Qin Xiaozhou was also pleased. "It's worth asking your brother how many hens he bought. If there's only one, you and Xiao Si will have to share it. If there are two, you can each have one."
"What if there were five or ten?"
Qin Xiaozhou disagreed, saying, "Then you can only have one a day, no more than that, and you can't eat eggs every day, it's not good to eat too many."
"Okay." Lu Yan thought about it and decided that one a day would be fine.
Lu Yunfeng opened the fence gate and went in. The chicks were startled and chirped and squawked. "I bought five hens that are laying eggs. We'll have eggs to eat from now on." He then said to Qin Xiaozhou, "These are the first batch of chicks this year. I need more hens. They'll start laying eggs in the fall."
Five hens are kept separately on the other side. Newly brought chickens need to be kept in the pen for two or three days before they know to come back after being released. There are no protective nets around the orchard now, and the chickens are free-range. The chickens need to develop the habit of coming back on their own, otherwise there are too many chicks to keep an eye on.
Qin Xiaozhou had no objection.
Lu Yan walked into the fence, squatted down, and touched the chicks. "Big brother, what do you feed the chicks?"
"Here it comes." Lu Yunxing carried a large basin up the hillside. "Tonight we're feeding them bran, so I specially ground it up."
After saying that, he poured the bran into the bamboo tube, split a large bamboo in half, and fixed it in the middle of the chicken coop with wooden stakes. One half was used to put water and the other half to put grain.
Wang Lan also climbed up the hillside to take a look. "The wild grass hasn't sprouted yet, but in a few days when spring comes, we can feed it chopped grass leaves. Come on, let's go check on the duck pen too."
The group arrived at the duck pen at the entrance of Qingzhugou. It was still a half-finished project, with the fence and yard not yet staked. They fed the ducks again. The ten geese would be kept by the stream tonight, and a few more would be moved to the mountainside the next day or the day after. The Lu family would only return home when the moon was high in the sky.
The next day, at the crack of dawn, Lu Yunfeng took his younger brother to the yard where they finished building the duck pen.
Not long after breakfast, the clouds dispersed and the sun came out. Lu Yan ran to the mountainside to check on the chicks. She opened the coop door, and the chicks chirped and ran into the yard. The hens also clucked and foraged for food in the yard. The five hens were quite powerful in pawing the ground. Before noon, several bare patches of ground appeared in the yard.
After Lu Yunxing finished building the fence, he looked at the chicks and thought Qin Xiaozhou was incredibly clever. These chicken feet were much better at digging and loosening the soil than he could with a hoe.
Suddenly Lu Yan shouted, "Grandma, there's an eagle!"
Two hundred chicks on the mountainside soon attracted the attention of eagles. Eagles flew over from the western mountains, circling in the sky. Several times, if Lu Yan hadn't been waving a bamboo pole next to the chicken coop, several chicks would have been killed.
Upon hearing this, Wang Lan panicked. She went back into the house, rummaged through drawers and cupboards, found a piece of clothing covered in patches, hugged it to her chest, gritted her teeth, and went to the chicken coop, saying, "I'll make a scarecrow to scare away the eagles."
The family was busy making scarecrows again. Lu Yunfeng built another fence around the chicken coop, and the five geese were placed inside the fence. The fence also enclosed the fruit trees. The hens were digging the soil diligently, and the dry grass roots were dug up. Lu Yan was worried when she saw this. "These hens have such powerful claws. Will they kill the fruit trees?"
Wang Lan dressed the scarecrow in tattered clothes, saying, "No, fruit trees are planted deep, and their roots grow downwards. They're very long. This hen only scratches the ground; it's the natural enemy of weeds and won't harm the fruit trees."
Lu Yan was relieved. Lu Yunfeng set up the scarecrow in the chicken coop yard, went back and rummaged through the chests and cupboards, and pulled out a few arrows. Wang Lan's heart skipped a beat, "Dayun, what are you doing?"
Lu Yunxing was sharpening arrowheads in the yard. "Grandma, don't worry, I'm not going into the mountains. I'm just seeing if I can shoot down the eagle."
