The road to wealth of a peasant widow

Chen Cui has never been a person who relies on others. She has never had anyone to rely on. The only person she relies on is herself.

But she envied Chen for having such parents, who were able to give her precious ginseng to save her life when she had a difficult childbirth, and who were able to bring their brothers to support her when her husband died and she had no one to rely on. Such kindness was truly touching.

Even in modern times, there are not many parents who can do this. There are still many people who believe that a daughter who is married off is like water spilled, and her affairs will be taken care of by her in-laws. In the backward and conservative ancient times, it was rare to be able to do this for a married daughter.

Chen Cui did not object to Zhang's resignation. Originally, Zhang came to help out because Chen could not support herself. Now that she had herself, she would not have to worry about this anymore, so she readily agreed.

However, she wanted to find something from home to bring back to Zhang, but she found that this family was so poor that there was nothing for her to take.

In the end, she could only pick out twenty eggs from the egg basket, put them in a small basket, and pad them with straw as a gift for Zhang to take home.

Zhang felt sorry for her daughter who had become a widow without a man to rely on. She would have a hard time living in the future, so she refused to take the eggs. But Chen Cui also had a point: "I know you feel sorry for me, but I still have my sister-in-law and nephews at home. If you go back empty-handed, it will be embarrassing for me!"

Zhang then picked up the small basket and set out on the road back to Chenjiagou.

After seeing Zhang off, when Chen Cui wanted to go back to wash the sheets, she found Changping sitting beside the basin and washing them.

It is already September now. Although it is still early for winter, it is cold in the mornings and evenings, and it is no longer possible to wear thin clothes. Those who are afraid of the cold have already changed into padded clothes.

Chen Cui saw that Changping's hands had turned red from being soaked in the water, and hurriedly walked up to him: "Changping, let me do it."

Changping smiled and shook his head: "Mom, it's not that dirty. It's almost washed. It will come out after rinsing. Don't get your hands dirty."

Chen Cui thought so too. It was just a child's urine and it was easy to clean, so she didn't argue with him anymore.

"Then call me when you're done wringing it out. You can't do it yourself."

Chen Cui went into the house to pack up the clothes left by Liu Eryong.

The weather is getting cold, and it's time to change into new clothes. The three boys have grown taller this year, and the clothes they could wear in the spring are now too small for them, so they have to prepare new ones.

Fortunately, there is a big age gap between the three of them, so the oldest's outgrown clothes can be given to the second oldest, and the second oldest's clothes can be given to the third oldest, so the only things that really need to be prepared are the eldest oldest's clothes.

As for where the boss’s clothes came from, we could only modify Liu Eryong’s clothes.

Except for the one he wore when he was buried, Liu Eryong kept all his other clothes. They could be altered for the eldest brother to wear.

It’s not that Chen Cui is so stingy, it’s just that the family is too poor.

When the family business was divided, they were given twenty taels of silver, which sounded like a lot, but over the past six months, most of it had been spent.

It cost three and a half taels of money just to repair the doors and windows of the house. There was nothing we could do about it.

The old house had been abandoned for more than ten years. The grass on the roof had almost fallen off, and there were cracks everywhere on the walls. If it wasn't repaired, the family would not be able to live in it.

Purchasing farm tools and seeds cost about ten or two taels of money, which is also indispensable.

Their family has no other income and can only rely on the land for a living. If the land is not planted well this year, there is no hope for a harvest next year.

There are also some utensils needed for daily life. When the family splits up, there is almost nothing left. It costs money to buy them again.

In addition, there are two people in their family, Chen and Suisui, both of whom are not in good health.

Although life was difficult and there would be a lot of money needed in the future, the doctor said that Chen's body was seriously damaged and she needed to be nurtured with good rice and flour.

Liu Eryong would buy refined rice regularly and cook it for the mother and daughter.

Nowadays, refined rice costs fifteen cents per pound, and after a few months, it costs a lot.

Chen always refused to eat fine meals alone, and watched the four of them, father and son, eat coarse grains.

But looking at her little daughter crying loudly, she had no other choice.

She tried it and found that if she only ate coarse grains for several days in a row, her milk supply would obviously decrease. She didn't have much milk to begin with, so Suisui would go hungry.

The family raised seven or eight chickens, and all the eggs they laid were eaten by the mother and daughter.

However, no matter how hard she tried, her milk supply was gradually decreasing, and more than a month ago, it was completely gone.

In fact, Chen was relieved after she ran out of milk. She finally didn’t have to eat two different meals from her husband and son.

She knew the situation at home. They could not afford to keep buying fine rice and flour. She could not bear to see her husband working too hard for the family.

Even so, a lot of money was spent on buying rice and noodles in half a year.

Her husband went to perform labor service in order to save a few taels of silver. Chen thought it was all because of her poor health and excessive spending.

Therefore, after learning the news of Liu Eryong's death, she was so sad, blamed herself and was heartbroken.

There is also Liu Eryong's funeral, the coffin, the flute player, the banquet, the paper items, and the Feng Shui master's fees. All these things added up, it cost a lot.

The condolence money given by relatives and friends who attended the funeral only added up to a fraction of the funeral expenses and was not worth much.

After the funeral, the only remaining four taels of silver and dozens of copper coins were the family's last belongings.

Four taels of silver, if used frugally, might last a year, assuming there is no illness or disaster and everything goes well.

What's more, since she came here, she couldn't let this family remain so poor, living a hard life by tightening their belts and scrimping on food. They couldn't live this kind of life any longer. They had to find a way to increase their income.

But how to make money?

She thought about the time-travel novels she had read before, and it seemed that the heroines all made their first fortune in the mountains.

Once you go up the mountain, you can either dig up ginseng or ganoderma lucidum, and sell them to use as capital to start a business, then money will make money, and then you will become rich.

Although this is a bit idealistic and has the halo of a heroine, she just laughed it off when she first saw it, but now she has begun to think about its feasibility.

Liujiaping is surrounded by mountains on three sides. Maybe she should go to the mountains to see if she can find the so-called opportunity?

However, she did not find any information from Chen's memory about whether any villagers had dug up valuable medicinal herbs in the mountains.

But just because you haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean it’s not there in the mountains. Maybe it’s because the people in the village are illiterate and don’t know what medicinal herbs are!

It’s not that Chen Cui is dreaming or overly optimistic, but she has no other choice now.

Now that Liu Eryong has just been buried, their whole family is in mourning. They cannot go out to socialize, nor can they do other work. But she is not the kind of person who will just sit and wait, and she has to find ways to improve the current situation.

The few acres of land that were allocated to the family have already been planted with wheat and millet. After paying the land tax next year, I don't know if the remaining crops will be enough to feed the family. Trying to dig wealth out of the land is harder than climbing to the sky. Now we can only look for ways elsewhere.

Chen Cui was thinking about these things in her mind while she was hemming the clothes.

Following the experience left by Chen, she trimmed the edges of Liu Eryong's clothes to Changping's current size and sewed up the wide areas.

Nowadays, people make clothes bigger for their children. They sew the edges first when they put them on. After the children grow taller and fatter, they undid the sewn parts and they can continue to wear the clothes.

Although it doesn't look very good, it is also a helpless act for poor families.