The Whole Village Thrives After Adopting a Lucky Girl

“Great.” Yingbao, smiling, gathered the two hundred coins, put them into her little pocket, then started to shift the bag off her shoulder.

Everyone clustered around, craning their necks to see.

The horse trader glanced around, quickly stopping Yingbao’s actions, and said to the others: “It’s okay if you want to look, but it’s fifty coins per person! Otherwise, you’ll have to pay two hundred coins on your own.”

Humph! He, Ding Er, wasn’t stupid, why should he be the generous one and pay for others?

“Tch! Who wants to see?” a few people feigned disinterest and walked away.

Two people hesitated for a while, bit their lips, each pulled out fifty coins and gave them to Ding Er.

Ding Er was stingy about the fifty extra coins he paid but felt somewhat reassured. Only then did he let Yingbao open the bag for the others to see.

However, the bag only held a few scattered copper coins and two deed papers, nothing else.

“Damn it!” The three people left looking dejected.

Yingbao chuckled to herself, shouldered the bag again, and hopped off excitedly to look at the carriage she now owned.

One person, seeing such a young child are at horse market, curiously inquired, “Where are you from, young miss?”

“My family owns a special product shop, the Jiang Family’s, right opposite the county academy,” Yingbao replied.

“Jiang Family’s special product shop? What do they sell?”

“They sell local specialties, the most respectable gift boxes during festivals and holidays. Even the County Magistrate gave us high praise.”

Yingbao intentionally didn’t say what they sold, wanting to pique their curiosity.

“Oh, really?”

One person joked, “Did your family give a gift to the County Magistrate?”

Yingbao took the opportunity to promote her family’s shop, “Not at all. The County Magistrate is the most incorruptible, how could he accept gifts from ordinary people? His servant frequently comes to our shop and says that our special products are the authentic and most respectable gifts in the county. It’s a face-giving thing to bring a few boxes when visiting relatives during festivals.”

In reality that was not the case, but who would have the guts to verify the story from the County Magistrate?

Hearing the young girl’s words, the crowd thoughtfully calculated, each deciding to spare some time to visit the special product shop and see what kind of item could get the County Magistrate’s preference.

Coming out of the horse market, Jiang Quan, who was walking the horse, kept glancing at the old horse, afraid it might lie down on the spot.

Suddenly, he saw his little cousin take something out of the bag and stuff it into the old horse’s mouth, also giving it two pills.

After eating them, the old horse seemed to perk up a bit, no longer wobbling. It could pull the cart with some difficulty.

Yingbao then fed two more pills to the young horse.

The young horse didn’t squirm anymore. It seemed to have gained some strength in its legs and could keep up with the carriage’s pace.

Without either Yingbao or Jiang Quan riding the carriage, they led the horses back to the shop.

They pulled the carriage into the backyard, and Jiang Quan quickly unhitched the harness from the big horse, letting it rest well.

Yingbao fetched a basin of water and placed it in front of the two horses for them to drink.

Seeing the siblings truly had bought a carriage back, Jiang Cheng hurried into the backyard to look. He ended up seeing two skinny horses and couldn’t help frowning.

“Can this horse pull the carriage?” He stared at his younger brother, scolding, “Do you know how to buy horses?”

Jiang Quan pouted, huffily replying, “Yingbao bought them, why are you yelling at me?”

“Then what use were you going along?” Jiang Cheng became angrier. “What does a child like her know?”

Seeing her two cousins starting to argue, Yingbao quickly said, “Elder Brother, we got the horses very cheaply. The two horses, including the carriage and taxes, cost us less than a hundred taels.”

Jiang Cheng irritably asked, “What’s the use of it being cheap? These two horses are obviously problematic. We bought them to pull the cart, not to slaughter them.”

“Big Brother, don’t forget I can cure illnesses.” Yingbao shook the porcelain bottle in her hand. “In a few days, these two horses will be as vigorous as dragons and tigers.”

She petted the young horse’s head, “This one is my mount, it’ll be with me from now on.”

Glimpsing the pills in his younger cousin’s hand, Jiang Cheng paused a bit, reluctantly believing her words. “Fine then, the young horse is yours.”

