"Dad, our family is quite mysterious in the village now. Didn't the headman also want to trick you yesterday? Will he think that our family is not polite?" Tian said this to Dashan last night, but Dashan didn't care at all. She felt that she needed to remind her father-in-law again.
"This change happened after Chunxiao came. They weren't asking about me, they were asking about Chunxiao in disguise. There's nothing we can do about these rumors. We were told we can't talk about them. Let them guess if they want. But we do need to be more careful about Chunxiao, and everyone in our family should be paying attention too. Got it?"
Everyone nodded and continued to work.
In the evening, after everyone left, Chunxiao found a few bamboo strips and used a knife to scrape and grind them into narrow thick bamboo boards, with small bamboo branches on the edges.
Zhou was mending her father's socks. "I gave the money for the meat to your sister-in-law. What are you going to do now?"
"Last time when I bought a book for Shuwen, I wanted to buy a pen as well, but the pen was too expensive and I didn't think it was worth it. I wanted to make one myself and make two toothbrushes at the same time."
"You're the only one who likes to mess around all day long." Zhou smiled. "You can also make pens. If pens were that easy to make, how would people make money selling them?"
"Mom, making a pen isn't hard. The hard part is making it write well. But I don't have high expectations. Just writing is enough. Don't you see the pig hairs here? The soft ones are for pens, the hard ones are for toothbrushes. And then I need to use that thick needle to drill holes. It's really troublesome." There was no other way. I didn't have the right tools. I would have to tie it up bit by bit with fine cotton thread. Anyway, I had to collect charcoal later, so I had nothing to do anyway.
"It seems that this scholar's family has quite a few books, and you've learned a lot from them." Zhou suddenly fell silent and glanced at Chunxiao. "There's something I didn't want to tell you, but since you don't seem to mind, I thought I'd tell you anyway."
Chunxiao looked at her and said, "Just tell me."
"Yesterday I heard from the villagers, I don't know if it's true or not, that Zhou Hongzhi is going to marry the young lady from the Xu family in a couple of days. This news came from Zhoujia Village." Seeing Chunxiao's expression normal, "I'm telling you so you can have some peace of mind."
"It's his turn to marry. I'm very busy right now and don't have the time to attend his wedding."
Seeing her daughter like this, Zhou must have finally let it go. Every time she came back in the past, her daughter's behavior made her a little worried. She cared too much about her son-in-law, always taking care of Zhou Hongzhi meticulously and attentively. She must have been heartbroken this time, otherwise she wouldn't have acted as if it had nothing to do with her. This was a good thing. After the conversation ended, she didn't mention it again.
Chunxiao fiddled with the bamboo strips for an hour or so and then went to the backyard to collect charcoal. He was busy until late at night before he went to bed.
She woke up early the next morning before dawn, probably because she was worried about something. She didn't know what time it was. She lay in bed for a while but couldn't fall asleep, so she just got dressed and got up.
"It's not even daybreak yet. It'll be a while. What are you doing up so early?"
"Mom, you go to sleep. I can't sleep. It's almost time to get up anyway." She tucked Zhou's quilt in, got out of bed, lit the lamp, and sat in the main room to drill a hole in the brush handle. After a while, some light began to appear outside. After a while, the Dashan brothers came, followed by Yan Bangfa.
"Dad, you're not going to town today, why are you here so early?"
"I'll prepare the mud early so that the sun can come out and make bricks."
"Why is there only one basket of charcoal? There is still another basket here." Dahe looked at Chunxiao.
"Today, my brother and I are going to Lu Village. How come you can sell two baskets by yourself?" The ones left unpacked are the ones that were newly cooked last night.
"Take them all. We have to go through the town to get to Deer Village. You can help me take them to the town. I'll hand over some of the items that were ordered yesterday, and I'll sell the rest slowly. It's okay."
So the three of them set off, each carrying a backpack, but Chunxiao's backpack was empty.
The three of them all wore straw sandals. A large part of the ground was dry, but there were still some places where the ice had just melted and there was some mud. "Brother, haven't you been to Lu Village before? Is it the same as our village?" Lu Village was actually quite famous in their small town because of its good geology. Several wealthy lords had their manors built there, and most of the villagers nearby were tenants. It was their tenant village.
"Last time, before we even entered the village, we heard the old man who was buying charcoal say that only Lu Village knew about it. We delivered the charcoal to the entrance of a farm, collected the money, and left. You'll know when you see it later. That wall is so huge, it's like it surrounds our entire village. Just think about it, it cost dozens or even hundreds of taels of silver to build it. This farm is so big, and how much money they must make in a year. Otherwise, why would they give a reward of just one tael of silver? That one tael of silver is enough to support the farmers for several months."
"Are there any mountains over there?"
"Yes, the land is similar in shape to ours, but the houses are built differently. Several large courtyard walls are made of bricks. I don't know if it's the same in the village."
"The houses in the village must be made of mud." Erhe looked at the houses in the distance. "The people in the village over there are all tenants and they don't have their own land. They are worse off than us. How can they all be made of bricks?"
"That's true."
"Big brother, second brother, let's build a brick house when we make money."
"That's good, of course. But building a nice brick house would cost at least thirty or forty taels of silver, and then there are the household expenses. If you haven't saved up a few dozen taels, it's better to forget about it and leave some hope there."
"My family is fine. We only have two daughters. We just need to prepare some dowries. It doesn't matter whether we can build a brick house or not. But my eldest brother needs to work hard. When Shuwen and Xiaoqi get married in the future, they can get good wives if we have a nice house." Although he said this, Chunxiao felt that his second brother's tone was still a little sour. Maybe he was envious of his second brother because he didn't have a son.
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