Upon seeing Feng Ge being beaten and hearing about it, some busybodies went to find Wu Guihua. Wu Guihua had just come down the mountain with a heavy load of lumps of arrowroot, and she was drying them in the courtyard.
Arrowroot lumps, a type of starchy root, are ground into powder after drying, and they are tasteless. Wu Guihua used to despise them and found the work of digging them tiresome.
The soil on the mountain was hard, and these roots grew deep in the ground. The entire family of three had to work together, with Changsheng and his father digging, while she carried them. Every day, they worked until they were exhausted, and she didn't even want to move a finger.
Wu Guihua had a tired and numb look in her eyes as she squatted on the ground, skillfully rubbing the mud off the arrowroot. She didn't even bother to raise her head when she heard the busybodies approaching with a message.
In Wu Guihua's view, although the Sha Yang family treated Feng Ge poorly, their family's condition was there. If Feng Ge wanted to find something to eat, he could always find it, and Sha Yang's mother wouldn't let him starve.
But it was different for them. After the incident of marrying someone else on behalf of another family, no one in the village, unless they were foolish, would ever lend them money again. As the saying goes, helping the needy is different from helping the destitute. If they lent them money now, it would be like supporting them. They didn't even have a piece of land, and who knows when they would be able to pay it back?
It was only now that Wu Guihua realized the hardship of Li Wang and Yong Ge, especially when she sought help from her mother's family after their family ran into trouble. In the past, when she carried things back, her brother-in-law and sister-in-law would greet her with smiles from afar, but now they turned away as soon as they saw her, as if she were some dirty thing.
Her father even refused to let her into the house, stating that he didn't have such a shameful daughter and wanted to sever relations with her.
Wu Guihua was truly frightened. During the winter when her second brother broke his leg, she witnessed firsthand how difficult their lives were.
At that time, she just wanted their whole family to starve to death and not drag anyone else down…
But now that hard times had fallen upon her, she experienced the fear of having no one to turn to for help.
Wu Guihua regretted her past actions. Her life used to be good, but she had gradually worked herself into her current situation. Yes, it seemed to have started with Feng Ge marrying someone else, and there were two incidents… all because Feng Ge wanted to marry.
Wu Guihua was superstitious, especially after Feng Ge married into the Sha family, who seemed to have been making jokes every other day.
She gradually felt that Feng Ge might have an unlucky fate, not only harming his family but also those around him… Now, she didn't want to get involved with him anymore, partly because of this reason.
Actually, Wu Guihua had thought about going to ask Yong Ge for help after he started recruiting workers in the village. However, she was afraid of Cheng Duo, so she only went to ask Third Madam and some relatives from the Li family, but no one was willing to help her.
She had been such a bad person before, and everyone was afraid of getting involved in her mess.
Cheng Duo had a difficult personality, and now he had met a nobleman and was buying land and building a brickyard. They also wanted to benefit from him. At this time, to offend him for Wu Guihua, they were not that stupid!
Moreover, many people were eyeing Yong Ge's position. Even their own family members couldn't secure a place there, so why should an outsider benefit from it?
Everyone didn't notice that as the brickyard was built, Yong Ge recruited more and more people to make mud bricks. The villagers instinctively distanced themselves from Wu Guihua's family.
It seemed like an unwritten rule; even when Li Mancang and Li Changsheng passed by in the village, everyone pretended not to see them and avoided any greetings.
Li Mancang would initiate greetings himself, but others would quickly walk away, afraid of being seen as having a close relationship with them.
Li Mancang became increasingly silent, focusing only on his work every day. Li Changsheng, on the other hand, became even more reserved. Ever since he had spoken about his parents' intentions for Yong Ge in front of everyone, people believed that his honest and simple demeanor was an act.
Li Changsheng felt ashamed and couldn't even raise his head. However, his family needed to eat, so he could only follow his father, acting like an invisible and silent person.
Their family was gradually marginalized in the village. Soon, the latest news from Cheng Duo's brickyard made their existence even more awkward.
The brickyard started to buy firewood from outside, and Cheng Duo paid a fair price of two wen per ten catties. He bought a large quantity of firewood, and everyone was eager to help. Not just in Yang Village, but villagers from surrounding areas also started to go to the mountains to chop firewood and make money.
In ancient times, families were large because contraception was not common, leading to numerous children. With so many able-bodied individuals and limited job opportunities in the village, they could only rely on such work to make ends meet.
With this earning opportunity arising, every household was excited. Even children as young as six or seven years old helped their parents with work.
However, Li Mancang's family couldn't earn any money. They saw the villagers' faces getting better day by day, with everyone looking healthier and happier. Even families with several single siblings started looking for brides…
This shift in status made Li Mancang's family increasingly uncomfortable. The Sha family also faced a similar situation because the people in charge of buying firewood for the brickyard were Aunt Qian's three sons.
They hated Feng Ge. Not only did Li Mancang's firewood get rejected, but even Sha family's firewood was also rejected. Although Sha's second daughter's in-laws were better off and were not directly implicated, they still restricted Sha second sister from returning to her mother's home easily.
Li Mancang's and Sha Yang's families were ostracized, and Cheng Duo initially didn't know about it. But even after knowing, he didn't interfere and accepted Qian eldest son's actions as default.
After all, it was his money, and he could choose to give it to whomever he wanted. In modern businesses, there were also customer blacklists, so why couldn't he refuse to do business with people he didn't like?
