062, Father and Son Return to the Village
062, Father and Son Return to the Village
On the morning of October 30th, not long after the city gate opened, Lu Youtian drove a donkey cart rented from a car dealership, took his eldest son with him, and followed the team out of the city.
The big blue donkey he was pulling walked proudly on the road out of the city, heading towards Shihua Village.
"I can go back alone. Why did you come out with me? You might as well help your mother run the stall in the city and keep an eye on your two brothers." Originally, Lu Youtian wanted to go back alone, but his eldest son insisted on going back with him.
Their school had one day off every ten days, and the 30th happened to be one of them. Knowing that his father was going back to the village to attend Lu Zhiyuan's wedding, Lu Mingfei insisted on going back with his father. He didn't go back to attend Lu Zhiyuan's wedding, but simply because he was afraid that his father, this fool, would be coaxed back by his grandparents with a few nice words.
"I'm just afraid that you'll be easily influenced. Don't let your grandparents say a few soft words to you, and then your grandma will cry to you, and you'll hug them and cry your heart out." At the moment, only the father and son were there, and Lu Mingfei expressed his inner concerns without giving his father any face.
"..." The corner of Lu Youtian's eye twitched, and he wanted to whip his disrespectful son with the whip in his hand.
"Alas, Dad, it's not customary to hit children these days." Lu Mingfei saw his father's face, which looked like he wanted to hit him, and quickly smiled and hid to the side. However, there was only so much space on the donkey cart, so he had nowhere to hide.
To save his father's face, he changed his excuse and said, "I haven't been back to the village for a long time. I'll take this opportunity to go back with you to see the clan leader and his family." He still remembered how the clan leader helped them escape from the Lu family's old house. Although the clan leader took advantage of him, it was also a fact that he saved his father's life. He still had to find a way to repay this favor in the future.
It had been over eight years since their family left the village and they hadn't returned once. However, it wasn't as if they had lost contact with the villagers, as every day someone from their clan would go to the city to deliver bean sprouts and would bring some to their stall.
When people from the clan came to the city to deliver bean sprouts, they would also bring them some news from the village, as well as some news and gossip from the Lu family's old house. During festivals, their family would also prepare some gifts and ask the clan members who came to the city to deliver bean sprouts to take back to the clan leader and the village head and the headman's family. The clan leader and the village head's family would also give them gifts in return, so everyone kept in touch with each other.
As for the Lu family's old house, they had never sent anything. When they split up the family, they had clearly written it down in black and white. After the family split up, they would not be responsible for supporting the elderly or helping their brothers.
The people in the Lu family's old house had done such a ruthless thing. Even if they stopped sending things to the old house now, the villagers wouldn't say anything to them. Even if the people in the Lu family's old house went out and said something about the third branch, it didn't mean that the villagers would stand on the side of the Lu family's old house.
When it comes to growing bean sprouts, there are a lot of things involved.
In recent years, many families in their clan have made money by growing bean sprouts, but the exception is the group of people in the Lu family's old house.
Their old patriarch would definitely not single out any family when he led the clan to grow bean sprouts. Initially, the people in the Lu family's old house also joined the clan in growing bean sprouts, but it wasn't easy, especially in winter. They had to maintain both the temperature in the house and the humidity in the large vat, and someone had to watch the fire and sprinkle water at night.
Many families in their village had kangs (fired beds) or, like their current homes, built fireplaces for heating. Therefore, they needed to add firewood at night to maintain a warm temperature. Furthermore, bean sprouts require a high level of water to grow, and adequate water directly affects their yield. Therefore, they needed to water the plants every two hours, both day and night.
Lu Mingfei knew with a quick thought that the people in the Lu family's old house were incapable of such meticulous and arduous work. He only later learned that their clan leader had stipulated that the art of growing bean sprouts could only be passed down to male heirs, not females. If any family was found to have taught this art to a female child, they would be expelled from the clan.
Once it involves the issue of expulsion from the clan, it would be a severe punishment, so probably no one in the clan would take such a risk and do such a thing.
Lu Mingfei probably understood why the clan leader did this. After all, women had to marry, and once married, they would take the craft with them. Currently, his clan could make money from growing bean sprouts because the craft was in their hands. But if the skill spread and everyone knew how to grow bean sprouts, it would be difficult for his clan to make money from this craft.
