Tian Gui truly didn't want Tao'er's mother to take any more risks.

Seven days after giving birth, he went to a pharmacy to buy medicine, and then found a palm tree on the mountain and cut off its heart. He stewed meat and boiled eggs with it every day.

Because every household in the village received eggs, some received ten or eight, others only one or two, so the total amount collected was quite substantial.

Besides Jiang Zhi sending brown sugar and chicken, Xu Genyou sent a chicken, and Xu Gensheng also sent a chicken, so that Tao'er's mother could have a good postpartum period.

Tian Gui took out the grain he had just harvested to grind into rice and flour, while Xiao Quan went into the water every day to catch fish and shrimp, trying his best to add some new food for his mother.

Tao'er's mother's health was severely damaged after giving birth, and even eating meat for a few days couldn't replenish it.

Since she didn't have enough breast milk, Tian Tao'er cooked rice porridge at home to feed her younger brother.

She was about to take the small sand pot to the charcoal stove when she looked up and saw Qin standing by the courtyard, peering into her family's shack.

When Qin saw that Tian Tao had noticed her, she shrank back and pretended that she hadn't seen anything before leaving.

Tian Tao rolled her eyes and snorted.

The day after my mother gave birth to my younger brother, Qin Shi came over and sat there, saying she was looking after the child.

But whenever her mother said, "You should drink some chicken soup too," while drinking chicken soup and eating eggs, Qin would eat it too, which infuriated Tian Tao.

On the third day, Qin came again. There was no one else at home. Tao'er's mother was used to keeping things quiet, but Tian Tao was not.

She pointed at Qin, who was there to freeload, and said, "If you come for soup again today, I'll tell Village Chief Jiang. Village Chief Jiang said that you'll get a beating for taking advantage of others like this."

Qin was craving chicken soup, but she didn't dare to provoke Granny Jiang. She grumbled as she walked out, "I only drank a bowl of soup, I didn't eat a single piece of your meat."

Village Chief Jiang isn't in the village; you won't find him.

"Hmph! So stingy at such a young age, no one will like her when she marries into her family."

Tian Tao was so angry that she immediately walked out as well: "Village Chief Jiang isn't here, but Uncle Li is. I'll go find him to judge this matter and see if it's right for you to just sit around doing nothing all day!"

Upon hearing Li Laoshi's name, Qin Shi immediately quickened her pace and stopped Tian Tao, saying, "Why are you acting so tough, you little girl? It's just a few sips of water. I'm just tasting it to see if it's salty or not."

"If you don't want to drink, then don't. It's not like I've never had one before. Back when I was living with Genqing, I ate three fat hens; the fat was so thick you couldn't blow it away."

As she spoke, Qin left without lingering. She was afraid of Jiang Zhi and even more disgusted with Li Laoshi.

Li Laoshi was like a bullfly trying to bite, buzzing around him.

She has a sharp tongue; even if she tries to pick a few scallions from someone else's field, she'll get caught and ridiculed.

Moreover, he's a bit of a lousy fellow, and he'll chatter on and on whenever he sees Village Chief Jiang. If he catches him at the Tian family's house, who knows what he'll say to Granny Jiang.

Qin was eyeing the chicken with longing, while Li Laoshi was actually eating it. He was sitting at Xu Genyou's dining table, taking big bites of fatty chicken meat, and saying as he ate, "Genbao, you guys made some money this time!"

Xu Genbao and Wang Xiaoju are back.

The two went out for the first time and stayed away for more than twenty days.

It rained every day for a while, and the mountain roads were slippery and I didn't dare to walk on them. I only went out and went home these past few days because the weather cleared up.

Compared to his disheveled state twenty days ago, Xu Genbao is now thinner, but his overall spirits are very good.

It is said that money gives people courage and clothes give people face. After going out and bringing back something, you suddenly have to speak more confidently.

Xu Genbao chuckled and pretended to be reserved, saying, "It's not much, just about twenty chickens, a little over a hundred coins."

