Chapter 328: Chapter 328: Building a Manor (3)
Feng Xuxu sighed faintly upon hearing the words, "As relationships begin, so they must end; just as flowers bloom and wither, they eventually return to dust."
"Once you’re sure he’s dead, find a coffin and bury him in any place you can find. Consider it as building up some good virtue for the child in my belly."
"As you command, Princess."
Ever since Dugu Chen entered Xueyan Country, his mood had been tumultuous and prone to agitation. Day after day, he’d been relentlessly pressing forward, going so hard that he ran two horses to death.
"Prince, let’s rest for a bit. If we keep going like this, it won’t just be the animals that can’t handle it, but the people as well." Yue Xingyun dismounted and sat down on the ground, body slumped as if it had fallen apart after five continuous days of travel, sleeping less than two hours each night. Even a person made of iron couldn’t withstand it, let alone flesh and blood.
Licking his chapped lips and feeling his body ache all over, Dugu Chen glanced at the evening sky, then at the nearly paralyzed horses, and finally nodded, "We won’t travel tonight. Everyone should get a good night’s rest, and we’ll continue on our way tomorrow."
No sooner had Dugu Chen finished speaking than he saw the people behind him collapse on the ground, too exhausted even to muster the energy to eat.
Gazing at the moon on the horizon, Dugu Chen thought of his wife back home. In the two months they’d been apart, he wondered whether she was taking care of herself, eating on time, and how the baby in her belly was doing. Overwhelmed with longing, he wished he could sprout wings and fly straight back to her.
It had only been three days since he signed the contract when he saw that many people were inquiring around the Capital City about who wanted to sell land, offering high prices for it. Once Zongzheng Zehang learned of this, he promptly started an investigation and discovered that it was the people from the Xiu Family, the foremost of the Capital’s five great clans. After pondering for a moment, Zongzheng Zehang got up and rode his carriage to Prince Mei Residence.
"Hmm, don’t worry about them. Just build your structures. Even if they construct greenhouses, it will be of no use," Feng Xuxu remarked, raising an eyebrow. She knew from the first day they hired workers that the great families were aware of it. Now, making moves to buy land was evidently too late.
"What if they copy us and build their greenhouses?" The farmers had been hired with silver, and if word got out, wouldn’t all their efforts be in vain?
"Let’s not even talk about whether they have the land. Speaking of greenhouses, building them isn’t the hard part. The real challenge is controlling the temperature and humidity inside. Even a flower farmer with plenty of experience might not dare to say he can manage it. Then there’s the matter of the flower varieties—I grow flowers that are rarely seen, in many varieties and large areas. Just from this aspect, we’re already way ahead of them. What is there to worry about?"
After hearing the Princess’s words, Zongzheng Zehang felt much more enlightened, his worries replaced with joy when he left, a stark contrast to his serious demeanor upon arrival.
"Princess, the blueprints have been delivered to Young Master Baihe."
Looking up to see Baihe returning and then behind her for any sign of her elder brother without finding one, she set down her pen, asking with a puzzled look, "My brother didn’t come?"
"Young Master is leading Feng Shi and Liang Shiliu to the fields," Baihe said, recalling how Young Master Baihe had spoken of their own young master with a helplessly exasperated expression, sighing and shaking his head.
Hearing that her elder brother was in the fields again, Feng Xuxu rolled her eyes in silent exasperation before picking up her pen and resuming her drawing.
Xiu Residence Study Room
"Master, the lands around the Capital have all been bought up by Princess Mei, including the barren hills and woodlands," the butler reported tremblingly, fearful of the master’s wrath.
"Imbeciles, a bunch of imbeciles—get out!" Xiu Aotian raised his hand and smashed the string of jade beads he was fiddling with.
The butler and several attendants hastily opened the doors and scurried out, colliding head-on with Xiu Yang, who was sending desserts to his father.
