Chapter 142 Seven Sons
"What?! Seven sons!" The official from the Ministry of Rites was so shocked that his eyes almost popped out. He had three concubines and his wife, a total of four women, who had only given birth to five daughters. He wanted to have a son, but he was always disappointed.
Does this family have some kind of secret remedy? How can they have so many sons, and all of them survive?
Wu Tian thought they didn't believe him, so he shouted inside.
"Brother Liu, bring your son out to show our distinguished guests."
A voice responded from the courtyard, and soon several more children came out of the house, the oldest of whom was carrying another child in his arms.
The children stood in a row from oldest to youngest. Although they were dressed in tattered clothes, they were not completely naked.
Wu Tian's words confirmed that the officials had decided to have dinner at this restaurant.
However, they didn't go into the courtyard; it looked too unappetizing. Instead, they each tossed a silver ingot to Wu Tian, asking him to go to the farmhouse and buy some food.
Wu Tian dared not accept it, and the others said to consider it a gift to this family, as it was too much of a burden for them with so many sons.
Since that's the case, the Liu family should make a fortune today, and Wu Tian took the silver.
The Liu family had been terrified of hunger before, and even now that they had food, they dared not eat to their hearts' content.
Even though Wu Tian hadn't come to give instructions beforehand, when his family wasn't doing any work, they ate the same things as in previous years: wild vegetables in the spring, grass roots and tree bark in the autumn and winter as their staple food, and adding some rice bran and dried vegetables to improve their meals. If they could put a little oil and a piece of tofu in the soup, then they would consider it a treat.
Of course, when the busy farming season begins, they won't treat themselves so harshly; they'll at least eat some real grain.
Now that they have surplus food, they even know to take care of their health. However, they don't know where they heard it from, but they keep eating medicinal soups. In fact, eating a proper meal is the best way to nourish the body.
Today, when Wu Tian went to other people's homes, he told them to eat the same food they had during the famine years. But when he came to the Liu family, he told them to improve their meals a little.
So today, their standard was to improve their meals. If Wu Tian hadn't come over and mentioned it, they would have been eating boiled elm bark with grass roots. As for the rice husk and dried vegetable dumplings, they added those after Wu Tian spoke up.
Wu Tian took the silver into the courtyard, and soon he came running out carrying two chipped, rough porcelain bowls, smiling憨厚ly.
"My lords, this is the Liu family's lunch for today. I have brought it all here."
Farmers' bowls are big; a regular rice bowl is about the same size as their soup bowl.
It's clear that Wu Tian is picking the thickest spots.
One of them contained a bowl with almost no broth, filled with various root-like substances that looked like herbs, and on top of that were many thin, white, lumpy substances, which were elm bark.
If it were ground into elm bark flour, it would taste quite good, but since few people in the Liu family could operate the millstone, they naturally didn't bother with that.
In the other bowl was a bowl of vegetable dumplings, pure vegetable dumplings with no grains at all, and they were about to fall apart.
However, at least some of the things here are things that adults recognize, like the rice husks! As for those dark, stringy things that look like dried vegetables, I've never seen them before.
Wu Tian introduced each item to the officials one by one.
After hearing this, the group looked at each other in bewilderment. Even their own dog wouldn't eat this. Could they possibly eat it?
Apart from the official from the Ministry of Rites who was eager to have a son, the others all backed down.
After a short while, an official from the Ministry of Rites spoke up.
"Why don't we use these as offerings to worship the Earth God? The auspicious signs here prove that the Earth God is spiritual, so we can just worship him!"
Although the officials from the Ministry of Rites were envious of the man's many sons, they also felt that daughters were a good option, since he was told that he needed to eat certain foods to be blessed with a son...
Wu Tian watched their carriage travel further and further away until it disappeared from sight. He immediately turned back to the grape greenhouse, called the villagers to lower the straw curtains, and then lit a fire on one side of the wall, hoping that the grapevines, which had been frozen for half a day, could still survive.
The grapes on the estate outside the capital have been identified as auspicious, indicating that Heaven has not punished the current emperor, and there is no need to write an edict of self-reproach.
On the 26th day of the twelfth lunar month, as the end of the year approached, fine snowflakes began to fall from the sky again.
Since the beginning of the twelfth lunar month, due to the lingering effects of last month's snow disaster and the upcoming Lunar New Year, food items displayed throughout Beijing have been snapped up immediately.
There were still dozens of acres of cabbage on the original Hongqu Village. They sold both grapes and cabbage. The income from the grapes was donated to Xicheng, but the income from the cabbage was for the villagers to use for the New Year!
Wu Tian exchanged a lot of New Year's goods for goods and brought them to the village.
After the New Year's goods were distributed, Wu Tian brought Yuan Hongqu some news.
Originally, apart from the former Hongqu's estate, the rest of E'er Village consisted of the villagers' own farmland. Those who owned their own land previously looked down on those who didn't.
But in the past six months, those farmers have been living much better lives than them.
Especially after this snow disaster, all the farm households received relief grain from their landlords.
Those families who owned land had nothing at all.
Some of them started thinking about selling their land to the Yuan family and becoming farmers themselves.
This is what Wu Tianlai and Yuan Hongqu were talking about today.
After Wu Tian left, Yuan Hongqu was still considering whether or not she should buy those people's land.
"Granny, Granny!" Daiyu ran in from the doorway, holding a large sugar figurine.
"Great Sage's sugar figurine! Look!" Daiyu presented the sugar figurine to Yuan Hongqu as if it were a treasure.
"Oh my, who made such a big sugar figure? It's really amazing!" Yuan Hongqu looked up and saw a sugar painting more than a foot tall in front of her. It was Sun Wukong holding the golden cudgel, looking majestic.
"Lan Su bought this for me outside." Daiyu looked at the large sugar figurine with great interest, but that was all she did; she never ate these kinds of things from outside. If she wanted to eat them, her nanny would make them for her.
Hearing Daiyu's words, Yuan Hongqu smiled and said, "Since Susu came, I've had a lot less to worry about. After all, you two are close in age and can get along well. If I had known you two would get along so well, I should have sent her over sooner."
"Granny," Daiyu said reproachfully, "it's not like that. Susu is mischievous and adorable, and gets along very well with everyone. But no matter how well she gets along, she's not my original nanny..."
Yuan Hongqu clutched her chest. "Honestly, the festival is almost here. Are you going to stop crying, or are you trying to make me shed tears?"
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