Chapter 87
The opening of the new shop attracted many people from the town to join in the fun.
Mu Jin brought a basket of wild fruits to share with customers who came to the shop, so they could have a taste. These small favors were enough to leave a good impression.
Mu Zhaoye had a good business sense; the catalogs on the counter and the furniture inside, including the styles of tables, chairs, and benches, were specially bought from the prefectural city.
Qingshui Town is bustling and lively, with many households. Because of its novel style, the shop secured five or six orders not long after it opened.
When the work arrived, Zhou Lin and Mu Heng stopped staying in the front and went back to the backyard to get to work according to the client's instructions.
As noon approached, the number of people in the shop gradually decreased.
When Mu Jin had a spare moment, she went upstairs and helped spread out the bedding that Zhou Lin had brought. She gently dusted off the quilt so that it would be softer and more comfortable to sleep in.
Bai Qiqiu and the others helped out until noon, had lunch in town, and then returned to the village.
The group chatted and laughed, their faces beaming with joy, clearly filled with hope for the future.
"Big brother, you're finally back!"
As soon as Mu Jin arrived at her doorstep, she saw Mu Bai sitting at the gate waiting for them, holding five red eggs in his hands. She immediately stood up.
"What's wrong?"
Mu Jin opened the courtyard gate and saw Mu Bai's face full of joy. She also noticed the red egg in his hand and understood what was going on.
Mu Bai's eyes sparkled, and she started gesturing wildly, laughing and complaining at the same time.
"Big brother, Uncle gave birth to a little brother for us last night. He's so ugly, like a monkey, and not even as long as my arm."
Mu Jin smiled, not expecting it to happen so quickly, but if you think about it, it should have been in the last few days.
Most of the relatives on the maternal side go back to visit when the baby is one month old.
Mu Jin and Zhou Ling didn't have a good relationship, so she didn't plan to go home to fawn over him and see his newborn little brother.
"Why aren't you at home taking care of your stepfather? Why are you running around everywhere?"
Red eggs can be delivered by my father and aunt.
"Big brother, I was so happy that I took on the job of delivering eggs to you. It was really not easy for my brother to be born. You don't know, last night, in my uncle's room, basin after basin of bloody water was being poured out. It really scared me."
Mu Bai was young and the youngest child in the family, so he had never seen a woman and her husband give birth.
The bright red blood, coupled with Zhou Ling's wailing in the room, was truly terrifying.
Mu Jin sighed. For a woman and her husband to give birth, it was truly like walking through the gates of hell.
Back in the kitchen, Mu Bai placed the red eggs into an empty bowl on the dining table.
He picked out a basket of wild fruits and a few eggs and handed them to Mu Bai.
“Your father just gave birth, and it’s not appropriate for your brother-in-law and me to go home to visit him right now. Take these wild fruits and eggs back with you so your father can have a taste.”
Mu Bai nodded, and without standing on ceremony with his elder brother, reached out and took the bamboo basket.
"Big brother, you don't know how happy Dad is. He hasn't stopped talking since last night. He said he's going to throw a big full moon celebration for my little brother. You and your husband should remember to come."
Mu Jin smiled and nodded gently.
After seeing Mu Bai off, Bai Qiqiu peeled a hard-boiled red egg and handed it to Mu Jin.
"Brother, have a couple more, and share in the joy."
As he spoke, he glanced at Mu Jin's belly, and he was quite looking forward to Mu Jin giving him a little nephew to play with.
Mu Jin blushed slightly. "You can eat it, there's plenty more."
Wen Zhaoran hadn't even married into the Mu family yet, but she already had a younger brother-in-law. She rested her chin on her hand and sighed softly.
"Sigh, I thought that since Uncle Mu only had one son, Mu Zhou, I wouldn't have to deal with my sister-in-law anymore... Sigh..."
Mu Jin chuckled and fed him a bite of red egg.
"Try your brother-in-law's red eggs."
Bai Qiqiu chuckled, almost spitting out the egg in his mouth.
He swallowed hard, then sighed and laughed, "Zhaoran, you're thinking too far ahead. By the time your brother-in-law gets married, you might already be in the capital with Muzhou, becoming an official's husband. How will you still be able to live with your sister-in-law who's nowhere to be found?"
Wen Zhaoran swallowed the egg in her mouth, and after thinking about it, she couldn't help but laugh at herself, realizing she had been worrying unnecessarily.
After finishing the eggs, Mu Jin quickly fed the livestock and poultry in the house.
The north wind was howling, and the woodshed was piled high with firewood and sacks of dried pig feed.
The carpenters' business in town gradually stabilized, and Zhou Lin was busy managing both the village and the town, barely having time to spare.
Before we knew it, the first snow of winter fell.
The entire courtyard was stained white, and the branches of the trees were covered with white flowers.
As the snow gradually accumulated, Mu Jin used a broom to sweep the snow in the yard to both sides, so that it wouldn't be compacted and difficult to sweep after people stepped on it.
Bai Qiqiu and Wen Zhaoran also came out of the house. Undeterred by the cold, they rolled two snowballs out laughing and joking.
They piled up a big, round, chubby snowman and placed it at the entrance of the yard.
The group's jet-black hair gradually turned the color of snow.
The distant green mountains gradually turned white.
Hibiscus couldn't help but think of a line of poetry she had read in a book before.
The green hills are not old, but they are covered in snow.
He, Bai Qiqiu, and Wen Zhaoran, though young, had already grown old along with the snow.
Bai Qiqiu looked at Wen Zhaoran and Mu Jin and said with a smile, "Big brother, Zhaoran, the three of us can be considered to have grown old together."
The group laughed heartily, filling the empty courtyard with their voices.
