“Hello, Butler Zhang. Now that we’ve all gathered, let’s go.” Su Tang was very straightforward and didn’t bother with too many pleasantries, ready to just begin directly.
“Alright, then could the young miss’s carriage please follow ours.” It was already past noon, and daylight was wasting, so no one wanted to delay. Thus, Hu Sande was also very straightforward with his agreement.
That settled, Su Tang turned around and climbed back into her carriage and Hu Sande and Butler Zhang also boarded the carriage in front. In short order, with them leading and Su Tang behind, they rode out in the direction of Qingshui Town together.
The journey took about an hour, but eventually, they arrived at the Zhou Farm. A farmer spotted the two carriages coming, and he hurried over to greet: “Butler Zhang!”
“This is Miss Su, who is interested in buying this farm. Please take her around and introduce everything carefully.” Housekeeper Zhang remembered this farmer’s name was Zhou Qian, and he casually gave him his instructions.
Zhou Qian was a man in his forties. Back when the Zhang family was still more prosperous, he and his wife were both family servants. However, at one point they offended some people and ended up being sent to manage this remote farm. After hearing Butler Zhang’s instructions, Zhou Qian glanced over at Su Tang and didn’t dare to ask anything more, he just hastened to say, “Understood. Miss Su, this way please!”
Su Tang glanced over and felt that this farmer looked like an honest person, so he probably wouldn’t try to cheat her. Unfortunately, the orange cat had already run off to take a look around and, of course, Su Tang wasn’t a farmer herself, so there was no way she could know what good land or bad land looked like. But the orange cat, as the Guardian Beast of her space, was different. He would only need a glance to see through the quality of farmland.
‘Hmph, it seems that broker didn’t try to cheat you. It’s rare to meet such an honest two-legged beast. The land here is all basically fertile land of good quality. Of course, the tomatoes and chili peppers grown here won’t be nearly as good as what we produce with the space, but they should still taste good.’ The orange cat suddenly reappeared and gave his thoughts.
As soon as they had arrived the orange cat had already run off to take a look around. Now, quick like the wind, he had already returned to tell Su Tang about what he had found out.
Of course, Zhou Qian had no way to know that Su Tang had already understood the land’s condition, and he continued to introduce: “Miss Su, this Zhou Farm has a total of 289 mu of fertile farmland, and currently there are five families working the farm…”
Because this piece of land was relatively large, obviously, there also needed to be correspondingly more farmers to work it. The Zhang family had already owned the land for a long time so, naturally, all of the farmers here were subordinates of the Zhang family. Originally, there were only a few families working the land, but now there were already a total of five large households with more than 50 people across several generations working here. Of course, they were all slaves.
The Zhang family used to be the powerful landowners in the Qingyuan County Seat, but unfortunately, the younger generation turned out to be prodigal wastes who had caused the family to decline. By now, the Zhang family had already fallen to the point where they even planned to sell off their farms.
Hearing that the farmers were all slaves, Su Tang turned to Butler Zhang, who was still standing by the side, and asked: “Are you going to take the people back or sell them with the land?”
Butler Zhang immediately replied, “There’s no way we can take them back, they’ll all be sold along with the land.”
When Zhou Qian heard them suddenly start discussing this topic, he just bowed and didn’t dare to speak. After all, he was a slave, so his life and death were completely in the hands of his masters. Although it was technically illegal for masters to kill their slaves, at the end of the day the only punishment would be a fine, so that was hardly any deterrent.
It was already normal for masters to harshly beat and scold their slaves, and it was even more normal for them to buy or sell them at will.
Su Tang nodded when he heard Butler Zhang’s reply and, at the same time, she gestured for the orange cat to secretly go and take a look at the farmers who were being sold along with the land. After that, she followed Zhou Qian around to continue looking at the land. It was still winter and before the spring thaw, so the ground was frozen solid and carpeted in white. Su Tang reached down and pulled up a piece of snow so she could dig out a piece of soil and take a look.
Although the orange cat had already looked around and passed his judgment, she still had to at least put up an act for other people to see, right?
Of course, seeing her doing this, Butler Zhang and Hu Sande just quietly stood to the side and observed. After all, this was very normal. It was common sense that the buyer would have to inspect the land for themselves. If they didn’t even inspect, then there was no way they would buy.
Of course, a farm that was close to 300 mu in size wasn’t small, so Su Tang only casually dug up a few places to inspect. Before long, the orange cat came running back, so she stood up, patted her hands, and nodded, “Alright, let’s go look at the next one!”
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