small farm girl in pastoral space

Chapter 9 New Year, New Beginning

When the snow stopped outside, Mu Qiu led Mu Wen to build a snowman and have a snowball fight in the yard.In winter, farmers are not as busy as other seasons, and occasionally people come to visit, so the days are very leisurely.

The vegetables grown on the open space outside the house still showed vigorous vitality in the wind and snow, causing people in the village to come to ask Mrs. Li if there is any trick to grow vegetables.

In the last big show years ago, Li Xianrou took her two children to the town to buy new year's goods.Mu Wen rarely came to town, so everything he saw felt fresh.Tianxiangju has closed, and the month before and after the Chinese New Year is a rest period, so Mu Qiu will no longer deliver food.

I bought a bunch of snacks that should be prepared at home.The price of candy is not low as a luxury item, and Mrs. Li gritted her teeth and bought some.Although Pingyang Town is just a remote town in Beizhao Country, it is also filled with the joyous atmosphere of the New Year.

In that dilapidated little thatched hut, the family spent their first New Year in Ping'an Village.Because he didn't have any relatives or friends, he didn't need to visit his house to pay New Year's greetings, and Mrs. Li only sent New Year's gifts to a few families in the village who had a good relationship.

On the morning of the third day of the Lunar New Year, a carriage drove into Ping'an Village.Everyone in the village came out to watch the fun, thinking that someone's rich relative had come to visit, but the carriage went all the way to the end of the village before stopping at Li Xianrou's house.

"Miss Muqiu, happy new year!" It turned out to be Wang Dazhuang, the assistant of Tianxiangju.

"Brother Zhuang, happy new year, why are you here?" Mu Qiu was surprised and happy, and hurriedly welcomed people in.As soon as Wang Dazhuang entered the door, he saw lush green vegetables in the corner of the courtyard, a very clean courtyard, and a pile of dry firewood neatly stacked in the corner.

Mrs. Li poured him a cup of hot tea: "The house is small, so don't dislike it little brother."

Wang Dazhuang shook his head embarrassingly, showing a simple and honest smile: "Sister-in-law was joking, I'm just a rough person, so why don't you dislike me?"

"Brother Zhuang, why are you here today? Uncle Wu, what's the matter?"

"Look at my memory! The shopkeeper asked me to bring you a New Year's gift, so I'll go get it right away."

Da Zhuang took down the big and small bags from the carriage and piled them all over the only small table in the house.Mu Qiu didn't expect shopkeeper Wu to send a New Year's gift, so he didn't prepare a gift in advance, but it would be rude not to return something.

"I see that the shopkeeper likes the vegetables grown by your family, why don't you just pick some vegetables and let me take them home."

That's all Mu Qiusi thought about.Mrs. Li was entertaining guests in the house, so she went out alone to pick vegetables, and by the way picked some fruits from the space and put them under the bamboo basket.There was no man in the family, and Mrs. Li was not good at keeping guests, so Da Zhuang left after sitting for a while.

Regardless of how surprised Shopkeeper Wu was when he saw those fruits, Ping'an Village would be bustling once Da Zhuang left.Everyone in the village knew that Li Xianrou came from other places alone with two children, but they had no way of knowing who the child's father was.Some people said that Li's husband died, while others said that she was kicked out by her husband.

Everyone in the village knew their family's situation well before, but now that a carriage suddenly came to their door, they all guessed that this was Li's friend?I couldn't help being curious, so I came to the door to inquire about the situation.

"That was sent by shopkeeper Wu from Tianxiangju in the town to give a New Year's gift. My Qiu'er worked hard and grew some vegetables and sold them to Tianxiangju. That's how I got to know shopkeeper Wu..."

Everyone was surprised when they got the truth. Mu Qiu's vegetables can be sold in Tianxiangju, so he must have made a lot of money.Some people are envious and others are jealous, but they just close the door and say it at home.

After the new year, it was a lively month.The weather is gradually warming up, and spring has quietly come again.Hearing that Tianxiangju was open again, Mu Qiu continued to deliver food and fish every day.

The presence of Li Xianrou's family in the village is very low. Since the villagers heard that they were doing business with Tianxianglou, they began to care about their family's movements.As soon as spring began, Mu Qiu discussed with Li Shi the plan to start building a new house.

Li Xianrou found the village chief and bought the open space in front of and behind the hut, as well as a few adjacent farmlands.Their family lived at the end of Ping'an Village, and the surrounding fields were not considered fertile, so they only spent more than 20 taels of silver to successfully buy the surrounding eight mu of land.

The new house was built on the foundation of the original thatched house, and Mu Qiu also planned to dig a small fish pond with a size of two acres.When the villagers heard that the Li family was going to build a new house, they talked about everything.Later, the village chief stood up and said: "Everyone should know about the new house repair of Mrs. Li's house. Mrs. Li said that she would like to ask everyone for a favor. The wages are twenty yuan a day and a lunch is included. If you want to come, just sign up with me..."

Now that's all right, who's talking about what's there and what's not? Earning money is the serious business.The men in the village went to the village chief to sign up one after another, and Mrs. Li also invited a few women who were good cooks in the village to help with the cooking, which cost fifteen yuan a day.

On a good day, the Li family's new house started construction.The original thatched house was demolished, and the mother and son temporarily built a shed to live in. The kitchen was borrowed from the village head's house.

Mrs. Li originally planned to build a simple rammed-earth house, but Mu Qiu felt that since she wanted to build it, she had to do it in one step, so she might as well spend a little more money to build a green brick house, which is also safe.There are not many people in the family, but Mu Qiu didn't want the living space to be too crowded, so he discussed with the master to build a new courtyard.

Although housing prices were not expensive in ancient times, to build such a brick house, it would cost at least seven or eighty taels of silver to add materials manually.Spending money is like flowing water. Most of the hard-earned money last year went out at once.

As the saying goes: money is not everything, but without money is absolutely impossible.Mu Qiu put his mind on the fruits and vegetables in the space, but after much deliberation, he couldn't find a good way to take them out and sell them for money.At this time, she suddenly thought of the recipe for making fish.Since the dishes can't be taken out for the time being, let's go to the head office of the recipes!
The number of fish and shrimp in the space river is already huge, so Mu Qiu wrote a recipe for braised prawns and sold it to shopkeeper Wu.He also taught the chef of Tianxiangju how to clean the shrimp, and also dealt with the sale of shrimp in the space. The 70 taels of silver came into the account smoothly, and Mu Qiu felt more secure.

Although the workers are paid their wages, they don't settle for every meal.This was discussed between Mu Qiu and Li Xianrou.The staple food at noon is rice cooked with mixed millet, or steamed buns directly with white noodles.This kind of food can be said to be unique. Everyone eats happily and works harder.

It was Liu Xiufen's family, who was Cuixiang's grandma, who Mu Qiu was a little unhappy about.Because she had some disagreements with Li Yanmei before, she originally didn't plan to ask their family members for help.But the village head also said that they are all from the same village, so they have to save face no matter what, so Mu Qiu didn't care about it anymore.

Liu Quancai and Liu Quanfu helped repair the house, and Li Yanmei helped in the kitchen.Obviously only three laborers have been paid, but the whole family has to be called for every meal.It's fine to eat, and Li Yanmei sneaks some back from time to time.

According to Mu Qiu's character, she would have been kicked out long ago, but Li Xianrou stopped her: "Our family is not short of this kind of food now, so why make the relationship so tense? Anyway, it's just this paragraph Time, one thing more is worse than one thing less, just bear with it!"

Mu Qiu sighed, and thought of Cui Xiang who often had scars on her face, so she didn't say anything else.

(End of this chapter)