Huang Tao did not linger long at the Xu Family home. He left the gifts and took his people away. After Huang Tao left, the old master and Old Madam finally dared to speak. They were truly intimidated by Huang Tao’s grandeur and imposing manner just now. "Eldest Son’s Wife, what’s going on?" Instead of rushing to move the gifts, Anning first took the time to explain to the elderly couple. "Mother, do you remember the Guanyin Embroidery I sold to the Huang family? Old Lady Huang really loved it, hanging it in their shrine to burn incense and pray every day. As a result, their grandson passed the scholar examinations, their second son was robbed by water bandits but kept his life, and they had another grandson who had been married for many years without children; not long after praying to the Guanyin Embroidery, they conceived. The family believes that my embroidered Guanyin statue has blessed them, so they came in a hurry to deliver a thank you gift." Old Madam, initially thinking there was some problem, relaxed upon hearing this: "Oh, it’s that. That’s good news." The old master also smiled: "These wealthy families always overthink things; it might have been a coincidence." Anning did not say that it was not a coincidence, but that when embroidering the Guanyin statue, she had deliberately sewn a few talismans into it with Spiritual Power. After explaining to the old master and Old Madam, Anning took Liu Bao’s family to sort out those thank-you gifts. The thank-you gifts from the Huang family were genuinely numerous, filling several large carts. These gifts had no frills, all practical goods, including daily necessities like rice, flour, oil, as well as textiles and furs, and some medicinal herbs. Of course, there were also several cases of jewelry, intended for the female relatives of the family. Anning had Liu Bao and his two sons move the items into the small storage room, took out some textiles for Liu Bao’s family to make a few more clothes, and carried the silver notes and jewelry to Old Madam. She placed five hundred taels in silver notes with Old Madam, and gave her several sets of gold and silver jewelry; Anning kept the rest for herself. Old Madam, holding those cases of jewelry, was so happy she could hardly contain her excitement. She chose a gold bracelet to wear and show the old master: "I didn’t expect, at my age, to still have such fortune. Old man, do you think this bracelet looks nice?" The old master chuckled: "It looks nice, very nice." Old Madam wasn’t one to be greedy, she only picked a very thin gold bracelet to wear and hid away the rest. She even considered saving those pieces of jewelry for Lan’s dowry in the future. After the Huang family left, several families from Prefecture City came, all seeking Guanyin statues from Anning. These families brought Silver and many other goods, claiming they would buy embroideries like the ones from the Huang family at any price. Anning had to explain to these people that the family did not have any ready-made ones and that if they wished to order, she would have to embroider them slowly; it took her over half a year to embroider the Huang family’s embroidery. If these families could wait, then she would take on the commission work. These families immediately began to argue over who should get their embroidery done first. Anning came out to mediate afterwards, asking if they truly wished to receive the embroidery as soon as possible; the craftsmanship would certainly not compare to the Huang family’s, but the effect would be about the same. Then, those families began to negotiate amongst themselves, agreeing that as long as the effect was the same, they weren’t persistent about the craftsmanship; they were seeking speed and wished to bring them home as soon as possible. Anning then smoothly accepted these several orders. She entrusted the fire wall construction entirely to the old master, while she buried herself in embroidery every day. Thus, after more than half a month had passed, Anning had embroidered several small portraits for those families to take back, and the fire wall at home was also completed. And then Anning began to count the Silver. This time, Huang Tao brought Anning another 2,000 taels in silver notes, and the Silver the other families gave was not little, each family 2,000 taels, in total five families; in just over a month, Anning had netted more than ten thousand taels. With money, things would truly become easier to handle in the future. Anning discussed with the old master about buying houses in the county and Prefecture City, as Brother Ying would be studying in the academy in the county; it would save a lot of trouble if they had a house there. The old master thought it was a viable plan. In the old man’s view, owning money meant one should buy land and houses. The Old Madam was very pleased as well, urging the old master to hurry up and buy a Manor, plus several more houses. During this time, noble families kept visiting the Xu Family, and word spread throughout the village. Evidently, Xu Erya had also heard about it. She heard from others that Anning was skilled in embroidery, and that her Guanyin and Buddha embroideries looked just like the real thing; even the rich and noble families from Prefecture City came to ask for them, causing her heart to fill with both jealousy and resentment, feeling especially bitter. Initially, she had been hoping that after the family division, her second branch would get better and better, while the main branch would get worse and worse. But contrary to her expectations, after the division, the second branch was struggling to get by, whereas the main branch’s life was becoming more prosperous. Xu Erya was so furious she couldn’t stand it, she began to add more spiritual spring water into Xu Zhiyong’s food, hoping he would recover quickly; in addition, she cultivated several pots of flowers with spiritual spring water in secret in the mountains, and while Mrs. Feng and Xu Zhiyong were assisting the main branch, she sneaked off to sell them in town, managing to save up a bit of money. With this money, Xu Erya gained some boldness. Originally, she had thought of using money to bribe someone to abduct Lan. Later, she found out that Lan never went out alone, and even when she did, there were people following her, plus Lan was particularly astute, never speaking to strangers or accepting food from them; trafficking her was proving to be very difficult. Furthermore, the money Xu Erya had earned was not a lot, and she was unwilling to spend that money. The source of this content ɪs novelFɪre.net After observing for some time, Xu Erya discovered that not far from the main branch’s residence stood a mountain, tall and forested, with an unknown variety of wild animals inside; she then had an idea. At night, while everyone was fast asleep, Xu Erya sprinkled a lot of spiritual spring water around the main branch’s house and even threw a bottle filled with spiritual spring water into the main branch’s courtyard. Having done all this, Xu Erya hurried back to her own place to sleep. She couldn’t help but feel delighted before falling asleep. She knew those wild beasts were fond of spiritual spring water and couldn’t resist its allure; now that the main branch’s surroundings were suffused with the scent of spiritual spring water, there was no telling how many wild beasts it would attract down from the mountain. With the weather growing colder by the day and food for the wild beasts becoming scarcer, starving as they were, lured by the scent of spiritual spring water, they would be driven mad, charging into the main branch’s courtyard. Imagining the entire main branch getting devoured by wild beasts, with all the money Anning had earned falling into the hands of the second and the third branches, Xu Erya reveled in delight. Unknown to her, after she’d scattered the spiritual spring water and left, Anning soon came out. Anning could feel the spiritual spring water all around the courtyard, she walked to the center of the courtyard, picked up the bottle filled with spiritual spring water, opened the cap and sniffed it, and then tasted a little of the spiritual spring water, she couldn’t help but laugh. This spiritual spring water was really quite interesting.