Chapter 293 Money Scorpion
"My cousin is still a monk?" Sui Liang understood from the side, "Will he come back? Cousin Hui is still waiting for him."
Sui Yu shook her head. "I asked, and he probably won't be coming back. He left the ranch before winter last year and hasn't been heard from since. Aside from this string of Buddhist beads, which he left behind, all the other clothes and shoes were discarded by him. I picked them up, washed them, and brought them back. A few days later, when I'm done with things at home, I'll go see Sui Hui and give these things to her."
Sui Liang said "Oh", he had no impression of this cousin. The only scene he could remember was that dark night when Sui Wen'an took him to kneel on the city wall and beg the captain of Yumen Pass to rescue the three sisters.
Zhao Xiping thought of the man whose half face was almost cut off on the battlefield. He looked at the various seeds in the box. From then on, he separated Sui Wen'an from his corrupt father.
"There's nothing going on at home. Zhang Shun and the others are watching over the camels and horses, and the guesthouse is not doing any business. You can go to the clinic with me this afternoon and deliver this box of things over tomorrow." Zhao Xiping said.
"My sister is sick?" Sui Liang looked worried.
"No, I'm going to take care of myself." Sui Yu replied. She got up and rummaged through the suitcase, and found two bellybands that the little one wore when he was a child. She cut the bellybands open, packed the seeds scattered in the box separately, and counted the number of cotton seeds by the way.
Sui Liang rolled up his sleeves and came over to help. The kid didn't make any more trouble. He could only count to fifty at most.
Zhao Xiping went out with the smelly robe and asked, "Do you still have it? If you do, I'll soak it in a basin of water."
"Keep it." Sui Yu hesitated for a moment and said, "Leaving this monk's robe in our family will serve as a souvenir."
"That's fine." Zhao Xiping had no objection. He went out and saw Liu Yaer beating clothes by the river. He handed her the monk's robe and went back into the house to see the people counting cotton seeds.
"Only the four of us know the inside story about the seeds. You two keep your mouths shut and don't say anything about it outside," Sui Yu instructed. "Next year, if the cotton is planted and someone asks you about it, just say you don't know. Remember that?"
The kid nodded repeatedly, "I definitely won't tell."
"Sister, I'm already fifteen or sixteen years old. Please don't talk to me like a child." Sui Liang shook off the goose bumps on his arms. He opened his mouth wide and asked, "Is this still a little mouth?"
"You're just here by the way. Just get the meaning." Sui Yu deliberately annoyed him, "Don't nitpick on the words. I'm not your teacher."
Sui Liang was angry. He dropped the cotton seeds, leaned against the wall, and refused to help.
Zhao Xiping glanced at him and squatted over to take over his work.
"Showing your courtesy." Sui Liang spitted.
Sui Yu smiled. Judging from his temperament, he was at most three years older than the kid.
There were 2,068 cotton seeds, a significant number. It was clear Sui Wen'an had put a lot of thought into collecting them. If he hadn't come across a large field of cotton plants, he might have waited for a long time, perhaps two or three years, for the bolls to bloom. Besides the cotton seeds, there were three other kinds of seeds, or perhaps even more. Among the seeds he had poured out was a handful of debris and shrunken leaves that crumbled at the touch. They looked like some plant that had rotted in the sun and rain, then dried out again.
"This is a bean." Zhao Xiping took out a small green bean from the gap in the wooden box.
"It's green, so let's call it mung bean." Sui Yu said.
"Don't throw away these leftover crumbs. Sprinkle them in the vegetable garden next spring. There might be seeds mixed in." Zhao Xiping tied the cloth wrapped around the seeds with a rope and said, "Give these to me. I'll store them for you. Keep them out of your hands so rats don't eat them."
Sui Yu opened her mouth, she sighed, and said unhappily, "I'm not a fool. How could I leave such an important thing lying around? How could I let a rat do something bad?"
"Where are you going to put it then?"
"Put it in a jar and seal the mouth tightly with stones. I don't believe mice can chew through the jar."
Sui Liang chuckled and Sui Yu glared at him.
"Ask your son if seeds can survive if they're placed in a tightly sealed jar," Zhao Xiping said with a smile. "If they're left in the jar for a year, there's an 80% chance they won't sprout."
Sui Yu looked at the cub, who was twisting his fingers and laughing.
"If I don't ask him, he won't understand." Sui Yu turned his head and said stubbornly, "I'll give it to you for safekeeping. You must keep it well. If the seeds don't sprout next year, I'll find fault with you."
"I understand." The boy did not allow himself to be looked down upon. He considered himself an expert in farming. At least he could name all the different insects in the field.
"Don't pay attention to your mother. She is a young lady who doesn't know the difference between grains." Sui Liang found an opportunity to fight back.
She doesn't know the difference between grains? Sui Yu laughed.
Zhao Xiping put the seeds away and drove away the people crowding in the house. He smelled the aroma of stewed chicken and it was time for lunch.
Sui Yu had breakfast late and was not hungry for lunch. She took half a bowl of chicken wings and a chicken leg and ate them slowly. Finally, she drank a bowl of chicken soup. She patted her butt and went out for a walk to digest the food.
The jujube trees had a bumper harvest this year, their branches laden with fingertip-sized green fruits, and even a few had fallen to the ground. She picked one up and took a bite; it was bitter and astringent. No wonder the chickens hadn't come to visit. The persimmon trees were also laden with fruit, almost as big as eggs. The tall willow trees were lush with branches, and the chickens huddled under them for shade. When someone approached, they squawked.
Sui Yu broke off a willow branch, and a rooster digging in the soil flapped its wings and tried to peck at her. She swung the branch back at it, threatening, "You'll be in the pot tomorrow. You dare to peck at me? You don't want to live anymore."
