The clan elders also saw Lao Zhou's expression.
Seeing them looking over, the old Zhou head immediately said: "No way, the family is still waiting to rent a house this year, don't look at Man Bao's salary, even a handful of vegetables in the capital will cost money, even if you don't buy meat If you only eat green vegetables, that little money is not enough."
The clan elders almost said it out, so why do you want your whole family to stay in the capital
But seeing Zhou Man's face full of joy, and thinking of Qian's arrogance that day that Zhou Man was raised by her, he should be filial to her, so he suppressed the conversation and said nothing.
After returning, the clan elders told the clan leader about Tianbian.
Patriarch Xia frowned, and asked: "Is she telling the truth, or is she lying to us? What does this mean? Urging me to give her the rent? Or are you afraid that we will come to fight the autumn wind in the future?"
"I don't think so. She also knows a lot about farming. She stood in the field and looked at the wheat for a while and then estimated the approximate yield with us. I looked carefully and found that her estimate was the same as ours in private. The estimate is not much different, but that’s how it is. Speaking of last year’s drought, she said without batting an eye that this year’s rent is not needed, and she will help the orphans and widows and set up ethnology studies for the clan.”
"Yes, but her uncle is very stingy. If he hadn't stared at her, the land that Xu Lichang rented would probably be donated to the clan."
"Looking at the appearance of the Zhou family, it seems that they are indeed not rich in the capital."
"Look at the clothes they wear, don't they seem to be rich?"
"If you lose, you don't lose. This is our Xia family's territory. Naturally, we have to dress better. If they wear poor clothes, who can think highly of them?" A clan elder said: "It's just officials, I heard that the court still has clothes. For those who are issued cotton silk, the cloth they wear does not look like the cloth sold by the cloth shop outside, it may be issued by the government."
Patriarch Xia's son also said: "Father, I heard that the two brothers of the Zhou family changed the door locks of the house yesterday. I heard that they wanted to find some old furniture in the old market and fill it up. The house is rented out."
Patriarch Xia: "... are you really so poor?"
He looked disbelieving, "Let's not talk about the Zhou family. Look at the clothes and accessories of her and the two young masters of the Bai family. Don't they seem to have no money? Don't be fooled by her."
"She's so powerful, what are you doing to lie to us?" A clan elder said, "It's true that she dresses well, but officials, she always looks better. She doesn't want to be inferior in communication, Not to mention others?"
"As for the two sons of the Bai family, after all, they are aristocratic families, and they still have some background."
Patriarch Xia came back to his senses and asked, "Why are you suddenly talking about her? What are you trying to do?"
The clan elders were silent for a while, and said after a while: "I didn't want to do anything, didn't you suspect that she had bad intentions? We just thought, maybe she is really difficult."
Patriarch Xia snorted coldly and said: "No matter how difficult it is, she can't change her ulterior motives. Letting us set up a family study at this time is completely out of ulterior motives..."
"You can't say that. What she said is not unreasonable. There are too few people studying in the clan. There was no school field before, but now I have one. The master's Shuxiu is enough. The clan takes turns to cultivate that field. The supply is, why stop the children from making a fortune?"
"Reading is not only costing my husband's repairs, but also books, pen, ink, paper and inkstone, my husband's three meals a day and clothes for four seasons, not to mention building a school, all of which cost money..."
"There are so many people in the clan, just come out when the time comes."
Patriarch Xia was a little annoyed: "Wu Lang and Qi Lang are about to take the entrance exam, as long as they pass the exam, they can try to take the exam in three to two years, even if they can't pass the Jinshi exam, they can try Mingke and other exams , when the time comes, the selection of officials will require the contribution of the family... "
But Xia Wulang and Xia Qilang are not their own grandsons, why should they use their own money to support them
They had no choice before, but now they can also send their children to school, right
Patriarch Xia saw that things seemed to have returned to the origin of the dispute these days, so he suddenly didn't want to talk.
To add to his distress, even his sons and grandsons disapproved of him, apparently wanting their own children to go to school instead of providing for their nephews and cousins.
Patriarch Xia waved his hands tiredly, and asked, "Where are they?"
"I went to Xia Yi's house. I said it was the closest branch after all. I wanted to go and see what I said."
Patriarch Xia thought, is that to annoy people
Man Bao really didn't want to piss people off, even if she went with this idea, she couldn't show it, and there was a whole bunch of young people from the Xia family following her, all of them were her cousins, uncles and nephews They, although she didn't know any of them.
Xia Yi's house is on the edge of Hongtian Village, with fields in front and several families behind.
When they arrived at the place, Man Bao nodded with satisfaction. It was really dilapidated. There were a few mud houses, the outer walls were a little peeled off, and the yellow mud walls were full of potholes. Some of them could even see the inside of the house from the outside.
It's still summer, and when it's winter, people will freeze to death.
Man Bao walked over, sighed as he approached, and asked, "Didn't uncle Yitang repair the house before?"
A cousin replied: "I come back two or three times a year, and stay for three or two days each time. Who has the patience to repair it?"
Mainly, who would have thought that Xia Yan's granddaughter would come back alive? It's okay to go back, but it actually made the clansmen spit out what they ate.
Man Bao just looked at Xia Yi's house and sighed, and his tongue sounded in his heart, this was simply prepared for her, no wonder he was always bullied by her own father.
This is the fate of heaven.
When Xia Yi's two sons and one daughter saw Zhou Man and the others approaching, they stood in the yard and glared at them with some hatred, not allowing them to go in.
Except for the little girl who was only seven or eight years old, the other two were about the same age as Man Bao, but she took a look at their size and firmly believed that they were younger than her, so she asked with a smile, "Are you my cousin?"
The three of them stared at her without answering.
Seeing that she didn't seem to mind, the young people following her had a better impression of her, so they took the initiative to explain: "They are younger than you."
Among the young people who followed were much older than her, they had impressions of the past, and sometimes the adults in the family would also talk about it, so they revealed it openly: "Back then your grandfather said that he wanted a successor, Yitang Uncle has been waiting, and finally waited until your mother was about to get married before starting to talk about marriage, so they are all younger than you."
Man Bao: ...
Bai Shan couldn't help lowering his head and laughing out loud.
Man Bao was a little uncomfortable, so he looked at the yard of Xia Yi's house and found that there were a lot of furniture in the yard, so he sighed and said: "How can this be done? If it is placed in the open air like this, even the best furniture will be broken. Why? Not moving in?"
It was the young cousin who replied: "It's a mess inside, how to arrange it, I don't know if there is a hole on the ground."
This is indeed deceitful enough. Is this a home where I am determined not to return to my hometown, so I am trying my best to ruin my qualifications