Shen Qing went to the Hong family again and said the same thing.

The Hong family’s excitement was no less than the Zhao family’s.

By evening, Zhao Mingyue’s eldest daughter-in-law, Hong Hehua, personally sent several pounds of tofu over.

Shen Qing suddenly remembered this connection.

No wonder the Hong family had sent so many people during Jiang Yu’s matter—it was to support their own daughter’s reputation in her marital family.

Shen Qing thought the Hong family had a good quality: they didn’t treat their married daughters as if they were water spilled out, and the matters of their daughters in their marital families were taken more seriously than their own.

Their ability to choose a good husband for their daughters was admirable.

Zhao Mingyue wasn’t the kind of mother-in-law who would make life difficult for her daughters-in-law.

Zhou Chuncao and Sun Xiaomai noticed that, except for their two families, everyone else in Qili Village had started to get busy.

It was the off-season for farming, and aside from catching fish and shrimp in the water for a bite to eat, or digging wild vegetables from the wastelands, what else could there be to do?

“How strange, Jiang Laosan’s family is busy selling tofu, but what are the village chief and Jiang Laowu doing? I keep seeing both families hauling carts from the village entrance, but I have no idea what they’re carrying,” Zhou Chuncao asked, while cracking fried broad beans under the eaves of her mud brick house.

Sun Xiaomai took a few beans from her hand and, in a disapproving glance, explained helplessly: “It’s because my husband blamed me for not helping at Shili Village that day. Now, the villagers have excluded us. They won’t even let me casually eat broad beans.”

They used to have peas and soybeans to fry, but the peas were gone, and since they could trade soybeans with Jiang Laosan’s family for tofu, she couldn’t even indulge in those as a snack anymore.

She glanced at Zhou Chuncao’s displeased face and thought to herself, Shen Qing was generous.

Not only did she send broad beans, but also things like soft-shell turtle eggs, chicken, duck eggs—she would have shared even more if she hadn’t been so mean to that fool.

Now, they would still be enjoying tasty treats!

No, maybe even more!

She retracted her thoughts and lazily replied, “What else could it be? Perhaps they’re envious of their own brothers earning money from selling tofu, and now they’re secretly figuring out how to do the same.”

Zhou Chuncao thought for a moment and nodded in agreement.

If it were her, she would definitely be scheming behind the scenes too.

After all, they were all from the Jiang family. Why should only one family make money?

Of course, if there was money to be made, they’d all want a piece of it!

“By the way, have you noticed that the Zhao and Hong families have gotten busy recently? My husband says he’s out fishing for shrimp every day. He might as well live in the water! Those fish and shrimp can’t be sold for silver, so what’s the point of catching so many? It’s just a waste of energy. It would be better to conserve some energy and relax a bit,” Zhou Chuncao commented.

Sun Xiaomai hadn’t paid attention to the men of the Zhao and Hong families, but she had noticed the women.

She leaned in and said, “You wouldn’t believe it, I went to dig wild vegetables these past few days, and I found the women from both families working really hard outside!

Wild vegetables aren’t even tasty, and it’s not even a bad year. Why are they digging so many? They’re so petty, even the wild vegetables don’t get spared.”

Zhou Chuncao suddenly remembered something and said, “I saw the Zhao and Hong families carrying baskets of wild vegetables to Shen Qing’s yard a few days ago. The vegetables were fresh and full of water.”

Sun Xiaomai felt a bit of sourness in her heart.

A few days ago, Shen Qing was trying to please her by sending food, but now someone else was sending things to Shen Qing, trying to get on her good side.

“It must be because they saw the Feng and Qin families working on the pen-making job, and now they’re hoping to replace them by sending gifts. Bah!” Zhou Chuncao suddenly figured it out.

She didn’t think of sending gifts before.

She realized that grinding pens could earn fifty wen a day.

The Feng and Qin families took it very seriously and didn’t allow outsiders to see it.

She could directly have Shen Qing give her the job.

Why sneak around learning?

Besides, learning just to grind the pens wouldn’t help make brushes—stealing knowledge was useless. The root cause was still with Shen Qing.

But she didn’t want to send gifts.

It would be different if Shen Qing was giving her gifts, but now, she could just pretend to tolerate and handle things.

Shen Qing had no idea what others were thinking, nor did she have the time to care.

She was extremely busy herself.

Ever since she proposed to buy aquatic products from the Zhao and Hong families, she finally experienced the feeling of making money by the bundle.

Compared to that, the third and fourth households were just small players.

The men from the Zhao and Hong families didn’t only catch fish, shrimp, and yellow eel, but also mudfish, snails, clams… pretty much anything they could catch from the water!

Not only did it increase her shop balance, but it also enriched her family’s meals and improved her standard of living.

The women from the Zhao and Hong families were also impressive.

The wild vegetables they sent were diverse and fresh.

The wild vegetables Jiang Shui brought back before had dead leaves removed, but even the yellow ones were left on.

But the wild vegetables from the Zhao and Hong families were all fresh and tender, clean and ready to be cooked.

Shen Qing thought the two wen per pound was totally worth it!

Fresh wild vegetables were delivered daily, and dried vegetables came every few days, since five or six pounds of fresh vegetables were needed to make one pound of dried vegetables, which required repeated drying.

But even with ten pounds of fresh wild vegetables delivered daily, it was still too much to eat, so she stored all the dried vegetables, cured meats, and pork cracklings in her storage cabinet.

The cured meats and pork cracklings only took up about one-third of a cubic storage cabinet, and Shen Qing planned to fill it completely before she left.

The dried vegetables and leftover fresh vegetables took up one entire cabinet.

Pastries took up one, meat took another, vegetables one, travel papers, silver, and a self-defense knife shared one, and there was one left for whatever else she might need later.

In just a few days, her shop balance had grown to 20,000 wen, and her family’s savings had also increased.

Tofu now brought in about 80 wen a day.

The malt sugar had been less in the first five days, only about 30 or 50 wen, but after five days, the malt production picked up, and at times it could even reach over 200 wen!

Based on her share of the profits, Shen Qing roughly calculated the earnings of the three Jiang families, and she felt a little relieved.

The water disaster was only about thirty or forty days away.

She felt that time was too short.

The Jiang family and the other families in Qili Village had only just started making money.

If they had even three more months—no, even three months late, it would be better!

In three months, their earnings would be vastly different.

At least they would be able to buy a large draft animal.

Large draft animals could pull the grain, and the men could haul their belongings, making the journey smoother.

But now, there was no time.

At least the silver earned by the Feng, Qin, Zhao, and Hong families wasn’t enough.

Thinking of draft animals, Shen Qing suddenly remembered it was already the end of April, and Jiang Xiangxi, who had been doing forced labor, would be returning soon!

She could send a donkey to the Guan family as part of her dowry for Guan Li.

Guan Xiaoshan couldn’t walk and would definitely need to sit in a cart.

With so much baggage, the Guan family had been struggling to keep up on the escape route.

When Jiang Xiangxi returned to pull their own load, the Guan family had a hard time keeping up, and they were eventually left behind and killed by bandits.

Jiang Xiangxi had come back after a month of forced labor, and he had become a lot thinner.

Without rest, he joined in the harvest and quickly returned to the escape journey.

He was then called back and became completely worn out, both physically and mentally.