Chapter 113 World Three [27]

After Luo Yuezhu came back, the festive atmosphere in the Luo Mansion became more and more intense. Xiaomu and other servants also changed into festive new clothes and began to clean the mansion inside and out, and then redecorate it.

Jing Ke was not idle either. Because her handwriting looked good, the task of writing the word "Fu" and Spring Festival couplets fell on her.

After Luo Yuezhu helped to paste the word "Fu" and the Spring Festival couplets, she took a pair of scissors and started to study how to cut beautiful window grilles out of red paper.

Although in the end all she managed to do was cut out the simplest character for "囍", this result was enough to make Luo Yuezhu happy for a long time.

It’s quite impressive to learn how to cut the word “囍”. Maybe in a year or two, this skill will come in handy!

New Year's Eve should be lively, so Jing Ke agreed to let Yin Honglian and Ye Wenxin from next door come over to join in the fun. Not only did they have the New Year's Eve dinner together, but they also put two jars of good wine on the table.

"We won't drink too much this time. Just two jars, one for you and your disciple, and one for the two of us. We'll share it and just take a sip." Yin Honglian patched up.

She can drink quite well. If she only drinks half a jar, she won't get drunk and can even go back to her room safely.

"Okay, then I'll take a jar." Jing Ke opened the bottle and smelled it. It wasn't a very strong liquor, but the aroma was extremely rich. It was probably the kind that had a long aftertaste.

Well, judging by the little apprentice's alcohol tolerance, she seemed to be drunk after one glass.

"Master, you are by my side now. I should be able to have a couple of drinks, right?" Luo Yuezhu held the small wine glass in her hand and looked at her master eagerly.

"Okay, but only two cups." Jing Ke didn't refuse in the end.

Anyway, she had already experienced the boldness and stubbornness of her young disciple, and the worst result would be that she would be half-hearted tonight.

Jing Ke's very firm principles became increasingly shaky after his young apprentice returned safely from Jiangnan, and the degree of shaking became greater every day.

Now, several days have passed since the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, and Jing Ke has been half-heartedly preparing for several days.

"Come on, cheers!" Yin Honglian began to liven up the atmosphere and took the initiative to pour wine for herself and Ye Wenxin.

"Let's not talk about anything else, let's just cheers for us to be able to sit together today!" Yin Honglian said. After clinking glasses one by one, she drank it in one gulp, very refreshingly.

Compared with the wine glasses of the other three people, the wine glass in Luo Yuezhu's hand was particularly small. It was estimated that the so-called two glasses of wine could only barely fill one glass of wine for others.

But Luo Yuezhu didn't mind. After they finished a glass of wine together, she kept the remaining glass to savor slowly.

After the lively party reached the hour of Hai, Yin Honglian and Ye Wenxin stood up on their own initiative without Jing Ke's reminder. After sending New Year's greetings in advance, the two of them left shoulder to shoulder.

Judging from the backs of the two people as they left, they seemed to be whispering something in each other's ears, but Jing Ke and Luo Yuezhu had no intention of listening, their attention was focused on each other.

"Yuezhu, do you have any New Year's wishes?" Jing Ke asked.

Of course Luo Yuezhu did, but she didn't say it out loud. Instead, she looked at her master and asked, "Master, do you have any wishes?"

"Me?" Jing Ke thought for a moment.

"I guess what I'm saying is that I hope we can live peacefully and smoothly every year from now on, without any accidents or disasters," Jing Ke said.

She didn't have any wishes, as long as her little disciple lived a happy and smooth life. After accompanying her little disciple through this life, she would leave this world and go to another place to collect her own body.

"My wish is that Master's wish can come true." Luo Yuezhu said cleverly.

"You." Jing Ke pinched his little disciple's face.

"Master, they've all gone back. Should we go to bed as well?" Luo Yuezhu asked. Master's wish could come true; it had always been her wish.

"Well, go back to sleep. Let's start the new year by sleeping in." Jing Ke said, standing up and extending his hand to his little apprentice.

Luo Yuezhu smiled and held it, took the initiative to walk forward, and pulled her master into the room.

-

As someone who has been with Jing Ke day and night for more than five years, Luo Yuezhu thinks that he knows his master quite well.

After she offered to help her master take off his clothes, Luo Yuezhu observed her master's reaction.

Not only did the master acquiesce, he also took the initiative to open his arms to make it easier for him to take off the clothes that were in the way from her body.

Luo Yuezhu and Jing Ke have already taken a bath together. From another perspective, the two have been honest with each other many times.

After realizing his master's indulgence and acquiescence, Luo Yuezhu began to transform the written knowledge he had learned into practical activities.

There is a custom of lighting lights on New Year's Eve, and neither candles nor oil lamps are blown out.

The doors and windows block out prying eyes from the outside, and the bed curtains prevent the candlelight from further invading the bed.

But the bed curtains only covered them with a thin layer of gauze, and under the candlelight, the ever-changing outlines of their bodies were still extremely obvious.

The younger one seems to have endless enthusiasm and constantly expresses his or her love for the older one through body language.

The older person in the lower position seemed to put his arm around the younger person's neck and said something, which made the younger person smile brightly and respond with more enthusiastic body language.

Well, I saved myself a New Year's gift.

The little disciple seemed quite happy that he was given away as a gift.

After finishing the job, a certain elder couldn't help but distract himself and think for a moment. Finally, after a second of insincere repentance, he happily hugged his little apprentice and went to sleep.

Now that you have done it, don't worry about your age.

