Chapter 444 - The Yi Family
The field in front of Ji Ju’s Golden Grain fields was not far away and had fences only as tall as a person. If one did not want to look inside, you would not be able to; but if you stood on your toes or on a rock, or just looked between the wooden blocks, you’d see through the gaps. In summary, the fences were built just to hit its minimum function.
While both farms were neighbours, most people don’t pay attention to this plot because it was small. The people here were judged by the size of their fields. A small plot of land meant they weren’t anyone important so no one bothered to look inside. Also, more importantly, the crops were subpar so anyone who looked inside would just shake their heads and get on with their lives.
After a while, no one remembered who this plot belonged to. You could see the end of the field standing at one corner, and its crops did not look healthy. These crops would not sell for a high price– maybe they were alright for a family to eat without starving to death but they would not sell.
Ji Ju could no longer remember who this place belonged to, just that it was owned by the Yi family. However, the field was tiny and based on what he remembered, this place had switched hands several times. He also remembered there were two wells in this plot of land. One was dry, the other could barely water this field. These years had been drier so their crops did not do well. This was one of the reasons why owners were quick to pass this plot to someone else. He wondered which unfortunate person got this place now.
“Someone from the Yi family, tsk.” Ji Ju shook his head.
He did not say much but Shao Xuan understood.
To Ji Ju, the Yi family was not suited for agriculture. They could do readings and predictions at that street but they had no talent for agriculture. Plus mental disorders ran in their family. Some of them were physically weak. He had seen a Yi guy stare at the night sky once, all night. It had been cold so right after that, he fell sick and almost died. How could he withstand the cold with that physique? He was mad! Out of the aristocrats of the great six, the dumbest ones came from the Yi family!
Yi Shi did not say much either. He put down his work and opened the roll of cloth she tossed to him.
There were twenty pieces of cloth rolled up, each about half a meter long and two palms wide. They were all filled with tiny handwriting.
Yi Shi flipped the cloth with one hand while the fingers on the other hand moved quickly. His thumb was almost a shadow by now, touching the other four.
Shao Xuan realised Yi Shi seemed to only sweep his eyes across the numbers one time and took barely half a minute to scan through one piece of cloth. He scanned through twenty pieces of cloth filled with numbers, then wrote down his final result on another piece. All this in fifteen minutes.
When he was done, with admiration in his eyes, he passed his calculation results and the cloth back to the lady. “Congratulations, another bountiful harvest.”
The lady chuckled, fine lines appearing around her eyes. She was in a great mood from the harvest. However, after she read his number, her expression changed immediately. As if a piece of silk had turned into a metal knife, her eyes were suddenly deadly.
“Those rotten slaves, I can’t believe they misreported the numbers by such a large margin!”
The margin of error was small per page. They looked like mistakes due to them being bad at math. However, the accumulation of errors across so many pages caused the final value to be far from the actual number. The lady did not tell Yi Shi what the number her slaves reported was but if this was what Yi Shi got, it must be true. She was furious.
In the past, if they reported a number smaller than the true value, she was too lazy to punish them for it. However, these people must be getting greedy! If she did not raise this issue, they would grow bolder.
“Tomorrow, I will send my men over with a gift!” Without another word, the lady took the results and left, her hips swaying hard and she radiated pure anger. Perhaps blood would be spilt in her field soon.
Shao Xuan now understood that the Yi guy helped with calculations here. However, what was his brain made of? He was a human calculator!
alright guys my translation of the lady really doesn’t do the original writing justice.
here’s a direct translation of some of my fav phrases from the Chinese text that i didn’t know how to insert into the text :
– combed her hair that looked so carefree and seemed to sway on its on accord in the wind
– looked up with 30% of a smile in her eyes
– her hand was soft but no bones
– she gave a look that was like water