Bai Qiqiu and Wen Zhaoran played in the snow until their hands were red. They didn't feel cold while playing; in fact, they felt a little hot.
When I returned to the kitchen at noon, I realized my hands were cold, so I warmed them by the fire in the stove.
In winter, there aren't many fresh vegetables to eat, and the chickens and ducks at home have stopped laying eggs because they're frozen. The rice noodle shops in town only serve cabbage these days, so our family's income has decreased significantly.
Snowflakes fell continuously until Zhou Lin returned.
Mu Jin brushed the snow off him with a cloth. "Why are you back so early today?"
Zhou Lin exhaled a puff of white breath, his face turning bright red from the cold wind carrying snowflakes.
“It’s getting colder today,” Zhaoye said. “We should take the timber back to the master craftsman. We can make the smaller pieces in the village and then take them back to town to save us the trouble of going back.”
Mu Jin handed him a bowl of hot water. "We still have to go to the rice noodle shop. It's better to do the work in town."
In this way, we can also catch a ride on Uncle Heng's oxcart.
Zhou Lin laughed and said, "In winter, cabbage can be stored. The rice noodle shop owner said that he just dug a cellar in the shop's yard and asked me to deliver 100 catties to him tomorrow so that he won't have to go there every day."
Mu Jin smiled and said, "That saves me some trouble."
Zhou Lin nodded, and after drinking a bowl of hot water, he felt a little warm.
With the jobs in town moved to the village, Zhou Lin could go home every day, which was much more comfortable than staying in town.
Hibiscus broke off the slightly spoiled cabbage stalks and threw them aside, planning to feed them to the pigsty later.
The rest of the water was scooped from the water tank and rinsed a little.
Nowadays, there are three large water vats in the kitchen. Since the dye shop doesn't need that many dye vats, they put the two extra dye vats in the kitchen and used them as water vats.
I chopped the cabbage into sections and filled a big bowl. Hibiscus planned to stew the cabbage, tofu, and glass noodles.
This dish tastes best when stewed with animal fat; otherwise, it won't have that wonderful aroma.
As soon as the cabbage was put into the pot, it made a sizzling sound. In no time, the cabbage in the pot became soft and mushy, and it looked like there was much less cabbage left.
The food is served. Nowadays, the days are getting shorter and there's not much farm work to do, so the family usually eats only two meals a day.
If I get hungry at night, I'll eat a piece of pastry to fill my stomach.
As a result, everyone ate more than usual at lunchtime in the afternoon.
As soon as it got dark, there wasn't much to do in the village, so after cleaning up the dishes, most of them went back to their houses.
Today, however, Bai Qiqiu and Wen Zhaoran mysteriously called out to Mu Jin and Zhou Lin as they were about to return to their room, and then took out a bundle from inside the room.
It was making a clanging and clattering sound, and it wasn't just any thing.
It was placed on the clean wooden table with a loud thud.
What is this?
Mu Jin pulled Zhou Lin along as they walked over.
Wen Zhaoran smiled and said, “Big brother, a couple of days ago, Qi Qiu and I secretly went to Gujia Village to see the descendants of General Yan. We saw a few men playing this thing in the sun at the entrance of the village. Later we found out that it was mahjong. The nobles in the capital love to play it. We learned it for a while and found it quite interesting, so we bought a set.”
I've heard of hibiscus, but I've never seen one.
Hearing this, he couldn't help but become a little interested and pulled Zhou Lin over to sit down.
Wen Zhaoran and Bai Qiqiu taught the two of them how to play for a while. Once the two got the hang of it, they asked for a coin as a prize, and the four of them started playing excitedly.
Bai Qiqiu played a card and immediately won five coins from Mu Jin and the others, making him extremely happy.
He sighed, "This is much more fun than going back to my room to sleep."
Indeed, by the time the group had finished their game, the roosters had already crowed.
On the dinner table, a package of chestnut cakes was empty, with only a piece of oil paper remaining.
The kitchen door opened, a cool breeze blew in, and the oil paper gently fell to the ground.
As dawn broke in the east, the four men, their eyes dark and swollen, exclaimed, "It's...it's dawn?!"
Wen Zhaoran yawned widely, tears welling up in her eyes, "I'm going back to my room to sleep."
Once the excitement wore off, the four of them could barely keep their eyes open.
Zhou Lin forced himself to go to his master's place, but he was too exhausted to do any work, so he had to take half a day off. When he got home, he collapsed into bed and never woke up again.
None of them could have slept more soundly than at that moment.
Luckily, our home is far from the village; otherwise, sleeping soundly in broad daylight would surely have made us a laughingstock among the villagers, who would call us a family of lazybones.
At noon, Mu Jin slowly woke up, still feeling incredibly sleepy, but her stomach was already rumbling loudly.
Mu Jin woke up with a headache and breathed a sigh of relief. She was already married, yet she had no self-control and had gone out partying all night.
Seeing that Zhou Lin was still fast asleep, he quietly got out of bed and went to the kitchen to cook a simple lunch.
Bai Qiqiu rubbed his eyes and entered the kitchen, asking in a hoarse voice, "Brother, what time did you get up?"
"Just got up, go fetch some water to wash your face."
Bai Qiqiu staggered to the water vat and almost fell in headfirst, but luckily Mu Jin was there and pulled him out.
Mu Jin sighed and smiled, "We can't do this again."
Bai Qiqiu scooped up a handful of water and washed his face; the coolness made him feel much more awake.
"It all depends on Zhaoran."
Last night, if Wen Zhaoran hadn't calmly and repeatedly played another round, they wouldn't have gone to sleep until dawn.
Mu Jin chuckled. It was just that Zhao Ran had spoken, and the others were simply going along with it.
To put it bluntly, all four of them were completely out of their minds.
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