Chapter 24

"Do you know them?"

Yu Ying shook her head: "I've never seen them."

After hearing her answer, Fu Wei looked at her in silence for a moment before speaking, "Since you don't know them, why are you risking your life to earn money to pay for their service?"

Yu Ying and Fu Wei exchanged glances, secretly letting out a sigh before speaking slowly, "Because if we don't get them out, your eldest brother will soon be crushed to death by rocks in the quarry."

Fu Wei was stunned, then frowned. When he wanted to say something, he suddenly remembered that she was not an existence that ordinary people could understand, so what she said was very likely to be true.

The room fell into a long silence.

Yu Ying felt that even if Fu Wei believed her, he would still take a while to recover, so she decided to give him some time to recover before discussing other matters. So she spoke first, "You didn't eat much just now. I'll make you some porridge later."

As he said this, he lifted the curtain and was about to go out.

"To me, although we are blood relatives, they are just strangers to me."

Yu Ying paused as Fu Wei's cold voice reached her ears. She looked back at him, somewhat bewildered. "What do you mean by that?"

Fu Wei lowered his eyes slightly and said calmly, "Although you and I are not related by blood, we are not strangers. Between someone I know and someone I've never met, a stranger who can only be called a brother, I naturally lean towards you."

When you are in a foreign country and are cared for by others, it is always easy to be touched.

So after hearing what he said, Yu Ying was stunned for a long time.

After a while, Yu Ying came back to her senses, then peeked out through the gap in the slightly lifted straw curtain. Then, she turned her gaze back to him and said, "Because the matter is too complicated and there are many uncertain causes and effects involved, I can only tell you that your eldest brother's death indirectly led to you being the only one left in the Fu family."

Seeing Fu Wei's face froze by her words, she knew that Luo and Fu An and Funing were no longer strangers to him.

After a moment, Fu Wei spoke, his voice a little low: "Is everything you said true?"

Yu Ying nodded and said "hmm", her face serious, without any trace of joking.

"I don't know what you think, but I know what I think."

Her face was serious as she continued, "The Fu family was also a stranger to me at first, but they are no longer. I can't accept that these two children, who were still stubborn and smiling sweetly in front of me, are suddenly gone. I can't accept that I knew several lives were going to be lost, and I knew how to stop it, but I didn't make any effort."

At the end of the conversation, Yu Ying only said one sentence: "I have always done things according to my heart and have a clear conscience."

After she finished speaking, she seemed to hear some movement in the yard outside, so she lifted the straw curtain and walked out.

After hearing what she said, Fu Wei sat still, his face a little stunned, and he was also a little surprised in his heart.

After a long while, he seemed to come back to his senses and slowly spoke, "I just did what I wanted to do and have a clear conscience..."

*

When Yu Ying came out of the house, she saw Fu An coming back from the river after washing dishes.

She turned her head to look at the straw curtains in the house, pondered for a moment, then withdrew her gaze, rolled up her sleeves, and took out half a pound of lychees.

Business at the restaurant was surprisingly good today, and the remaining jelly wouldn't last the entire day. So the owner asked her to send two more days' supply tomorrow, giving her a couple of days off to prepare the herbs at home and also to deliver the new jelly flavor she'd created.

Besides, the color of lychees changes in one day and the fragrance changes in two days, while pears can be kept for a few days without any problem, so she decided to make lychee-flavored jelly first.

Judging from the freshness of the lychees, they seem to have been picked this morning. Perhaps because they are small and few people have the spare money to buy them, they have not been sold yet.

Because it was expensive, the vendor did not agree to try it, and Yu Ying was not sure whether it was sweet or not.

I peeled one and tasted it. Although it was not fresh and sweet, the lychee flavor was still very strong.

She broke off all the peels, separated the flesh from the cores, and put all the flesh into the bowl, getting half a bowl.

Then put a bowl of water in the ceramic pot and cook it together with the pulp.

Bring to a boil and cook for a while before removing from the heat and letting it cool.

I put a linen cloth on the rim of the new bowl and filtered the pulp and juice. After filtering twice, the water in the pulp was squeezed out.

In the end, I only got a bowl of juice.

