Making money, taking exams and supporting the family

chapter 39: Ideas for a Private School

Fifty taels may not be too much for a wealthy person, but Lin Ze was not wealthy right now and could not come up with it. For ordinary people, this was an astronomical figure.

Love at First Sight was in good business. He made a profit selling “Only Love Him card” before, but today he bought cows, cars, and things. Half of the savings at home had been spent.

Lin Ze thought that Fang Shanyuan would ask for at most ten taels, but who knew this guy would actually ask him for fifty taels.

Fifty taels of silver, calculated properly, he was still just a poor scholar from the countryside, did he really think he was a wealthy godfather?

Lin Ze’s reaction was a bit exaggerated.

Fang Shanyuan himself felt guilty. He was not asking for an exorbitant amount; he really needed this much silver. This was still after he had borrowed from relatives and friends and this was the remaining amount needed.

Actually, if he had not heard about Lin Ze’s “Love at First Sight” business, he would not have had the nerve to come.

Recently, Lin Ze’s bread has become really popular in town. As long as you were someone who frequented the town, you basically knew that there was a particularly delicious and auspicious snack in town recently, although it was just a small stall selling it, the taste was definitely not worse than that of Residence of Joyful Immortals’ snacks.

After hearing that the owner of “Love at First Sight” was Lin Ze, Fang Shanyuan roughly calculated Lin Ze’s business and came to a very frightening profit figure.

Therefore, he only had the courage and expectation to come and ask Lin Ze for money today.

“Brother Lin, I know this amount is a bit large, but believe me, I will pay you back very soon. I have already talked to a merchant’s family, as long as I am willing to teach their son, they will give me fifty taels of silver a year.”

Fang Shanyuan was a bit urgent, and Lin Ze could be considered to be his lifesaving straw right now.

Although he did not have much hope of success, he still had to try. The fields at home were all sold, his parents were old, and there were younger siblings and children who could not even walk steadily.

For a scholar to go to the house of a wealthy merchant to be a teacher was completely self-destructive. He did not want to do it, but when a person was in desperate straits, they did not care about that much anymore.

In the past, all the household affairs and study were managed by his wife, who toiled tirelessly. Over the years, his wife never complained, but now she was seriously ill, how could he watch his beloved wife leave like this?

“Since there is a merchant willing to pay you fifty taels a year to be a teacher, why do you still need to gather silver from everywhere?”

Lin Ze’s expression did not change, but his words were incisive, “Your wife’s serious illness probably requires more than just this amount of money to solve, right?”

“I…”

Fang Shanyuan paused, unable to refute, and smiled bitterly, “The doctor said that my wife’s body was already weak before, and after years of toil, her chronic illness is hard to cure. To keep her alive, we need to use various precious medicinal herbs to make tonics for at least two or three years.”

Talking about tonics sounded easy, but it was something that poor families could not afford to do.

Regardless of how much precious medicinal herbs cost, who in the village could afford to eat chicken, duck, and fish regularly for stewing tonics? Plus, to maintain health, one could not do heavy labor, and losing a laborer, even if it’s a woman, was a huge blow to a rural family.