stingy landlady

Chapter 129 Solving the Bachelor Village Problem

"Whoa!" The carriage was suddenly stopped, and Guizhi almost fell out! She lifted the curtain and asked:

"What's wrong, Uncle Xu Hong!"

"Miss! Someone has suddenly stopped the car! It's a woman!"

A woman dressed in coarse cloth was seen kneeling in front of the carriage, kowtowing repeatedly. Guizhi hurriedly asked:

"Stop kowtowing! What's going on? In this desolate wilderness, are you human or a demon? How did you end up here on this carriage?"

Upon hearing the girl's voice, the woman felt a sense of relief, abruptly raised her head, and began to sob:

"I am not a monster! I am a human! My sister has caught a cold, has a high fever, and is unconscious! Please, sir, help me take her to the doctor!"

"Where are the people?"

Upon hearing this, Guizhi realized there was a patient and quickly asked!

The woman walked towards a large tree by the roadside. Sure enough, she found a thin woman lying unconscious there!

"Hurry up and get her in the carriage! Uncle Xu Hong! Please help her into the carriage! Don't dawdle! Saving her life is the priority!"

Xu Hong disregarded the distinction between men and women, reached out and picked up the woman, placing her inside the carriage. Guizhi touched the woman's forehead; it was indeed burning hot! She had a fever!

He hurriedly called to the woman who was kowtowing:

"What are you still standing there for? Get in the carriage! As if you can catch up with it!"

The woman then boarded the carriage, but tears kept flowing down her face!

There was water on the carriage. A handkerchief dampened with cassia branches was gently placed on the forehead of the woman with a fever. This was an attempt to lower her temperature using physical methods.

"Uncle Xu Hong! Hurry up, carriage! We need to find a clinic!"

"Alright! Hold on tight, miss! Giddy up!"

The horses galloped, and the carriage sped up!

"Alright! Stop crying! Your tears will drown your older sister! Now, can you tell me what happened?"

"Are you from around here? What are you doing in this desolate place? And there are only two of you? I thought you were two monsters!"

The woman gradually stopped crying, and then said:

"Thank you so much, Miss, for saving my life! My sister has had such a hard life! You must save her!"

It turns out that these two women were originally mistress and servant, but the unconscious woman's fate was tragic! A sudden tragedy struck her family; both her parents died one after the other. She was left alone, and her engagement, which was broken off due to the loss of her parents!

She was then exploited by other relatives, leaving no descendants. Unwilling to be controlled by others, the woman and her companion plotted to escape. After their escape, they always addressed each other as sisters.

When she fled to this place, she met a hunter from a village who took a liking to her, and she also wanted to settle down and live a peaceful life.

Unexpectedly, the hunter encountered misfortune on the mountain, and the woman was considered an omen of bad luck by the man's family and was forcibly driven out.

The two were starving and freezing, drawn only by the woman's beauty. They dared not enter the city, fearing they would be targeted by scoundrels and sold into a brothel, leaving them with no other recourse! So they walked along the road, hoping to find a village where kind farmers would take them in.

Upon arriving at this point, the woman could no longer hold on and fell into a fever and coma. This led to the scene described at the beginning.

Guizhi understood and thought to herself:

People say that happy lives are all alike, but unhappy lives are unhappy in their own way!

So he asked:

"What are your names? You always call each other 'sister' and 'younger sister.' Do you have household registration or travel permits?"

"Yes, yes! Miss! My sister's name is Wanrou! My sister's name is Jushuang."

He then took out their household registration and travel permits and handed them to Guizhi to see.

After Guizhi looked at it, she handed it to Xu Hong for another look before returning it to Jushuang!

Guizhi thought to herself, "Wanrou's name matches the sleeping woman in front of me. What a gentle and delicate first half of her life!"

On the carriage, Guizhi kept trying to cool Wanrou down physically. When they arrived at the clinic, Wanrou regained some consciousness.

Xu Hong, determined to be a good person to the end, still carried Wanrou inside.

After administering fever-reducing medication and prescribing some other medicine, Guizhi consulted the two women at the clinic. Upon their agreement to travel with Guizhi, they boarded the carriage again and returned to Huanghua Village.

When they arrived at their lodgings, they encountered a problem! Everyone objected to the two women sharing a room with Guizhi, saying they were afraid that the illness would be passed on to Guizhi!

So only one thatched hut prepared for the prince remains unoccupied. Guizhi made the decision:

"Let them stay in that room for now! We don't even know if that other person will come, or when they will arrive!"

Uncle Xu Hong! There's no rush now, hurry up and build a few more thatched huts! If you can finish them before the autumn harvest, you won't be able to build them once winter freezes over!

When the news of building another thatched hut spread, some of the more thoughtful farmhands came to ask Xu Hong about it.

"General Xu!"

Xu Hong raised his hand to stop him, "Since he's no longer in the army, he's no longer a general! Call Steward Xu!"

"Yes, Steward Xu! Hehe! I heard the master promised that whoever gets married first will get a house built first. I wonder if it's true or not?"

"So, you've got a woman now, huh?"

"Hehe! Steward Xu! I'll bring a few back from the pass. As long as we have silver or grain, with so many brothers like us, bringing three or five won't be a problem!"

Xu Hong said seriously:

"I don't want to be classified as a lowly person!"

"No! They are all daughters from good families! The area inside the pass is not like here. There are many places where there is famine and they have nowhere to run to!"

If a poor family had a daughter, they would exchange her for grain or arrange a marriage! Before, we brothers had nowhere to stay, and we never dared to think about getting married!

"Well, the landlord was kind-hearted and built him a house, and he also gave him work. So he thought he could use the compensation money to buy a wife and settle down!"

Xu Hong nodded.

"I'll go ask Miss! Please count how many people are in your group so I can report it to her!"

"Five people! There are five of us!"

"Let's all go find our wives?"

"No, no, no! How could that be! Steward Xu! Only two people should go! Lin Shiba and I will go! We'll bring them back together! If we bring back any extra women, whoever takes a fancy to one can take her!"

"How was it, Manager Xu?"

When Guizhi heard Xu Hong say that this was how you could find a wife, her mouth was so wide open that you could fit an egg in it!

"Is this woman so inhumane? Uncle Xu Hong! Can't you just take her away for a little money? And she's supposed to be from a good family?"

"Miss! It's different in every place! The further south you go, the more serious the preference for sons is! There are countless families where no sons are eaten up and the family line ends up extinct!"

In some villages, it's quite normal to use the money from selling one's daughter to pay for one's son's wedding!

Guizhi suddenly understood and cried out:

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go! What our bachelor village lacks most is women! This will not only rescue those women from their plight, but also solve a major problem for our bachelor village!"

Double good news! This is fantastic! I was so worried about where to find so many women to marry off all these people!

The cassia branch spun in circles on the ground:

"Uncle Xu Hong! Then we should build a few more thatched huts! Otherwise, where will people stay when they come? They can't all live in shacks, can they? What kind of place would it be if men and women were crammed together like that?"

"Uncle Xu Hong, we need a place to live first! The two who came today, Wanrou and Jushuang! And that other person needs a room too!"

Guizhi pointed upwards with her hand, then suddenly felt a pang of heartache and said:

"Uncle Xu Hong! I was planning to save these few hundred taels of silver! Oh! My silver! I haven't even had a chance to warm it up yet!"

"Uncle Xu Hong! Did these people only propose marriage because of my money?"

Guizhi made an exaggerated gesture.

Xu Hong smiled but remained silent, watching Guizhi perform.