush on his ears. He swallowed and his voice deepened slightly: "I'll satisfy you."
Pinning her against the door, Li Shuchen cupped the back of her head with his hand, lowering his head to kiss her tender lips, plundering her breath and making her take on his scent.
"Woof woof woof!"
Heizi, crouching in his doghouse by the wall, gazed at the owners who were kissing passionately and called out a few disgruntled barks, reminding the mistress that it was time to refill his dog bowl!
After a long while, the kiss ended.
Li Shuchen then asked: "What would you like for dinner?"
"Let's have noodles, since you can only handle noodles."
"Oh." A hint of disappointment flashed across his clear eyes, and Li Shuchen turned to go cook noodles in the kitchen.
*
The next day.
Chen Jinyou was late, and by lunchtime, he still hadn't arrived. The crispy pork that Qi Huan had fried ended up in Li Shuchen's stomach.
After lunch, Qi Huan woke up from her nap feeling thirsty. She took a cup and got up to find some water to drink, but discovered that Chen Jinyou had already arrived and was idly crouching in the courtyard playing with the dog.
He curiously pointed at the dog food in Heizi's bowl and inquired: "Qi Huan, what is this? Don't tell me these are poop pellets?"
He had once heard Xigua say that poor families couldn't even afford to eat rice themselves, and their hungry watchdogs could only find poop to eat.
Chen Jinyou looked at Heizi with sympathy, thinking that even for poop, it couldn't get fresh ones.
Heizi looked back at him sympathetically, thinking that at such a young age, his brain was already damaged.
The master wasn't poor, so how could he let it eat poop? Its dog food was deliciously crunchy.
Watching the man and the dog in the corner of the wall, Qi Huan twitched the corners of her mouth and steered the conversation back to a normal direction.
"Master Chen, have you decided which farmland to use for growing vegetables?"
"There are too many manors, and I'm dizzy from choosing. So I've just brought all the land deeds here. Qi Huan, you pick whichever one you like, and we'll use that one."
As he spoke, he walked over to the stone table in the courtyard, untied the bulging bundle, revealing a thick stack of land deeds.
After careful comparison, Qi Huan chose a manor called Seven-Mile Village near the city.
This manor had about three hundred acres of fertile land and twenty tenant households. On average, each household tended to about fifteen acres of land, barely scraping by a living.
After selecting the manor, Qi Huan went to take a look on site. It was currently the harvest season, and the fields were covered in golden hues. Tenant farmers dressed in short-sleeved robes were vigorously swinging their sickles, with some thin, short children following behind, picking up the scattered grains on the ground.
Upon receiving the news, the village chief quickly came over, offering wild fruits he had brought from home, a sincere smile on his dark face.
"Landlord, why have you come here?"
Wiping the fruits on his robe before taking a crunchy bite, Chen Jinyou pointed to the fields ahead and directly stated his intention: "We'll be growing vegetables here next year!"
His words were casual, but they stirred up a storm in the village chief's heart.
The village chief anxiously said: "Landlord, why would you want to grow vegetables? If you're short on vegetables to eat, every household in our village has a small vegetable garden in the backyard, and we can each pick some to send to you.
But we grow grain crops in the fields to sustain our livelihood. If we lose these grains in the future, how will we survive?"
All year round, they toiled hard just to pay the grain tax and tenant fees, leaving a little grain to tightly provide for the whole family's consumption.
If they switched to growing vegetables, how long could vegetables last? And how many copper coins could they sell for?
The village chief was so distraught that he was almost in tears. His thick lips moved wordlessly, wanting to persuade the landlord to abandon this idea, but his mind went blank, unable to speak.
Seeing his distress, Qi Huan quickly explained: "Don't worry, we're not going to convert all the fields to vegetable cultivation."
"Out of the three hundred acres, we'll only use twenty acres for now. The remaining fields will still be left for everyone to grow wheat. In other words, each household will only dedicate one acre to growing vegetables. And as long as you carefully tend to the vegetables, you won't have to worry about the grain tax and tenant fees for that one acre. Plus, you'll get one or two silver taels per season."
Upon hearing about one or two silver taels, the village chief's eyes immediately lit up.
His mind had never been clearer.
In other words, every family only needed to leave one mu of land unplanted and instead help Chen Jinyou's family grow vegetables on it. If they did a good job, they could even receive a tael or two of silver.
The village chief's heart raced. After deducting the tax grain and rent grain from the harvest of one mu of land, the remaining grain could hardly be sold for even one tael of silver.
To the wealthy townsfolk, one tael of silver might not be enough for a single meal. But for peasant farmers like them, it could buy two or three months' worth of food.
The village chief had initially wanted to gather the other families to discuss this further before deciding, but seeing Chen Jinyou's insistent manner, he could only nod in agreement.
The land belonged to Chen Jinyou's family, so they had no choice in the matter.
The five-year contract was just expiring, and if they refused, Chen Jinyou's family could very well rent the land to others to farm.
After much internal struggle, the village chief nodded heavily. The terms offered by Chen Jinyou's family were not bad, so they might as well give it a try.
Qi Huan followed the village chief and others around the village, carefully selecting the fields to use for growing vegetables.
After the merchant convoy brought back bamboo poles and seeds, some land in the village was cleared, and the work of setting up greenhouses began.
