In the evening, after a long day, no one wanted to go through the trouble of cooking a big meal. Dan Niang and Li Da Sao prepared shredded pork noodles, which were filling and meaty.
The Taoist priest finished a large bowl of noodles in one go, let out a long sigh of relief, and said, "After a long day, eating a bowl of hot noodles is simply the best thing ever."
Lu Chuan also said, "It's delicious. One bowl isn't enough. I'll get another bowl. Do you want more?"
While eating what was in her bowl, Mu'er raised her hand and said, "Daddy, I want more."
After saying that, he picked up the bowl, tilted his head back, and drank the last bit of noodle soup in it.
Seeing that her brother had finished eating, Ze'er also sped up her eating, saying, "I'm done too, I want some too."
Lu Chuan took the bowls from his two sons and was about to leave with the tray when the Taoist priest called him back, "There are some for me too."
Grandpa Zhao also said, "I'll have another half bowl."
Seeing that everyone was getting more rice, Xu Han suddenly felt that she could eat another half bowl. "I'll have half a bowl too."
Lu Chuan took the bowls handed to him by everyone, and carried the tray out.
Xu Han followed and added some more water to the kettle before returning.
After everyone finished dinner, they sat in the backyard peeling corn husks and chatting about tomorrow's work.
Xu Han said, "There's no room to dry the rice in the yard, and there's still rice in the field that hasn't been harvested. Should we continue harvesting tomorrow? There's nowhere to dry it after that."
The Taoist priest replied, "I saw today that all the rice in the paddy field is ripe. If we don't harvest it soon, it might fall to the ground. Why don't we just harvest it all while it's still hot tomorrow?"
Lu Chuan chimed in, "I also think it's better to harvest them all at once. The harvested rice can be threshed directly, and if we work overtime today to husk the corn, we can free up space tomorrow."
The servants who hadn't gone back also agreed, saying, "Yes, if we really can't dry them all, we can pile the soybeans together first, and that will free up space. As long as they're harvested, there will always be a place to dry them."
Xu Han thought about it and felt that what everyone said made a lot of sense, so she agreed, "That's fine too. But let's not work overtime peeling corn. Everyone has had a long day, so let's all go home and rest early."
"When you go to harvest the rice tomorrow morning, have these girls stay behind to husk the corn, so that you can manage both tasks without delay."
Zhou said, "That's fine, but it's not too late yet. Let's help peel some more. There's a lot of corn in these four acres. We can't rely on just a few of them."
"There are many of us, so we can peel quite a few in no time."
No one else objected, so everyone peeled some more corn husks.
The corn husks that had been peeled off were quickly piled up, and Wang Lin and Zhu Chunsheng began to transport them outside.
Lu Chuan instructed, "It's too late now, and the road is difficult to travel in the dark. It's also not easy to transport the goods to the open space over the valley. Just pile them up at the entrance of the yard for now, and transport them over there when it's light tomorrow."
"Okay, we got it."
The group worked for another half an hour before the servants headed towards the valley.
That evening, while drying her hair, Xu Han said to Lu Chuan, "I didn't expect that with more people, we could get the work done so quickly. In previous years, it would have taken us three or four days to finish. Look, with more people, we've harvested all the corn and soybeans in just one day."
Lu Chuan put down the cloth in his hand and came over to help Xu Han dry her hair. "Yes, these twenty-odd acres of land are nothing to us. When we have nothing to do in the winter, I'll take them out to develop the land."
"Otherwise, the grain grown on these few acres of land wouldn't be enough to feed so many of us."
Xu Han laughed and said, "We need to cultivate a few more acres of land, otherwise, at this rate, everyone will probably go hungry."
Lu Chuan then said, "You don't need to go to the fields tomorrow. Just stay home with them and peel corn."
"Okay, I won't go. I'll just stay home, peel corn, and cook."
As she spoke, Xu Han felt her eyelids getting heavier and heavier. She had gotten up early that morning and worked all day, and now that she had just relaxed, she was suddenly overcome with sleepiness and could no longer stay awake.
In the end, Xu Han fell asleep before her hair could dry completely.
Lu Chuan glanced at his sleeping wife, feeling incredibly sorry for her.
Why does it suddenly feel like even though we already have servants at home, my wife is still getting tired?
It seems Xu Han can't cook by herself tomorrow either. Cooking for so many people by herself is a huge undertaking. We'll have to call Dan Niang back to help tomorrow.
Lost in thought, Lu Chuan drifted off to sleep, and when he opened his eyes again it was already the next day.
Today was another busy day. I was working from the moment I opened my eyes, without a moment's rest.
The couple each led different people to do different jobs; Lu Chuan was in charge of the outside work, while Xu Han was in charge of the home work.
Not only that, the chickens, ducks and geese in the orchard also need to be fed, and the housework can't be neglected either; all of these things need to be done by someone.
In the morning, Xu Han led people to husk corn, while Lu Chuan led people to harvest rice. The harvested rice was threshed directly in the field, and the threshed rice was then brought back to dry, which saved a lot of unnecessary trouble.
At noon, the sun was shining brightly, and it was too strong outside, so Lu Chuan told the women to come back and rest. He then led the strong laborers to dry the soybeans in the yard and began to crush them for the first round of sifting.
Soybeans that have been baked in the sun all morning are very brittle, and the pods easily burst open when a stone roller is pressed on them.
There were people leading oxen and donkeys pulling a stone roller in front, and people behind with pitchforks turning over the area that had just been flattened. We'll continue in a bit.
After several rounds of back and forth, the bean pods were mostly burst open. Han Qi took a broom and swept the popped beans back into the bean pile to continue drying.
After drying for a day, the soybean stalks should be able to be transported out by evening, leaving only the soybeans to continue drying. Once dried, they can be stored in the warehouse.
The corn in the backyard had all been husked after a morning of hard work by several people, and now it was just waiting to be dried, threshed, and stored away.
In the afternoon, everyone worked together to continue harvesting rice, and they worked until dark before they finally finished.
What should have been a busy autumn harvest was all completed in just two days.
That evening, the Taoist priest looked at the yard full of grain and laughed heartily, "Hahaha, this year's autumn harvest is probably the fastest ever. In just two days, so many of us have finished harvesting all of this."
"Yes, there's less land this year, but next year when there's more land, we'll definitely be busy for several days."
After dinner, Xu Han said to everyone, "You've all worked hard these past two days. You can rest tomorrow morning and start building the house in the afternoon."
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