Chapter 15: Planting a Vegetable Garden

Mrs. Deng thought about her own poor health and smiled guiltily, "Okay then. Wear your straw hats and don't get sunburned. I'll make you some cold tea and something delicious for lunch!"

Today, Zhao Liya and Hu Ling came back from the city and bought some pork belly, ribs, and tender tofu, which was just the right snack for lunch.

The cooked meat can be stored overnight and can be eaten for two meals tomorrow.

Deng had never even entered the kitchen before, but now she can cook rice and porridge.

Even the brother and sister Zhao Lixiang and Zhao Lin learned how to sweep the floor, stack firewood, feed chickens, pick vegetables and shell beans, and water the fruit trees.

Children from poor families have to grow up early, and children from exiled families cannot be ignorant!

Zhao Liya really loved them, but she never thought of letting them live the life of the young masters and young ladies who had everything provided for them.

That's not pain, that's harm.

Zhao Liya smiled and agreed, and went out with Aunt Li Shiyi to open up wasteland.

Under the scorching sun, two people wearing big straw hats first used sickles to clear the densely growing weeds that were more than half a person's height, and then dug the ground with hoes.

The ground was full of various hard and tangled grass roots. A hoe only scraped off a shallow layer of skin, so the efficiency of reclamation was extremely low.

When Hu Ling and Zhao Xiang came back at noon carrying bamboo and long wooden strips, Zhao Liya and Aunt Li Shiyi had only cleared about half an acre of land.

Zhao Xiang thanked Aunt Li Shiyi for her hard work. Seeing his daughter's red face and sweat pouring down, he felt very distressed: "Ya'er, don't push too hard, take a break first!"

Aunt Li Shiyi also smiled and said, "Aya is really capable. Although this child is skinny and small, she actually managed to hold on and didn't even complain of being tired. I originally thought she would give up after a while, but I didn't expect her to actually work for the entire morning."

Aunt Li Shiyi was truly impressed. You have to know that this wasn't some country kid who'd been doing farm work since childhood. This was a rich young lady from the capital, more distinguished than the daughters of wealthy families in Gaolian County.

Zhao Xiang felt even more distressed after hearing this, and forced a smile, saying, "Our Ya'er has always been capable. Come on, go back and have a rest and lunch. Stop working and go back quickly."

Hu Ling stepped forward and took the hoe from Zhao Liya's hand: "Aya, Aunt Eleven, go back quickly!"

Zhao Liya took off her straw hat and fanned herself with it, her rosy little face full of smiles: "Dad, brother, I'm fine! I know what's going on! Let's go, let's go back!"

At home, Mrs. Deng had already cooked a large pot of rice simmering on the stove, and the dishes were all ready. Seeing them return, Mrs. Deng, who was accompanying her two children, stood up and said with a smile, "You're back? Go wash your hands and face and cool down. I've made some cold tea, pour it out for yourselves, and I'll go cook the dishes, it will be ready soon."

Zhao Xiang nodded and smiled: "Thank you for your hard work, Madam!"

Deng smiled gently: "It's not hard, you are the ones who are hardworking!"

The Zhao family members were in tacit agreement, and no one mentioned the hardships outside in front of Deng. For a while, the yard was filled with cheerful laughter.

Soon, two dishes and a soup were served on the table: fried pork belly slices with tofu, fried beans, and pork ribs and radish soup.

Deng's cooking skills were truly lackluster. The pork belly was cut into chunks that were large and small, thin and thick. She didn't even bother slicing the tofu into thin slices before frying it until golden brown. She also stir-fried the beans for too long, adding too much water, giving them a simmered bean flavor. The spare ribs were also large and small. The radish was meticulously peeled, but half of it was destroyed, leaving only the heart. However, she didn't use enough water, so even though it was supposed to be a soup, there wasn't much broth.

The two dishes and one soup had no presentation and the taste was mixed, but fortunately they were all cooked and no one in the family complained about them. They all praised them for being delicious.

Aunt Li Shiyi felt a little bad that such a good dish had been wasted, but she was old and shrewd, so she naturally wouldn't say anything careless. At most, she would slowly and casually remind Deng and teach her a lesson. She was once the wife of an official, so it was normal for her not to understand these things.

Deng's face was smiling, looking even more loving and gentle, but her eyes were a little moist.

She's not stupid. Can't she tell whether the food tastes good or not?

The afternoon sun was particularly scorching, so no one went out to work until around four o'clock.

At this time, the temperature in the mountains had gradually dropped, and it was not too hot under the shade of the large trees. Hu Ling and Zhao Xiang hurried to cut some more bamboo and wooden strips.

Zhao Liya and Aunt Li Shiyi also went out to continue reclaiming wasteland and digging the land.

Zhao Xiang opened his mouth, wanting to ask Zhao Liya to stop, but swallowed the words back.

Times are different now, these words are pale and powerless, it’s better not to say them.

In order to live a good life here, everyone in their family has to work hard.

The emperor has been thinking about deposing the prince for a long time. The prince is cautious. He and Concubine Yan cannot find any fault in the prince, so they try to force him, the prince's tutor, to deal with the prince.

He was not only the Prince's tutor, but also had extremely high prestige among the Confucian scholars. If he stood up and said "the Prince is not virtuous", the Emperor would definitely seize on this and make a big fuss to depose the Prince.

But he couldn't do that. The Crown Prince was the future of the empire and his life's work. Besides, what had the Crown Prince done wrong?

If it weren't for the Empress Dowager's pressure, the Crown Prince wouldn't have been able to be enthroned. However, the Emperor had never paid any attention to the Crown Prince, otherwise, how could he have been the Crown Prince's tutor?

At the beginning, the emperor specially appointed him as the prince's tutor, but in fact it was just a deliberate act to disgust the prince and make the world laugh at him.

Because he is too young and is not qualified to be the Prince's Tutor.

But the emperor said that he was extremely talented and used his status as the top scholar to justify his studies. Who could say that he could not teach the prince?

The prince never blamed him or took his anger out on him for this. He treated him with respect and courtesy, and he also taught and guided him carefully. The two of them surprisingly got along quite well.

When the Empress Dowager fell ill and passed away, and the Empress entered the Buddhist temple to pray for her and never left, he knew that the Emperor and Concubine Yan would no longer be able to sit still, but he had never expected that this day would come so soon.

He knew that exile was a punishment and lesson given to him by the emperor, and also a coercion. As long as he was willing to change his words, he could return to the capital at any time.

But he won't change.

As for his family, he was destined to be sorry for them. Since they were his family, they could only bear all this with him. Moreover, the prince had always been kind to them, and they were also unwilling to frame him.

After four days of hard work, the family finally managed to enclose the vegetable garden properly.

Apart from other things, Zhao Liya was very satisfied with the spaciousness of Yan Village. The vegetable garden at the door was about one and a half acres in size. Planting vegetables in each patch would be enough for their family to eat all year round.

And it can also feed at least twenty ducks and thirty chickens.

At the moment of completion, everyone looked at the bare fenced vegetable garden and smiled at each other with relief.

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(End of this chapter)