So at this point, he probably understood why the ancients kept a craft so secret, because it was related to everyone's livelihood. This also led to many crafts being passed down from father to son, because they didn't want daughters to pass on their skills.
To get back to the point, it was precisely because the clan leader stipulated that the skill of growing bean sprouts could not be passed on to the girls in the family that the men in each family were responsible for it, and the Lu family's old house was no exception. So several of his cousins were arranged by the family to take turns looking after the bean sprouts.
Lu Mingfei knew the story behind this vegetable from his cousin who came to the city to deliver bean sprouts. The first batch of bean sprouts to the Lu family mansion were planted by his cousins, the sons of the first wife. They overwrought the first batch and ruined it. Then, the second and fourth wives took over, but their sprouts weren't good either.
Other families can grow good bean sprouts, so why can't the people in the Lu family's old house grow them well? There must be a reason for this. To put it bluntly, the people in the Lu family's old house are not working hard. The patriarch has clearly taught them the method, but they just can't do it.
Later, the people in the Lu family's old house finally grew the first batch of bean sprouts, but the bean sprouts they grew were very different from those grown by other families, so the patriarch directly refused to accept their bean sprouts.
Because the tribe's bean sprouts were delivered to the clan leader's home at dawn every day, and then the clan leader arranged for people to deliver them to the restaurants and hotels he had contacted, as well as to the homes of those who had ordered bean sprouts in the city. Therefore, the villagers were only responsible for growing the bean sprouts, and the customers for selling bean sprouts were controlled by the clan leader's family, or more precisely, by the clan leader's youngest son, Lu Shan.
Their clan leader has two sons and two daughters. Both daughters are married. The eldest son is farming in the village, and the youngest son, Lu Shan, works in the city. The bean sprouts grown by their clan were sold to major restaurants and hotels in Kyoto Prefecture. It was their clan leader's youngest son who made the connection.
The Lu family had finally grown bean sprouts, but the clan leader refused to buy them, so they had no choice but to sell them outside. But business wasn't easy. Several of his cousins tried to sell the sprouts, but when they couldn't, they brought them back home to eat. But growing bean sprouts required money and labor, and since they couldn't sell them, they couldn't make any money. After several attempts without success, the people at the Lu family's old house were unwilling to continue growing them.
So now every household in the clan who grows bean sprouts has made money, but the people in the Lu family’s old house can only watch helplessly from the sidelines.
Lu Mingfei wasn't surprised at all by this. When they were still living in the old Lu family mansion, all the housework was done by the women, and the men were only responsible for farming and working outside. As for his cousins, except for helping with farm work during the busy farming season, they didn't do anything else. Now that they were suddenly assigned work, and had to get up in the middle of the night to do it, none of his cousins were willing to get up and do it.
Sometimes he didn't know what to say to those people in the Lu family's old house. The family was so poor, but the boys in the family were raised like masters. They were all ambitious but incompetent and couldn't do anything.
In fact, Lu Mingfei said that the adults in that family also had serious problems, especially his grandparents, who were extremely son-centric. Or perhaps it should be said that they only favored the eldest grandson from the eldest son's family. However, his uncles and aunts, as well as his younger uncles and aunts, also raised their sons as treasures, while the girls were treated like grass in the field.
Thinking of his cousins at home, he hadn't seen them for many years.
Just when he was thinking about his cousins back home, his father suddenly asked him, "Do you still remember your eldest cousin?"
"Remember, is Sister Dahua married?" Lu Mingfei hadn't heard any news about these cousins for a long time, so he really didn't know whether the cousins in the old house were married or not.
If he remembered correctly, his eldest cousin was five or six years older than him. He was already thirteen years old this year, so his cousins were probably in their teens or twenty years old.
"No. I heard from your uncle Chunping that your elder sister Dahua is engaged this year. She's waiting for your eldest cousin to get married, and then she'll follow suit." Speaking of his niece's marriage, Lu Youtian couldn't help but sigh and said to his son, "Your grandmother said that since your eldest cousin isn't married yet, she won't let the younger ones step over him."
"Actually, it's not that simple here."
Speaking of this, Lu Youtian couldn't help but sigh again and said, "Actually, your grandma asked for a lot of betrothal gifts. How could ordinary people come up with such a large amount of betrothal gifts?"
"Then why did it get engaged this time? Is the gift from the other party very high?" Lu Mingfei asked curiously.
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