They were all family here so, since Luo Xingchen hadn’t arrived yet, Su Tang sat down with all of them for a while to chat. They talked about some matters regarding what was happening in the family when, after an incense stick of time, they all heard that another person had come to the door.
Of course, it was Luo Xingchen.
When Luo Xingchen came into the main hall and looked around, she was a bit surprised. Not only were Su Yongqiang and the rest sitting around the table, even the person who was usually still asleep at this time, Su Tang, was there. She really hadn’t expected Su Tang would change her usual habits and get up so early today.
However, she didn’t let any of those thoughts show on her face. Instead, she put on a solemn and serious face and greeted politely: “Miss Su, I’m sorry I’m late.”
Not to mention everyone else, even Jiang Hong who had been following Luo Xingchen to help settle various matters the past few days was shocked by this sudden change. He had seen Luo Xingchen laughing and joking around with Su Tang too many times recently, so this new solemn and polite attitude seemed very strange. Meanwhile, the people from the village were all shocked that this rich young master would be so serious when talking to a little girl from their village.
Su Tang also stood up and returned an equally polite greeting: “It’s no trouble Young Master Luo, please come in and have a seat.”
Luo Xingchen nodded, then sat down and took out four contracts one by one. She turned to the four gathered members of the Su family and said, “Miss Su and I have already spoken many times about these contracts, but I will reiterate the most important point one more time. Maintaining the secrecy of this project is your most important task, above everything else. If any secrets from this project leak to the outside world, it could result in my Luo family losing hundreds of thousands of taels in silver from lost business. You should all understand what this means.”
Hearing Luo Xingchen stressing this so seriously the people from the village all understood just how important this point was and they all naturally promised to protect the secret well.
When Luo Xingchen saw that they seemed to have been suitably made to understand the seriousness of the matter, she slowly pushed forward contracts and said, “These are the contracts I’ve prepared. Are you all able to read them?”
Su Yongqiang nodded slowly. In reality, he had studied for several years as a child, but he didn’t have much talent for learning and hadn’t been able to memorize much before he gave up. Still, he knew a few characters and felt he could probably barely understand the contract. On the side, Su Tang saw through his hesitation so she came forward to read the contracts out loud for everyone.
Of course, the contracts weren’t demanding or complicated at all. Basically, they just stated that the Luo family was contracting the people from the Su family to raise a certain amount of seedlings within a certain amount of time with a rate of one copper coin for every five seedlings they raised. Then there was a simple clause that stated that if the secret was leaked then the contract signee would be forced to pay a hundredfold compensation. Finally, there was a clause stipulating that the number of seedlings provided by the Su family members needed to be exactly equal to the number of seeds provided by the Luo family and if any seedlings were missing the same number of seeds needed to be returned.
The four men listened attentively and were relieved to hear that the terms were the same as before, so they all pressed their handprints onto the contracts without hesitation.
Seeing that the contract signing had been successful, Su Tang spoke up and asked: “Alright, that’s done. Now you all can report how many seeds you want and we will immediately give you that number today to bring back and raise into seedlings.”
Su Tang wasn’t too worried about this matter. After all, raising seedlings didn’t really have any sort of technical content, and it was more or less the same as ordinary farming. If anything, they just needed to be a little more careful. Moreover, Su Yongshun had seen how Su Tang had raised the seedlings back in the rented courtyard that day so, even without her instructing them, they should all know how to do it.
Su Yongqiang exchanged glances with Su Yongshun, and then the two said together, “We each want to take back ten thousand seeds first.”
Su Yongyuan and Su Changle also asked for ten thousand seeds each. Su Tang waved her hand to let Jiang Hong go get the seeds and hand them over. She wasn’t worried about how they would transport them since, regardless of how many seeds they wanted, seeds weren’t very big in the end. Even ten thousand could fit into a single bag easily.
“Each of these packages contains 10,000 seeds, you should all confirm the quantity here while you can. After all, the number of seeds you take today needs to be the number of seedlings you deliver later on, there mustn’t be any mistakes.” Su Tang told them.
The four people all nodded with serious expressions and Su Tang asked Jiang Hong to follow them over to the east room and watch while they confirmed the quantities. Before long, the four people had properly confirmed everything and put the seeds back in their bags. Then, carefully cradling the bags of seeds like precious treasures, they all turned to leave.
Su Tang stood up to send them to the door. Su Yongqiang turned back with a smile and thanked her one more time, “Tang’er, if it hadn’t been for you our Su family wouldn’t have been able to get such a great opportunity. Thank you.”
“Brother Qiang, there’s no need to be so polite with me. Just make sure to raise the seedlings well. So long as there are no mistakes you all can keep coming back to get more seeds in the future. Work diligently and quickly and you all will definitely be able to earn a lot this time.” Su Tang replied with a smile.
The four people listening all felt their hearts heat up at Su Tang’s words. After all, five seedlings were worth one copper coin, so these ten thousand seeds could be turned into two taels of silver so long as they were raised successfully.
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