On the other hand, Cheng Duo felt a bit overwhelmed. He had no experience in making clay bricks, and even with a recipe, it couldn't possibly cover all the details. So he experimented several times before successfully producing qualified bricks.
But once the clay bricks were made, he had to start renovating his own courtyard, so he had to run between the brickyard and the construction site, busy as a bee.
Yong Ge wanted to help, but he had only learned from Cheng Duo for a little over a month, and he could only manage the work for making clay bricks. Moreover, with the increasing number of people making clay bricks, he had to count during the day and then ask Cheng Duo to help with the bookkeeping at night…
The problem was with the bookkeeping. Cheng Duo was busy, and although Qian's three sons knew how much firewood they had weighed and how much money they had paid, they couldn't read or keep accounts.
It was convenient to pay for the firewood on the spot. However, while this might work for a short time, in the long run, it might give rise to some undesirable thoughts. Anyway, it was quite a lot of firewood stored in the warehouse, and Cheng Duo couldn't go there to weigh it every day to see how much was collected and used.
Furthermore, when the brickyard received orders in the future, he needed to have a record; otherwise, he wouldn't even know if he was losing money.
Initially, Cheng Duo wanted to ask Li San Ye for advice, but unexpectedly, someone was even more enthusiastic and came to him.
This person was Liu Shusheng.
Liu Shusheng was weak and unable to carry heavy loads. Although he was a student, the money he earned from copying books every month was barely enough for survival. People in the village rarely wrote letters, and there were even fewer requests for him to write contracts like Cheng Duo. After all, most villagers would never sell their land in their lifetime.
In the past two months, Liu Shusheng had fainted from hunger a few times at home, and his hands trembled while copying books. Seeing that he was on the brink of starving, he couldn't care about his dignity anymore and reluctantly asked his neighbors for food.
Of course, given his personality, he was not the type to borrow food and not return it. After filling his stomach, the next day he brought two books to his former classmates and, with a blushing face, exchanged them for money.
As the saying goes, where there's one, there's another. Once he had crossed that line, the threshold became much lower.
However, Liu Shusheng's family was poor, and they didn't have many books to begin with. Moreover, due to poor preservation, the books had wrinkled and turned yellow. Such books naturally couldn't be sold for a good price. After selling a few times, he could barely scrape by with a meal, but soon he ran out of money.
When he heard that Cheng Duo's brickyard was buying firewood, the whole village was bustling with excitement, but Liu Shusheng felt anxious. He had criticized Yong Ge several times before, and he even felt a bit of pity and admiration when someone paid attention to Yong Ge…
Of course, Cheng Duo might not necessarily know about this, as the last time he was caught peeking, nothing happened to him.
But Liu Shusheng didn't dare to sell firewood openly like the villagers. He was afraid of Yong Ge or Cheng Duo remembering what he had said. He valued his reputation and couldn't imagine becoming like Wu Guihua or the Sha family…
Thankfully, Liu Shusheng eventually came up with an idea. He couldn't appear in person, but his neighbors could, and every day they had to carry over a hundred catties of firewood to sell.
He could easily offer one wen and ask his neighbors to carry the firewood for him and exchange it for money.
However, Liu Shusheng didn't consider the difficulty of selling firewood and instead overestimated his own strength. After laboriously collecting a full load of firewood, he couldn't carry the heavy burden while descending the mountain, and the basket fell, causing him to tumble down the hill.
He didn't know whether he was lucky or unlucky, as he didn't break any bones from the fall. Instead, he hit his head and remained unconscious for a whole day and night.
Until the second day when Yu Ge, who was cutting grass, found him…
In fact, Liu Shusheng woke up several times on the way, but due to his injuries and weakness, he couldn't manage to get up. He thought he was going to die, so Yu Ge's appearance was like a lifesaver.
Even so, when Yu Ge helped him up and gave him a piece of candy, Liu Shusheng was stubborn and refused to accept it.
Seeing him like this, Yu Ge got annoyed, and in a fit of anger, he forced the candy into Liu Shusheng's mouth and scolded him, "Do you think I want to save you? I just don't want you to die here and soil this land! Look at yourself, do you think those sage books can feed you or clothe you? Preaching big words won't help. If you have the ability, go take the scholar's exam!"
Thanks to Yong Ge's help, Yu Ge had made new friends during this time, earned money from work, and no longer felt as inferior as before. In his current emotional state, he didn't hold back while scolding Liu Shusheng.
Liu Shusheng's face turned red upon hearing the words. "I, I… What does a little kid like you understand? I can't explain it to you!"
Yu Ge was also annoyed and stood up. "You're right, what does a little kid like me know? I won't tarnish the innocence of a scholar like you… Anyway, you're awake now, so get up and go home."
Yu Ge took a couple of steps forward, then stopped. "If I were you, I would fill my stomach first before thinking about all those miscellaneous things. If you can't even support yourself, how can you expect others to follow your teachings like they're listening to a sage? Look at Cheng Duo. He leads us all to make money, and one word from him is more effective than a hundred words from you."
After saying this, he walked away without looking back.
Liu Shusheng thought that Yu Ge really wouldn't care about him anymore, but to his surprise, not long after Yu Ge left, two villagers came and brought him back home.
That night, Liu Shusheng couldn't sleep and kept thinking about Yu Ge's words, wondering if he had come to understand something. This time, when Cheng Duo wanted to recruit an accountant, as soon as he showed a little interest, Liu Shusheng was the first to offer his help…