He has a spatial ability and saves three children on his escape route.

Chapter 86 Return to the city

The next morning, before returning to the city, Wen Yuxia and her two servants went to Lingyuan Manor.

Last year was Wen Yuxia's third year selling wine. At the end of the year, Wen Yuxia instructed the managers of the three farms, Lingyuan, Lingdong, and Lingtong, to dig up the grapevines and sell them, leaving only one mu (approximately 0.16 acres) of land on each farm to grow grapes.

Afterwards, they bought a large number of pomegranate trees from an orchard in Mengzhong County and planted them on the vacant land.

In the first year that the wine was sold to the public, Wen Yuxia did not hide the fact that it was made from grapes; she directly named it "Wine".

She wanted to make money, but even more so, she wanted to make wine accessible to the common people of the Great Xia Dynasty, transforming it from an exclusive privilege for royalty and the powerful.

For wine to reach every household, one producer isn't enough; more producers need to participate.

One year, two years, three years, four years—in the fourth year, last year, a winery finally succeeded in producing wine.

The wine business was no longer a monopoly, and the price of wine dropped from twenty taels of silver per catty to eight taels of silver per catty.

Once the first winery produces wine, a second and a third winery will soon follow, and the price of wine will continue to decrease.

Wen Yuxia, who brought wine to the Great Xia Dynasty, kept his achievements and fame hidden, and instead prepared to brew fruit wine.

"Miss, we've cultivated quite a few fruit tree saplings on the estate. What do you think, should we sell them or continue expanding the planting?" The estate manager, Lin, asked respectfully.

In previous years, families in the village often went hungry and cold, and when they fell ill, they couldn't even afford medicine. The village children did nothing but run around and help the adults with farm work.

Since Wen Yuxia took over the estate, she has put all the children under her unified management, teaching them to make pastries, learn martial arts, and even hiring tutors for them.

The schoolteacher taught the children to read during the day and the adults to read at night. After several years, even the oldest man in the village, Grandpa Xu, could write the names of his entire family. There was no longer a single illiterate person in the village.

The biggest change was among the first eleven children to join the guard team. Under the tutelage of martial arts master Gu Jiusi, these children went hunting in the mountains and fishing in the rivers, never leaving empty-handed.

Those children who learned to make pastries early on are doing quite well. They now work at the "Delicious Pastry Shop" in the county town, earning a monthly wage based on their work. Some earn as much as three taels of silver a month, while others bring home one tael and five mace.

The apples and pears from the village are in high demand every year, and the villagers also earn a considerable amount of money from the wineries.

In short, everyone in the village was wearing new clothes, every family had surplus grain, and every household had extra money. Thinking of this, Village Chief Lin bowed slightly to Wen Yuxia.

Wen Yuxia was considering where to put the fruit tree seedlings, unaware of what Lin Zhuangtou was thinking. When she saw him suddenly bow to her, she asked in confusion, "Lin Zhuangtou, what are you doing?"

"I didn't do anything, I just wanted to thank Miss," Lin Zhuangtou honestly stated what was on his mind.

When Wen Yuxia heard that the young men and women at the pastry shop received a monthly allowance, her expression suddenly became somewhat unnatural.

Apart from Captain Gu Jiusi, who received a monthly allowance, Nan Yi and the others in the guard team did not. She had actually forgotten about Nan Yi and his group's monthly wages.

"Chief Lin, send the fruit tree saplings from your village to the horse farm. Also, send the fruit tree saplings cultivated by Lingdong Village and Lingtong Village to the horse farm. In addition, send 5,000 catties of sweet potatoes from each village to the horse farm," Wen Yuxia said calmly.

Every year, the harvested sweet potatoes were divided 40/60 among the farm servants, with Wen Yuxia using all of her share for seed. Over the years, each farm's cellars stored tens of thousands of kilograms of sweet potatoes.

At the end of last year, Lin Zhuangtou even went to the horse farm to find Wen Yuxia and ask her what to do with these sweet potatoes, which are now being used to supplement the horse farm's income.

In normal times, when something happens, Wen Yuxia tells Lin Zhuangtou, who then informs the other two village heads. Lin Zhuangtou is already used to playing the role of a messenger.

He nodded calmly and turned to leave, saying, "Yes, Miss, I'll send someone to inform Manager Huang and Manager Wu right away."

"Wait a minute!" Wen Yuxia called out, thinking of the monthly wages owed to Nan Yi and the others. "There's no time like the present. Let's pay off the monthly wages we owed for the past four years today!"

"By the way, inform the families of the guards to come to the main courtyard to see me," Wen Yuxia told Lin Zhuangtou. She was going back to the county town that afternoon and asked the families of Nan Yi and the others to come see her as soon as possible.

"Okay, miss."

Half an hour later, the families of all eleven members of the guard arrived.

Without any pleasantries, Wen Yuxia went straight to the point: "Everyone, your children have been learning martial arts from Master Gu for four years. In these four years, they haven't brought a single penny home. Today, I'm handing over their monthly allowance for these four years to you."

Except for Nan Yi, who was in the county town, all the other team members stood quietly beside their families, their faces showing excitement.

Wen Yuxia took out eleven five-tael silver ingots from her satchel and placed them on the table. She continued, "During the martial arts training period, each person will receive 100 cash per month for four years. The extra 2 cash is considered a reward for them."

Actually, although Nan Yi and the others never received a monthly allowance, they took the red envelopes that Wen Yuxia gave them during the Lunar New Year home and gave them to their parents.

At this moment, knowing that the money the children brought home for the New Year was not their monthly allowance, but the silver ingots on the table that represented their monthly allowance for the past few years, the parents looked at Wen Yuxia with gratitude.

After distributing their monthly stipends, the guards saw off their families and returned to the main courtyard. Gu Jiusi conveyed Wen Yuxia's instructions to the guards: pack their belongings and move to the horse farm immediately.

The guards rushed joyfully to their rooms as they went to the horse farm to learn to ride. Gu Jiusi watched with a smile as he raised the children.

He said gently to his wife, Ma Hong, beside him, "Wife, I'm moving to the horse farm. Once we've settled down, I'll ask Miss if she can take you there."

Ma Hong said softly, "Mmm."

Gu Jiusi was a bodyguard hired by Wen Yuxia from a镖局 (armed escort agency). He worked as a master at Lingyuan Manor for a year, and the following year he resigned from the镖局 and signed a ten-year employment contract with Wen Yuxia, becoming completely her man.

Ma Hong was a distant relative of Lin Zhuangtou. Her parents died before the New Year and the Ma family wiped out their lineage. Helpless, she came to Lingyuan Village to seek refuge with Lin Zhuangtou. Guo Shi then arranged for her to marry Gu Jiusi.

Back in Xinchuan County, Wen Yuxia first went to the brokerage firm. Her family's business was expanding rapidly, and they needed someone to manage it. She asked Xiao Zhang at the brokerage firm to keep an eye out for a suitable candidate. The three of them then drove a mule cart back to their home in the south of the city.

Back home, Lu Zhigang recounted in detail how many kilograms of greenhouse vegetables he had sold during the winter, how much money he had earned, what New Year's gifts he had received, and what the return gifts were. Finally, he handed the account book to Wen Yuxia.