"Okay," the butcher agreed with a smile, "I'll make sure it's all done by this morning."
His expression remained unchanged, but he was calculating in his mind: one head costs twenty coins, so he could earn two hundred in a morning.
It's half the income of selling pork, but it's not market day today, so no one's buying meat. I'm just sitting here anyway, so it's like I've made two hundred coins for nothing.
With this in mind, his movements became even more swift and efficient.
After Huang Xiaoliu was forced to look at every single one of them, all four of his legs went limp.
After leaving the house, he bumped into Huang Lao Er hard, then ran away without looking back.
Seeing this, the dog next to them followed closely and disappeared in a short while.
The butcher watched them leave thoughtfully, then chuckled, "Maybe I'm overthinking it."
They're just a bunch of beasts; how could they possibly understand these things?
Huang Lao Er thought Huang Xiao Liu had run away from home and was afraid of being scolded by his family, so he muttered a curse under his breath and hurriedly ran over to look for him.
Zhuangzi.
Although they were delayed by Huang Xiaoliu's matter, the group still arrived at their destination by Chenshi (7-9 AM).
The sun's red glow had faded, and the sun grew brighter and brighter. The dew had not yet completely evaporated, leaving the area slightly damp.
Yesterday was a busy day, but thanks to the extra income, Han Lao felt he could work for another twenty days.
"Boss, should we step up our efforts and finish harvesting all the wheat tonight?"
"It's not good to harvest wheat in the dark. You should all get some rest. Anyway, we can finish harvesting tomorrow. It doesn't look like it's going to rain, so there's no rush."
"It's alright," Old Han explained guiltily. "Actually, in previous years I would go back after harvesting until midnight. But yesterday the scythe was so good, it was seven or eight times faster than before, so the old man forgot about it."
"Cutting until midnight?" Jiang Nuan's eyes widened in surprise. "Can you handle that?"
Farmers usually get up with the weather, mostly around dawn, and the Huang family is no exception.
However, it gets light early in the summer, so you can get up around 4 a.m. If you go back in the middle of the night, you won't get to sleep for more than a few hours.
They're practically risking their lives!
"Whether we can handle it or not, we have to work," Old Han sighed. "If the grain rots in the ground, the whole year's work will be wasted."
This year I found some great stuff, which saved me so much trouble.
“That’s true, the weather changes so fast, it can start raining anytime,” Jiang Nuan said helplessly. “The sooner we finish our work, the sooner we can have peace of mind.”
Even if no grain is harvested, tax grain still has to be paid; with this pressure, there's no way not to fight.
"Has Madam agreed to do the work tonight?"
“There’s no need for that,” Jiang Nuan looked up at the sky, where the sun was shining brightly and the sky was clear. “It hasn’t rained for the last five or six days, so nothing will happen. By the way, have you harvested your own grain yet?”
"The land belonging to the landlord comes first. We don't have much land at home, so we can go back and harvest a little bit when we have time. We can finish harvesting in a few days."
Jiang Nuan nodded gently, "If you find the sickle inconvenient to use, then use the saber."
He paused for a moment, then added, "No need to pay rent."
Upon hearing this, Elder Han moved his lips but ultimately did not refuse. He bowed deeply and then left.
Before long, Jiang Nuan noticed that the tenants were working even harder than yesterday, each one working like their lives depended on it, as if they couldn't feel the increasingly hot sun at all.
Jiang Nuan felt uneasy about her conscience, but the elderly people were very satisfied.
“Our tenants are really good. They are honest, kind, hardworking, and don’t cheat or shirk their duties. No one of them secretly hides grain in their crotch.”
The compliments at the beginning were fine, but what was with that last sentence?
“These are all unthreshed wheat ears,” Jiang Nuan said speechlessly. “They’re covered in awns; you could prick your skin with just a touch. Are you out of your mind to hide them on your body?”
"You're making a fuss over nothing," Old Mrs. Jiang said in a tone as if she were a girl who had never seen the world. "It's perfectly normal. These are grains. Don't even mention wheat awns, even iron needles, do you believe people would still put them in their pockets?"
“That’s right, when it’s time to harvest grain, relatives don’t visit each other, that’s what they’re afraid of,” Grandma Huang chimed in. “Each person can hide a little and fill up with ten or so pounds.”
“Don’t even mention relatives, people steal from our own village,” Old Mrs. Jiang said with a gloomy face. “Last year, someone took advantage of the time when your brother came home for dinner and cut two or three rows of wheat. I was so angry that I sat in the middle of the village and cursed for two hours until my throat was hoarse.”
Upon hearing this, Jiang Nuan had a renewed appreciation for her mother's fierceness.
"Have you found them?" Old Mrs. Huang didn't see anything wrong. "We can't just swallow this loss like this?"
“Found her,” Grandma Jiang said proudly, raising her chin. “When I found out who it was, I scratched her face so badly that I made Jiang Xu carry a bag of grain home.”
"You're too good-natured," Old Mrs. Huang frowned. "You should have extorted her hard back then and made her behave herself!"
Whose grain isn't produced through tireless work day and night?
They only know how to steal from others; they have no shame whatsoever.
Upon hearing this, Grandma Jiang glanced around uncomfortably, "She's shameless, how can we be like her?"
She didn't want her in-laws to know that she had extorted forty or fifty catties of grain.
It's said to have three rows, but there aren't actually any.
The old woman was afraid people would notice that she was only cutting vegetables by jumping, so the vegetables weighed at most thirty or forty pounds, but she made her son carry a hundred pounds back.
That made him so angry that he fainted.
This is too embarrassing to talk about, she doesn't want to say anything about it.
“That’s true,” Grandma Huang nodded in agreement. “They may be shameless, but we must be.”
Jiang Nuan didn't know how to respond to their conversation, so she simply changed the subject, "Why hasn't the second brother arrived yet? Hasn't he finished his business yet?"
"You castrate pigs quickly?" Old Mrs. Jiang shook her head. "Ten or so pigs, it would take at least an hour."
"I don't know how many will survive," Old Mrs. Huang said with heartache. "If they die, all the money spent on buying piglets will be wasted."
If Jiang Nuan hadn't insisted, Old Lady Huang would have definitely stopped it.
Even if it's slow to grow, it's better than dying.
“It’s not like they’ll all die,” Jiang Nuan said dismissively. “As long as they survive, they can grow back as much as they want and still make back all that flesh.”
"Who knows if we can make it back? Piglets are much more expensive than pork."
Otherwise, why doesn't anyone do this?
"No, let go..."
Before she could finish speaking, Jiang Nuan heard a soft moo and looked up to see Huang Xiaoliu running towards her.
Feeling wronged, frustrated, listless, and utterly hopeless.
It was as if he had suffered unbearable torment, and his heart was filled with despair.
Jiang Nuan stood up, crossed her arms, and asked directly, "Do you know you were wrong?"
Moo!
Huang Xiaoliu looked at Jiang Nuan with a pleading and aggrieved expression, but without a trace of hostility.
She forced herself to turn her face away to avoid softening her heart, and said coldly, "There are so many extraordinary people and things in the world. If you can get an opportunity, why can't others? If you always act so recklessly, what will you do when you encounter a tough opponent in the future?"
Moo!
This time, its voice was a little weak.
"Don't think you're fearless just because you're strong. You can handle ten or twenty people, but can you handle one or two thousand, or even ten or twenty thousand?"
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