Chapter 81

There was a full moon brightly illuminating the path. Ethan was quite late as he had been one of the lasts to finish cleaning. They had been short on two people as one was sick and the other had at accident at home and was injured.

Waiters on the ground floor had to made do without those two. His meal time was even cut short to be able to attend guests. Many of the other waiters complained, but since they were going to be paid that amount of extra work, then their complaints were casual.

Ethan, obviously, said nothing. His job as a waiter had been heaven compared to the other ones he had had. Long working hours, short resting time, and poor meals. The restaurant even let him choose one dish from the menu to eat.

From the cheapest dishes, of course. 

But even those were better than whatever he had the chance to buy in the market. Except for Monthe's soup. Ethan ate those when he had saved enough.

All the houses in Yellow Leaf Village were completely dark, their inhabitants probably already dreaming. Or doing other things. Since nights were silent, then any other noise inside houses were clearly heard.

After passing by a house on the main road from where he could hear the telltale sounds of sex, Ethan wondered how Isabelle was doing; if she was already asleep or…

It's Lucas day, he thought. It was an on and off thing with him. Lucas liked to pamper her while bathing: washing her hear or massaging her tired body. Ethan admired his second brother's self-control. 

In Ethan's case, unless she explicitly made it clear she was not going to partake in the pleasures of the flesh, he always took advantage of their bath time to touch and do things with her.

As Ethan walked away from the loud grunts of the man that seemed to be done while the woman had still been urging him to keep going, he knew the couple would fight after that. 

It was common in villages for women to end up unsatisfied from their husband's performance. That's how some women ended up looking for Joseph for a good tussle that would even leave them limping.

Ethan remembered it all began after a young lady, who had quite the reputation of trying men out (yes, Ethan was also in her list of tried out men), loudly commented to other women in the village about her experience with Joseph.

It was funny because Joseph had said he had had trouble keeping it hard as her moans had been very off-putting. The long process of him searching his own orgasm, that poorly and barely came, had been the best sex she had had.

Ethan didn't even try. The moment she had her first orgasm, he put it away and left. 

The eldest brother thought that would never happen with Isabelle. In fact, it hadn't been like that so far, and they had just been teasing each other. If they went all the way…

His thoughts halted as he saw the light coming from the house. As he approached, he noticed two people were still outside, sitting at the table. Entering the yard, and with the help of the moonlight, he noticed it was Lucas and Isabelle.

Their whispered conversation stopped as soon as they saw him.

"What are you doing here?" Ethan softly asked, not wanting to break the mood the two had.

"Joseph and Felix are studying inside. We did not want to interrupt them after out bath, so we stayed here." Isabelle replied from the comfortable safety of Lucas' embrace.

"Why are they studying so late at night?" Ethan frowned. As far as he knew, the lessons with Isabelle were early: after dinner and before her bath. 

"They're going to town tomorrow." Lucas said.

"What for?" One thing Ethan really disliked about working all day was that he was unaware of things happening at home. He only knew about them as soon as he returned from work.

"People will come to measure the land in the village. The Chief suggested us to buy the patch beside us, the one we were already thinking in buying, as soon as possible. We did so in the afternoon. Joseph just needs to go register it in town." Isabelle explained, skipping all the argument they had to even reach that point of making the purchase.

Ethan's frown deepened. "We had decided it was a gift." He accusingly looked at Lucas.

Isabelle was ready to jump and defend the tallest brother but was stopped by the latter, who squeezed her body. Lucas stared back at his upset brother. Yes, they had decided it was a gift; however, he also thought what Isabelle said before made sense.

"We had the money. The chance was there. Why not?" Lucas slow and clear voice punched the air and anger out of Ethan.

The eldest brother knew what it meant for people to come measure the land. Not only the price of land rose, taxes also rose. Taxes depended on the land owned and not the people living in it. So, the brothers would pay monthly taxes for the 3% of the amount they bought the land for.

Meaning, they bought the patch for 60 coins, then they would pay 1 coin and 8 dimes as taxes for it. Together with the taxes of the house land and the other patch, then they were going to pay 2 coins and 7 dimes in total.

If taxes rose, then Ethan was not sure how much the tax fee would end up for them.

Either way, it was best to be taxed based on 60 coins rather than 100 coins, for example. 

Besides, the words Joseph once told him still rang in his mind. He was not their father. He had no reason to stop them from deciding things on their own. And, it was a rather urgent decision at that. One that was best to act first and ask later.

No, he was not going to scold them for doing what they did. If it was before, maybe he could have. But, with Isabelle present, he was not going to diminish his brothers' confidence, responsibility, authority and independence.

He no longer could.

Ethan sighed as he sat on one of the stools. "So, what're you planning to do with the new land?" 

Both Lucas and Isabelle were a bit surprised at the ease with which Ethan moved on. They kind of expected him to argue a bit. However, it seemed the oldest of them was more mature than they gave him credit for.

"Cleaning. Decide which trees will be cut down." Lucas started listing out after Isabelle elbowed him to reply. She had no idea what needed to be done after acquiring land, so she left all that work to the brothers.

"Joseph has no plan?" Ethan inquired.

Lucas shook his head. "I don't know."

"Right. Well, we can decide that before we go to town tomorrow." As part of the family, he did not want to be left out in this new endeavor. 

Early next morning, the four brothers stood before the new land. They all had different feelings and thoughts about it.

Ethan really considered it a pity the land was no on Isabelle's name. After marrying, they could have given her an identity, a place where she could belong. Most importantly, it would have given her the right to buy and sell land as a village inhabitant.

Lucas was just trying to picture all the things Isabelle told him they could do with the land. He could envision the area where they would plant their vegetables, the area for grazing, and where they could build animal sheds. 

Joseph felt it was a dream. He had been interested in that piece of land for years. He had all the intentions of the world to buy it when he thought he could finally form a family. And, from one day to another, he had become the owner. 

Felix was just thinking on all the work he would have to do to clean up the land. It was really so full of shrubbery that he would not be surprised if they found a couple of snakes nestled in the area. However, he was also happy as he could finally do the hard labor together with his brothers.

"I think as soon as the cleaning is over, we can start with the fence." Ethan proposed. Isabelle had told him over and over than the fence around the house needed to be taller to prevent others from peeping at them.

If the house was going to have a tall fence, why not the new land, too?

"Birch trees could be used for that." Joseph mused, eyeing the tall trees with their white trunks and yellow leaves. 

"Not many." Lucas pointed out. Birch trees were the tallest trees in their new land, they were easily visible. In his opinion, their position at the back were perfect. They could be left there.

"Isabelle seems to like birch trees. She stares at them from time to time." Felix added to the conversation. The reason why Yellow Leaf Village was called like that was because of these birch trees. 

"Right. Then, let's just clean first." Ethan easily decided to put an end to the conversation. They would definitely not touch things Isabelle liked. 

The other three nodded, agreeing. 

With a haphazard plan in mind, Lucas was left to start the cleaning while the other three headed to town. As soon as the land was registered, Felix and Joseph would join Lucas in the task.

Anything else could be discussed with Isabelle, who was also an important part of their family. They were not going to leave her out.