Chapter 58: Duck Down Pad
Ever since Gu Feixue started practicing internal energy, she only sleeps four hours a day, which means she won't feel sleepy for two hours.
So there are less than three hours every night that can be used to learn this knowledge.
To put it bluntly, Gu Feixue not only wants to make money by growing herbs, but also wants to learn some pharmacological knowledge, which will be beneficial to the safety of her family.
When they returned to the Gu family, Gu Sang was still asleep. Gu Feixue was lying on the bed and took a nap before being woken up by the Gu family.
The Gu family has finally settled down in Anju Village these days, and today they plan to go to the main city with the whole family to buy some things.
When they arrived at the village entrance, they found that the old village chief was already sitting on an ox cart waiting for them. Gu Lang couldn't help but bow and express his gratitude.
"Excuse me, village chief."
The old village chief smiled heartily and said, "Nephew Gu, there's no need to be so formal. Come up."
Afterwards, the seven people from the Gu family got on the ox cart. Along the way, Gu Sang and Gu Da looked around and were even more excited than when they came.
Gu Feixue felt from the bottom of her heart that these two were really adapting to the local customs. How could ordinary people be so calm and at ease when their family members were lost?
However, apart from occasionally showing an expression of missing their family, Gu Sang and Gu Da mostly acted like little birds, not knowing what sadness was.
When the group arrived in the main city, they went straight to the grain, oil, rice and noodle shop and bought enough rice and noodles for the family to last for the next two or three months.
Then I went to the carpenter's market and bought some simple furniture such as chairs and benches.
Finally, I went to the clothing store and bought some fabric and cotton wool to wear during the winter.
After late autumn, winter is about to arrive. However, the Gu family is only now starting to prepare winter clothes, which is quite rushed.
Gu Feixue thought that cotton jackets were not windproof. If she wanted to keep warm, she would need a down jacket which would be warmer but not too heavy.
So Gu Feixue pestered the adults and went to the market to buy chickens and ducks, ostensibly to buy some chicks for laying eggs.
In fact, she went there for the duck down.
Gu Feixue felt excited when she thought that after the duck down was cleaned, it could not only be made into down jackets, but also down quilts and down pillows.
When they arrived at the market, the Gu family bought ten chicks and ten ducklings, planning to raise them freely on the half-acre of land in the yard. When the land became fertile, they could use it for farming.
Gu Feixue secretly slipped to a stall nearby that sold adult chickens and ducks, looking around.
Finally she found a stall that was doing feather removal for people, and she was just about to ask how to sell duck down.
But he was knocked aside by a strong force from the side. Then he heard the man say angrily:
"My master wants to buy your duck out of respect. Twenty cents! If you don't agree, you won't get a cent!"
Afterwards, the evil servant snatched the old duck with its feathers plucked away, pushed down the old man selling the duck, threw down only twenty cents, and left with three or five people wearing the same servants' clothes.
Gu Feixue couldn't help but frown. This was the first time she had seen such forced buying and selling.
After shopping for a day, she realized that an old duck would cost at least thirty cents, and these people were simply robbing!
The Gu family members who rushed over quickly helped Gu Feixue and the old man selling ducks who were pushed to the ground.
"Old man, are you okay?"
The old man saw Gu Lang and Wang's kind faces and couldn't help but wave his sleeves and cry:
"They've been coming to steal my ducks every day for more than ten days, bullying an old man like me..."
Upon hearing this, Gu Feixue couldn't help but ask angrily, "Grandpa, whose servants are they?"
"The gentry are wealthy and have good families. They often bully us old people who come out to make a living at the market."
Outrageous! It's Qian Youliang again!
Not long ago, Qian Youliang suffered a loss at the hands of the prefect and was paraded through the streets.
I thought he would learn his lesson, but I didn’t expect that he would even cheat these vendors!
"Mom and Dad, should we take care of this?"
Gu Lang and Wang Shi hesitated when they heard this. This was not something they could do. If they intervened without permission, they might end up causing trouble for the prefect.
However, the Gu family has already attracted many people's attention from outside, so they want to keep a low profile by settling in Anju Village this time.
Thinking of all these reasons, Gu Feixue also knew that the Gu family was in trouble, so she looked at the old man and said:
"Grandpa, how about this? How many ducks do you have left to sell? Sell them all to us and we'll pay the market price."
It just so happens that my appetite is almost dry during this period, so I bought some old duck and made soup to replenish my qi and blood.
The old man was delighted to hear this and immediately brought everyone from the Gu family home.
The six ducks left in the old man's house were all bought by the Gu family.
Before leaving, Gu Feixue thought of the duck down and wanted to ask the old man to buy it.
But unexpectedly, the old man insisted on giving all the duck down to the Gu family.
Although the Gu family didn't know what Gu Feixue wanted to do with the duck down, they had no choice but to accept it. Duck down was not valuable in the market anyway, and most of it was thrown away.
After shopping, the Gu family left the main city and returned to Anju Village. Although they returned with a lot of things, they were all a little depressed along the way.
Obviously, the impact of the disaster will last for a long time.
What they saw were Qian Youliang's servants hurting people, and there might be more that they didn't see.
The more this happened, the more Gu Feixue wanted to make money. Only when she had the ability would she not be afraid of being bullied, and she would be able to clear Gu Lang's name sooner.
After returning to Gu's house, the old village chief was very curious about the several sacks of duck feathers that Gu's family had bought, thinking that Gu's family wanted to use them to burn fire.
Gu Feixue did not hide it from the old village chief. She took some scraps of cloth that were almost unused at home, wrapped some duck down in it, sewed it a few times, and put it on the chair.
Then he sat on it in front of everyone, felt the texture of the cushion, and showed satisfaction on his face.
"Mom and Dad, Village Chief Grandpa, if we had this mat in the winter, wouldn't we be afraid of frostbite?"
In winter, crops don't need much tending, so people either stand or sit. Standing allows for movement, but sitting on a bench can instantly send shivers down your spine.
With this mat, heating is naturally much more convenient, and the fabric does not need to be that good. It is something that costs absolutely nothing and can be used for a whole winter.
"Xue'er is really clever and can make something as novel as this. If we tell the villagers about this thing, we won't be cold this winter."
Gu Feixue naturally had no objection. Since she did it in front of the old village chief, she was not afraid of others knowing. If it could help these villagers who had suffered from the disaster, it would naturally be a good thing.
After the village chief returned, Wang went to make more duck down cushions. She felt that they were softer than the silk cushions used by the Gu family before.
Gu Feixue worked with the Gu family to clean the hard hairs of the duck down and made more than 20 cushions using old cloth that had been washed at home.
Gu Feixue thought that she would often disturb Rong Qi and the others in the future, so she cut a piece of better cloth that she had bought today and made a thick cushion for Rong Qi and the others.
From now on, you no longer have to sit on the cold floor when reading in the Sutra Library.
That night, Gu Feixue came to Taoyuan again, but did not go to the Sutra Library immediately.
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