"Mom——" the little cub came chasing after her.
"Are you full?" Sui Yu turned around and asked, "Come and look at this rooster. Did it peck at people before?"
"No, we killed all the chickens that pecked people."
The cub approached, but the rooster seemed not to see him. His angry little eyes kept staring at Sui Yu, as if he was treating her as an outsider.
"Go away," the kid urged it, "I'll kill you tomorrow."
The rooster then returned to the flock, still keeping an eye on the "outsider."
Sui Yu ignored it and took the cub away. She had been running outside for the past four years and had never seen the summer scenery outside the guesthouse. She didn't even know whether the dates or persimmons were sweet.
"The jujube and persimmon trees bear so many fruits. Can you eat them all?" Sui Yu asked.
"Birds and chickens eat them too. When the dates and persimmons are ripe, lots of birds come to our place and steal the persimmons. My uncle takes us under the tree to shoot the birds, and the persimmons we shoot down become food for the chickens, which love them." The boy explained, "When the persimmons and dates are ripe, many merchants come to stay here, and they often hit the dates with sticks."
"Then you're short of dates to eat?" Sui Yu asked.
The boy smiled, leaned against her, and said proudly, "The merchants have eaten my dates, and they will also buy dates from the vendors for me."
Zhao Xiping came over, took a quick look from a distance, and then left, not wanting to disturb the mother and son's chat. He could see that Zhao Xiaozai was still a little reserved. He had been acting pretentiously these past two days, speaking little and being honest, probably because he wanted to perform well in front of his mother.
Sui Yu led the little cub around the guesthouse under the scorching sun. She introduced the shed over the livestock pen, the pigs in the pigpen, Sui Liang's chestnut horse, the mulberry trees by the river, the silkworms raised this year... She led the little cub to introduce them to her one by one.
The boy took out his silkworm box and said as if he was presenting a treasure, "My uncle and I have raised five hundred silkworms together. Look, mother, they are so fat and big."
Sui Yu turned her face away after taking a look. She liked this thing when she was a child, but found it creepy when she grew up, especially when the mulberry leaves were eaten and hundreds of white silkworms were densely entangled together. She got goose bumps all over her body when she looked at it.
The kid didn't notice. He picked up a fat silkworm and placed it on his palm. He said mysteriously, "Mom, guess how much this silkworm can be sold for?"
"Ah? Selling them for money?" Sui Yu was shocked. "You've become rich from silkworms?"
"We made a little money," the boy said modestly. "We hatched a lot of silkworms this spring, but there weren't enough mulberry leaves for them to eat, and many of them starved to death. Just in time, Big Brother Gu and the others wanted to raise silkworms, so my uncle sold three thousand silkworms for three cents each. Not only us, but Aning, Aunt Shui, Hua Niu, Da Zhuang, and A Qiang all sold silkworms." At this point, the boy couldn't help but smile proudly. He continued, "In addition to selling the silkworms, we also sold mulberry leaves and branches, making a lot of money. Look, Mom, we've replanted seven more small mulberry trees, and they're all alive. Oh, and my uncle said that in a few days we'll go to the military settlement to sell the adult silkworms at three cents each. Next year, when they hatch the silkworms, we'll go back to the settlement to sell mulberry leaves."
"That's amazing." Sui Yu couldn't help but give a thumbs-up and praised, "You're quite smart. To support your business, I'll ask your Aunt Song to bring back another 10 or 20 mulberry trees from Taiyuan County."
"Thank you, Mom." The kid was very happy.
"No thanks, no thanks. When you make money, just treat me to some malt candy." Sui Yu smiled.
"I have made money. I deposited 537 copper coins with my uncle. I will go to get it later, and then I will treat you to go to the city to buy some candy." The kid's face turned red with excitement.
"Thank you, little shopkeeper."
The kid laughed, his mouth stretched all the way to his ears. He tried to purse his lips, but they wouldn't close.
Well, he stopped pretending. He happily jumped onto the mulberry tree, humming something to himself, and sat on the branches, picking mulberry leaves happily.
"Come down, I'll pick mulberry leaves for you." Sui Yu shouted.
The cub shook his head. "The mulberry tree can't stand you, mother. You just wait under the tree and help me change the mulberry leaves for the silkworms."
There was no other way, Sui Yu had to bite the bullet and take the mulberry leaves to feed the silkworms. Three cents, six cents, nine cents... ninety-nine cents. Hey, when he measured it with copper coins, the fat silkworms looked much better.
After changing the mulberry leaves for the silkworms, the box was carried into the house. The boy went to the room where his uncle slept to grab the copper coins, and Sui Yu waited outside.
Sui Liang woke up instantly when he heard the clattering of copper coins. He crawled to the end of the bed and saw Zhao Xiaozai grabbing handfuls of money.
"I thought it was a thief." Sui Liang wiped his face, "What are you going to do with the money?"
"Buy some malt sugar for my mother."
"That's enough, you're going to buy the candy jar back? Your mother has bad teeth, and eating too much candy makes her teeth hurt."
Sui Yu pushed the door open and came in, folding his arms and saying, "Hey, how can you be stingy?"
"It's a small business, and it's not easy for us to make money." Sui Liang shook his head pretentiously and lamented, "You don't know how expensive firewood, rice, oil and salt are until you run a business. Only then do you know how hard it is to make money. Sister, please be generous and eat less candy. I will treat you to meat buns next year."
Sui Yu reluctantly agreed. She took the child away and turned back to ask, "Are your teeth okay? I'll treat you to some candy."
Sui Liang jumped up, put on his shoes and ran out.
Zhao Xiping was also waiting outside, carrying a bag filled with money. He said, "I'll pay for the medicine and candy today. You can save your big money and make some small money."
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