After eating the noodles, I rushed to the west city gate, and Fifth Grandpa’s donkey cart was still waiting there.
There were six people in the car, four of whom came by bus in the morning, and the extra two were from Xinghua Village.
They looked at the huge basket that Xu Lanyin was carrying, which was so full that it was bulging with stuff, and their eyes were filled with the word "spendthrift".
That morning, the talkative woman said again, "I smell some snacks. Oh, your family must be rich, buying snacks even though it's not a festival." Then she understood and said, "Oh, are you sending them to the Gu family?"
Xu Lanting hurriedly explained, "My eldest sister bought me snacks, my mother and I took the medicine, and the cotton was used by our family to make cotton vests. My eldest sister is not a spendthrift at all now."
"No one would believe this bullshit," the woman muttered.
Xu Lanyin curled the corners of her mouth and was too lazy to pay attention to these people.
When they returned home, Qin and Xu Lanzhou were shocked to see so many things.
Xu Lanting smiled proudly and told the story of the two taels of silver.
Qin Shi saw that her children were not hurt and gave them a few more words of advice. Those noblemen treated human life as worthless and should stay away from them. If they hurt them, it would be useless to pay them money.
Xu Lanyin agreed and gave Qin a box of peach blossom cream. Qin hadn't used these things in a long time. She smiled broadly, opened the lid, and took a few deep breaths. "I'll make it myself when Mom recovers," she said. "My peach blossom cream is better than this."
Xu Lanyin gave Qin one tael of silver and kept one hundred and thirty coins for herself, saying that she would be useful.
Xu Lanzhou didn't want Xu Lanyin to keep the money, so he asked unhappily, "Do you still want to give it to Gu Wangchen?"
Before Xu Lanyin could answer, Qin said, "She is your sister. Since she has corrected her mistakes, you should trust her."
Xu Lanting also quickly said, "I believe in my elder sister." He then pulled Xu Lanzhou and said, "Brother, my elder sister doesn't want to marry Gu Wangchen anymore, so how could I possibly give money to his family again?"
Xu Lanzhou was speechless.
Xu Lanyin still wanted Xu Lanzhou to do something, so she didn't bother with him. She just rolled her eyes at him, took out a hundred coins and gave them to him, saying, "Tomorrow, go to your uncle's house and borrow the wheelbarrow. Then go to Yahe Village and buy a hundred mud bricks. I want to build a oven and make snacks."
Blue bricks cost three cents a piece, and she couldn't afford them, so she bought mud bricks. She said oven instead of kiln or stove to give them a sense of freshness.
Qin was surprised and asked, "What kind of oven can you build?"
Xu Lanyin said nonsense, "When I was a child, I read a miscellaneous book in the Gu family, which contained a method of building a baking oven." She hugged Qin's arm and said coquettishly, "Mom, give me the 130 coins and let me do it this time according to my wish. I also want to earn some money for my family. If I fail, I will never do it again." After that, she shook Qin's arm.
Even Qin couldn't remember how long it had been since her daughter had acted coquettishly with her, and she smiled.
Xu Lanting had never seen his sister act like a spoiled child since he was a child. His older sister acted like everyone in the family owed her something. He smiled with his eyebrows curved and said softly, "Sister can act like a spoiled child too. I thought only Xiaomaner could do that."
Xu Lanzhou also liked this kind of delicate and sweet sister. Not only did he not object, he also nodded repeatedly to show that he was willing to be a laborer.
After dinner, Xu Lanyin prepared the rock sugar osmanthus sauce according to Qin's instructions.
The next morning, Xu Lanzhou gave the old couple a small bowl of osmanthus jam and half a bag of rose cakes, and borrowed the tricycle back.
Xu Lanzhou pushed the cart to buy mud bricks, while Xu Lanyin spent half the morning collecting herbs in the mountains behind the village. She had no desire to do this strenuous, low-paying job, but the original owner was as diligent as a bee, so she had no choice but to emulate him, not to set herself too far apart from him.
After returning home, she began to build an earthen oven on the west side of the upper room.
Now that her family had enough money to tide them over, Xu Lanyin, no longer interested in selling her family, wanted to open a dim sum shop. While it wasn't a prestigious profession, it was the only way she could think of to earn a little extra money while also keeping an eye on the Yi Ju Restaurant. Her mother in her previous life enjoyed making dim sum after retirement, saying it was a good idea, and she'd help out whenever she had time.
Xu Lanyin felt quite useless. She had been here for over a month, but she hadn't made a breakthrough like the time-traveling women in some books. She even made excuses for herself, saying that this was the difference in treatment between the heroine and the supporting actress. God would give you different treatment according to your personality.
In her previous life, she loved watching the videos of a female internet celebrity. That internet celebrity was also known as a well-known food blogger and a real-life dreamer, reportedly earning over 100 million yuan annually. Living in the city, Xu Lanyin deeply loved the fairy-tale-like mountain scenery she saw on her videos and yearned for that kind of self-sufficient, leisurely, and poetic life.
The scenery here is even more beautiful now than in the videos: distant, dark green mountains, chrysanthemums under hedges, flowing green water, mist lingering morning and evening, and a vegetable garden right outside. Life is self-sufficient, but it's far from leisurely or poetic. I worry about money every day and am exhausted.
She built a homemade clay kiln based on a video tutorial. Instead of cement, she used the sticky yellow mud used in building houses at the time. She didn't have glass bottles, so she used broken porcelain, which conducts heat better than glass. These broken pieces were what Xu Lanyin had collected and piled up in the backyard.
After the kiln was built, Qin and Xu Lanting burst out laughing. They had no idea that a clay stove could be so cute. It even had ears, and the stove mouth was actually a mouth.
However, before the stove was even built and used, the news that Gu Wangchen had passed the imperial examination spread throughout the village.
On the afternoon of August 20th, Xu Lanzhou, Xu Qingming, and Xu Dashi had just returned from a trip to the county town to buy wheat seeds. They had also brought back a small jar of sugar for Xu Lanyin. Xu Lanyin's private savings had all been used up.
Xu Lanyin said, "I remember that seeds should be soaked in warm water before sowing to facilitate germination." Although she didn't know much about farming, she had read this in the farming articles she had read in her previous life.
Xu Lanzhou glanced at her and said proudly, "What do you know! I've been farming for so long, and I've never heard of soaking seeds. Do you think you're cooking? I'm warning you, don't ruin my seeds..."
As he was speaking, he heard the sound of firecrackers and noise coming from outside.
Xu Lanzhou stood up immediately. "Gu Wangchen set off firecrackers when he passed the imperial examination. Could it be that he really passed the imperial examination?"
Xu Lanting pouted and said, "What should we do? If he becomes a juren, my elder sister will suffer even more."
Qin's face didn't look good either.
For so many days, their whole family prayed that Gu Wangchen would not pass the imperial examination. If he had only been a scholar, his ability would not have been great, and breaking off the engagement would have been much easier. But fate hadn't spared him, and he still passed. A juren could become an official, and not only would everyone in the village curry favor with him, even the county magistrate would give him some face.
Xu Lanzhou walked towards the courtyard gate and said, "I'm going to visit the Gu family."
As soon as he walked out of the yard, Xu Qingming came running over and said, "Mr. Gu has passed the imperial examination, and someone from the government has come to report the good news." He looked at Xu Lanyin angrily and sighed deeply.
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