Qin Yao finished a piece of food in two or three bites. Seeing that everyone was still eagerly waiting for her orders, she raised her chin and signaled everyone to start eating.

The twins immediately reached out their hands, grabbed a piece in each hand, and ate with both hands, consuming until the juice flowed out.

After all, Dalang and Erlang were older and it was time for them to save face, so they ate their food in a rather polite manner, each with one piece.

Seeing the mother and her five children eating so happily, Li and Yin Le took a piece each with some anticipation and bit off a corner first. Unexpectedly, it was unexpectedly refreshing and sweet.

"It's so delicious!" Yin Le said in surprise.

Li nodded repeatedly, reluctant to speak, just to eat a few more bites of the melon.

For a moment, the only sound left in the yard was the crunching sound of a few people eating melons.

Little Lai Fu was playing near the school site when he heard the village kids say that they saw Yin Le taking Dalang and Erlang back with some delicious bitter melons. He ran back home in anticipation, but he was too late and only a basin of green melon rinds was left.

Smelling the lingering sweet fragrance in the air in the courtyard and looking at his mother and ladies sitting in the main room with their satisfied expressions, little Lai Fu, who couldn't even get a bite of the melon, felt a shock in his young heart.

With a cry, he started crying!

Qin Yao laughed unkindly and quickly asked Dalang and his siblings to take the poor child to the field to pick a few more melons.

Then little Lai Fu stopped crying and laughed, and happily followed Dalang and his two siblings to the melon field.

Qin Yao rested for a while, and when she saw the sun was setting and it was not so hot anymore, she took Yin Le out to inspect other villagers' melon fields to see how the melons were growing.

This year, many melon fields in the village were hit by heavy rains, and the melon seedlings that were rescued were planted crookedly. Now that they are ripe, it is still unknown what the quality of the watermelons will be.

Hers is pretty good. Except for not being that bright red, it tastes pretty good, crispy and sweet.

From far to near, Qin Yao first looked at those that were close, and then went to the ones that were far away at the foot of the mountain.

Many villagers followed us along the way, all of them were curious about the harvest of other people's melon fields.

The melons grown by Qin Yao are different from those grown by most villagers. The melon fields are not well taken care of, so the melons are small and not round.

It’s not that the villagers are lazy, but their main task is to grow staple food crops such as soybeans and rice, so they can’t leave too much energy for the melon fields.

After the watermelons from these stores were cut, most of them were light pink and looked very ugly.

Fortunately, it still tastes a bit sweet and is juicier than ordinary red dates and pineapples.

The food at the old house is pretty good. It looks average, but the flesh is red, juicy and moderately sweet.

As they went deeper into the valley, Qin Yao no longer had much hope for Liujia Village's watermelon harvest this year.

Unexpectedly, when I was halfway up the hill, I was tripped by a big watermelon.

When she looked down, she saw that the melons were bigger than the ones in her field, as big as a modern basketball, and very round.

If Qin Yao had not seen those crooked melons at the foot of the mountain just now, she would not have believed that these melons could be grown from the seeds she gave out.

"Whose family is this?" Qin Yao pointed at the watermelon at her feet and turned to ask the villagers who had followed her.

A man wearing a torn linen shirt that barely covered his buttocks, a straw crotch scarf around his lower body, messy hair and barefoot walked out.

Qin Yao knew this man. He lived in the house at the very back of the village. His name was Liu Fendan and he was about 27 or 28 years old.

The reason why Qin Yao remembered him was because he was extremely poor and still owed the tribe 100 kilograms of grain.

His wife had returned to her parents' home and remarried a long time ago because the family was too poor. When she left, she took away the only valuable things in the house, three pottery bowls.

In the past few years, Liu Fendan has been living alone with a skinny son, barely making a living by renting land.

When the farming season was not busy, the father and son would take their broken wooden bowls and go out to beg for food.

It was unfortunate. At the beginning of the Xin Dynasty, everyone was allocated mountains, forests and fields. Although ordinary people could not get any good land, they had more land and could cultivate it so that they would not starve to death.

But God loves to make things difficult for people. When Liu Fendan and his family were reclaiming wasteland, they encountered a landslide. Not only was the land buried, but all the people were buried as well, leaving only him.

Thanks to the help of the old village chief, who reported to the government and interceded for him, they classified him as an unemployed person and exempted him from the taxes on those fields. He managed to survive by renting land, farming hard, and receiving help from his clan.

Later, when I had a son, life became even more difficult.

In this kind of family situation, no matter how hard-working a person is, if his foundation is weak, or even negative, it will be extremely difficult to turn things around.

Liu Fendan said sullenly, "This year I was hoping to use this acre of melon field to pay off the debt owed to the tribe, so I took extra care of them. They look similar to the ones in your family, but I don't know if they are really red inside."

Qin Yao asked him: "Find one and break it open?"

A trace of reluctance flashed across Liu Fendan's eyes, but he still walked into the melon field, picked out a smaller and less round melon and handed it to Qin Yao.

"I'm grateful to my clansmen for taking care of me over the years. I'll give you this melon as a thank you." Just for a melon, he had to count the favors. His stinginess was so great that the villagers shook their heads.

But thinking about his family situation, he could understand why he didn't mock him. Instead, he handed the knife to Qin Yao and asked her to open it.

Qin Yao cut it open with a knife, and saw a bright red color. She said in surprise, "It looks good."

He continued to slice the melon into small pieces and distributed them to everyone to taste. He also gave a piece to Liu Fendan.

"You can try the melons you grew yourself," Qin Yao said.

Liu Fendan had never eaten watermelon before. When he smelled the sweetness coming from his hand, he couldn't help swallowing his saliva, lowered his head and took a small bite.

The sweet taste instantly spread to the tip of the tongue. Liu Fendan, who had never tasted sugar, was shocked by the sweet juice and swallowed it subconsciously.

He licked the corner of his mouth and thought in wonder, it turns out there are such delicious fruits in the world, no wonder they were sold for thirty cents a pound last year!

He ate all the remaining watermelon in one breath.

After eating, he saw Qin Yao and others nodding with satisfaction, and he felt happy and sad.

The melon just now must have weighed seven or eight pounds, which is more than two cents of silver, and it was eaten in just a few bites.

Qin Yao ignored his painful mood and walked into the field to take a look. She found that Liu Fendan turned every melon over, otherwise the color would not have been so even.

"Your melon looks good and tastes good, so it should be able to sell for a good price." Qin Yao said affirmatively.

Liu Fendan was very excited, "Really?"

Qin Yao nodded, "Yeah."

Liu Fendan squatted down happily, and touched his melon gently with great restraint, his joy was about to overflow.

The other villagers were anxious and asked: "Village Chief, what about ours? How much can we sell it for?"

Qin Yao: "I don't know. Let me go and ask."

"By the way, do you plan to sell your melons yourself or do you want me to find someone to buy them all?"

Qin Yao said bluntly, "The unified purchase price will certainly be much lower than the market price, but it will save you trouble. Think about it first, and don't rush to reply to me. I will go and negotiate the price tomorrow."

After saying this, he waved his hand, and the group dispersed and went back to their homes.