“Yes, yes,” Ye Chongming said, patting the armrest.

After speaking, his face showed difficulty.

The family treasury truly had no money to spare.

He thought for a moment, then said to Ye Yaming: “Don’t you have money on hand? Why don’t you use it to buy some land in Tongxiang? In the future, whether you marry out or stay in the family, those lands can serve as your dowry or personal property. It’s better to invest the money you have in property, which will generate income every year.”

Within days of signing the contract for the cooperation between Lu, Qi, and the Ye family, the Ye family had transferred the money and signed a contract for half of the spring tea trade.

Lu Guanyi and Qi Ji were also particular about how they did business. They immediately provided the silver they had promised and had the Ye family assign an accountant. The two accountants would record these funds, and in the future, the accounts would be jointly managed by accountants from both parties.

During this period, the silver given to Ye Yaming and the silver for making tea sets all came from the joint account.

So Ye Yaming did have money. Even though she had given some to Madam Yin and helped the Second Household with expenses, the silver she had on hand, while not abundant, was enough to buy some property.

Ye Yaming had no objection to Ye Chongming’s suggestion.

As a woman and a member of the Ye family, it would be very difficult for her to use her money to invest in something independently. She lacked connections and personnel, and doing so might leave the impression of being too “independent,” hurting the family’s feelings.

She just wanted to do something meaningful; her goal wasn’t about how much money she could earn for herself. In her previous life, she had earned so much money, but after her death, who knew who had benefited from it?

So if she were to do business, she would bring the Ye family along, not eat alone. Moreover, her business ventures relied on the family’s protection. This was ancient times, not the well-regulated modern era.

But she needed to have some money; it was a basic guarantee for living. If she didn’t invest the money she had in property, it would eventually cause trouble.

Everyone in the Ye family had money, so she wasn’t worried about that. But in the original host’s memory, one of the aunts from the Yin family loved to take advantage of others. If she knew that Ye Yaming had several thousand taels of silver, she would certainly come to borrow. Not lending money when you had it would make you seem stingy once word got out. So it was better to convert the silver into property.

Besides, buying land to grow chrysanthemums would provide a yearly income. Although this income wouldn’t be as quick as doing business, it was stable.

She nodded: “Thank you, Grandfather, for thinking of me. That was precisely my intention. If Grandmother, First Aunt, Third Aunt, and Fourth Aunt want to buy property there as well, they can join me.”

Ye Chongming sighed with emotion: “You’re a sensible child.”

Ye Yaming said this simply because she was worried that the Second Household would receive special treatment, making the other households have thoughts that would trouble the elderly couple.

This was the child’s filial piety. But how the elders should act was their calculation.

Seeing that Ye Chongming had nothing more to say, Ye Yaming rose to take her leave.

After she left, Ye Chongming returned to the back courtyard and told Old Madam Ye about this matter.

He asked, “What do you think?”

Old Madam Ye glanced at her husband and answered his question with another: “What do you think?”

Having spent most of their lives together, she could see right through the old man’s thoughts.

Being seen through by his wife didn’t embarrass Ye Chongming.

He sighed, “Yaming has good intentions, and the plan is feasible. But the problem is, if these chrysanthemum fields are in the hands of our daughters-in-law, will we have to consider their feelings when buying and selling chrysanthemum tea in the future? If something happens and the daughters-in-law make trouble about wanting a divorce…”

He shook his head: “It just doesn’t feel right.”

In the past, when the Ye family acquired property and land, they always used money from the family treasury. The reason they didn’t let the daughters-in-law use their dowry silver to participate was, firstly, this could give the family a bad reputation for taking the daughters-in-law’s dowry silver, which wouldn’t sound good if word got out; secondly, the Ye family men worked themselves to death, only for the money earned to become the wives’ private funds.

If a wife was content to live in the Ye family and left her private property to her children after her death, that would be fine. But what if she wanted a divorce? Wouldn’t the Ye family men have worked their hearts out only to let someone take the silver away to support another man?

So the previous time, they didn’t invest in the names of the daughters-in-law.

But this time, because Ye Yaming wanted to use her private funds to buy land, preventing the women of other households from acquiring property would be unreasonable.

Although Old Madam Ye was also a woman, all the Ye family sons were born of her, so she naturally prioritized the overall interests of the Ye family rather than standing with the women.

After some thought, she said, “Let’s forget about it; there are too many issues. If I let them buy land, what if the chrysanthemums don’t grow well? Would you buy them?”

Hearing this, Ye Chongming immediately shook his head: “I couldn’t. It would ruin our Ye family’s reputation.”

“Exactly,” Old Madam Ye said. “So let’s drop this matter. As for Yaming, I can lend her five to ten thousand taels of silver to buy an estate and spend heavily to hire an experienced farmer to teach the estate workers how to grow chrysanthemums. When she receives her share from the tea set business and has silver, she can repay me later.”

“That’s good, that’s good.” Ye Chongming reached over and patted his wife’s arm. “Don’t worry, she’ll be able to repay part of the silver to you by the New Year. The tea set business will certainly do well.”

Ye Yaming was very pleased to hear that Old Madam Ye was willing to lend her money.

Her four thousand taels of silver could already buy a small estate. But it wasn’t as simple as just wanting to buy; she had to see if anyone was selling an estate. If there were no small estates available, only large ones, should she buy or not?

So Old Madam Ye needed to make this offer.

“Thank you, Grandmother. I’ll have someone inquire, and if there’s a good estate available but I don’t have enough money, I’ll certainly borrow from you.”

“Good, good,” Old Madam Ye said happily. “Last time I offered to lend you money, but it didn’t work out. This time, you must borrow, don’t force me to offer a third time.”

Now that the crops in the fields had been harvested, it was the season for buying and selling land. Without delay, Ye Yaming immediately sent Fang Xing with a servant to Tongxiang.

She would have liked to go herself, but the carriages of this era, without rubber tires or shock absorbers, made the journey unbearable. After her trip to Chongshan Temple, her entire body felt as if it had fallen apart. How much worse would a journey to Tongxiang be?

Moreover, Ye Chongming and Old Madam Ye would certainly be concerned about her leaving, and would insist on sending Ye Jiaxing along with a group of guards, making it too grand an expedition.

Ye Yaming simply didn’t bring up the matter and entrusted it to Fang Xing. Although Fang Xing wasn’t yet experienced enough in handling affairs, buying an estate was straightforward; he couldn’t make too big a mistake.

Unexpectedly, when Ye Chongming learned that Ye Yaming had only sent Fang Xing, he was very worried. He not only asked Zhang Zhongkun, the manager of the tea factory, who had little to do this season, to go along, but also sent the accountant Wen Tao to accompany them.