On the second day of the Lunar New Year, Xu Dazhu and Chunfeng had already returned to the mountain, and Xujia Village became lively again.

For the past two years, Magistrate Zhang had made a visit to the village, but he didn't come this year. Instead, a lion dance troupe came to offer New Year's greetings.

It had been years since we'd seen these lion dances, and the whole village came out to welcome them, surrounding the smiling dolls and making them laugh.

Jiang Zhi paid for a lion dance performance, a "picking the greens on a high platform" show.

Although it was just a traveling troupe that went from village to village, they had three square tables stacked in a triangular shape and two long benches on a high platform.

The lion needs to weave between each table, which looks thrilling and exciting. So the lion dancers climb up the high benches without any danger and take down a string of lucky money.

The crowd immediately cheered!

To express their gratitude for Jiang Zhi's generosity, the lion dance troupe plucked two tufts of hair from the lions, giving one to Caixia and the other to Honghui.

Lion dances are believed to ward off evil spirits, and lion hair is said to naturally ward off evil. Hanging a few strands of lion hair on a child is believed to ensure their safety.

Jiang Zhi wanted to give Nini another tuft, but Nini pouted and said, "I don't want lion hair, I want a lion's head from now on!"

This immediately drew a burst of laughter. Grandma Xiaoman chuckled and playfully scolded, "Nini is even more mischievous than a boy!"

Nini raised her eyebrows: "Grandma, my name is Shengyu."

This is the formal name that Xia Xiucai gave Nini after she started school.

Jade is the most beautiful of stones, possessing natural spiritual energy. Nini has an upright character, so Xia Xiucai used a superior jade.

Nini really likes it, and now she tells others her name is Shengyu all the time.

After the village chief Jiang started, every household immediately had to have a lion dance performed at their home. Although life was getting better every day and there was no bad luck, they still wanted to receive this auspicious blessing.

I don’t know if it was pre-arranged, but after the lion dance, “Che Yaomei”, who was singing lotus flower ballad, soon appeared.

In the dry boat, a shy and pretty young girl dressed in women's clothing was actually a man with heavy makeup. Xu Gensheng and the others started to tease him again, and even regretted that Li Laoshi was not there, otherwise they would have been even happier.

The dragon lanterns came again the next day...

This went on until the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, when interns from more than a dozen villages came to offer New Year's greetings, each carrying a small bundle of noodles and a small bag of brown sugar as gifts.

Although the gift was small, the sentiment was heavy. Jiang Zhi still had to spend money to host a table for these dozen or so people, so she simply invited Xu Genyou, Tian Gui, and several other people from Xujia Village to come and entertain them.

On the eighth day of the first lunar month, Hui Ge'er will be one year old, and Qiao Yun will officially wean him.

Now that Qiaoyun is busy with the pharmacy, she can leave the child at home after weaning and no longer take her with her.

Before she knew it, there were already several children over one year old in the village, so Jiang Zhi wanted to open a nursery.

In fact, this was an idea that Jiang Zhi had always had.

The elderly often say how easy it was for them to raise children in the past.

A person can take care of several children and still work, but little do they know that the children who survive and grow up are the ones who are lucky enough to survive and survive the deaths.

Parents would take their children to the edge of the fields to work, tie them up with a rope under a tree, and in the summer, they would be covered in mosquito bites, with large welts on top of small welts, which would ooze pus when scratched.

In winter, even if I wet my pants, I wouldn't change them. The mud and water would coat my pants like mud armor, so thick that they could stand upright after I took them off.

Sometimes, children would simply go around naked, their bottoms and legs exposed, freezing cold, their noses running all winter, only recovering in the spring.

If it's terrible to take it out, it won't be much better if it's left at home.

Locked at home, tied to the foot of the bed, no one would know if I cried or screamed; I would just cry until I was tired and fall asleep.

When the adults come home, there's never a meal. The children work all day and go hungry all day. When they faint from hunger, the parents will say, "The child is sensible," and then they'll go to sleep.

It's a little better if you have older siblings, at least there's someone else to take care of you.

These are the ones who survived.

They drowned when they fell into the water, were crushed to death by falling objects, were bitten to death by rats, pigs, or dogs, died of illness, and those who died young are not considered human.

Just like big kids, they face dangers—cliffs, water, trees…

So when Xu Xiaogu heard about Da Rui's death, her first reaction was: Every family loses a few children.

Jiang Zhi could easily set up a nursery, but it couldn't compare to modern, high-end ones.

All you need is a house, a yard, some toys, and someone to look after it.

The children are no longer exposed to wind and rain, they have a bowl of rice porridge when they are hungry, they can change their wet pants when they wet themselves, and they are not afraid of being locked in a dark room and being bitten by rats.

With dedicated care for their children, parents can go to work with peace of mind.

Moreover, childcare can be done by the grandmothers in the family who are unable to work, and they are satisfied with just a few coins.

With this in mind, Jiang Zhi approached several households and asked them to contribute money or labor if they could.

Having had previous experience in exchanging work points, Xia's mother, Lianhua, Tao'er's mother, and Pi Shi quickly grasped the meaning.

Piss readily agreed: "Great, as long as it helps take care of the children, I'm willing to spend the money."

Once the Lantern Festival is over, the mosquito coil workshop will start work, Xu Gensheng will begin grinding medicinal herbs, and Pi will also start working in his workshop. It's lively and profitable.

The child can only be left at home to be looked after by the mother-in-law. Even if she says she's looking after the child, it's just a matter of hearing a sound; the child still crawls on the floor as usual.

Wang Xiaoju is still pregnant with her second child, even later than Lianhua's second pregnancy. Having raised Leiwa before, she naturally agrees.

Although her mother-in-law, Liu, agreed to help take care of Erwa, she still felt it would be better to send her to a place like a school.

Xia's mother agreed to the matter, as she had a little granddaughter.

The scholar's wife wanted to embroider, the scholar himself didn't take care of the children, and Xia Yuan was too young to study, so she was the only one taking care of the children. She could let go of them as much as she could.

After discussing it among themselves, they went home and told each other about it. The next day, Jiang Zhi brought it up at the village meeting, and naturally no one objected.

However, Xu Gensheng said that the workshop should bear the costs, which made some people dissatisfied: "My family has no children, why should we pay for the workshop? You are just taking advantage of everyone. Besides, if a child can't endure any hardship from a young age, he will not amount to anything when he grows up."

Everyone knows that workshops make more money, which means they get more year-end bonuses.

Even if hiring someone to babysit costs very little, every penny counts, and you'll save a few coins yourself.

These people are taking advantage of everyone by using the workshop's money to raise their own children.

What he said sounds reasonable!

Xu Gensheng is now a junior leader, and he's not as argumentative as he used to be.

But then he heard the man say that he didn't have any children and that he was asking everyone to raise his children, and he instantly turned into a contrarian.

He immediately stood up, pointed at the speaker, and said, "Third Brother, do you dare say that your family will never be able to have children in the future? Are you going to find a pig castrator to castrate all your family members, including the women who have married out of the family?"

That person was one of the few people with the original surname Xu. He looked honest and didn't talk much. He did whatever he was told to do and never objected to giving Xia Xiucai a tael of silver when the school was opened.

But this time, he was unwilling to spend money to raise a child.

Children grow up being carried, tied up, or left to their own devices.

If they are spoiled like this from a young age, they will grow up to be pampered young masters who do not work, and they will also have to spend their own money.

However, that was all the courage he had. He cowered when Xu Gensheng pointed at him and shouted, "Anyway, I'm doing this for your own good. Spoiled kids are unfilial."