Chapter 38 Delaying House Construction
Xie Wanniang, who was visiting the town for the first time, did not know about the Qin family's past, but she could deduce Li Hong's status as a son-in-law from the names Qin Ji, Qin Niangzi, and Li Hong.
She had no prejudice against the idea of a live-in son-in-law, but she was slightly curious whether Li Hong was the kind of shameless person who would live off a woman.
Together with Jiang Yuan, Xie Wanniang exchanged greetings with Li Hong, paid for the cloth, inspected the items provided by Qin Niangzi, and then wrote a receipt and handed it to Qin Niangzi.
Qin Niangzi saw them off to the shop door. Xie Wanniang waved to her, and then she and Jiang Yuan got into the carriage and left.
The carriage was piled high with things, and Xie Wanniang squeezed herself in between them with difficulty, while Jiang Yuan sat outside the carriage with Qin Niangzi's husband.
Neither of them were talkative, and after exchanging greetings, they both fell silent.
Xie Wanniang in the carriage didn't say anything either. She was recalling some of the more interesting things that were circulating in the town, which she had heard from the market and various shops.
Unfortunately, none of these news items concerned the Xie family or herself. Instead, it was her irresponsible father who, due to his high status and grand manners, became one of the topics of conversation among the townspeople.
From what she heard, her worthless father, after giving up on finding her, immediately took his mother and wife and left Qingxu Mountain.
She was perfectly healthy, and then she just disappeared without a trace, neither alive nor dead, and the other party showed no intention of investigating the truth or seeking justice for her.
According to the townspeople, when they were passing through Baihe Town, his second wife, who was the prime suspect in his murder, even came forward to receive several gentry ladies who had come to the post station to see him.
He said she was his only descendant and that he would treat her very well in the future, but what happened? She was murdered, while the perpetrator remained unharmed.
To put it bluntly, he just felt that since she was nowhere to be found, dead or alive, he couldn't count on her anymore, she had no value, and she wasn't worth him digging into her past and disrupting the facade of harmony in the family.
Whether she suffered an undeserved misfortune or not was of no importance to him or his mother.
Now Xie Wanniang is only curious about one thing: what is her biological mother's mood right now, who insisted on making her acknowledge her ancestors despite her and her adoptive father's strong opposition?
Think of the attitude of her biological father and so-called grandmother after she disappeared without a trace, and then think of what her biological mother had told her before: "I'm doing this for your own good," "He's still your father, blood is thicker than water, he still loves you," "You're their only heir, how could they possibly mistreat you?" "..."
Xie Wanniang only wanted to say one thing: her mother was truly "a master of the Eighteen Subduing Dragon Palms, each one relying on her face to withstand it."
If it weren't for the fact that she didn't want to reveal that she was still alive, she really wanted to run up to her mother and ask her questions back, one by one:
"Your so-called 'for my own good' is just sending me into a den of wolves and tigers, making me live a terrifying life where I could die at any moment?"
"Didn't you say that he's still my biological father, and that he loves me? Is this how much he loves me?"
"Didn't you say they wouldn't mistreat me? Then how come I was harmed and they acted like nothing happened?"
"That princess is showing up everywhere, clearly demonstrating her power to you. Didn't you feel a pang of jealousy when you heard that?"
After giving her mother a piece of her mind a good scolding from afar, Xie Wanniang finally calmed down a lot.
The job she got from Qin's Cloth Shop could last her half a year, even if she only spent an hour a day on it. However, considering that the amount offered was too much, Xie Wanniang didn't intend to actually wait until the deadline stipulated in the contract to deliver the goods.
That's two hundred taels! If she doesn't get it quickly, what if things change and she ends up with nothing?
Eager to receive the money, Xie Wanniang planned to dedicate more time to embroidery in the future, and for this purpose she even bought a new oil lamp and some lamp oil.
With the two new lamps and the old one on, the brightness should be just right.
In short, in order to make money, Xie Wanniang decided to temporarily sacrifice her bright, sparkling eyes.
Jiang Yuan and the others were allowed to prepare breakfast and dinner as much as possible, so that they could spend half an hour embroidering, and then stay up late every night to embroider for more than an hour.
In addition, there are frequent rainy days in the summer, so people can't go up the mountain to collect herbs on rainy days and have to stay at home to do embroidery.
With so much extra time to catch up on the work, optimistically speaking, she could finish it in two months.
The only downside is that she has to postpone the construction of the house.
But that's alright. Once she gets the two hundred taels of silver for this job, she can not only buy a plot of land to build a house, but also acquire some land near Mingfu Village to rent to villagers with limited land.
Having lived in the ancient society where food and clothing were scarce for so many years, Xie Wanniang had come to realize that in a society with low productivity and countless people going hungry year-round, the most important things for her, who regarded survival as the top priority, were never gold and silver jewelry, but rather food, cloth, salt and other sustenance supplies.
As the old saying goes, "Life is all about food and clothing." After solving the major problem of housing, her next priority is to ensure that she can stay warm and well-fed.
After returning to the village in the cloth shop's carriage, Xie Wanniang carefully jumped off the carriage amidst the onlookers and chatter of the village children as they arrived at Jiang Yuan's house at the end of the village.
After she got off, Jiang Yuan and Qin Niangzi's husband worked together to quickly move the things from the carriage into the kitchen, the main room, and Xie Wanniang's room, sorting them out by type.
While they were working, Xie Wanniang quickly cooked brown sugar eggs to serve the guests.
Of course, she didn't just cook a portion for Li Hong; she also cooked one for herself, Jiang Yuan, Hao Yu, and Xiao Yang.
After Li Hong drove the carriage out of the courtyard and returned to town alone, Xie Wanniang divided the brown sugar and eggs in the pot into four portions and placed them on the wooden table in the main room.
She reheated the twenty steamed buns filled with chives and pork that she bought in a pot.
She also made a large pot of minced meat and tofu, and stewed half a pot of chili and eggplant.
The four of them sat around the table and enjoyed a delicious and satisfying lunch.
After the meal, Hao Yu took over the cleaning of the pots and pans, while Jiang Yuan first carried a basket to deliver gifts before taking his tools and going into the mountains to hunt.
As for Xie Wanniang, she first marinated the ribs and most of the remaining pork belly with a small amount of salt, and then cut the lard into pieces, rendered it into pork fat and stored it in a jar.
A little bit of the pork cracklings was given to Xiaoyang, and the rest was mostly put away in the cupboard to be used for making dumplings or steamed buns tomorrow.
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