Cross the doghouse to save Party A, Your Highness owes me ten mines

Now, Xiyan was tidying up these things in the yard, along with some newly bought kitchen utensils. The mute slave was taking care of the children. Lou Junze was in seclusion in the house, and Nanfeng, as soon as he came into the world, he resumed his original job as a secret guard and disappeared without a trace.

As for Xia Shi, she was playing with mud with a group of children at the entrance of the village!

A seventeen-year-old girl, according to Dongzhou's logic, should be an adult. She was dressed in a coarse grey dress, her long hair tied up with a coarse strip of the same colour, and she had no accessories on her body, even her shoes were dusty. She squatted with a group of children covered in dirt, and with a group of little girls digging wild vegetables at the foot of the mountain, it didn't seem out of place.

"How many households are there in our village?"

"Fifteen households!"

"You're talking nonsense. There were clearly sixteen households. The Liu family just split up yesterday afternoon..."

"My grandfather said that we should divide the family but not the households..."

"You're talking nonsense. How can we divide the family without dividing the households?"

Xia Shi: “Stop it!” She stretched out her hand and gestured between the two children, indicating that the quarrel was over and changing the subject:

"Where did you get this mud? It looks pretty good."

"Back mountain!" The child forgot about the quarrel immediately after being praised and started a new topic.

The back mountain does not refer to the back mountain of the entire mountain range. The entire Northern Mountains stretch for hundreds of kilometers. The back mountain the children mentioned only refers to the hillside behind their houses. Looking along the direction the children pointed, it was only a few hundred meters away.

"That's right, I'm the village's expert at making clay figures!"

"The house I made looks great!"

"This is the yard, this room is the kitchen, and this is where I sleep..."

Xia Shi looked at these irregularly shaped mud strips and said, "Can I make one for you?"

"Sister, do you make it beautiful?"

"Well..., we have to squeeze it out to know..."

Xia Shi took the mud from their hands. The mud had been rubbed very smooth and fine, and it was a very good clay mold...

She first rolled it into thin strips, then piled them together one by one, and finally carefully shaped it, smoothed the surface with a smooth wooden stick, added the roof, carved out the tiles, made the doors and windows, and the yard...

"Wow……"

"Sister, what you made is really beautiful..."

"It's even better than Erdan's..."

The children were very happy. Xia Shi said, "Thank you for the compliment!" Then she continued to make small birds and put them on the eaves, saying, "It will look good only if there are many magpies at the door..."

"Yes, yes, yes, my mother said that when the magpie calls, good things will come..."

The children looked at the lifelike bird and talked happily: "It has a mouth!"

"Its eyes are so small, yet so clear..."

Xia Shi continued to make a bigger bird, and finally said goodbye to the children:

"I'm about to go home for dinner. Can I take this little bird with me? I made all of these..."

"Great, great, let's each have a little bird..."

"Sister, will you come this afternoon?"

"I'll take a look. If I have time, I'll come over to pick wild vegetables..."

"goodbye!"

"goodbye!"

“……”!

In summer, people start to go home with their vegetable baskets and birds made of mud in their hands.

The bird is exquisite, and most importantly, the soil used to make the bird is sticky but not loose, powdery but not sandy, and rich in minerals, making it a good soil for making bricks and tiles. If it were ordinary soil, it would not be able to withstand such delicate carvings, and it would have long since fallen apart or collapsed into a ball of mud...

As Xia Shi walked, he looked towards the back mountain, where there were many minerals and resources in the rolling mountains.

First of all, there are trees. In the densest mountains and old forests, and on the edge of several deep valleys, there are woods that the rich families in Dongzhou like to use the most, grass under the trees, medicinal herbs in the forest, and wild fruits on the trees;

Secondly, the soil here is very suitable for making bricks and tiles. There is a lot of red mud, and there is a lot of white mud dozens of miles away in the forest, which can be used to make porcelain.

Again, stone, with much quartzite in the distant mountains, and some iron ore scattered here and there;

She even found some layers of brine;

The last one is blue crystal, which is the real thing waiting to be traded in the contract. It is small in size but has great energy.

This is all she has detected within a radius of 100 miles in the past few days.

The boss is really good at choosing a place. He immediately chose this mountain range where many rare resources are gathered. It also has convenient transportation. It is really a good place.

As a technical consultant, Xia Shi planned to survey the back mountain in detail, draw a map and submit it to his boss.

As for the reason for going to survey, she said she was going to herd sheep in the mountains.

With a creak, the wooden door in the courtyard was pushed open.

It was almost noon and smoke was already rising from the kitchen. Xiyan was cooking.

This courtyard still has the typical layout of a quadrangle. Lou Junze lives in the main house, Xiyan and Ya Nu live in the west side house with their children, and Xia Shi lives in the east side house.

The east side house is behind a grape trellis. Looking through the low wall from outside the yard, you absolutely cannot see what's behind the window of the east side house. This makes it convenient to open the window for ventilation while also protecting her privacy.

The house was made of mud and the roof was covered with thatch and mud.

This is the home of the village chief, so a brick house was built there. The vacant old house has been repaired over the years, so it is clean and sturdy, and very suitable for living!

The kitchen is next to the west door. When Xia Shi comes in, she can smell the salty aroma of food.

She stood at the kitchen window and looked inside, and saw Xiyan waving a spatula and stirring the food.

Xia Shi shouted: "Wash the inkstone!"