It's really hard to just farm peacefully.

Jiang Yan's mutterings were not heard by Cao and Yang, who shared the room.

After they became "familiar" with Jiang Yan, they bought a small jar of cliff fruit oil. Now, in order to make full use of it, the original spacious table layout with a certain distance between them has been abandoned, and they have been forced to sit face-to-face and share an oil lamp.

If Jiang Yan hadn't been a woman and didn't want to squeeze in with others, Yang's office would have planned to use two oil lamps for the three of them, which would have been brighter, more economical, and more durable.

Half a month before the New Year, Jiang Ai and the others took turns returning to the Fu residence. They were especially excited to reunite after not seeing each other for so long. If it weren't for the curfew in the residence that prohibited them from wandering around and visiting other rooms, they would definitely have gone to the kitchen to ask for two ounces of yellow wine to celebrate.

Jiang Yan had never tasted wine before. Once, she picked some wild fruit on the mountain that tasted sour and astringent and was inedible. She sterilized it by scalding the skin and then put it in a jar to ferment. The finished product naturally rotted and smelled bad, so she gave up the idea of ​​making it herself.

As for the fruit wine brewed by the other women in the village… Jiang Yan didn't get to drink it. First, her health prevented her from drinking, and then after a bout of abdominal pain, everyone valued their lives and stopped brewing wine.

Ten days before the Lunar New Year, Jiang Yan received a special assignment.

She quickly flipped through a few pages of the plant catalog in her hand and asked, "What do you want me to do?"

Yang Jishi relayed the story with a hint of surprise: "Knowing that you are interested in grain crops, the master specially ordered the head steward to send people to search for crops all over the country and draw them into an atlas so that you can choose from them."

"Jiang Shuzuo, I didn't expect you to be so accomplished in agriculture?" No wonder the lord treated her differently and promoted her to be his personal assistant.

"No, no." Jiang Yan felt a flush of embarrassment rise to her cheeks upon hearing this flattery.

She knew her own limitations; she didn't know much about grain crops, most of which, according to normal historical records, were still far overseas. However, considering that the Northern Jin Dynasty wasn't part of her historical memory, it was possible that it actually existed.

Jiang Yan confidently flipped through the pages, but after a short while, her eyes became confused and unfocused.

The first few pages depicted wheat, millet, sorghum, and rice, staple foods she was very familiar with, and with labels in the corners of the pages, she didn't find them difficult to distinguish.

But the further Jiang Yan looked, the more unfamiliar the plant illustrations became with their completely unfamiliar names, leaving her stumped.

She turned the drawing over and over, the paper rustling as she looked at it.

Attracted by the commotion, Yang Jishi asked curiously, "You've discovered something?"

Jiang Yan shook her head, and after a moment she lay painfully on the table and asked, "Yang Jishi, did they only give us this extremely simple catalog? There are no details about color, plant height, taste, geographical distribution, growth cycle, etc. It's so hard to choose!"

Before handing the catalog to Jiang Yan, Yang Jishi flipped through more than ten pages and thought the drawings were quite realistic and clear.

“No, it’s probably less than half realistic.” Jiang Yan sat up straight. “If you turn to the eighth, twenty-third, and forty-eighth pages, these three pages are very likely depicting the same plant, just at different stages of growth and with different names in different regions.”

Yang Jishi obediently flipped to the corresponding page and compared it again and again, finally saying, "I retract my previous comment that it was very realistic."

He then pointed to one of the pictures and asked, "But this painting is clearly different. How can you determine that it is the same type as the other two?"

"Although it is drawn as a herbaceous plant, and the other two are clearly made of wood, the labels tell me that they are most likely the same thing."

"What if it's just a coincidence of names?"

"So I only said—most likely." Jiang Yan had seen wolfberry when she got medicine at the pharmacy in Lingshui County. The pharmacist, seeing her interest, even mentioned a few less common names, such as ground bone, sweet vegetable, and red earring.

Most importantly, half a month later, she dreamed of the life cycle of goji berries and precautions for planting and maintaining them. Unfortunately, she searched all over the back mountain of Dongshan Village but could not find a subject that she could use for practice, so she put it out of her mind.

Looking back now, I ask, "Yang Jishi, did they actually deliver the goods to Rongcheng County?"

Yang Jishi didn't know either, but "farming depends on the location and the timing; transplanting these plants here might not be able to make them survive."

“Exactly,” Jiang Yan continued her initial complaint, “So they forgot to mark the key points, how are we supposed to move this project forward!”

Half an hour later, in a side hall of the courtyard of Steward Fu, Jiang Yan drank two cups of jujube syrup before finally waiting for the person she was supposed to meet.

"Greetings, Steward Fu." Jiang Yan was somewhat surprised to see the person who came. When she went to find Fourteen and was sent here, she never thought that she would be met by Steward Fu to communicate and handle the matter directly.

She laid bare her difficulties and opinions without missing a single word, only then remembering the advice from former Secretary Cao: "When replying and making suggestions, remember to be tactful and not too direct."

Ah... Jiang Yan felt annoyed. It must be because she had been living a relatively smooth life for the past two years, and the people around her were easy to talk to, that she had become somewhat willful.

Fu Jia remained silent. He flipped to the ninth, eighteenth, thirty-fifth, and forty-second pages that Jiang Yan had mentioned, and indeed saw four plants with identical names but vastly different illustrations.

Then came the eighth, twenty-third, and forty-eighth cards.

……

After a moment, Fu Jia said, "Put the questions you just raised on paper and give them to me."

"Okay." In less than two seconds, Jiang Yan pulled out a piece of paper filled with feedback and folded it three times from her sleeve and handed it over. When she met the head steward's gaze, she gave him a friendly grin.

……

The next day, Jiang Yan sat at her desk, making her final push before the New Year holiday. Once she finished the last bit, she could pack her bags and go home to rest.

Secretary Cao knocked on the door, and Jiang Yan looked up, her face full of confusion as she watched him approach: "Secretary Cao, you haven't gone home yet?"

Didn't I already clear out all my work yesterday and say I wouldn't be working today? And why am I knocking on the door when I enter this room, my own territory...? That's really strange...

Jiang Yan glanced at him again and again. Perhaps because she was in a relaxed mood due to the approaching holiday, her mind had already automatically concocted various scenarios of court intrigue and scheming for him.

For example, the real Secretary Cao might be on his way home for a family reunion, or he might have been drugged and knocked out in his inner quarters, while a spy from another faction disguised himself as him to investigate top-secret information.

Oh dear, her current situation is quite dangerous...

“Jiang, the secretary.” Cao, unaware of the turmoil in Jiang Yan’s heart, only saw that the man in front of him was focused and respectfully preparing to listen to his teachings. His originally firm demands softened in tone.

“Jiang Jishi, I was negligent in not explaining this to you before. From now on, any handwritten documents that we submit to the master, the master of the house, and the stewards should be folded into a single sheet at most. Anything more would be unsightly.”

Jiang Yan's bizarre thoughts came to an abrupt halt: No, how could she hear such a request in this place?