The bard fantasized again.

Chapter 113 Inheritance (Please subscribe!)
Actually, ever since he was kicked out of the tavern by the jackal and met Catherine on the very first day.

Tang Qi never saw her show a bright, sunny smile throughout the entire process.

Inheriting the Golden Oak made the girl adept at the art of interpersonal communication, gradually becoming shrewd and understanding of boundaries.

So when you first meet her, you can tell that she always maintains a proper balance, being polite yet distant.

Later, during her escape, she encountered many unexpected events, and the oppression she experienced made it difficult for her to even maintain a decent smile. A trace of sorrow always lingered between her curved eyebrows.

Now that she has rented the shop, she seems to have finally felt a little more at ease, which has gradually improved her mood.

But she's still not exactly a carefree girl, and she rarely acts as happy as she does now, almost jumping for joy.

The girl looked as if she had discovered a priceless treasure.

The discovery of the treasure itself is not something to celebrate.

The only thing I can do is keep it and suppress it in my heart.

Then bring it to another person.

Share that joy with the other person:
"Look what I found!"

Tang Qi was very willing to cooperate and stood up, asking in confusion:
"So what's the good news?"

"Didn't I lease that house along with the land?"
Today, my original intention was to take some of the town's regular customers to help me see how to renovate that old house and turn it into a tavern.

But just as we arrived in the backyard, Mr. Holz discovered an unexpected delight—

I wonder if you still remember that the 300 kilograms of star plums that we tried to pass off as 'inferior' were purchased from his orchard.

As the most outstanding fruit farmer in Xingmei Town, he immediately noticed that the soil texture in his backyard was somewhat different…

Although the task of comforting the three hundred people was always undertaken by the highly trusted Father Lynn.

But Tang Qi would occasionally play some soothing, melodious tunes in the middle of the camp.

During breaks, if someone is bored, they can share their stories with him.

This gave him a basic understanding of the refugees in Xingmei Town.

Of all these, the most memorable are the two farmers, Old David and Holtz.

The former was a very shrewd man. Whenever the camp was in danger, he would always pick up a pitchfork and try to get to Tang Qi's side—because he knew that this would leave a deeper impression on him.

In this way, one can rely on a little bit of goodwill to gain a foothold in an unfamiliar city with the help of Tang Qi or Catherine.

He wanted to at least ensure that his wife and children had a bowl of hot porridge.

For Tang Qi, 'shrewd' is a compliment, meaning he can always make choices that satisfy both parties.

As for Holtz, he often had contact with Catherine because of his planting of star plums, and Tang Qi could occasionally hear news about him from Catherine.

But what's most noteworthy are their two sons, David and Hogg.

Both of them had some friction with Ambi.

As parents, David and Holtz had strictly forbidden their children from messing with Ambi—mainly out of fear that the beastman would harm them.

But teenagers always become rebellious without anyone noticing.

The more their fathers forbade something, the more challenging they found it.

So the feud between the children ultimately ended during those 20 days of fleeing with Ambi beating the two boys to tears.
"David, it was wrong of me to destroy your Xingmei, and I apologize to you—"

But my sister said that if anyone dares to bully me, I will bully them back in the same way.

Anbi cannot swear.

So I had no choice but to beat you all until you dared not utter another word.

She deliberately restrained her claws, leaving the two boys with only some bruises, but they still cried and ran back to their mother.

The two boys felt utterly humiliated by losing to a little girl, and they behaved themselves considerably during this time, no longer daring to appear with Anbi at the same time.

As for their parents, of course they wouldn't pay any attention to two naughty children.

Instead, due to the goodwill he had built up over time, he got a helper job from Catherine.

In order to serve as labor and help renovate the brand new [Golden Oak].

This gave them a head start, allowing them to earn their first paycheck after arriving at Dragon Tail Pass, while other townspeople were still figuring out how to survive.

Clearly, they saw a new opportunity.

Tang Qi asked, "Is it the same type of soil that Xingmei needs?"

"Similar! But whether it can actually be grown still needs time to prove."

Holz couldn't guarantee it, but this was only out of caution.

In fact, he already had a considerable degree of confidence.

"But what is certain is that the soil near the house has just the right moisture, and the nutrients are even richer than those in Starplum Town—if it can really nurture Starplum, it could even cultivate a better variety than the Lord's 'Radiant Star'."

Catherine then continued:
"This means that we may no longer need to worry about what type of alcohol will be our main competitive advantage after we sell out the last of this truckload of Xingmei wine..."

This is very important.

After all, when a tavern first opens, it's inevitable to lose money to gain customers.
"I originally planned to sell the Star Plum Wine at a low price to at least maintain the tavern's balance of income and expenditure for three months."

In this way, even if they need to pay high prices to purchase goods from Lord Mel's winery in the future, they will at least not face the predicament of having to close down after three months.

But things are different now—

If we could lease the surrounding land and plant it as a plum orchard, at least within the Golden Oak, we could completely produce and consume our own fruit, without having to worry about Lord Mel's opinion!

Then we can attract customers with [Star Plum Wine] that's cheaper than what the winery makes. Even the citizens of Longjin City would probably be willing to come all the way to Longwei Pass for a drink!

In other words, if it can be confirmed, 'Star Plum' can be planted in the tavern's open space.

The person carrying the sack of money will have one more Catherine.

