The whole family traveled through ancient times to start a new business

This was the first time that Old Lady Su had to deal with these issues. In modern times, she only had one son, Su An Dong, and there was no conflict between her and her daughter-in-law.

In modern times, in the first few years after Su Andong and his wife got married, Su Andong was serving in the army, and Zhou Huilan and her mother-in-law relied on each other at home. The relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law was very good. The mother-in-law had no daughter, so she treated Zhou Huilan as her own daughter; Zhou Huilan lost her mother at a young age, and after marriage, she treated her mother-in-law as her mother. After Su Andong returned home from military service, the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law has not changed. Whenever the couple has a conflict, the mother-in-law always stands on the side of her daughter-in-law. After the mother-in-law helped raise the children, the mother-in-law wanted to leave and return to the countryside to live on her own, not wanting to cause trouble for them, but the daughter-in-law said she would not let her. The two have had a good relationship for decades, and there has never been a conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, which made Su Andong a little jealous.

Old Mrs. Su was quite satisfied with her performance this time and applauded herself in her heart.

At this time, the two siblings who were eavesdropping at the door of the east room of the main hall looked at each other and gave their grandmother a thumbs up.

The basic family relationship issues were initially resolved. Mrs. Su moved on to the next step.

"Next, I'll rearrange the room."

Old Madam Su did not give others a chance to speak and continued, "Listen to my arrangements first!"

The Su family’s house is a bit like a courtyard house, and it is a brick and tile house. It is one of the best houses in the village.

The layout of a row of main rooms is like this: the main door in the middle leads to the main room, and there is a room on each side of the main room. There is a door on each side of the main room, and each has two rooms. It looks like the main room has seven rooms, but the room on the left and right of the main room is very large, not much smaller than the two rooms on the left and right. There are two east and west wing rooms, and the east and west wing rooms were added as the number of children gradually increased.

The rooms were previously allocated as follows: the room to the east of the main hall was occupied by Mrs. Su and her granddaughter. The room to the west of the main hall was previously the study of Mr. Su, and now houses his books and sundries. The room to the east of the main house was occupied by the eldest son and his wife and their children. The room to the west of the main house was occupied by the third son and his wife and Su Zhihao. One of the east wing rooms was a kitchen, and the other was a warehouse. One of the west wing rooms was occupied by the second son and his wife and their two daughters, and one was Su Yitong's boudoir.

After Su Anyuan came back, he lived in Su Yitong's room. Old Mrs. Su set up a bed in the room for Su Yitong to sleep in.

The room arrangement after redistribution is as follows: Mrs. Su asked her son to simply divide the room on the east side of the main hall into two rooms. The inner room is her room and her granddaughter's room, and the outer room is Su Zhihao's room. The room on the west side of the main hall was also simply divided into two rooms. The inner room with good sunlight was used as a study room for Su Antong to study, and the outer room was used as a bedroom for the third son and his wife. The books left by old man Su were also sorted and placed in the study room. The two rooms on the east side of the main house are still occupied by the eldest son and his wife and their children. The two rooms on the west side of the main house are for the second son and his wife and their two daughters. The two rooms in the west wing, the fourth son moved from Su Yitong's room to Su Ankang's original room, and Su Yitong's room is occupied by the two sisters of the Su family.

Old Madam Su explained her arrangement: "The room to the west of the main hall was originally a study room, so I arranged it for the third child to study. Do you have any opinions on my arrangement?"

Su Ankang was very touched by his mother's decision to reallocate the rooms. In the past, he, his wife and their children lived in the west wing, which was a little crowded even though they were separated by a gap. Now, the second son and his wife were the happiest about the reallocation of rooms. But Su Ankang thought about it and raised his hand to indicate that he wanted to speak.

Su Ankang's mother allowed him to speak and said, "Mom, we need to divide your room into two. Will it be too crowded? And my third brother, will he be able to live in a spacious room?"

