Chapter 40

Upon hearing Fan Jin’s words, the expressions on the faces of the son and daughter-in-law behind Wang Ma Zi turned extremely unpleasant.

Wang Lao San, who was pulled along to return goods, was even more restless.

Behind him were his son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter, whom he had forced to listen to him. At this moment, the looks they gave him were as if soaked in venom.

His daughter-in-law complained behind him discontentedly, “I knew it. The old man isn’t capable anymore. We can’t just blindly follow his orders. You all refuse to listen, and now, look what happened. We’ve missed out on the opportunity to get rich for nothing.”

Wang Lao San turned fiercely to glare at his daughter-in-law, about to reprimand her, only to find his son, who usually sided with him, also glaring fiercely at him.

His son coolly said, “Dad, in the past, when everyone was poor, our family was fine because we weren’t the poorest. But now, seeing others living better and better while we’re struggling, our family isn’t doing well.”

Wang Lao San opened his mouth but lost the arrogant momentum he had before, pressing down on his son and daughter-in-law.

Wang Ma Zi’s son and daughter-in-law were all coerced into returning goods. Now they were even more resentful. The daughter-in-law argued that they should separate the family. The son, rarely not suppressing his own wife, instead lowered his head without a word.

Zhang Tu Zi had few children, and they were young. They didn’t say anything but looked at Zhang Tu Zi with a sense of disappointment.

Fan Da Mu had already left with his family, but he didn’t return home. Instead, he went straight to Fan Qian’s house to discuss something.

After the crowd dispersed, Shuiqing and Fan Jin looked at each other and smiled.

The rivers and lakes surrounded the bullock cart, extremely excited.

“Dad, sitting on the bullock cart isn’t tiring at all, right?” Fan Hu asked with his head tilted, sounding soft and tender.

Fan Jin smiled and patted his little head. “Do you want to try sitting?”

“Yes!”

“I want to too!”

Fan Jin led the oxen and waited for the children to climb onto the cart. Then he turned to his two daughters. “Yan Qiu, Xing Hui, aren’t you going to sit?”

Xing Hui’s eyes sparkled with excitement.

Yan Qiu restrained herself. “I’m older. Let the younger ones sit.”

Shuiqing pulled one on each hand and pushed them onto the cart. “What ‘older’? You’re always children in front of your parents. Little ones, of course, want to sit.”

Sitting on the cart, Yan Qiu held onto the edge, looking at her mother with a bright and joyful smile.

Mother had changed a lot. She used to only say, “You’re the eldest sister; you should be sensible, obedient, work hard, and take care of your younger siblings…” She never said she was also a child…

As the cart wheels hit a stone and jolted, the children on the cart exaggeratedly shouted, as if it were a thrilling adventure.

Laughter followed one after another.

Shuiqing watched Fan Jin playing with the children over and over again, then turned to dig out some wood ash from the hearth.

She took out a knife and cut the sprouting parts of the potatoes, dusting the cut sides with wood ash.

Potatoes from the south could be harvested twice a year. It was early September now, so planting them would yield harvest by November.

She had over thirty catties in this basket, enough to plant one or two plots.

Ten catties of potatoes for planting would yield around two to three hundred catties. She had about six to nine hundred catties, after deducting some for planting, there would be enough for the family to eat. Any more would go bad once they sprouted.

Shuiqing sighed. It would be nice if they had a storage cabinet. Food wouldn’t rot inside it, and they could store all the produce from their vast mountains and fields.

Thinking of the marketplace, Shuiqing remembered she had seen something like that before, so she quickly opened the search.

To her delight, she found it!

A storage cabinet: preserves food without spoilage, keeps money safe, and saves space for miscellaneous items.

One cubic: one hundred thousand, ten cubic: one million, one hundred cubic: ten million…

Shuiqing: “…Thank you, sorry to bother you, it’s her poverty that makes her unworthy!”

Cutting over thirty catties of potatoes, when Shuiqing lifted her head, she saw five children with rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes looking at her.

For a moment, Shuiqing felt that having sons and daughters was really a wonderful feeling.

Especially being surrounded by, trusted by, relied on, and looked forward to by her own children.

“Mother, what are you doing?”

“Mother, can we really eat this? How do we eat it?”

“Mother, do we not need to wash it before cutting?”

…

Shuiqing decided to take back her previous words!

Having sons and daughters was a good feeling, but they shouldn’t come and bother her, the mother!

They were more noisy than five hundred ducks, too loud.

“This is not for eating, we’re going to plant them.” Fan Jin tied the oxen and walked over to explain.

Fan Jiang immediately said, “Then I’ll go plant them!”

“I’ll help you dig the holes.”

Yan Qiu looked at the stove and said, “Mother, can I cook porridge for lunch?”

Shuiqing originally thought that after all the fussing in the morning, they could just have something simple for lunch. But hearing her eldest daughter suggest porridge, she suddenly felt that “simple” wasn’t enough!

Suddenly, in front of something delicious, she didn’t feel so tired anymore.

She smiled at her eldest daughter like an old mother, “No need, you and your brothers and sisters stay here, I’ll cook.”

Then she added, “I’ll cook something delicious for you at noon!”

Yan Qiu was happy to hear about the delicious food, but after the joy came the worry about whether there would be enough food. She walked away with three steps and kept looking back.

Fan Jin went to cut fresh grass to feed the oxen.

Seeing that everyone had gone far, Shuiqing went back to the marketplace and bought a few clean potatoes again.

She also bought a piece of pork belly—she said Fan Jin would bring it home today.

She looked at the big iron pot, already thinking about what to cook for lunch.

Fragrant crispy rice with potatoes.

It would be best to use an iron pot so that the rice crust steamed out would be fragrant and crispy. And now she happened to have a big iron pot.

Actually, it would be better to use cured meat, but now it wasn’t appropriate to bring out cured meat. Having fresh pork was already good enough.

When you’re poor, you can’t be picky.

First, she prepared everything, then Shuiqing lit the fire under the pot.

When the heat was up, she directly put in the fat, rendered the lard, poured it onto the diced potatoes, stirred until slightly golden, added salt and pre-washed rice, and continued to stir-fry until seasoned.

Finally, she added clear and sweet mountain spring water, covered the pot, and let the rice simmer.

In another pot, she made a pot of egg drop soup with small greens.

They didn’t need to buy the small greens; many women in the village brought them along when they came. Some of them were planted in the vegetable garden with roots, and each one was eaten.

Their family, especially the five children, were all as thin as bean poles, with yellowish complexions and dry hair, obviously malnourished.

Now that they had money and food, Shuiqing was determined to find ways to improve the health of the five children.

Meat, eggs, and milk—there was no immediate condition for milk, but meat and eggs could still be guaranteed.

When the six of them came back after finishing their work and washed their hands, they were met with a pot of golden crispy rice with potatoes, and all they could hear was the sound of them swallowing saliva~