Reborn as the Blissful Wife in the countryside-Chapter 178: Workshop Opening

"You!" Gu Yumei failed to catch Gu Jinli off guard, and even got a good scolding from him, nearly fainting from anger, yet no one helped her.

Mrs. Chen added insult to injury: "See, you can’t outtalk him, nor can you outfight him, yet you insist on picking fights, only ending up angry at yourself."

Upon hearing Mrs. Chen’s words, Gu Yumei burst into tears: "Wuu wuu wuu, you all bully me!"

Gu Jinli laughed: "What great abilities do you have that we should be jealous enough to bully you? Don’t flatter yourself too much. If you didn’t work in the fields today, we would have almost forgotten what you looked like."

Gu Jinli was telling Gu Yumei that she was worthless, not even worth the effort to bully.

Gu Yumei understood and nearly fainted from anger.

Ms. Yan, along with Jin Niu, were also picking bean sprouts and seeing Gu Yumei crying miserably, comforted: "Sister Mei, don’t cry, planting soybeans isn’t tiring. Our plots are small, and it’ll only take a couple of days to finish."

Another two days of work!

Gu Yumei cried even harder.

Third Grandma frowned at this sight and said discontentedly: "Sister Mei, shut it already, how long have you been crying? Aren’t you tired?"

Gu Jinli said: "Third Grandma, just let her cry. Everyone is busy working in the fields right now, and with her crying like this, people will definitely see. It won’t take long for her crying in the fields to spread across the village. Then, she’ll be the laughingstock for people to gossip about."

Gu Yumei, caring about her reputation, couldn’t bear to be gossiped about, and upon hearing this, she immediately stopped crying.

Realizing her crying was futile, after eating the lunch Brother Fa brought, she earnestly started working in the afternoon.

After two days, several families managed to plant all the barren lands with soybean sprouts.

Old Guo, curious about their method, asked: "Brother Gu, why are you planting soybeans this way? It seems too troublesome, wouldn’t just scattering the seeds be easier?"

Third Grandpa said: "This is the planting method from our hometown, it can significantly increase the yield."

Not wanting the villagers to think Gu Jinli was unusual, Third Grandpa claimed the transplanting method was a traditional technique from their hometown. Since they had fled from a famine, the villagers couldn’t verify this by heading to the Northwest.

Farmers care most about their crops. Hearing that transplanting could increase soybean yields made Old Guo and the others very intrigued. But, fearing risks, they didn’t immediately adopt this method. They planned to wait and see. If by harvest time, the Gu, Qin, Luo, and Tian families indeed increased their yield, they would adopt this method next year.

After planting soybeans, Gu Jinli started planting medicinal herbs.

Gu Dashan and Mrs. Cui, having never planted medicinal herbs and worried she might mess it up, only allotted her an acre of barren land.

She planted half an acre of patchouli. Patchouli is an annual medicinal plant. She started with these easy-to-harvest herbs to show her family the benefits, hoping they wouldn’t oppose when she wants to expand planting in the future.

In the remaining half-acre, she planted a variety of medicinal herbs she had dug up from the mountains, including Puhuang, Dipsacus, and dry pinellia ternata.

Third Grandpa, Gu Dashan, Gu Jin’an, and He Sanlai and his wife spent the day planting together, and finally, all the herbs were planted.

Thus, the farming came to an end, and the date was the 12th of March; in four days, it would be the grand opening day of the workshop.

That evening, the families gathered to discuss the upcoming opening of the workshop.

"Old Guo’s four families have already agreed to work in our workshop, and they will come to sign the contract with us tomorrow. However, we still need more hands, so we will have to hire more people."

"But there is no rush; we can start the workshop and look for people simultaneously. We must hire those who are of good character and not those with bad intentions."

When Third Grandpa mentioned this, he took the opportunity to add, "Our families all have grown daughters and sons, and there are those who have lost their wives and need to remarry. We must not rush to find someone for them. We need to be careful and discerning. We don’t want any vile people tricking our decent girls into leaving, nor do we want a troublemaker marrying into our family and messing up our business."

Third Grandpa specifically mentioned this because Gu Dewang told Gu Jinli that Gu Yumei was nearly deceived by He Cui’er with a handkerchief and ended up almost becoming a stepmother.

Although Gu Dafu’s family kept this matter tightly under wraps and specifically instructed Gu Dewang and his brothers not to talk about it, as it could ruin Gu Yumei’s reputation and make it hard for her to find a suitable marriage,

Gu Dewang, who recently has been following Gu Jinli and thinks Sister Xiao Yu is better than Sister Yu Mei—never scolding him like Sister Yu Mei and often giving him snacks—shared the incident with Gu Jinli.

Gu Jinli knew that some people wanted to connect with their families by marriage, which would allow them to work in their workshop or get their hands on the family’s tofu and spices through the familial ties.

She despised such schemes, and since there were many grown-up daughters and sons in the families, as well as some who had lost wives during the famine and needed to remarried, she had to be on guard and thus shared this issue with Third Grandpa, leading to his earlier remarks.

When the families heard Third Grandpa’s words, they were initially puzzled but after reflecting for a moment, they understood the dangers and felt a chill in their hearts.

Especially Gu Dafu, as Sister Mei almost fell victim to mischief, he hurriedly said, "Uncle Three, rest assured, we will remember this and we won’t recklessly find matches for our children."

Old Mrs. Yan, who was recently looking for a new wife for Gu Dalin, got a huge shock from Third Grandpa’s words and quickly said, "Uncle Three, rest assured, our family is not in a rush. We’ll take our time in choosing for our children."

Dalin’s wife, Ms. Xie, had been taken by bad people during the famine, and it was unknown whether she was alive or dead. Even if alive, she would have been severely mistreated. Old Mrs. Yan was considering finding a new wife for Dalin, but hearing Third Grandpa’s comments, she didn’t dare hurry to find a wife for Dalin.

After all, life at home was getting better, and even though Dalin would be remarrying, there was no worry about not finding a good girl.

Gu Dalin let out a sigh of relief. He wasn’t very keen on getting remarried, especially since he blamed himself for not protecting Ms. Xie, leading to her capture by the evil men.

After Third Grandpa spoke about this matter, everyone had a clear understanding, and whenever someone tried to broach the topic again, suggesting which family had a good daughter or a fine son for marriage, they became wary and did not continue the conversation as per those people’s suggestions.

Those who were hoping to become relatives through marriage and work at Gu Family Workshop or get their hands on their tofu and spices were quite irritated to see their attempts failing.

As for Gu Jinli and her group, they didn’t care whether these people were irritated or not; they were happily preparing for the opening of the workshop.

Scholar Shang knew that their workshop was opening on the 16th of March and had specially written a plaque, Gu Family Workshop, covered with a red cloth, and had Old Luo deliver it to Gu Jinli’s house to be unveiled on the grand opening day.

Xuanhu Fang also delivered the spices and ingredients that Gu Jinli had ordered; sacks of spice ingredients were unloaded from a mule cart and brought into Gu Jinli’s house.