Yu Ying calculated that if she added another bowl of water to make the jelly, she would get almost two full bowls of jelly.

The Fu family’s wooden bowls were not small, but rather quite large, and were enough for two bowls of jelly.

If you use the large bowls with a large mouth and a small bottom like the ones at Wu Ji Restaurant, and add a little sugar syrup, you should get about six or seven bowls in the end.

Since lychees are naturally sweet, you can add half the water to the sugar syrup, which can save some costs if you make six or seven bowls.

But the sugar water doesn’t need to be charged to her, nor does it need to be included in her costs.

She used to earn only one penny for each bowl of jelly, but the lychees increased the cost, and lychees were an expensive fruit in ancient times. Although they were sold cheaply in Lingnan, they were still more expensive than other fruits.

But Yu Ying's target is not all diners, she has set her sights on the customers who order food in the restaurant.

Today, when she was in the restaurant, she discovered that in addition to customers who ordered vegetarian noodles, there were still many people who could afford rice and stir-fried dishes. Although jelly was a few cents more expensive, it was still affordable.

After talking to Fu Wei today, Yu Ying didn’t know if he was in the right state of mind, so she didn’t disturb him and made jelly for tomorrow.

After everything was done, it was almost dark and we could only burn some firewood in the ceramic stove for lighting.

After a simple bath, she returned to her room and poured all the copper coins she had earned in the past few days onto the bed.

This family really had nothing, not even a pot, and they needed to buy everything, so the copper coins from selling silver leaves and the money they had earned before had already been spent.

I earned more than a hundred coins today, which is already a lot.

In the dim light, Yu Ying counted the coins one by one.

In the end, the total amount was exactly one hundred and fifty coins.

Yu Ying breathed a sigh of relief. These one hundred and fifty coins were far from one thousand coins, let alone seven taels of silver.

But it was a good start. In the beginning, her entire fortune consisted of only seven coins and two silver leaves worth only seventy-six coins. Now that she had saved so much money, she could still afford to eat oil, salt, rice, and occasionally meat. This was already very good.

After comforting herself, Yu Ying divided the copper coins into groups of ten and strung them together on straw stalks, leaving only ten coins for use. She then wrapped up the rest and buried them in the ground.

*

In the morning, Yu Ying went into the mountains without bringing Fu An or telling Fu Wei. She just took the hatchet and carried the backpack and went out.

Now, except for the tight-lipped Aunt He, no one in the village knew that Yu Ying was delivering food to the restaurants in Yu County. They just thought that she went into the mountains to collect herbs and sell them to the medical clinic in Yu County.

They didn't know how much money she earned, but seeing her running to the mountains and the county every day, they felt that she had earned some money, so they thought of taking the risk and going into the mountains to look for some herbs to try their luck.

Although I don’t know what herbs they are, I pick those that look different from the weeds outside and are unfamiliar. Although they may be weeds, some of them are herbs after all.

When Yu Ying arrived in the mountains, she saw many villagers digging herbs.

After taking a look at their backpacks, I saw that there were more weeds than herbs in them, and it seemed that they were picked blindly.

Some people saw Yu Ying, but no one dared to ask her how to identify herbs.

Even if someone asked, Yu Ying would not say anything, mainly because she was afraid of causing trouble.

I’m afraid that some people will think they can recognize a few herbs and just pick them and drink them.

It was a good thing that nothing happened after drinking it. If something happened, it would be her responsibility, and she would not be able to tell them, so she had to avoid them and go to a deserted place to collect herbs.

Seeing her leave, the woman who had been threatened by Yu Ying in the fields yesterday raised her head and said to the people beside her, "She's just guarding against us. We're afraid we'll see what herbs she's picking and follow her. This mountain isn't hers, so she's really selfish."

The person who heard these words looked unhappy: "You better keep your voice down. We are stealing their business, and you still want them to teach us how to identify herbs. Are you daydreaming?"

Yu Ying vaguely heard the conversation, but didn't take it seriously.

There are many people in this mountain, and the advantage is that it can give you courage.

However, when they sent the herbs to the clinic, there were more weeds than medicinal herbs. The unscrupulous clinic probably either refused to accept them or just gave them a penny.

