Hearing her say this, Liu Duo suggested, “Aunt Li, why don’t you wait until summer is finished to start building? Right now, you should plan what kind of house you want to build. When the time comes, Yang and the others will come to work, and I will just help with some odd jobs, haha…”
When they had been building their house, Li Wazi had come to help every day. For the same reason, they would naturally also need to help out when their family was building their house.
“Okay, we will ask for your help when the time comes.” Aunt Li smiled happily and accepted her help readily. “Hei Xiaomeng’s fur is so long. It is definitely very hot. Why don’t you cut it?”
Hei Xiaomeng was so hot that its tongue was draped outside its mouth, and it was panting heavily. It looked especially funny.
Upon hearing her, Liu Duo looked at it with a smile on her face. Dogs use their tongues to disperse heat. It didn’t have much to do with how long or short its fur was. She wasn’t planning on cutting it, since it wouldn’t look good if its fur was cut.
“There’s no need to cut it. Giving it an occasional wash will be fine.”
At that moment, a villager who had a basket backpack on his back came to their yard door and shouted, “Ye Liushi, I’m here to sell tomatoes to you.”
Ye Liu and the others didn’t need to go out to purchase tomatoes from the people in their own village; they came straight to Liu Duo, just as they had with the bamboo shoots.
Hei Xiaomeng had already grown big, tall, and strong. The villagers didn’t dare to go straight into the yard when they saw it.
Hei Xiaomeng went and barked at him right at the moment when he spoke out. Its bark was extremely harsh and frightening.
The villager had already visited once in the morning, but Liu Duo had been sleeping, so he had to return later.
Liu Duo shouted at it, “Hei Xiaomeng come here. You’re not allowed to bark anymore!” She then said to the villager, “Come in, and relax. It won’t bite.”
The villager guarded himself against Hei Xiaomeng as he slowly walked inside and placed the basket backpack on the ground.
She went over to the side and grabbed the scale for him. “You weight it and see how many jins it is.”
Liu Duo didn’t check if any of them were spoilt. If she discovered later that there were ones that were cracked, or had lost their moisture, or that weren’t ripe enough, then she would definitely not buy from that villager again.
There were already past examples, so the others didn’t dare to do it. After all, who would be willing to lose their opportunity to make money from this?
“Fifteen jins in total. My basket backpack is about one jin.” The villager weighted it and said.
Liu Duo opened the account book to recorded it and said, “Okay, fourteen jins. Forty-two wens in total.”
After she finished recording it, Liu Duo gave him his money.
After he took the money, the villager didn’t leave. Instead, he just dilly-dallied there, as if there was something else.
“Is it the wrong amount?” Liu Duo looked at him.
She thought maybe she had given him too little.
The villager gathered his courage and said bravely, “It’s not wrong. I… I want to borrow money from you!”
Borrow money?
Had she heard him correctly? Looking to her to borrow money? “Excuse me, but these are such ugly words. You and I are just from the same village, and at the most, we just have a relationship as a buyer and a seller. Why are you asking me to lend you money? Why are you so sure I will lend it to you?”
Did she look like someone who would lend money to anyone who came asking, no matter who they were?
Just by looking at him, she could tell the villager was not from a good family. The clothes he wore had been patched multiple times, and his back was a bit hunched. He looked to be around forty or fifty years old.
Aunt Li also said, “Yeah, if you want to borrow money, you should find your relatives.”
Finding someone he didn’t know to lend him money? That really was strange.
The villager looked like he had no other choice. “I also know that. My relatives are all unwilling to lend me money, so I don’t have a choice. I sell all of my tomatoes to you, so that’s why I want to borrow some money from you.”
Upon hearing him, Liu Duo leaned back on the rocking chair and swayed back and forth, “Won’t you have money once you sell all your tomatoes to me?”
What a strange person. Just because he sold her the tomatoes he grew, he looked for her to lend him money? What kind of logic was this?