Reborn as the Blissful Wife in the countryside-Chapter 111 Refusal to Accept

Ah Jiu, upon hearing Gu Dexing’s words, directly replied, "Brother Xing of the Gu Family, the Old Master has already read the characters and article you wrote yesterday."

Upon hearing this, Gu Dexing became very excited and asked Ah Jiu, "What did Scholar Shang say? Could it be, could it be..." that he thought his article was well written and wanted to take him as a disciple?

Ah Jiu smiled and said, "The Old Master didn’t say much, just told me to deliver these three letters to you. Here, this one is yours, and there’s one for Brother Wang."

Ah Jiu took out three letters from the cloth bag at his waist and handed two of them to Gu Dexing.

Gu Dexing took them, too impatient to thank Ah Jiu, and rushed out of the Gu Family compound. As soon as he left the compound, he eagerly opened the letter with his own name on it.

But upon reading the content of the letter, Gu Dexing’s heart turned cold. The letter contained only two sentences, one giving an evaluation of his scholarship, suggesting that if he wanted to study, he could go to a private school in town for ten years, and perhaps he might obtain an official position.

The final sentence, however, was a clear statement that he would not take any disciples.

Gu Dexing couldn’t believe it; his article was written so well, yet Scholar Shang refused to take him?

He couldn’t believe it was true and opened the letter addressed to Gu Dewang. The letter only contained one sentence: It is possible to find Xu Tongsheng in Songzi Gully to provide rudimentary teaching.

It was obvious that he looked down upon Gu Dewang’s scholarship, not even willing to provide him with basic teaching.

Gu Dexing felt somewhat more at ease, but he still couldn’t accept it. Why would Scholar Shang not take him as a disciple?

If he could become Scholar Shang’s apprentice, he would be able to forge a connection with County Captain Jiang, and their family could benefit from it.

But Gu Dexing was merely a seventeen-year-old boy, a country child with limited experience, unable at the moment to think of a better way to encourage Scholar Shang to take him as a disciple, and could only return home despondently.

Ah Jiu, seeing that Gu Dexing did not persistently argue, heaved a sigh of relief and looked towards Gu Jin’an, handing him a letter: "Good Brother An, this is the letter from the Old Master to you."

Gu Jin’an nervously took it, thanked him, then returned to the room he shared with Brother Cheng, opened the envelope, and looked at the letter inside.

The letter only contained two words: Wen Zhi.

Gu Jin’an’s brows furrowed, but he quickly understood the meaning of Scholar Shang, who was asking about his aspirations.

Gu Jin’an immediately took out pen and paper and wrote on the yellow paper a single sentence: In this life, my purpose is but to protect my family and plead on behalf of the people.

After writing, he looked at the sentence and became anxious again. He placed "protecting the family" at the forefront, showing that his primary desire was to protect his family members, and only second was to plead for the people.

Would Scholar Shang feel that he was a selfish person after seeing this answer, and thus refuse to accept him?

Gu Jin’an hesitated, but he didn’t change his answer. After waiting for the ink to dry completely, he folded the yellow paper, slipped it into a simple envelope made of yellow paper, and handed it to Ah Jiu: "This is my reply to Uncle Shang; please make sure Brother Jiu delivers it to Uncle Shang’s hands."

Ah Jiu took the letter and smiled, "Good Brother An, rest assured, I will definitely deliver the letter." His own Old Master was also waiting for it.

Ah Jiu didn’t stay long at the Gu Family’s place; after delivering the items, tucking away the bean dregs cakes given by the Gu Family, and grabbing a gift prepared by Mrs. Cui as a return gesture, he rode the carriage with Old Luo back to the Shang Family.

Gu Jin’an stood in the courtyard for a while, then returned to the kitchen to make tofu.

Gu Jinli looked at his nervous appearance but didn’t ask what he wrote to Scholar Shang. Instead, she took out a bag of soybeans and started to pick the beans in preparation for making soy oil.

It took two hours to pick out twenty catties of soybeans.

She took the soybeans to the small stone mill outside the kitchen to grind them. It took more than two hours to finish milling the twenty catties.

By the time she finished milling the beans, it was already dark. Gu Jinli tidied up and then went to cook.

She was generous with oil when cooking, so the food was tastier, and as long as she was home, she would cook. Although Mrs. Cui felt pained about the oil use, she was more heartbroken about her children, so she let Gu Jinli take the lead.

Dinner was fragrant with sweet potato and old rice, leftover fried crispy pork from yesterday, fried tofu, scrambled eggs, stir-fried bean sprouts, and cabbage and ground meat tofu soup. It was rich in oil, and the family enjoyed it immensely.

Third Grandma complained, "This is too luxurious; if there’s crispy pork, there’s no need to cook eggs. And for the rice, porridge would do, no need for dry rice." Yet seeing that her children were no longer as skinny as before, she thought it was worth it.

After dinner, the families came to Gu Jinli’s house as usual to count and share the income.

Their business was doing very well now, selling 350 catties of tofu and 200 catties of bean dregs daily, along with over a hundred packets of spices.

After counting the money, Gu Jin’an started to announce, "After setting aside the initial capital, today’s net profit is ten taels and three hundred and sixty cents."

His family could take four taels and one hundred and forty-four cents, and each of the other six families could take one tael and thirty-six cents.

Aunt Tian held her chest and said, "To be able to share one tael of silver in a day, my, that really is a lot."

When they first started the tofu business, each family could only share a few hundred cents a day, and now they could share more than a tael. They never even dreamed of this.

Mrs. Chen looked at Aunt Tian’s reaction somewhat disdainfully and said, "This is a lot? It will be even more in the future. Now in the town, every household eats our tofu. Today, many food shops have come to our stand asking to make our Fried Five-Spice Tofu, dreaming they are. It’s our lifeline, our livelihood, how could we let them do the same thing?"

At this, Mrs. Chen was very proud. Because of the tofu business, many people in town came up to her, wanting to learn the secret of the tofu, but who is she? Would she tell them?

The families happily shared the money and then returned to their homes.

The next day, it was the Luo Family’s and the Tian Family’s turn to set up the stand, and Gu Jinli along with Qin San Lang also went along.

She also brought her household registration with her. After setting up the stand in town, she and Qin San Lang went to the blacksmith to order ten plate-sized iron cakes and two iron hammers weighing three catties each. frёewebηovel.cѳm

The blacksmith was very curious about what she was making and asked, "I understand the use of hammers, but what are you doing with these iron cakes? They can’t be eaten."

Gu Jinli smiled and casually came up with a reason to fob off the blacksmith, "My family is thinking of creating a new type of food, so we need to use these iron cakes to make it. That’s why we are ordering them."

Now that the Gu Family’s tofu was selling well, everybody in town knew, including the blacksmith. Hearing her say this, he did not ask further. After looking at her household registration, he said, "Iron is expensive these days. One catty of pig iron costs one tael of silver. For ten iron cakes, each weighing one catty, and two iron hammers, each weighing three catties, it will cost twenty taels of silver."

That was considered inexpensive.

"If you want them made, leave a deposit of five taels of silver, and you can come to pick them up tomorrow afternoon."

These things were easy to make; the hammers were a bit more troublesome, but the iron cakes, just a few knocks would do.

Gu Jinli still had some silver coins given by Qi Yi, so she readily paid a deposit of five taels and left the blacksmith shop with Qin San Lang.