They wasted half a day and only earned a penny, and they still took risks to earn it. I guess they won’t come next time.

*

In the morning, Fu Wei, who had not slept the whole night, sat on the bamboo bed, looking out the window and out the yard in silence.

As for what she said last night, Fu Wei did not doubt its authenticity.

After all, no one is stupid enough to work hard or put themselves in danger just to deceive others.

The Fu family is still related to him by blood, but not to her. Yet, she can work hard for this, while he is useless.

Thinking of this, how could he sleep?

He lowered his eyes and looked down at his legs that were fixed. He did not move for a long time, as if he was frozen.

When will these legs be able to return to normal?

Only the recovery of the legs can help.

At least then, he could protect her into the mountains to collect herbs.

There was a noise outside the yard. Fu Wei, who had been motionless for a long time, finally reacted. He looked out and saw Yu Ying entering the yard with a backpack on her back and her face flushed from the heat.

Yu Ying hurried back with a thin layer of sweat on her body. After putting down the backpack, she scooped a bucket of water to wash her face.

When the little girl from Fu Ning saw her come back, she ran over in her straw sandals and brought her mint water.

After washing her face, Yu Ying opened her eyes and saw a bowl of water in front of her. Looking up, she saw the little girl grinning at her with a very pure smile.

Yu Ying also responded with a faint smile, said "thank you" to her, and then took the water and drank it.

After drinking two sips of water, she said, "Auntie is going out for a while and will be back soon."

He touched the little girl's head, and then hurriedly delivered the prepared ice cream to the village entrance.

After waiting for a while at the village entrance, Uncle Chen finally arrived.

Since today is not the usual day to go to Yu County, there is no one else on the ox cart.

After Yu Ying placed the wooden barrel and pottery jar on the ox cart, she said, "I still have some herbs to collect, so I won't be going to town today. My pottery jar contains lychee ice cream. Mr. Chen, please ask Shopkeeper Chen to set the price for the ice cream at four cents a bowl."

Hearing that a bowl cost four cents, Uncle Chen exclaimed in surprise, "Four cents, so expensive?!"

Yu Ying smiled and said, "Although the price is four cents, people who eat at restaurants can get it one cent cheaper, only three cents. Although they think it's still a little expensive, they also think it's a good deal."

She thought for a moment, then said, "Uncle Chen, tell the shopkeeper that these ice creams are mainly sold to customers who order dishes and eat with them, and to those who have tried the ice cream before. They have a little money, and having tried the ice cream before, they will definitely want to try the new flavors."

"Besides, lychees are probably out of season in about two weeks. Tell the shopkeeper to tell the customers that this flavor will only be available for ten days, while stocks last. Scarcity always makes things valuable, so people eager to try new flavors will naturally flock to the restaurant, and the restaurant will naturally attract more customers. Even if they finish their purchases, they might still stay for more, right?"

Uncle Chen thought it made some sense.

He glanced at the amount of lychee ice cream. It wasn't much, but attracting customers to eat it was the most important thing.

"Also, lychees are naturally sweet. Uncle Chen, you can ask Shopkeeper Chen to add some water to the sugar water to save some costs."

Uncle Chen couldn't help but look at her with admiration, but then he revealed a look of regret: "Madam Yu, if you were a man, you would definitely be able to accomplish something. It's a pity that you are a woman."

Although Yu Ying didn't like to hear this, she didn't refute it.

This is how the world is. Women are always looked down upon. No matter how much you argue, you can't change their minds.

But she would not refrain from doing what she should do just because they looked down on women. And no matter what others said, she would just do her best.

Watching the ox cart leave, Yu Ying recalled Uncle Chen's words that he regretted that she was not a man but a woman, and suddenly remembered what Fu Wei said yesterday.

——If you have the ability, there are other ways to make money.

The meaning of this statement is in stark contrast to what Uncle Chen just said.

Fu Wei did not deny her ability just because she was a woman. He was a person who respected others.

Thinking of this, Yu Ying couldn't help but reveal a faint smile on her face.

Staying in the Fu family is actually a very good choice when you have nowhere else to go.