"Elder brother, your family has indeed married a fine daughter-in-law!" Shopkeeper Zhang had truly not expected such a young girl to already be wed.
"Indeed, this family now relies on this daughter-in-law to hold it together!" Elder Yang was very proud upon hearing Shopkeeper Zhang’s words. His praise held true; Elder Yang was now very grateful that he had agreed to this marriage in the past! It was all thanks to his third son, alas!
"Dad, Shopkeeper Zhang, you two should stop praising !" Xiaoxiao, though fond of complints, insisted that they focus on the matter at hand.
"Here’s the thing, young mistress. The furniture you ordered from our shop, once finished, I thought looked quite special and very practical, so I was thinking..."
"That’s easy, just make so more and sell them to others!" Xiaoxiao quickly voiced her thoughts upon understanding Shopkeeper Zhang’s hint, feeling there was nothing to it as the idea wasn’t originally hers.
"The young mistress sure is straightforward. Don’t worry, we will pay you accordingly. Here are two taels of silver as paynt for the cabinet and lounge chair. If you have other ideas in the future, we will pay one tael for each piece. How’s that?"
"..." Xiaoxiao had not anticipated that casually designing a piece of furniture would bring her such an unexpected fortune.
"Does the young mistress think it’s too little?" Seeing Xiaoxiao’s silence, Shopkeeper Zhang was nervous.
"No, no, this is already quite a lot. I was just thinking, I indeed have so new ideas for furniture, but I can’t draw blueprints. I can only describe them verbally to your carpenters and let you figure it out by yourselves. Is that acceptable?"
"Yes, yes, as long as you have ideas, that’s good enough! Our carpenters are very skilled; what we lack are people with ideas. Young mistress, you have been a great help to us!"
After finalizing the details and sending Shopkeeper Zhang on his way, she agreed to provide the furniture store with at least one new design every month. Though it wasn’t going to make her rich, Xiaoxiao was quite content. Reflecting on the past ten days, who would have thought that with a modern perspective, even a ’dostic invalid’ could earn money here? It seed she wouldn’t starve in this place after all! Prosperity seed imminent, and Xiaoxiao’s confidence was growing.
"Mom, here’s one tael of silver for you to use for household expenses. I need to keep the other tael for myself because I have other things I need to do!"
"You keep it all. The house doesn’t need anything right now; do whatever you want to do. There’s no need to give us the silver." Having seen the third daughter-in-law’s abilities, the mother-in-law no longer had her previous concerns. Whatever she wants to do, let her do it. After all, the money was earned by her.
"Alright, Mom, I won’t keep this from you—I’ll hold onto it. Rest assured, our family will only get better, and look, haven’t I found another way to make money? We’re definitely not going to starve!" Xiaoxiao was genuinely happy, firmly believing the family’s circumstances would continue to improve.
When the furniture arrived, Xiaoxiao was excited and quickly went to tidy up her room. Since there wasn’t much in her room to begin with, organizing was easy. The new furniture was neatly placed in the room, and the old desk and boxes were moved to the outer room. The weather was getting colder; they couldn’t bear it without heating the kang, and they might even catch a cold. The top priority was adding a stove. There were children in the house; they couldn’t be left to freeze. They also needed to buy a big bath tub—as it stood, using a small basin to wash in the chill was unbearable. No matter how you looked at it, a poor household couldn’t have enough even if they kept adding things. Would these newly earned two taels of silver even be enough? Xiaoxiao had her doubts!
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