The matter of the watermelons couldn't be kept from those people at all. Even if they couldn't buy or eat them, were they not allowed to see them?
Upon closer inspection, it was astonishing. Even the maids, servants, and old women didn't recognize many of the strange and unusual things. They wondered how Yue Jiuyue had managed to grow them, and whether she was afraid they might be poisonous.
Eggplants and tomatoes, in particular, are beautiful; the more attractive and vibrant their colors, the more toxic they are—this is a fact known to everyone.
So even if some people grow tomatoes as pretty flowers, it's a very small minority. After all, tomatoes are poisonous. What if they get caught up in a power struggle within the family? If a poisonous plant is grown in the garden, everyone in the family can come into contact with it. If someone gets sick, who knows who the culprit is?
Yue Jiuyue explained patiently, one by one:
"This is an eggplant, this is a tomato, this is a chili pepper, and this is... I asked when I bought them, and they are all non-toxic. It's just that some people don't know how to eat them properly, which is why there are problems. Especially chili peppers, which are very spicy. If someone who has never eaten them before eats something too spicy for the first time, it can be bad for their stomach and cause stomach pain."
Everything else can be planted gradually, but chili peppers must be planted as early as possible.
Although she's not to the point of being addicted to spicy food, many dishes taste better with a little chili. It's not like she can't afford it, so of course she wants to treat herself as well as possible.
"Are those white, soft, fuzzy things flowers? And why are there pink flowers too? And what's that green one, a peach? What are these? They're so strange!"
Someone pointed to a field of cotton and asked.
"That's cotton."
Yue Jiuyue didn't say anything more about the rest, because she had only planted half an acre of cotton, which looked like a large area. She was really afraid that these people would ask her for some without hesitation. If each of them asked for one or two plants, she would have no way to refuse, and she would have nowhere to cry in the end.
Fortunately, everyone knew that the things grown on this land were, barring any unforeseen circumstances, to be offered to the emperor, so no one was so tactless or thoughtless as to ask her for them.
Yue Jiuyue breathed a sigh of relief.
It wasn't that she was worried about not having anything to offer the emperor. The fact that she had produced so many things to offer the emperor was the best form of advertising, and then she could just sit back and wait to collect the money.
But we can't keep buying seeds from the store forever, can we?
It's okay to change it, at least there's a source. But she's been making things up out of thin air, which puts a lot of pressure on her. She's afraid that someone with ulterior motives will find the source and discover the truth.
"Then, ma'am, could you give me one of those climbing flowers?"
A young lady pointed cautiously to the roses on the wall and asked a question.
Yue Jiuyue certainly didn't want to give it up; her family's wall wasn't even big enough!
However, Yue Jiuyue still reluctantly gave each of them a branch.
"This is called a rose. It can grow by sticking it in the soil. Most of the flowers in my house are propagated this way."
Those ladies and young women didn't know anything about growing flowers. They thought that all they had to do was stick rose branches into the soil and water them. They all went back to plant flowers with great joy.
Having finally gotten rid of these curious children, Yue Jiuyue felt she needed to quickly send Lin Chaonan to the county town to discuss the matter with Magistrate Tang and see how he would arrange things. Everything else was fine, but watermelons and tomatoes were delicate and easily damaged, so she had to find a way to deliver them safely to the capital.
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