After Zhou and his family returned home in the afternoon, Zhou took the daughters-in-law of several of her uncles' families to find Chen Kai's uncles, intending to trick them into helping them.
After Zhou and her family arrived at Zhou's eldest uncle's house, they asked Zhou's daughters-in-law to go back and call their fathers-in-law and husbands. Once everyone was gathered, Zhou told them about what had happened that day and her plan to rob them the next day.
Upon hearing what Zhou Shi said, Uncle Zhou asked worriedly, "Little sister, isn't it a bit inappropriate to just rob someone like this? Why don't you think about it again?"
Zhou said angrily, "Brother, this time it must be that Miss Bai who is behind it all. She wants to study our family's dyes. Last time, she invited our fourth son and a few children to dinner, trying to get information out of them."
“I’ve already found out that there won’t be many of them coming. When they leave, we’ll rush up to them, put sacks over their heads, beat them up, and then take the dye back.”
“We’ll just cover our faces, and they won’t know who stole it. Even if they report it to the authorities, there’s no evidence, and the county magistrate won’t care.”
"Once we get the dye back, I'll give you a share of the money."
After discussing it for a while, Uncle Zhou and the others said, "In that case, the bold will get rich and the timid will starve. We'll follow you."
That evening, Zhou told his family about his plan to rob the dye factory, and persuaded Chen and the others to agree.
Early the next morning, several sons and daughters-in-law of Chen Kai's uncles came to the Chen family. Zhou told them, along with the eldest and second eldest sons and their wives, to take some things and lie in ambush on the road. After the old woman and her people arrived at the Chen family, she told Da Ya to inform them to set up roadblocks and traps for them to take back.
The next day, just as the Chen family was about to have lunch, the old woman arrived at their home with three other people.
The old woman smiled and said, "Young lady, I brought money. I'll take all the remaining dye from your house."
The Zhou family had already moved all the remaining dyes from their home to the front yard. Pointing to the dyes in the yard, Zhou said, "The rest of the dyes are all here, a total of 30 buckets, costing 90 taels of silver. Do you have enough money?"
The old woman took out the money and said, "Here is 90 taels of silver. You can count it. If there are no problems, I will have someone take the dye away."
Madam Zhou asked Xiaotian and the others to count the silver to see if it was enough. Xiaotian counted it and said, "Grandma, it's exactly 90 taels of silver, no more, no less!"
Seeing that there was enough money, Zhou said happily, "Okay, you can start moving now! We won't be helping."
After the old woman and her people loaded all the dyes onto the truck, they left.
On the way back, the old woman was still happily thinking that with these dyes for Miss Bai, the young master and Miss Bai could finally be together.
She had no idea that they were about to have a really bad day. When Boss Chen and the others saw someone bringing dye over, they quickly signaled for the others to hide.
Old Chen said in a low voice, "We'll do it the way we planned. We'll put the people in sacks, knock them unconscious, and drag them to the roadside. We'll send a few people to search their pockets for money, and then we'll take the dye and run away as fast as we can."
After the Zhou and Chen families left, a long time passed before the robbed man woke up. The old woman realized they had been robbed and quickly told the others to find a carriage so they could go home and inform the young master.
The Chen family had already started eating. While they were eating, the eldest Chen said, "When we were lying in ambush just now, we heard people coming back from town say that they're going to start requisitioning grain again. It seems like another war is about to begin. I guess they'll notify our village soon."
Old Man Chen frowned and said, "Why are they starting to collect grain so early this year? We're just about to plant rice seedlings. Who has that much grain? Everyone is tightening their belts and saving every grain they can eat."
Zhou sighed and said, "Let's not talk about that now. Let's eat first. We just got so much money for nothing. Let's go to town in a few days and buy some more grain so that the price won't go up again."
Old Man Chen said, "Alright, we don't have much food left at home, let's buy more and store it. Daya, Erya, when you go out to cut pig feed these days, also pick some wild vegetables."
“Okay!” the children replied.
That day, when Chen Kai and Xiao Tian returned home, Daya ran over and said happily, "Uncle, Uncle, our hen laid another egg today."
A while ago, when Chen Kai saw Daya feeding the chickens, he mentioned to her that the book said you could feed the hens some earthworms so that they would lay more eggs.
Feeding chickens earthworms can promote growth and increase egg production in hens. Earthworm powder, as a feed additive in the chicken industry, can not only improve chicken production performance, reduce feed conversion ratio and production costs, increase weight gain and egg production rate, and improve the quality of chicken products, but also enhance chicken immunity and reduce chicken mortality.
Before Chen Kai could answer, Xiao Tian asked in confusion, "It's just an egg that laid, why are you so happy?"
Daya said with a smile, "Yesterday a hen laid an egg, and today another hen laid an egg. Our hens never used to lay eggs so often."
Upon hearing what Daya said, Zhou asked in surprise, "Daya, what did you feed the hen? How come it's laying eggs so frequently?"
Da Ya said, "A few days ago when I was feeding the chickens, my uncle told me that he read in a book that you can catch some earthworms to feed the chickens, which can increase the egg-laying rate of the hens. These past few days, when I was cutting pig feed, I caught some earthworms to feed the chickens, and after feeding them for a few days, the hens started laying eggs."
Zhou said happily, "That's great! Da Ya, you can continue catching earthworms to feed the hens! After we collect a few more eggs, I'll boil an egg for each of you."
"Okay!" Daya replied happily.
Today, the Chen family is starting to plant rice seedlings. Except for the two youngest children, Chen Kai and Xiao Tian, everyone else in the family has gone to the field to plant the seedlings.
There were many earthworms burrowing around in the ground. Da Ya and her friends even brought a wooden bucket to put the earthworms they caught. Ever since their family learned that hens lay more eggs after eating earthworms, they've considered earthworms a treasure. Seeing so many earthworms in the ground, they wanted to catch them all to feed their chickens.
Chen Kai felt sorry for the group of people sweating profusely in the field, but there was nothing he could do to help them. He could only earn more money in the future and persuade his parents to stop working in the fields so he could hire helpers.
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