“Raising pigs is smelly, it’s so unpleasant to smell, and in the summer they attract mosquitoes, so why don’t we stop raising them?” Zhang Qingling really disliked having a bunch of chickens and ducks at home. There was nowhere to put your feet in the yard, and there was chicken droppings everywhere, it was so smelly, it was enough to drive anyone crazy.
The Zhang family was a prominent family, ranking among the top in the capital. They had countless courtyards in their mansion, as well as numerous estates and shops outside. However, when they arrived in Songlin Village, they lived in a courtyard even smaller than the one where the servants had lived before. Every day, she had to learn to cook with her sister, and during the autumn harvest, she had to help dry the wheat and millet.
This life is simply unbearable. Zhang Qingling feels that she is becoming more and more like a country girl, and has nothing to do with a young lady from a noble family. Is she going to be trapped here for the rest of her life?
Zhao Zhongnian paused for a moment, then said in a low voice, "I'll find someone to build the pigsty further away so we won't smell it at home." Since the Zhang sisters came to Songlin Village, they have been supported by Zhao Zhongnian. He has been the one who cleared land for farming and went into the mountains to hunt to support the three siblings. He is truly very loyal.
But Zhang Qingling didn't seem to appreciate it at all, and even took it for granted. She always treated Zhao Zhongnian like a servant, and often complained in her heart that he was useless and couldn't handle any farm work, so she and her sister had to lend a hand.
Actually, she and Zhang Qingyu only helped dry the millet and wheat. The dried sweet potatoes and potatoes were dried by Zhao Zhongnian himself, but everyone ate them together.
Two years ago, there wasn't enough wheat to eat, so we had to eat a mixture of sweet potatoes and corn. Zhang Qingling got angry and said that eating too many sweet potatoes was unsanitary, and she didn't want to eat them.
Eating too many sweet potatoes can cause flatulence, which is inconvenient and embarrassing for girls. But back then, there was no other way. We should be content with having something to eat, so why be picky?
"Anyway, I won't eat. I'll just starve. I might as well starve to death. I can't live like this anymore. It would be better if I starved to death." Zhang Qingling seemed to have been driven mad, and was just short of crying, making a scene, or threatening suicide.
With no other option, Zhao Zhongnian had to go hunting in the mountains every day. Even if he couldn't catch rabbits or pheasants, he could catch a few sparrows. He couldn't let the second young lady go hungry.
Fortunately, the young lady didn't complain. Although you could tell she didn't smile much every day and felt bitter inside, she at least recognized reality and ate whatever was available. In this world, it was lucky not to starve to death.
He had been a guard in the Zhang family since he was a child and was not good at farming. If it weren't for Guard Zhong's frequent help, he probably wouldn't even have sweet potatoes to eat. After struggling in the fields for two years, he finally gained experience this year and the yield of his crops was high enough for his family of four. He no longer had to work himself to death and go into the mountains to hunt for the second young lady.
Speaking of which, the easiest to raise was the young master. He arrived in Songlin Village while still an infant and grew up there. He was used to the life there and could be said to have never had a good day. Just three months after his birth, he was taken by Madam Zhang to flee the disaster.
However, he was still young and didn't understand things, so he was the happiest of all. He didn't look down on this place and treated it as his own home. He got along well with everyone, unlike his two older sisters who didn't want to associate with the villagers and looked down on them from the bottom of their hearts, thinking that they were uneducated, rude and unruly.
But they don't realize that if it weren't for these people who toil in the fields to feed them, they would have starved to death long ago. Zhang Qingling often complains that she might as well die, but she never actually tries to kill herself. She just talks a big game, but her real purpose is to tell Zhao Zhongnian so that he will go into the mountains to hunt and bring back fresh meat to eat.
Pigs were definitely going to be raised. Zhao Zhongnian had his own plans. Although he outwardly respected the two young ladies, he was the one who made the decisions about what to raise at home and what to plant in the fields. The two young ladies knew nothing about it and didn't want to know. He handled everything himself.
The chickens and ducks raised here are actually pheasants and wild ducks caught from the mountains. Since there's nowhere to buy them, the only way to raise poultry and livestock is to catch them in the mountains.
He only thought of raising chickens and ducks after seeing that the Song family girl was raising wild boars. He had hunted wild boars before, but they were difficult to raise. They were too fierce, disobedient, and kept howling every day, disturbing everyone's peace. In the end, he had no choice but to slaughter them.
He also consulted Song Zhuiyan, asking her how to train wild boars to be docile and raised like domestic pigs.
Song Zhuiyan coldly replied, "This skill is a family heirloom of my Song family and is not passed on to outsiders. I apologize that I cannot tell you the truth."
Since everyone had made their refusal so clear, he couldn't press the matter further and gave up on the idea of raising pigs. However, since Song Zhuiyan was now able to order piglets and the whole village had decided to raise them, he naturally couldn't be left behind.
Zhang Shen is four years old this year and can already run around the village on his own. At the beginning of the year, he went to the private school to register and expressed his desire to attend school, but Zhang Qingyu and Zhang Qingling disagreed.
When Zhang Shen was three years old, Zhang Qingyu began to teach him basic literacy and planned to continue teaching him to read and write herself, not wanting him to mingle with the other children in the village, as she felt that such children would have no future.
What kind of private school is Songlin Village? It's just two kids messing around. They haven't even figured out how to read and write properly, yet they want to teach martial arts, cooking, medicine making... They just come up with whatever comes to mind. Why don't they just go straight to heaven?
As expected, this child grew up in the countryside and has never seen the world. He pretends to know what he doesn't and just messes around. I heard that Song Zhuiyan and her niece can't even do needlework. They sew their own clothes crookedly and need others to make them for them.
However, it's none of their business how they feel about other people's affairs. But what if Shen'er gets ruined by hanging out with them every day?
No one could persuade him otherwise. Zhang Shen would usually listen to what Zhang Qingyu said, but he wouldn't listen to her on this matter. He was very stubborn and insisted on going to the private school with everyone. Zhang Shen never listened to Zhang Qingling. In his eyes, his second sister was even more immature than him. All she knew was to complain and cry. She couldn't do anything.
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