Reborn as a Landlord-Chapter 101 - 55 Lian Manman at Work_1

Chapter 101: Chapter 55 Lian Manman at Work_1
With Lian Shouxin’s stance and Old Master Lian’s words, everyone sprang into action, quickly downing some hard wo-wo bread. Erlang and Sanlang went to push the carts, those who needed tools took them. Even Lady He, under Old Master Lian’s grim gaze, lost her joy. Reluctantly, she followed the others to the fields.
Seeing the group head off to work, Lian Manman returned to the West Wing Room.
Sitting on the kang, Lady Zhang saw Lian Manman come in and quickly asked, "Manman, how are things going?"
Lian Manman sat down beside Lady Zhang.
"Dad asked me to tell you, the division of the family has been settled," Lian Manman told Lady Zhang, "Uncle and his family are not working. Aunt said she wanted to divide the family and told our family to separate. Dad and Grandpa discussed it and decided that our family will split off on our own. Grandpa agreed, saying to get the harvest in first, then discuss how to divide."
Lady Zhang was stunned for a moment, "If we must divide, then so be it. In the end, it has come to this."
"Mom, don’t worry about this and that. You just have one important thing to focus on right now, to recover your health. These days, you don’t have to manage anything. Whatever anyone says, just pretend you didn’t hear it," Lian Manman said.
"I’ve been a burden on you all."
Lady Zhang sighed and then nodded solemnly. From now on, she and Lian Shouxin would be the only adult labor in the family. To not be a burden on Shouxin or the children, she too had to show some spirit and get better.
"Manman, Mother isn’t confused, I know what’s important. Don’t worry, I’ve come to terms with everything. Once I recover, I refuse to believe that we can’t live a good life!"
Lian Manman was pleased to hear Lady Zhang think this way. That was exactly the kind of determination needed to get through life.
"Yes, Mom, we definitely can live a good life in the future."
Now that the decision to divide the family was made, Lian Manman thought it best to understand some matters in advance. In the evening, after dinner, she asked Lian Shouxin and Lady Zhang, "Dad, Mom, now that we’re dividing the family, what can our family get?"
Lady Zhang glanced at Lian Shouxin.
"It doesn’t matter what we get or don’t get. Once Mom is better, we can start from scratch, rent some land to farm, and be able to support you all," she said.
Lian Shouxin nodded.
Lady Zhang and Lian Shouxin were honest people, instilled with the virtue of yielding from a young age, and they always kept filial piety in their hearts. They weren’t good at, or even didn’t know how to fight for their due benefits.
"Dad, Mom, our whole family needs to eat. Besides, why shouldn’t we get a share of the division?" Lian Manman said to Lady Zhang, "These years, you and Dad have been toiling from dawn till dusk, never shirking any work. We have the same sons, daughters-in-law, grandsons, and granddaughters as the others. If they have theirs, we should have ours. Unless, Dad and Mom are saying they no longer recognize Grandpa and Grandma."
"You can’t speak recklessly like that, Manman," Lady Zhang interjected hastily.
"Even if we get nothing in the division, we still need to respect the elders," Lian Shouxin said.
Lian Manman knew they would respond like this.
"Let’s not talk about whether they are willing to give or not; let’s talk about what we would get if the division were fair," she insisted.
Hearing Lian Manman say this, Lian Shuxin and Lady Zhang began to think.
"First off, we’re still going to live here, so the house should definitely be ours," Lady Zhang said.
The Lian family’s courtyard was very symmetrical, with Old Master Lian and Lady Zhou living in the Upper Room East Room. The main house’s western room belonged to the eldest branch, the east wing was the second branch’s, and the west wing was where both their family and Lian Shouli’s lived. By that time, the Lian family had started to sell land and couldn’t afford to build a new house. That’s why the two families ended up living together.
The layout of the West Wing Room was very similar to that of the Upper Room, with an outer room at the entrance and stoves installed on both sides. Lian Shouxin’s family lived in the two rooms on the south side, while Lian Shouli’s family occupied the room on the north side. Originally, Lian Shouxin also lived in just one room, but after Lady Zhang gave birth to several children and they couldn’t all fit, the family couldn’t afford to build a new house, so they took advantage of the slow farming season to enlist help and constructed an additional room.
"The wood for these room’s beams and windows came from your maternal grandfather. The mud and lime for the house cost some money, but we didn’t pay for labor. It was all people from the neighborhood; if they came to help build, they were just fed," Lady Zhang explained.
Dividing the house and land were the main concerns of the split.
"So how much land should we get?" Lian Manman asked.
"There are just thirty acres of land now. Grandpa gets one share, and each of the four households gets one, so we should get six acres," Lady Zhang calculated according to the customary rules of family division in the countryside.
"With these six acres of land..." Lady Zhang began to plan. She and Lian Shouxin could meticulously farm the land and even clear some new ground. They could harvest two thousand pounds of grain a year, enough to feed themselves. "We should also get half of this courtyard, raise more chickens in the chicken coops, plant some vegetables in the middle part, and build a pigsty below. Raising three or four pigs a year, selling eggs for some cash, we’d have enough spare money. We’d have chicken and pork for the New Year, and by selling three pigs, we could buy a few more acres of land each year..."