On the way back, Tian was still cursing Ding Pingshun. She slapped her thigh and said, "I really shouldn't have asked you to treat him. He should have been so sick. He really can't live a good life. He wants to stir up trouble just because he has a little money."
Tian also knew about the high price of grain. She did not doubt its authenticity, but thought that the government bought high-priced grain to help the victims. She hated the unscrupulous businessmen who raised the price of grain, so she was unwilling to make such unscrupulous money.
"Do you know why my three children's names are all named after food?" she asked Jian Ning.
"I don't know, what's the explanation?"
"When my mother-in-law was still alive, she said that my husband was terrified of hunger when he was young. How could those grain merchants be so ruthless? The more disasters there are, the more they raise grain prices. They will never have a good life!"
"People still have to believe in karma. We just need to be ourselves and have a clear conscience. We shouldn't make money that we shouldn't make, and we should stick to our responsibilities."
After they returned, Tian's parents and brothers finished their meal and were about to go home. Ma Fuquan wanted to see them off, but her parents refused, saying they had eaten too much and wanted to walk back to digest the food.
In fact, the two elders were afraid of tiring their son-in-law.
Jian Ning watched them as they gave loving instructions to Tian and Ma Fuquan before they left, and felt secretly envious.
In her previous life, she had little kinship, and in this life, she had a pair of cheap in-laws, who were also worthless. However, people like Blind Liu, the village head, and the clan leader, who were not her relatives, made her feel a little warm, just like Grandma Wu in her previous life.
The Grand Tutor took his servant to the headman's house to rest in the evening. Before leaving, he made an appointment with Ding Youtian to go to the town together the next day.
"How about we just let the Master live in the house we bought in town? He has a carriage anyway, so it would be convenient for him to come and go every day. What do you think?"
After arriving home, Ding Youtian discussed with Jian Ning.
"Okay, he said he wants to stay for a while. It's not appropriate for him to live in the headman's house all the time. Why don't we let Meixiang take Ah Man with him?"
After washing up, Ding Youtian took a handful of bamboo strips back to his room and began weaving a wicker basket with an opening barely the size of a fist. He then used a knife to cut many smaller strips and carved words into them. Jian Ning asked him what he was doing with all this, and he said it was useful. Then he began humming a segment from Ma Futian's "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy." Jian Ning couldn't help but correct him when he heard his singing was so off-key.
Over and over again, he finally learned it.
Ma Fuquan's voice is powerful and deep, and his singing is quite imposing, while Ding Youtian's voice is clear and his singing has a different flavor. Jian Ning actually thinks it is not bad.
That night, she chatted for a long time with Ding Youtian who was sleeping on the bed through the bed curtains, and asked him how he knew about The Peony Pavilion. The Peony Pavilion was written by Tang Xianzu, a playwright and writer in the late Ming Dynasty. The anonymous person in this time and space could only be a time traveler, but no one knew which year he came from.
Ding Youtian replied that he had heard opera troupes perform when he was a student in town, and had also heard stories told by Blind Liu. He only knew that the creator was named Anonymous, and knew nothing else.
Jane Ning didn't know when she fell asleep. Anyway, she got up late in the morning and was awakened by Ma Xiaomai climbing over the newly built courtyard wall.
After practicing martial arts and having breakfast, the tutor came with his servant and brought the gong from the headman's house.
Ding Youtian borrowed the gong from the village head yesterday.
Jian Ning told the Taifu that he should move into the house he had bought in town, and the Taifu agreed immediately. He simply said that Meixiang and Ah Man wouldn't have to cook for him, as he would have to supervise the production of hybrid grain in the village every day after the Liuli transport convoy arrived. It would be better for him to pay some food expenses and eat at Jian Ning's place regularly.
His servant Lai Xi took out fifteen taels of silver and gave it to Jian Ning as food expenses for the master and servant. Jian Ning did not refuse and took it readily.
Because Cui Gu was taking a day off today, Jian Ning had not originally planned to go to the town with her. Master Ding San had gone to send Dabao and the others off, and Xiang Qian was not there, and the servant did not know how to drive the carriage.
She was just about to ask them to wait for Mr. Ding San to come back and then take them to town when she heard the tutor call Meixiang.
"You can do some work for Doctor Jian. The little barbarian doesn't need you to keep an eye on him all the time. Be more diligent and have a little more eyes. Didn't the mothers in the mansion teach you that?"
The Grand Tutor was a little displeased that he had to give the order personally for such a matter.
Meixiang wasn't a maid in Huo Jincheng's household, but in the Taifu's, and she had signed a death contract with him. How could she disobey? She secretly regretted that she had hesitated for a moment. She should have taken the initiative to ask when Jian Ning said she would not go to the town and would stay to make wine.
Ding Youtian asked Jian Ning to carry the backpack, and he himself carried the hen with a broken leg in a wicker basket, and in his hand he also held a small wicker basket he had woven last night. The Taifu had heard Jian Ning mention that he would earn 5,000 coins with this chicken today, and the Taifu was also curious, so he agreed last night to go together to witness it today.
Jian Ning drove the carriage, and Ding Youtian sat with her outside. Firstly, he was afraid that the chicken's shit would dirty the carriage, and secondly, there was no room inside the carriage. The carriage was full with the Taifu and his servants, A'man and the other girls, plus Maoqiu and Guoguo.
When they were almost in town, they ran into Uncle Ding Sanye, who had also heard about the chicken incident yesterday. He turned his car around and followed them to watch the fun.
After the two carriages stopped in front of the town's houses, Ding Youtian led them to the west street corner where he used to sell vegetables. He put the chicken coop and the bamboo basket he had woven last night on the ground, banged the gong, and shouted, "It's time to draw the prize! It's time to draw the prize! One penny for each draw! The winner gets this chicken..."
As soon as the gong sounded, he shouted a few times and a group of people gathered around him. In front of everyone, he took out a piece of bamboo from his arms and asked everyone to look at it. The one with the word "中" engraved on it was the winner.
Then he put the bamboo strips into the bamboo basket.
"I'll have a smoke." Someone took out a penny.
As soon as one came, a second one followed. Soon a long queue formed. People who came to sell and buy vegetables came rushing over. Many of them held up a copper coin in their hands and shouted as they squeezed forward.
Seeing this, the Taifu's servant stepped forward to help maintain order, and Mr. Ding San also helped to maintain it. By then, Jian Ning had understood that who wouldn't like such a good thing as exchanging a penny for a chicken? She took Ah Man, Da Niu and a few others to collect the money and recycle the bamboo strips.
There were no words on the bamboo strips collected. Only the one with the word "中" engraved on it would win the prize. Jian Ning saw him engraving words with a knife last night, so how come no one won after all the draws?
I don't know what the hell he is up to.
But there must be something to it.
In less than an hour, the backpack was half filled with copper coins. Ding Youtian announced that they would stop here today. He reached into the bamboo basket a few times. The first two pieces he pulled out had no words engraved on them. But when he pulled out the third piece, after a while, he found a piece with the word "Zhong" engraved on it. Everyone could only shake their heads and sigh that they were unlucky.
"What have you done? You are lying." After returning home to the town, Jane Ning took the bamboo basket and looked at it, but couldn't figure out what it was.
"If they weren't greedy, how could they have been fooled? I didn't force them to pay a penny for the lottery, so blame me~"
Ding Youtian glanced at her and said.
"That's right. If you don't have greed, you won't be fooled. How can you get such a good deal by making a small profit?" The Taifu praised Ding Youtian even more.
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