I am not an old feudalist, I just follow the local customs.

-

New year, new atmosphere, these five words perfectly embody Luo Yuezhu.

From the first day of the first lunar month, the corners of her mouth were raised and remained so until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.

Just like when she was little, she held her master's hand to go see the lanterns, put the tiger mask on her master, and then asked her master to put the pig mask on her.

Playing the pig and eating the tiger seems to have been successfully achieved to some extent.

After the Lantern Festival, Feng'an City was hit by another heavy snowfall. This time the snow was so heavy that it lasted for seven days and seven nights, blocking all the roads.

Fortunately, most people anticipated the arrival of the snowstorm, so they prepared food and charcoal in advance and were not too panicked.

But the heavy snow seemed to have no intention of stopping. After the first month of the lunar year, it continued to fall, burying all the cultivated land under thick snow. Even when the beginning of spring arrived, farming was still impossible to start.

For the powerful, losing a year's harvest is no big deal, it's just a little loss.

But for farmers who make a living from the land, losing a year's harvest is a huge blow and bad news. It means that they will have no income in the following year and can only survive on their savings.

The chain reaction caused by the snowstorm is also terrible. When roads are not accessible normally, the prices of many things are rising.

With income at zero and expenses increasing, many people who were already living a tight life were pushed into a desperate situation.

The government responded promptly. After reporting the situation to the court, news of tax exemption and labor service soon spread, and corresponding relief supplies were on the way.

As long as the snow melts, the supplies distributed by the court can be delivered to Feng'an City smoothly.

Jing Ke and Luo Yuezhu had also anticipated this situation, and the food they brought back before the New Year became a life-saving straw for some people.

After Luo Yuezhu took inventory of the grain reserves in the warehouse, he did not follow other competitors in raising the price, but maintained the original price. However, each person could only buy three kilograms of rice at a time.

The purpose of purchase restrictions is easy to guess. It simply allows more people to buy relatively cheap food.

After the county government discovered that the relief supplies had not arrived, they could only send skilled people to report the news in the hope of gaining an opportunity to open the granaries and release the grain.

Under normal circumstances, the approval for opening the warehouse to release grain cannot be obtained so quickly.

However, after hearing about Luo Yuezhu's actions, the imperial court immediately sent a special envoy to deliver an imperial decree, which not only allowed Feng'an City to open its granaries and release grain, but also required the surrounding towns to start disaster relief and provide a certain amount of silver and money subsidies to the affected people.

This would have been absolutely impossible to happen before. The saying "The emperor is far away and the sky is high" is not just a saying. It would be good if half of the relief supplies could arrive after the snow disaster. There would be no such good thing as opening the warehouse in advance to release grain and giving out silver.

Ordinary people did not know the reasons behind this, they just thought that the emperor was wise and cared about the people, so he gave them preferential treatment.

But those who knew the situation knew the answer with a simple guess. The imperial court was simply worried that some orphans of the previous dynasty who remained in Feng'an City would take advantage of the disaster to win over the hearts of the people and turn Feng'an City into their territory.

If the people in Feng'an City are bribed, then this area located in the central part, almost adjacent to the Demon Cult and Jiangnan, may break away from the control of the court and instead form a united front with the Demon Cult.

This is something the imperial court absolutely does not want to see, so they do not mind using some iron-blooded measures to put an end to the long-standing corruption trend and let the affected people feel the warmth of the imperial court like a spring breeze.

Jing Ke and Yin Honglian were happy to see this happen. They had no ambitions in the first place, and it was a good thing for them that the court was willing to give priority to dealing with the disaster in this area.

If the disaster is handled properly, they can go out for an outing in the spring, buy delicious snacks, and enjoy the scenery in the suburbs with peace of mind.

-

Luo Yuezhu's sixteenth birthday was not a big celebration because there was a snowstorm at the time. Jing Ke didn't have time to prepare a special gift, so he could only find time to make a small wooden sculpture for his little apprentice.

However, the young apprentice was very happy to receive the gift. He placed the small wooden sculpture in his study and played with it several times a day.

After the snowstorm passed without any major incident, Luo Yuezhu became restless and began to study land reclamation and farming.

Purchasing large quantities of arable land might attract the attention of the imperial court, so Luo Yuezhu only purchased one hundred acres of land to satisfy his sudden idea.

Luo Yuezhu could cultivate a hundred acres of land herself, but that seemed to be putting the cart before the horse and losing the fun. So she chose to hire some farmers from less fortunate families, paying them to help her manage the land.

What Luo Yuezhu needed to do was to direct them to plant her favorite crops in a fixed place, so as to artificially create a farmland that she liked.

Jing Ke did not interfere too much in his apprentice's hobbies, but he still planted a loquat tree and an orange tree with his own hands, waiting for them to bloom and bear fruit one day so that he could taste pure natural and pollution-free fruits.

However, this year seems destined to be a not very peaceful year. After the snow disaster, drought came in the summer.

At least half of the hundred acres of fertile land purchased by Luo Yuezhu have become dry and cracked due to insufficient water, and the crops planted on them are on the verge of completely losing their vitality.

"In principle, we can get water from another place, but we have to create a river artificially." After studying the hand-drawn topographic map, Jing Ke stretched out his hand and pointed to a large river about fifty miles away from Feng'an City.

"We can afford to hire strong men to dig a canal, but this method is too time-consuming and labor-intensive." Jing Ke paused and said, "Have you ever asked me if, after practicing martial arts to the extreme, you can move mountains and fill the sea?"