Li Laoshi glanced at the chickens in the yard, their legs tied together and wings bound, flapping and hopping around, and slurped his saliva as he exclaimed, "So many chickens! It'll be time to eat them for a while!"

Before he could finish speaking, Wang Xiaoju came out of the kitchen, holding the child in one hand and carrying a piece of meat specially prepared for the child in the other. Upon hearing Li Laoshi's words, she immediately became unhappy: "Uncle Li, we need to sell these chickens for money, how can we eat them all? This chicken was specially killed for my mother. My mother has worked hard taking care of our child."

Liu was genuinely happy to be appreciated by her daughter-in-law.

The chicken was killed and everyone ate it. In reality, each person only got one or two pieces of meat in their bowl, with most of the food consisting of vegetables.

Li Laoshi had always eaten with the Xu family, so naturally he had to eat as well.

Seeing Li Laoshi's embarrassment, Liu quickly tried to smooth things over: "Xiaoju, your Uncle Li has helped the family a lot. A few days ago, when I went to the fields to harvest rice, it was your Uncle Li who took care of Leiwazi."

Li Laoshi is the king of the kids. He's managed all the children in the village now, even four-year-old Leizi wants to play with pebbles with him.

During the busy farming season, Li Laoshi, who was already lazy and slacking off, ended up taking care of the children.

Leading an old mule means either it's carrying grain or it's carrying children.

Children are most prone to accidents during the busy farming season, and adults are bound to be negligent when working. With his help, others can rest assured.

Wang Xiaoju said the chickens were meant to be sold for money, and she wasn't trying to embarrass Li Laoshi on purpose.

They found a village in the mountains this time. It was a rare sight to find a cotton carder in such a chaotic time of war. Sure enough, every household needed cotton carding and refurbishing their quilts.

There was plenty of work, but it was all hard work that others were unwilling to do.

There was no new cotton, only old quilts.

Those beddings are old items from over ten or even several decades ago, as hard as iron plates, not to mention how dirty they are. There's nothing you can't see.

Even with several layers of cloth covering their mouths and noses, Xu Genbao and Wang Xiaoju couldn't keep out the dust.

In the past, the two of them might have abandoned the project and left.

There was no turning back now. Knowing that the whole village was just waiting to see us fail, we mustered up the courage to keep going.

Money is hard to earn, and the villagers don't have much money either, so they agreed to charge fifty coins for each quilt they folded.

The couple can make two quilts from morning till night. After calculating, they have half of their income as net profit after deducting the cost of cotton thread.

After working for twenty days straight, when it was time to collect the debts, the villagers had no money, so each household used a chicken to pay off their debts, with a big, fat chicken being worth fifty coins.

These chickens can be sold for seventy or eighty coins each when taken out of the mountains, so instead of losing money, they actually made a profit.

The live chicken was heavy and difficult to move, but the couple still carried it back like workaholics.

Those chickens that die on the road can be eaten by themselves, while those that live can be sold for money.

Wang Xiaoju had thought it through. When she went to Lihua Town to sell chickens, she made sure to set up a stall right under her sister-in-law's nose so they could see that she hadn't starved to death away from her family and had earned more than one tael of silver on this trip.

However, she was only thinking about it. Xu Genyou and Liu Shi forbade Wang Xiaoju from provoking her maternal family again: no matter what, if they couldn't be relatives, they shouldn't be enemies.

So Xu Genyou gave one chicken to Tian Gui's family and another to Zhang Juntou at the patrol station.

Next, they placed chicken coops along the official road, and within two days they sold them all to passing merchants for 100 coins each.

The Tian family mother and child are safe and sound these past two days, which makes everyone happy, except for the scholar's wife who is having a hard time.

She was still embroidering, and as she embroidered, she stopped to look at the fan in front of her.

As always, the red plum blossoms still fluttered down from the needle's point, but she felt as if these plum blossoms had come alive, possessing more vitality and spirit...