Then, another hen laid an egg.

Lu Xiaoli rubbed her eyes, wondering how both hens laid eggs almost simultaneously after just finishing the rice.

She had never seen such a scene before.

At that moment, Lu Xiaoyue came over with a scoop of water.

“Sis… Sis… Sis, look! The hens are laying eggs!” Lu Xiaoli couldn’t hide her excitement.

“I’ve seen hens lay eggs before. Why are you so excited, Xiaoyue?”

One of the hens laid another egg.

Lu Xiaoyue saw that there were now three eggs in the chicken coop. This time, it was her turn to get excited. “When I left earlier, there wasn’t a single egg. And now, just a little while later, there are three eggs!”

“Xiaoyue, now that we have eggs, we can eat eggs every day. Aren’t you happy?”

“I am happy, but we should tell mother first. Let her be happy too.”

After saying this, Lu Xiaoli went to find Shen Xuezhul.

Lu Xiaoyue slowly poured the water from the scoop onto the ground of the chicken coop, since there was nothing to carry water for the chickens. She had no choice but to pour it on the ground.

Before long, Shen Xuezhul arrived.

“What’s going on? Two hens laid three eggs all at once? Let me see.”

Shen Xuezhul was shocked when she saw the situation.

At this point, there were already five eggs in the chicken coop.

“Our chickens are amazing!” Shen Xuezhul had never seen any hen lay eggs like this before. Now, she had seen two of them do it.

Lu Xiaoyue asked, “Mother, do you think these two hens are some kind of spirits, laying so many eggs?”

Shen Xuezhul thought this was quite strange too, but in order to stop Lu Xiaoyue from thinking that the hens were spirits, she confidently explained, “It’s not possible. There are no spirits in this world. This just means that since we separated from the Lu family, our luck has improved.”

“Besides, have you ever seen a spirit lay eggs?”

Lu Xiaoyue shook her head, “No, I haven’t.”

“Exactly. From now on, we’ll have all the eggs we can eat, and we can even sell some in the town.”

Lu Xiaoli suddenly remembered what Shen Xuezhul had said earlier that morning, “Mother, didn’t you say when we separated that you wanted the hens to hatch chicks?”

Lu Xiaoyue reminded her, “Yes, you did say that, mother.”

Shen Xuezhul thought for a moment and said, “Of course, we’ll hatch the chicks.”

“I just thought of a way to make money. We can raise chickens and sell eggs to earn money.”

Lu Xiaoyue looked at the two hens, “The problem is, who are we going to sell the eggs to?”

“And if we raise chickens, they’ll eat a lot of grain, and we’ll need to buy grain. What if the chickens get chicken plague? That would be a huge loss for us.”

Shen Xuezhul smiled, “You’re right. I can sell the eggs to the restaurants, and we can also make cured meat to earn money.”

“And if one day all the chickens get sick, we’ll still have the option to sell sausages as a backup. That way, we won’t be without money for food.”

Hearing Shen Xuezhul’s words, Lu Xiaoli felt much more at ease.

She opened the door to the chicken coop, took an egg in each hand, and handed them to Shen Xuezhul, “Mother, take care of these eggs. I want to have eggs for breakfast tomorrow.”

Shen Xuezhul quickly grabbed a wooden bowl to collect the eggs.

Once all the eggs were collected, Shen Xuezhul counted them—there were nine eggs in total.

Tonight, they would have meat to eat, and pig intestines, so the eggs would be saved for another time. When you’re living through hard times, you have to be frugal. You can’t just squander what you have, or you’ll end up going back to days of not having enough to eat.

…

The three rooms in the house had been cleaned, and most of the household items were tidied up.

The sky was slowly darkening.

Shen Xuezhul lit an oil lamp.

To Lu Xiaoyue, their oil lamp seemed especially bright.

Her heart was full of hope, and now everything around her seemed different.