Upon hearing this, Jiang Quan immediately perked up, circling around Yingbao, “You can really heal them? Then we’re really going to make a fortune.”

“Of course, I am the unparalleled little Divine Doctor after all.”

Yingbao patted the old horse’s neck with satisfaction, “Look at its big frame, a standard northern war horse. As long as we take good care of it, we can sell it for over a hundred coins, excluding the cart.”

Jiang Quan widened his eyes, carefully examining the frail horse.

In spite of its significantly thin body, the horse’s four hooves were sturdy, and its skeleton was high and large, indeed different from the local horses.

“Is it really a war horse?” Jiang Quan touched the horse’s head, his expectations growing. “What about this young horse?”

Yingbao: “The foal has the same color as the older horse. It is probably its offspring. I guess these two horses were traded from the north, but were abandoned due to recurrent sickness from not adapting to the local environment.”

Usually, such northern war horses would be sold directly to the army or noble families after they’d been traded. However, this pair of mother and foal ended up with the horse trader, clearly because they fell ill frequently.

“Alright then, Yingbao, you better heal them properly.” Jiang Quan said with hope, “In the future, having war horses pulling the cart will undoubtedly make it faster than other horses.”

By evening, Jiang Cheng closed the shop and returned to the backyard to cook.

Jiang Quan cleaned the stable for the two horses and added some fine fodder into their troughs.

This chopped fodder bought from the fodder shop was mixed with a bit of soybean meal and wheat bran. A sack cost fifty coins.

A sack of feed would only last the two horses for a few days before they needed to buy more.

So, buying mules and horses saved labor but was costly.

By the next day, the state of the two horses had significantly improved from yesterday, and their eyes were even more spirited.

Yingbao gave each horse two medicine pills and filled their water trough with water from Pupil Spring.

The two horses affectionately nuzzled her with their heads before lowering them to drink water.

After feeding the horses, Yingbao returned to her room to continue weighing the gold and Xue’er mushrooms using a scale, packaging them into boxes, half a pound each.

There was still no one from the Wen Family, presumably they weren’t buying gold mushrooms this year.

Therefore, Yingbao decided to take all the mushrooms from the cave, weigh them, put them into boxes, and prepare to sell them in the shop.

When the time comes, she’d tell her eldest cousin and second cousin that these gold and Xue’er mushrooms were stored in her room.

As for whether her eldest cousin and second cousin would believe it, she wasn’t worried at all.

As long as she insisted they were previously stashed under her bed, they would probably have no choice but to believe her.

Unknowingly, it was already the 26th of the twelfth lunar month, and more and more people were coming to the shop to buy items.

Even though Jiang Quan kept having to restock from other stores, the goods in the shop were still in short supply.

In particular, the gold and Xue’er mushrooms sold out that day.

The customers who didn’t manage to buy some were quite annoyed and complained, “What kind of shop are you running that you can’t even stock enough goods.”

He had previously bought Xue’er mushrooms as a gift for his father. After the old man had used them in a soup, he found that his limbs felt nimbler and the various aches and pains on his body disappeared. His appetite also improved significantly.

That’s why the old man specifically asked his son to buy more, regardless of the cost, even suggesting buying a few pounds to store at home.

Jiang Cheng didn’t mind the customers’ tone at all and apologized, “I’m truly sorry, we can’t harvest too many gold and Xue’er mushrooms in a year. If you really like them, please come back after the New Year.”

His kid cousin had said that after the New Year, she would have a batch of gold and Xue’er mushrooms for harvesting, but the quantity wouldn’t be much.

The customer huffed and asked, “Which day after the New Year? My father is waiting to eat them for health.”

“Of course, it’s after the first month.” There will definitely be no Xue’er mushrooms during the first month, even if the shop opens, they could only sell some pastries or so.

The customer nodded, “Then I’ll come after the first month.”

He even took out a name card, “If your Xue’er mushrooms arrive, you can also deliver them to my house, um, three or four pounds would be fine.”

“Alright.”

When Jiang Cheng saw the name card, it surprisingly had the words ‘Wei’s Gold and Silver’ written on it.