Chapter 52: Sun Juren 1/3

Soybeans bursting directly into flames tasted surprisingly good, and even tossing rice into the fire could produce popped rice, although the rice grains were small and could easily burn to a crisp.

Initially, Li Damao and Li Ermao were not interested in the soybeans, but when Li Qingzhi really started roasting them, they liked them and even fought over them, eventually turning themselves into little greasy cats.

Li Qingzhi smiled as he watched, and even though they dirtied their clothes, he didn’t stop them. After all, children should be lively to be cute.

With this in mind, Li Qingzhi threw another soybean into his mouth.

The soybean he ate was picked by Zhao Xiaodou.

After all, Zhao Xiaodou was older and picked the most soybeans. Initially, he wanted to distribute the soybeans to Li Damao and Li Ermao, but Li Qingzhi stopped him.

Li Qingzhi took away half of the soybeans Zhao Xiaodou had collected, leaving the rest for him to eat, and forbade him from giving them to Li Damao and Li Ermao.

Seeing this, Zhao Xiaodou went to collect more soybeans to give to Li Qingzhi.

Li Qingzhi accepted them.

After eating too many soybeans, his stomach felt bloated. It’s better for children to eat less, but he was different. No matter how much he ate, he was fine!

These soybeans were really delicious!

Seeing Li Qingzhi eating soybeans with the three children, Li Laogen was so envious, but he couldn’t join in—his teeth were not good, and he couldn’t chew soybeans anymore!

In the end, Li Laogen could only mutter a few words, “Children who play with fire will wet the bed at night!”

Li Qingzhi said, “Wetting the bed is no big deal.”

“Ah Qing, are you spoiling the children too much?” Li Laogen said sourly, “Don’t spoil them!”

Li Qingzhi: “…” Is this considered spoiling children?

The people that Jin Xiaoye hired to help with harvesting the rice were from Miaoqian Village, and they were also surnamed Jin, from Jin Xiaoye’s extended family.

Jin Xiaoye negotiated with them, promising them three taels of silver if they helped harvest all six acres of land and beat the rice.

Three taels of silver were not a small amount, so the whole family got to work. In just one day, they helped the Li family harvest half of the land, and the rice was well beaten.

They worked very efficiently, which gave Li Qingzhi a good impression of them. He had Li Laogen cook a pot of green bean soup for them to drink.

They didn’t provide meals for the people they hired to harvest the rice, so the green bean soup was considered an extra benefit.

There was no sugar in the green bean soup, so the cost was very low. But the family was very happy after drinking it, feeling that Li Qingzhi was generous.

The villagers, seeing this, were also envious. “The Li family is really rich now!”

“Yes, not only did they spend three taels of silver to hire people to harvest rice, they also gave them green bean soup to drink.”

“I heard Jin Xiaoye can earn two taels of silver a day!”

“I heard even more than that.”

“Jin Xiaoye is really amazing.”

“She has always been capable. Many people wanted to marry her back then!”

“Li Qingzhi is really lucky!”

“Yes! He was gone for five years, and Jin Xiaoye managed to keep the family together and even gave birth to two sons for him!”

“Jin Xiaoye’s luck isn’t bad either. She can do business because Li Qingzhi received fifty taels of silver in compensation from the Hong family.”

“Yes, Li Qingzhi is so good to his children. There’s no one in our village who loves children more than Li Qingzhi!”

…

Of course, not everyone spoke well of the Li family. Yao Zumin brought up the incident where Li Qingzhi’s arm was injured again.

That day, Li Qingzhi bought two pounds of meat and some thousand-layer tofu. After cutting the tofu into pieces and tying them up, he stewed them with the meat.

Li Laogen filled a bowl of rice, picked two pieces of fat meat and two pieces of tofu knots to put on top, then went out with the bowl: “I’m going to find Li Laoer!”

Li Qingzhi asked Jin Xiaoye, “Will he get beaten?” Li Laogen was clearly going to show off!

Jin Xiaoye replied, “Li Laoer’s family isn’t good people, but they’re quite cowardly and won’t dare to fight.”

Li Qingzhi smiled and said, “That’s true.” Li Laoer was not good to Li Laogen and Zhao Laosan, always mistreating them, but he actually didn’t have much status in the village.

He was just like Li Laogen, a bit cowardly, and famously afraid of his wife.

The Li family was very poor. Li Laoer had finally managed to marry a wife, fearing that she might leave, he obeyed his wife in everything and had no status at home.

He wouldn’t fight, but his wife was a bit fierce, though she wouldn’t fight either.

Li Qingzhi didn’t bother with Li Laogen, and started chatting with Jin Xiaoye about other things: “Xiaoye, after the autumn harvest, do we have to pay taxes?”

Jin Xiaoye nodded.

Now taxes were collected twice a year, once in the summer and again in the autumn.

Fortunately, the taxes were not much and could be borne.

Actually, compared to paying taxes, the winter corvée was even more annoying.

In the summer, it’s hot with many mosquitoes, and living together in a group makes it easy to get sick. In Chongcheng County, conscription is mostly done in the winter.

The nature of conscription varies from year to year, but once the time is set, the men in the village need to prepare food and then follow the officers to do various tasks.

When the original owner came to Miaoqian Village, the conscription had just ended, but this year’s conscription… Li Qingzhi had to go.

Of course, he could spend some money to exempt himself from conscription or find someone else to serve for him, which wasn’t a big problem for him.

The next day, Li Qingzhi didn’t go to the field; he wanted to continue writing his book.

However, he let the three children go out to play. Children need to run around in the fields to stay healthy.

And… Li Qingzhi planned to practice writing with his right hand.

When Li Laogen and the others left, Li Qingzhi removed the bandages wrapped around his right arm.

He did have supernatural abilities, and now his arm had fully recovered.

With nobody at home, Li Qingzhi took out a blank book and started writing Zhu Qian’s autobiography in small words, making some modifications to the words along the way.

Having read a lot of books recently, he found that some of the words he had written before were incorrect.

A few days ago, Li Qingzhi wrote with his left hand just for speed, and the words were all over the place. But today was different. He strived to write each word perfectly, without any mistakes.

Writing like this was quite tiring, and he could only write up to six hundred words in an hour.