1578 Allocation of Land
Qiao Mei looked at the two children crawling around on the brick bed and said seriously, “Xia Fan! Xia Xing! Sit properly!”

Xia Fan and Xia Xing looked at Qiao Mei curiously and stopped what they were doing. The two of them sat down obediently and looked at Qiao Mei. Xia Xing could not sit properly yet and had to prop herself up by leaning against Xia Fan unsteadily. Their seating stances were acceptable to Qiao Mei.

“Mom is going outside to do some cleaning. I’ll be in the courtyard. The two of you play on the brick bed obediently, do you understand? If you do, then nod your heads!” Qiao Mei said slowly, enunciating each word clearly.

Xia Fan nodded with his might. Xia Xing let out a loud “wow” sound in agreement.

“Then it’s a deal! If you fall down and hurt yourself, Mom won’t care about you! Do you understand! Ring the bell if you need anything, do you understand?” Qiao Mei decided to scare them a little.

Xia He had bought the bell as a toy for the children. Qiao Mei did not expect it to come in useful.

Xia Fan and Xia Xing nodded obediently. After listening to Qiao Mei’s instructions, the two of them sat on the brick bed and continued playing. Qiao Mei was still a little worried about their safety and decided to put up a barrier. With the barrier, there was less chance of the children falling over.

The vegetables in the courtyard had already been harvested by the other women and there were only a few roots left behind. Qiao Mei did not know if she should remove them now and then inform them about what she did when she saw them again.

The size and layout of each house was different. Some had backyards while others did not. The single-storey house that Qiao Mei lived in had its own backyard. Once she filled the yard with plants and crops, people would definitely talk and become jealous.

Just as Qiao Mei was thinking about this, those few women happened to walk past Qiao Mei’s main door. Liu Yun was the first to greet Qiao Mei and said, “Oh! You have officially moved in!”

“That’s right, Sister Liu. Today is my first day here. Have you ladies harvested everything from this courtyard? I don’t want to accidentally remove anything of yours,” Qiao Mei said with a grin.

“There’s nothing left. We’ve already harvested all the vegetables. If you want to do some planting, you can till the soil and start sowing,” Liu Yun said indifferently.

“You ladies had allocated the land among yourselves earlier. Is it really alright for me to use this piece of land?” Qiao Mei said.

Liu Yun and the other two women looked at Qiao Mei approvingly. At least she was socially adept enough to know that she had to abide by the rules here if she wanted to get along well with them.

“In that case, we’ll do a reallocation. All the single-story houses are occupied now so the land would belong to those living there. Let’s use the land of the dilapidated vacant house next door. We can let Zhang Cai have it since there’s no backyard in her house, and Song Zhi can use the backyard part of that house,” Liu Yun said.

It looked like Liu Yun was not a person who was greedy for small gains. Even though she was prejudiced against Song Zhi, she still took Song Zhi’s needs into consideration and did not treat Song Zhi badly in such a situation. Liu Yun probably just did not like seeing others having a better life than her.

“Thank you, Sister Liu. So I’ll proceed to farm on the land here!” Qiao Mei said.

“Sure.” Liu Yun agreed casually and walked back to her house. The rest of them also returned to their own homes to do their chores.

Qiao Mei removed all the leftover plants in the courtyard and turned the soil over. She would sow some seeds tomorrow once she had time. She would also give some of these seeds to the other women as a show of gratitude to them for reallocating the land.

She would not give them much, probably less than a hundred seeds each. Although it was not a lot, these seeds were all high quality ones which Qiao Mei had carefully nurtured.

Although the seeds which those women used were also not bad, what they had were definitely not as good as the seeds that Qiao Mei brought with her. Qiao Mei did not care if these people used her seeds or not. If they trusted her, they would naturally benefit from it.

Liu Yun and Zhang Cai did not even look at the seeds. They just put it aside and mumbled a few words of thanks. Wang Nuo was more polite and even gave Qiao Mei many potatoes to bring home. Song Zhi reacted most differently from the others. She still remembered that Qiao Mei had spoken up for her that day.

“Thank you. I don’t have much good stuff at home. My best skill is doing needlework. I’ll make two pairs of shoes for your children and send them over once it’s ready. Take it as my gift to say thanks,” Song Zhi said softly.

“You don’t have to be so polite,” Qiao Mei said with a smile.