Children who have fallen into the water are most afraid of getting tired, and that's exactly the case with Hongfang.
Lili shook her head: "Much better now, thank you for your concern, Grandma Wang."
Aunt Wang smiled and said, "Come visit Hongfang later, she keeps talking about it."
Lili hadn't played with Wang Hongfang for a long time, so she nodded and said, "Okay, tomorrow evening Lili will ask Sister Hongfang to go to the river to catch loaches."
Aunt Wang said she would tell Wang Hongfang when she got home, then turned and went to chat with Old Lady Shen.
Lili and her brothers were weaving flower baskets to pass the time. Of course, Lili was the only one who really knew how to play, while Shen Jiahao and the others could only stand by and watch Lili play.
In less than half an hour, they arrived at the Shen family's residence.
It was a bit stuffy in the grain yard. Grandpa Zhang was shirtless, helping others load rice. When he saw the Shen family pushing their cart in, he even counted the rice.
"Brother Shen, your family has the most rice in the whole village, it's truly enviable," Grandpa Zhang said with a smile to Old Man Shen.
The two had grown up playing naked since they were little, and Old Man Shen jokingly replied in familiar fashion, "Your family isn't bad either, why don't you share two bushels with me?"
"I'm fine with it, but I'm worried my husband won't let me eat."
Shen Jiahao pushed the cart over, and Grandpa Zhang smiled and patted Lili's head, saying, "Come on, Jiahao, pour all the rice here."
Cart after cart of rice was poured into the water mill. There were five water mills in the mill, and the men worked together to make it very fast.
The hulled rice slid down the bamboo tube under the water mill and into the prepared burlap sack.
Each sack can hold about 200 jin (100 catties), and the Shen family prepared seven sacks based on their estimated rice yield of 11 shi and 5 dou (11.5 liters).
As a result, after the seven sacks were filled to the brim, there was still a lot of rice left in the water mill, waiting to be packed into the sacks.
The Shen family was stunned. A sack could hold a maximum of 210 jin (125 kg), and these seven sacks were so full that they could not hold even a single grain of rice.
In other words, there are already 1,470 jin of rice, but there is still rice in the huller, which has far exceeded the Shen family's estimated yield.
Shen Lao Er stopped tying the sacks and, hearing the children shouting excitedly, quickly looked up into the water mill.
Sure enough, there was still plenty of rice in the long bamboo tube below the water mill, and it was still scrambling to slide down the tube.
Since the previous sack was already full, Shen Jiahao was using his hand to block the opening of the bamboo tube to prevent the rice from leaking out.
The tilted bamboo tubes caused the rice to pile up continuously. The Shen family had only prepared seven sacks, and there were no extra sacks at the moment.
Old Mrs. Shen was overjoyed; this was more than they had anticipated!
Shen Jialuo skipped and hopped, pointing excitedly at the rice inside the bamboo tube, and laughed with Lili: "Look, little sister, there's more than we counted!"
Lili squatted down next to the bamboo tube, picked up a handful of rice to look at it. The rice was white and plump, round and smooth like jade. Even though it hadn't been polished, it looked crystal clear.
"Wow, the aroma of rice is so strong!"
When Lili first arrived at the Shen family, she mostly ate the brown rice that the Shen family had stockpiled. It was rough and dry, and it was far inferior to modern rice.
Unexpectedly, this batch of rice not only has a large yield, but its quality is also quite good.
Lili was very satisfied and gave a thumbs up (666) to the old man who had arranged such a lucky fate for her.
This isn't just good luck; it's practically cheating!
Not only did her own luck improve, but her mouth also seemed to be blessed. Isn't that what that saying is all about?
Lili was beaming with joy, holding a handful of rice in her hand, when she suddenly made a gesture like Ultraman Tiga: "Life is as easy as turning your hand!"
Shen Jiahao shouted, "Lili, come quick and help your brother block the rice! The rice is about to fall!"
"Huh? Oh!"
Lili quickly put down her hands to help Shen Jiahao block the bamboo pipe opening. Yang had already gone outside to borrow a burlap sack. After finishing their work, Shen Lao Er and Shen Lao San immediately took the burlap sack from Yang and placed it under the bamboo pipe opening to collect the rice.
The rice pattered into the sack, a pleasant sound that delighted the Shen family, bringing smiles to their faces.
The rice filled another whole sack, and the Shen family's rice was finally all husked.
Grandpa Zhang clicked his tongue in amazement: "Brother Shen, how come your rice yield is so high?"
High yield is one thing, but the net weight after peeling is still this much?
Old Shen was overjoyed, but waved his hand modestly, saying, "It's alright, it's alright, who knows?"
Old Man Shen, unusually in the mood to boast, stroked his beard and was about to brag to Grandpa Zhang about how amazing his granddaughter was, when Old Woman Shen pulled him away: "Alright, alright, hurry up and go help weigh her."
Old Man Shen was taken away, and Grandpa Zhang followed behind, shaking his head.
There was no other reason than that he was genuinely curious about how much rice the Shen family had contributed in total.
Everyone carried bags of rice onto the scale, and finally the result was obtained.
Fourteen shi and four dou of rice yielded a total of twelve shi and three dou of rice.
One stone is 120 catties, which is 1,728 catties. One thousand four hundred catties and seventy-six catties were produced!
Lili was very satisfied with the rice yield of 85.41%.
The yield is about 296 jin per mu, that's a lot!
Liu rubbed her eyes, swallowed hard, grabbed Chen on her left and linked arms with Yang on her right, and asked incredulously, "How much? How much is this? I didn't see it wrong, did I?"
Madam Chen: "Sister-in-law, you didn't see wrong, it's twelve shi and three dou!"
Yang said, "This is too much. It's almost twice as good as when there's a lot of rain."
The three sisters-in-law hugged each other excitedly. Old Mrs. Shen and Old Mr. Shen kept checking until Lili read out the number again, and only then did the family dare to confirm that it really was twelve shi and three dou.
"My God, after paying 20% of the grain tax, we still have about 9.8 shi left!"
"Now we can have a mild winter, and we'll never go hungry again!"
With such a bountiful harvest, coupled with the grain stored in Liucheng, the Shen family will no longer have to worry about going hungry.
In previous years, Xinghua Village had its share of bumper harvests, and occasionally a few households had particularly good harvests. But this was the first time that Grandpa Zhang had seen someone with a harvest that was almost double the average level in Nanlin County.
Grandpa Zhang had a vague feeling about it when he was helping out, but seeing the numbers made him truly understand.
"My goodness, Brother Shen, your family is going to raise the average level of our Nanlin County."
Thanks to Lili, the whole village had a good harvest this year, barely reaching the average level of Nanlin County in previous years.
But it's not that exaggerated!
Grandpa Zhang was still in surprise and was about to run out to share the joy with everyone.
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