Zhao Fen was so frightened that she ran out of the house. She was relieved after hearing this, but she still told her son several times not to go into the mountains. She was only slightly relieved when her son nodded.
Five days later, Qin Xiaozhou and Lu Yunxing went into town again. This time they had eleven baskets and earned seventy-seven coins. The price of bamboo shoots was lower than the previous two mornings. Life had to go on, and the bamboo shoots had to be sold. Qin Xiaozhou smiled and actively called out to sell them. He had thirteen catties of bamboo shoots and finally earned thirty-seven coins by noon.
Qin Xiaozhou had been paying attention to how much a bowl of noodles cost at the stall next door. He overheard the noodle stall owner telling someone that a bowl of vegetarian noodles cost seven coins.
Lu Yunfeng packed up the bamboo basket. "Boss, two bowls of noodles, please."
"No, no, no." Qin Xiaozhou pulled Lu Yunfeng along. "A bowl costs seven coins, we might as well buy two meat buns."
After eating steamed buns, the two went to a fabric shop. Qin Xiaozhou saw a nice set of clothes and asked how much it cost. The shop owner smiled and said it would cost 120 coins!
Lu Yunfeng made a quick decision: "Let's buy cloth; cloth is cheap."
All right!
Qin Xiaozhou examined the bolts of fabric. It was hard to imagine sewing clothes from this fabric stitch by stitch. However, Lu Yu and Wang Lan often did this. She provided the fabric, and the women of the Lu family made the clothes. It was a win-win situation. So she began to carefully select the fabrics. The colors of the fabrics were mostly brown, gray, and dark blue.
This color is easy to dye and doesn't get dirty easily, making it a favorite color among country folk.
Qin Xiaozhou carefully selected two bolts of dark blue, one bolt of brown, and one bolt of light blue fine cotton cloth, which cost a total of 523 coins. The proprietress saw that she wanted a lot, so she rounded down the price and gave her some scraps of cloth as a bonus.
Fearing Qin Xiaozhou might find it offensive, he patiently explained, "Some of these scraps of cloth are made of fine cotton. Smaller ones can be sewn into purses or handkerchiefs, while larger ones can be made into bibs for children."
Qin Xiaozhou thanked the proprietress.
After leaving the cloth shop, Qin Xiaozhou went to the grain shop. The shop owner remembered her and greeted her with a smile. This time, Qin Xiaozhou asked for twenty catties of soybeans and some spices, and asked the owner if he had any rare seeds, the kind that were not commonly seen in Wanzhou.
The shop owner shook his head. "If you're looking for rare seeds, you'll have to go to the provincial capital. Things that are rare in the provincial capital are even less likely to spread to a small town like ours."
Qin Xiaozhou felt a little regretful as he followed Lu Yunfeng home. On the way, they met several villagers who were also walking back. The villagers from Wangjia Village jokingly teased, "It's not common to see someone this fat these days. Lu family nephew, how much dowry did your father-in-law give you? Is it enough to build a new house?"
The Lu family's old house was sold before the new year. The three large mud-brick tile houses with two side rooms were still in relatively new condition. It was sold for only twenty-eight taels of silver. If the family hadn't been in urgent need of medicine, the house could have been sold for at least thirty-five taels.
After their house was sold, the family had to squeeze into a dilapidated house in the orchard. While everyone else was buying New Year's goods in the dead of winter, the Lu family sold off their property and house one after another, and finally packed up their belongings and slunk back into the old house.
The old house they live in now was where Lu Ji stayed when he fled famine to Wangjia Village forty years ago. After forty years of twists and turns, the Lu family moved back to the old house.
These words were truly grating. There has never been any reason to use a wife's dowry to build a house since ancient times, especially since Qin Xiaozhou's dowry was not worth much. Qin Xiaozhou laughed: "It's really strange that the men in your Wangjia Village actually have a tradition of using their wives' dowries to build houses."
The villagers retorted, "You new bride, not only do you dare to kill wild boars, but you also have quite the sharp tongue."
Lu Yunfeng didn't say anything, he just walked forward quickly.
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