"No problem. The rooms on the east and west sides of the main hall are big, not much smaller than your two rooms, so it won't be crowded if you divide them into two. As for the third brother, you can organize the books and put the useless things in the warehouse, so it won't be crowded. I was negligent before, and it's really not appropriate for the second brother's family to squeeze into the west wing. Let them live like I said, and we can talk about it later when the fourth brother or the eldest brother gets married."

Su An Dong said: "Second brother, no problem, there are enough rooms, just follow mother's arrangements!"

"Just make some partitions for now, don't build a wall. Go up to the mountain and cut down some trees, and use wooden boards to partition them. Do the same for both rooms. Just leave it like this for now, and we'll build a wall later."

The Su brothers all nodded in agreement.

Old Mrs. Su has her own idea. If the temperature drops sharply this winter, she plans to build a kang and a fire wall in her home. In her memory, there is no kang or fire wall in this place, but she thinks there should be some further north.

Winter here is not that cold normally. In Mrs. Su's memory, the coldest time in winter did not drop to minus 10 degrees Celsius. This was also an era of information blockage, so the kang was not introduced here.

In modern times, Old Mrs. Su is a native of a rural Northeast China. Although she later moved to the city with her son and daughter-in-law, she has not lost her original life skills.

After reallocating the rooms, Old Mrs. Su began to talk about the next plan.

"When you come back from your job in the county, third brother, go to the city. Your father left a book behind. He told me that this book is a rare ancient book and is very valuable. It can be sold for at least 100 taels. I don't know what rare books are. Third brother, take the book to the city and sell it."

Without waiting for anyone to object, Old Lady Su continued, "It must be sold. Books are dead, but people are alive. Your father told me before he died that if the family encounters any difficulties, we can sell this book. In a family like ours, it is useless to keep this book. If you can't bear to part with it, let the third child copy a copy and keep it."

In fact, there are three such rare books, and the remaining two have been put into the little granddaughter's space. Mrs. Su decided not to say anything for the time being, but her family would not embezzle these two books, after all, they belonged to the Su family.

After thinking for a while, he continued, "To tell you the truth, we only have 17 taels of silver left in our family. The 20 taels that the fourth son brought back and the 16 taels of silver your sister got from the divorce cannot be considered as our family's money, and I don't plan to use them. Even if I use them, it's just a temporary loan and I have to pay it back."

Su Anyuan and Su Yijia said at the same time: "My money is the family's money. I gave it to my mother for her to spend. She doesn't have to pay it back."

Old Madam Su replied firmly, "I have my own plans. It's great that you can lend the money to my family for free." She continued to the crowd, "This book must be sold. Next, the third son will need money for his exams, the fourth son will need money for his treatment, and there is also money for Dalang's wedding. Everything needs money. Besides, last year's harvest was so bad. If we don't buy food, how can we have enough to eat? You are all starving and sick. How much is too little?"

After hearing this, everyone fell silent, which was considered as their tacit agreement to sell the books.

"The book-selling matter should only be known to our family members. We should not tell anyone else. You should all understand the principle of not showing off your wealth, so I won't say much. Everyone should keep their mouths shut." After saying that, he glanced at everyone in the room.

Everyone quickly made promises, and the daughters-in-law also said, "Don't worry, mother, we won't tell anyone about our family's affairs."

Mrs. Su showed a satisfied expression: "In the future, I will discuss family matters with you more often. If you have any opinions, you can also tell me. We can discuss everything." After that, she thought for a few seconds and said: "Let's call it a family meeting! Gathering together to discuss things like today is called a family meeting. In the future, when we encounter things related to the whole family, we will hold a family meeting."

This new word was recognized by everyone.

Old Lady Su: "The reason why I said I would sell it in the prefecture is because I'm afraid I won't be able to sell it at a good price in the county. Let's discuss who to send to the prefecture! What do you think?"

Family members: "I don't have any ideas. Just listen to mom." Old Mrs. Su rolled her eyes in her heart.