She distributed the candied haws wrapped in oil paper to the four children one by one. After they ran away with happy smiles, she gave the remaining three to Jiang Wei.
Afterwards, she ran to Li Qiaoer's house and gave the two of them the fifty cents she earned from selling embroidery.
Li Qiaoer's parents were honest people and they sympathized with Xia Shuanghua's situation. Seeing that she could not support herself alone, they proposed that Xia Shuanghua be their goddaughter and sleep with Li Qiaoer.
Before leaving, she said, "If you want to sell embroidery, why not ask my sister Jiang Wei to draw the pattern? You can decide after you see it."
Xia Shuanghua thanked him repeatedly, and finally asked, "Sister Ah Xu, you've helped me so much along the way, and I don't know how to repay you. If there's anything I can do for you, just let me know. I'll definitely answer!"
Jiang Huaixu thought for a moment and said, "Right now, I do need your help, but it's not for free. I'll pay you. You two can come to my house later and I'll tell you what to do."
The two refused to accept their wages, so Jiang Huaixu had no choice but to say firmly, "This job isn't something you do today and then forget about tomorrow. It's a long-term commitment. Sister Qiao'er, your brother and sister are still young, and our parents are the only ones supporting the family. If you can earn some money to help support the family and keep some for yourself, you'll have a stable future. As for Sister Shuanghua, there's no need to worry about that either. Think about it carefully and come back to me after dinner."
Jiang Huaixu didn't feel hungry in the evening, so he didn't eat. Today, Jiang Boliang built the straw hut and tied the donkey to the millstone. Now he was just waiting for the iron plate and five-spice powder.
After dinner, Li Qiaoer and her friend, along with other women in the village who wanted to do some work, came over. Jiang Huaixu showed them the spices he had bought and told them to come to his house early the next morning to grind the spices into powder.
She did not plan to mix the spices and then grind them into powder. Instead, each person ground a different one and then mixed them themselves, so that only they knew the proportion of each spice.
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