Chapter 39: Building a House 2/3

Yao Zhenfu, however, was different. He had already gotten involved with his sweetheart before getting married and showed no intention of studying seriously!

“If you want to take the examination, will you need to find a master to apprentice under? I remember that back then, the Yao family bought dried meat specifically to find a master. I went to watch the excitement,” Jin Xiaoye chattered on, then added, “You can try it, but if you fail several times, you can’t keep trying!”

Jin Xiaoye didn’t mind Li Qingzhi taking the imperial examination. Li Qingzhi had already earned quite a bit of money, so it was okay for him to spend some of it on studying for a few years and taking the examinations.

But if Li Qingzhi failed repeatedly, that wouldn’t be acceptable.

There was a senior scholar in the county town who was still hoping to become a xiucai (successful candidate in the provincial examination) at over fifty years old. Jin Xiaoye thought he was sick in the head.

“If I fail several times, I won’t try again. As for finding a master, there’s no hurry now,” Li Qingzhi smiled, “I’ll have to start by writing books to earn money.”

Indeed, Li Qingzhi was different from Yao Zhenfu! When Jin Xiaoye heard that Li Qingzhi planned to continue writing books, she felt completely relieved.

The two of them talked a lot that day and went to bed relatively late. However, the next day, Jin Xiaoye got up early, ready to slaughter a duck!

It was the day they were going to build their house. Jin Xiaoye had hired someone to help build the house, along with several skilled workers who had tools. She also asked for help from several people in the village.

Those who came to help included her father, Jin Dajiang, her elder cousin, Jin Liushu, and three other relatives from the Jin family.

In addition, Li Laogen also called two people to help, one of whom was Li Laogen’s nephew, and the other was Li Laogen’s third brother.

Li Laogen’s parents had three sons in total: Li Laogen, Li Laoer, and Li Laosan.

Initially, they doted on Li Laogen. After all, he was the eldest son, and according to the customs of the village, parents usually lived with their eldest son.

Even Li Laogen’s name reflected how much his parents valued him—Lao’gen, the root of the Li family!

But Li Laogen was small and frail from a young age, making people doubt whether he could support himself.

Then, less than two years later, Li Laoer was born… Li Laogen received less and less attention from his parents over time. Later, when Li Laoer grew taller than Li Laogen in just a few years, Li Laogen received even less attention.

Li Laogen was small and weak, unable to do much work, and the Li family was very poor… By the time Li Laogen grew up, he was practically ignored by everyone. Furthermore, no one was willing to marry him, and Li Laoer got married and had children before him.

Li Laogen’s parents eventually gave all their property to Li Laoer.

As for Li Laosan… he was similarly neglected by Li Laogen’s parents and was basically raised by his two older brothers.

By the time he grew up, Li Laoer had already married, and the family didn’t have the means to arrange marriages for both sons.

In other words, Li Laosan was destined to be a bachelor like Li Laogen.

However, Li Laosan was better in stature and appearance than Li Laogen… He found a widow and became a son-in-law by marriage.

The widow was from the neighboring village. Eight years after she got married, her husband fell ill and passed away, leaving her with a son and a daughter. To pay for her husband’s medical treatment, their family had accumulated quite a bit of debt.

Alone and grieving, the widow wanted to find someone to marry into their family and take her husband’s surname to maintain their family’s reputation.

When the widow found Li Laosan, he agreed without hesitation.

He couldn’t marry a wife on his own, and his second brother and sister-in-law looked down on him and Li Laogen. Every meal, they only gave them a little bit of food, and he was already starving.

Being able to work at the widow’s house was a great blessing for him!

The widow’s family owned much more land than his own.

So Li Laosan entered the widow’s family as a son-in-law, changing his surname to the widow’s husband’s surname. From Li Laosan, he became Zhao Laosan. His life might not have been great afterward, but at least he could eat and dress warmly.

Just the year before Li Qingzhi came to Miaoqian Village, there was a flood in the Yao River, and Miaoqian Village also suffered from crop failure due to the flood. At that time, Li Laoer only gave Li Laogen a little bit of rice soup every day, and Li Laogen almost starved to death.

When a person is hungry for a long time, their brain swells and enlarges due to edema. At that time, Li Laogen’s head became enlarged.

Feeling like he was about to die, he went to Zhao Laosan’s house and shamelessly stayed there, relying on Zhao Laosan’s family for food.

Although Zhao Laosan’s wife didn’t like Li Laogen, she didn’t chase him away. That’s how Li Laogen managed to save his life, and because of this, his relationship with his brother Zhao Laosan was still okay.

This time, when the family was going to build a house, Li Laogen actually didn’t want Li Laoer’s family to come and help. But they were relatives after all… so he went to inform Li Laoer, and then Li Laoer sent his son, Li Yaofeng, to Li Qingzhi’s house to help.

As for Zhao Laosan, Li Laogen happily went to inform him. Since it was the off-season for farming, Zhao Laosan was naturally willing to come and help.

Li Qingzhi knew about the situation in the Li family. After arriving, he also saw Li Laoer and Li Yaofeng in the village.

Although he hadn’t met Zhao Laosan himself, the original owner had, so he could recognize him.

As for the members of the Jin family, they were all from Miaoqian Village, and Li Qingzhi knew them all.

Jin Xiaoye collected the duck blood in a bowl, then soaked the duck in hot water to remove the feathers.

Of course, the duck feathers weren’t discarded; they could be sold for a little money, though they weren’t very valuable.

“Why doesn’t this duck have to duck down?” Li Qingzhi asked Jin Xiaoye. He had seen duck down in the original owner’s memory, but it wasn’t used for making down jackets; instead, it was used for making cotton swabs.

Jin Xiaoye replied, “It does, but there’s very little. The older the duck, the more duck down it has.”

Oh, is that so? The more Li Qingzhi watched Jin Xiaoye efficiently clean the duck, the more he liked her.

She quickly finished preparing the duck. By this time, the people who came to help had also started to arrive.

Seeing Jin Xiaoye killing the duck, Jin Liushu’s eyes lit up. “Jin Xiaoye, you’re so generous, even killing a duck for us!”

Jin Xiaoye’s father, Jin Dajiang, on the other hand, looked at the duck with a pained expression.

When hiring people to build a house, it was common to provide some good food, but there was no need to kill a duck. Some tofu and salted fish would have been enough.

Jin Xiaoye’s mother also came over, intending to help with cooking. Her thoughts were the same as Jin Dajiang’s, and she felt distressed.

However, with outsiders present, she didn’t say anything and planned to tell Jin Xiaoye later when no one was around, asking her not to do this.

Jin Xiaoye probably knew what her mother was thinking, but now that she was making money and Li Qingzhi had brought back fifty taels of silver… it was just a duck. She didn’t care anymore.

Jin Xiaoye said to her mother, “Mom, for lunch later, I’ll make tofu stew with duck intestines, liver, and blood for everyone. I’ve also bought salted fish, so I’ll steam that too. For dinner, I’ll make dried bamboo shoots stewed with duck, and we’ll steam the salted fish as well.”

Jin’s mother was dumbfounded. Which family would provide such good food for laborers when building a house?