Through Lin Da, Cui Hao learned that Qian Lei had been beaten to death, but he didn't care. He and Qian Lei weren't connected by even eight poles.
What concerned him more was that there would soon be another person in the household. He decided to use the land in the backyard to build two more rooms and a latrine.
He paid people from the village to help: a crowd of twenty-five men, young and old, worked day and night.
They finally finished at noon on the day Hu Xing entered the household.
The walls were made of rammed earth, with wooden beams and a roof of yellow mud and thatch. There were no complicated steps, and with so many people working, the job went quickly.
The cost was less than fifteen taels of silver. Cui Hao had been generous with the wages, food, and materials; otherwise, he could have spent even less.
"Brother Hao," Su Yun said as they waited for Hu Xing. She pointed at the document in his hand. "Let me see."
Cui Hao handed it to her.
Su Yun took the document and unfolded it.
The heading read "Concubine Contract," not "Concubine Purchase Document."
The contract stated the concubine's background and price, and guaranteed she was not a respectable woman who had been kidnapped or had run away. It was, in essence, a contract for the sale of a person.
Unlike an ordinary concubine contract, the one in Su Yun's hands was rather "brazen."
Instead of the man giving the woman money, the woman would bring money with her—mostly cultivation supplies: thirty packets of Qi and Blood Powder.
At two taels of silver per packet, that alone came to sixty taels!
There were also twenty taels in silver, ten thousand copper coins, some jewelry, and some