The current emperor and empress are both good-looking, so Fang Shizhong is also quite handsome.

This was the first time he had been praised in such a teasing way by a woman, and he immediately felt a little embarrassed.

However, he had important business to attend to right now and couldn't afford to think about anything else.

Even though Chi Qiao and Chi Da Hu had short hair, which was different from the current trend, he didn't think much about it.

He cleared his throat and said, "Sister-in-law, Amu just said that this ash lumps can replace glutinous rice paste, is that true?"

Looking at the clump of ash in the basket on the ground, Fang Shizhong found it hard to believe that this stuff was stickier than glutinous rice paste.

But he knew that Qin Mu wouldn't lie.

Since it's been mentioned, it must be true.

If that's really the case, then the people of Chijia'ao have done a great service this time!

Upon hearing this, Chi Qiao immediately nodded and began to speak as she had planned in her mind:

"Your Excellency, this gray blob was made by my sister-in-law, Chi Yu."

She returned to our Chijia'ao village after divorcing Qi Xiucai from Qijia Village before the Lunar New Year.

Xiaoyu is not only intelligent, but also very filial, and she always thinks highly of everyone.

She always said that she was able to get a smooth divorce because she owed it to the kindness of her clan.

Therefore, after the divorce, when she was in confinement in the county town, she was very sensitive to the abnormal weather.

She said the weather this year might be extreme, and the winter would be very cold, so she tried her best to draw a picture of a kang (a heated brick bed).

She said she had never done it before, and told my husband to go back and try more, and then find a way to make it so that every household in the clan could also get one or two.

Not only that, she also thought that every household in Chijia'ao had a charcoal kiln, so she encouraged everyone to burn as much charcoal as possible.

Xiaoyu said, "If the people on our mountain are having a hard time, then the people down below the mountain will definitely be having an even harder time."

If it gets really cold, we can transport charcoal to the city; every extra person saved will be saved.

If not, that's okay too.

Whether it's burning charcoal or building a kang (heated brick bed), the location of Chijia'ao is high up, and it's colder than other places every year.

Even without any disaster, it's just a matter of putting in some effort.

Fang Shizhong wanted to know the specific effects of this ash dough that replaced glutinous rice paste, but unexpectedly, he heard the woman in front of him praising her sister-in-law in a completely different way.

If he hadn't known that the woman was Amu's betrothed, he wouldn't have had the patience to listen to her rambling on.

So he could only force a smile and listen to her story.

The reason Chi Qiao spent so much time building up to this was to show that her younger sister was smart, filial, and grateful.

Most importantly, she said that her sister was a lucky person.

She believed that the county magistrate in front of her should already know what she had just said.

After all, those charcoal and vegetables transported before the Lunar New Year weren't for nothing.

As the local official in a county, Lord Fang couldn't possibly be unaware of the origins of these things.

Therefore, seeing that Fang Shizhong did not intend to interrupt her, she continued:

"My lord, Xiaoyu is the only girl in our Chi clan in recent decades."

Although she is the head of the three generations, if you count carefully, the girl in Chijia'ao who is closest to her generation is only five years old this year and has to call her great-aunt.

As for the girls older than that, if you calculate it, they would be at least sixty or seventy years old this year, and they are no longer alive.

Perhaps for this reason, when my parents-in-law went down the mountain when I was a child, a wandering Taoist priest said that the little fish was a blessing for the Chi family.

When Chi Dahu saw his wife talking about his sister, he quickly chimed in, "Sir, my wife is right."

Our Chijia'ao mountain area has extremely low grain production, and we all rely on hunting for a living.