This also means:

"This might cut off Lord Mel's source of wealth—"

Of course, for him, it might just mean that the tenfold profit has suddenly decreased to fivefold.

But I believe that even so, that old wild boar wouldn't accept this reality.

Tang Qi reminded him,
"Being entangled with nobles is a very troublesome matter. Are you prepared for that?"

Clearly, when the girl decided to share this news, she had already made up her mind:
“'Longjin City will not favor the nobles,' right?” Eyes can speak volumes.

In Catherine's fiery red eyes, Tang Qi saw only fervor.

"I don't want to make a decision that I'll regret."

If I don't try to plant the star plum today, perhaps every night in the future, when I lie in bed and close my eyes, what I'll be thinking about is—

Why don't I have the courage to seize Lord Mel's market 'today'?

"I'm sure I'll be so angry I won't be able to sleep."

"Is this so..."

Tang Qi smiled and held up two fingers to her.
"Then I also want to share two pieces of news with you."

"What?" she asked, curious.

"First, beneath the 'moist soil' you speak of, there lies a patch of 'spores' with no attributes, which are excellent alchemical materials."

I think it must be the existence of these spores that improved the soil environment, making it also 'adaptable'—otherwise, it's impossible to explain why only that small area of ​​environment has the potential to grow star plum.

In other words, Mr. Holz's prediction is most likely correct; if you have the seeds, you should be able to harvest star plums from them.

"I have seeds!"

Holtz quickly patted his chest.
“I used to grow star plums, and the fruit rots after three days. So, besides my furniture, wife and children, all I could take with me were the seeds that I thought I would never need in my life.”

I never thought it would come in handy.

Tang Qi nodded, then looked at Catherine:
"The second thing is that while you were conducting your field visit, Mr. Mel had already visited the Friendship House once and had an in-depth and 'friendly' discussion with me."

Seeing that the girl's smile had faded, her expression tightened, and she looked bewildered and at a loss, Tang Qi deliberately kept her in suspense.

Sure enough, Catherine panicked a little.

But she quickly sighed, as if accepting reality:

"If you don't want me to go against Lord Mel, then I'll listen to your opinion..."

"I'm not done yet."

Tang Qi finally burst out laughing.

"Under our 'friendly' negotiations, I unfortunately managed to thwart Mr. Mel's plan—and he should be holding a grudge against me now."

As luck would have it, you now have a reason to be resented by him.

Debts are no burden. If you get questioned about it someday, you might as well just blame it on me and say that I told you to plant them.

In return, I'll receive a share of the profits as a reward for taking the blame for you. How about that?

Catherine, however, completely disregarded the financial issues.

He asked Tang Qi with some concern:
How did you offend him?

"Hmm... I only called him a 'wild boar,' beat up his mercenaries, and extorted some money from him, as well as 10 barrels of Star Plum Wine—the extra Star Plum Wine should help the tavern get through the early stages of operation better."

"Just? That's all?"

Not only Catherine, but also David and Holtz were stunned and stood there, pondering these two 'niche' words.

This gave them the feeling that they had finally mustered up the courage and made up their minds to step into the porcupine's den and decide to face a brand new challenge—even if they were to be butted off the cliff by this ferocious beast.

But in the blink of an eye, they found a lively poet in the nest, holding a red cloth, running around and amusing the porcupine, even causing the porcupine to bang its head against the wall, howling and curling up in a corner sighing...

But regardless, Catherine felt genuinely at ease.

She understood, of course, that Tang Qi's verbal demand for "profit sharing" was merely a way to ease her mind and allow her to face the challenges with peace of mind.

Just as Tang Qi must have understood that even if he had to cut off Master Mei's source of income, he still wanted to try to earn more gold coins, simply because he felt it would help Master Mei better alleviate his financial pressure...

Some things don't need to be said; they already understand each other implicitly.

"Now, there's only one last question left."

Catherine also held up one finger to him.
"We need to earn enough money before we can build an orchard."

We don't have the funds to lease more land or build more orchards right now.

Tang Qi knew this was not something that could be done immediately:
"It's okay, take your time..."

"Who said no?"

With a loud crash, the rubble set down the huge treasure chest he was carrying on his back and kicked open the lid.

The box was about 1 meter long and wide, and the dazzling array of jewels, gold and silver inside almost blinded Tang Qi.

But what intrigued everyone present even more than these things was:

"Stone rubble!? When did you get here?"

Veins bulged on Sui Shi's forehead, and he couldn't help but stomp his foot.

"Cut off his goatee! What do you mean by that!?"

I've been standing by your side ever since you started talking about that 'soil' stuff—

I fucking thought you guys were just having a really good chat.

In reality, no one noticed me at all!

"Cough cough."

Tang Qi naturally skipped over this topic.
"So where did this box, and the gold coins inside, come from?"
You said you were going to Longjin City to retrieve something, did you mean to rob some merchant guild?

"If I had that ability, I would have smashed your head in the first place!"

"To correct you, it should be the knee."

"Screw you!"

When it came to serious matters, even the pebbles temporarily forgot their annoyance at being ignored.
"In short, this is the wealth that Black Serpent had accumulated, much of which was stored in Dragon Gold City—"

'If I'm not around any longer, I'll give them to her.'

That's what he said.

(End of this chapter)