Spring scenery in the fields

Ji Wenhe smiled and nodded: "Of course, I said I would give it to you, and I won't break my promise."

"If your parents ask about it when you go back, just tell them that I gave it to you. If they want to come down, don't give it to them."

They shouldn't steal children's things.

"Yes, I understand, Sister Wen."

He reached out and patted their heads, smiling: "Okay, let's go find some wild vegetables, and then go home quickly."

The two of them carried the baskets and turned around happily to wave goodbye to her.

After they walked away, Ji Wenhe sighed, "What nice little girls they are. Why can't their families treat them better?"

Shen Wenshan went into the kitchen to drink water, and stood at the kitchen door holding a bowl, looking at the backs of the two little girls: "Most of us farmers value boys more than girls."

"In the village, only Aunt Lan's, Aunt Li's, Aunt Wang's, and Aunt Tao's families are kind to their daughters. Most of the other families beat and scold their daughters, saying that their daughters are a waste of money."

"I love my daughter, but it's not as important as my son." Shen Yuanshan put down the shovel in his hand. "We are the same. We love our daughter, but we love our son more."

Yes, they all want to carry on the family line and raise children to provide for them in their old age.

While the two of them went into the house to rest and drink water, Ji Wenhe hung the menstrual belt on the railing to dry.

Then she went into the house and sewed a few more menstrual belts.

When I came out, I saw that they had dug a small ditch next to their toilet. I went over to help, picked up the branches nearby, and stuck them into the soil one by one.

There is a door near the mountain wall.

"Yuanshan, is the door to the toilet small enough to carry manure?"

"Not small, I can walk down."

They just tried it.

The three of them were busy until noon.

Shen Wenshan wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve: "Sister-in-law, I'm going to wash the vegetables and cook, you guys take a break."

"Go ahead, I'll tie this door up."

Ji Wenhe looked at the big pit that had been dug. Shen Rongshan went to the mountain and cut down a tree. It was as thick as an adult's calf.

A tree was chopped into three pieces with an axe. There were six pits in the yard, and another tree had to be cut down from the mountain and carried back.

He clapped his hands and looked at the tree that had been cut into three parts outside the yard: "Yuanshan, let's bury the trees in the afternoon."

"Wait till tomorrow and ask your eldest brother to go to the mountain and chop down another tree. The rest will be the top."

Shen Yuanshan walked to the door to wash his hands and reminded her, "Sister-in-law, we are going to the headman's house the day after tomorrow. Have you finished weaving the bracelet you want to give to Shen Liuyun?"

"It's almost done." There was a little finishing touch left, and Ji Wenhe went over to wash his hands. "Have you met the headman's son-in-law?"

He shook his head: "I haven't seen it."

Their home is at the end of the village and they seldom go down the mountain. Unless they deliberately ask, they have no idea what is happening in the village.

She was a little curious about what Shen Liuyun's husband looked like.

The headman's family is not like other families. Although they favor boys over girls, they have raised their granddaughters to be fair and tender and beautiful.

The last time I saw her from a distance, Shen Liuyun was the prettiest of the three girls. Her every move was that of a lady from a wealthy family.

After lunch, we took a break, buried the trees in the pit and filled it with soil.

"Sister-in-law, I'm going to the outside of the mountain to cut bamboo and weave a round basket." Shen Yuanshan held a machete.

"Wait a minute." Ji Wenhe went into the house and took out a basket with two pieces of cloth in it. "Go to Aunt Lan's house, measure your size, and make clothes for you."

She learned several sewing techniques, which were not as difficult as she had imagined.

Shen Wenshan came out of the house happily and locked the door: "Sister-in-law, let's go."

From now on they will have new clothes to wear.

The three of them came to Lan Qiuhua's house and measured the two people's sizes.

Shen Yuanshan was the first to measure: "Sister-in-law, I'll go first."

"Hey, go ahead." Ji Wenhe was learning how to measure dimensions.

"It's very simple to make clothes. You will learn it after watching it twice." Lan Qiuhua glanced at the person who was watching carefully and said with a smile, "You are smart. You will learn it in no time. Rongshan."

"He went to town to buy black flour and sell it."

She didn't intend to hide it, and she couldn't hide it, because the people in the village would soon know it.

Shen Suya came in from outside and asked curiously, "Sister-in-law, is Brother Rongshan going to be a peddler?"

"Yes, we have little land. I'm afraid we won't be able to survive the winter just relying on the harvest from the land."

"You can't catch prey every day. It's too dangerous to go into the mountains. I don't want him to go."

"The bracelet business we're making now won't last forever, so we have to think of other ways."

Ji Wenhe looked at Shen Wenshan.

"You go home. I'll be back before evening."

He nodded: "Okay, Aunt Lan, I'm leaving."

"Well, go ahead." Lan Qiuhua responded, "Wen He, how much is your black flour per pound?"

She thought that if it was cheap, she could buy it directly from her house in the future without having to go all the way to town.

If I always ask the villagers to help me bring things back, they will feel uncomfortable after a long time.

Ji Wenhe followed her to Shen Suya's room: "Three cents per pound, one cent cheaper than in town."

"Mom, we can buy it at sister-in-law's house in the future, so we don't have to run back and forth. By the way, sister-in-law, do you only sell black noodles? There is no other."

"For now, we only have two things: black flour and salt. We will sell them for a while, then ask the villagers what they need, and then we will go to town to buy them and sell them back."

Lan Qiuhua sat opposite her and said, "What the village usually lacks is food, dark noodles, brown rice, coarse noodles, fine noodles, oil, salt, sauce and vinegar."

"Then there are needles and thread, and cloth. Not many people buy these. If it's too expensive to buy them in town, don't sell them. Just sell food."

Useful things are not as easy to sell as food.

"Yeah, that's what I think too. We'll take it one step at a time now, and when business picks up in the future, we'll buy other things to sell."

Ji Wenhe planned to ask Shen Rongshan to go to the town to buy brown rice and coarse noodles after selling all the goods he had purchased this time, and then bring them back to sell together.

Lan Qiuhua took the red string and said, "We don't have to go to the market anymore. If we need anything, we can go to your house to buy it. I am too old to walk that far."

"Hey, why don't you open a grocery store? There are many villages near us, so you won't have to worry about lack of business."

If you live in a village farther away from here, you can also go to the village to buy it, which is much more convenient than going to town.

Shen Suya agreed: "Yes, it's better to open a grocery store than to sell them yourself. When it rains, the muddy roads are hard to walk on."

The most important thing is that after opening a grocery store, you can sell a lot of things in the store.

"Aunt Lan, Xiaoya, to be honest, this is what Brother Shen and I planned."

Ji Wenhe continued while sewing clothes.

"But I don't have that much money right now, so I can't afford to buy a homestead for now."

I dare not spend too much or indiscriminately the money I have. In case something big happens one day, I won’t panic if I have money in hand.

Lan Qiuhua was knitting and thinking for a while: "The housing plots at the foot of the mountain in our village are cheaper. There are few people in the village, so there are many vacant housing plots. You can buy whichever one you like."

"Why are the residential plots at the foot of the mountain cheaper?" she puzzled.