Rebirth: Making a Fortune in Ancient Times

Xia Yu looked at the unresponsive millet seeds and felt somewhat puzzled. Was it a problem with the water?

Thinking of this, she took a rough porcelain bowl, put the seeds in it, and then poured in new water from the space well. After waiting for a while, there was still no reaction.

To verify whether the problem lay with the seeds or the water, Xia Yu took out another cantaloupe seed and threw it into a bowl. The seed sprouted quickly after being submerged in water. Seeing this, Xia Yu had no doubt that the last packet of millet seeds was definitely the problem.

Xia Yu took a few seeds from the packet and spread them in her palm, carefully examining them to see what made them different.

"These seeds aren't cooked, are they?" Xia Yu muttered to herself, putting the seeds in her mouth and chewing them carefully.

"Pah, pah, it really is cooked." Xia Yu couldn't understand why Lord Shen would give her a packet of cooked seeds to plant. Was it to test whether her water could make cooked crops regrow and sprout?

Although she didn't understand Lord Shen's meaning, she still wrote down the details of what she had grown on yellow straw paper. She specifically emphasized in the letter that water hyacinth and yellow flowers were completely useless. Water hyacinth would kill fish and shrimp, and would occupy all water-bearing areas, hindering shipping. Yellow flowers could strangle other surrounding plants, leading to reduced grain production; these two should absolutely not be planted within the Great Huai territory. The millet seeds were cooked and could not be grown, and so on.

The other edible items were also recorded in detail on the paper, including the methods of preparation. Of course, the writing brush used was a small wooden stick used for burning in the pot. Although Changyun had started school, the only set of writing materials he had was at the school; there were none at home. Moreover, Xia Yu's calligraphy wasn't very good; she had only practiced calligraphy for a few years in university with a calligraphy club and still couldn't write beautiful small regular script.

She wrote five or six pages of rambling text before finally writing everything that needed to be written. Finally, Xia Yu asked if she could grow the remaining seeds and sell them for money.

She folded the paper and tucked it back into the brocade jacket, then wrapped it in a cloth. The vegetables and fruits she had grown were packed into small baskets: all the bell peppers, ten bunches of grapes, ten zucchini, ten bitter melons, and only five large cantaloupes. She labeled each basket with its name. Looking at the five baskets lined up on the ground, Xia Yu realized her family had recently incurred significantly more expenses from this alone.

"Xiaxia, what are you doing?" Xia Yu was staring at the basket in a daze when she heard her mother calling her.

"Oh, Mom, you're back? I haven't finished cooking yet!" Xia Yu said, somewhat annoyed.

"It's alright, don't you still have food stored in your space? What are these things in the basket and on the ground?" Liu asked curiously, looking at the things arranged in the kitchen.

"Huh? What is this?" At this moment, Zhang Youtie, who had just washed his hands and face, also came over and stood behind Liu Shi, craning his neck to look into the kitchen.

"These are the things grown from the seeds that Lord Shen had Steward Ding deliver this morning. This yellow one is a cantaloupe, it's very sweet, even sweeter than a watermelon. This green one is a bell pepper, used for stir-frying. This is a cucumber, also a vegetable. This is a rose apple, a fruit that's sweet and sour." Xia Yu pointed to the items in each basket and introduced them to her parents, finally pointing to the bitter melon and saying, "This is called a bitter melon, also a vegetable, but it's bitter."

"Bitter? Can you even eat that?" Zhang Youtie asked, posing a probing question.

"You can eat it. It's great to eat in the hot summer. It's good for people who have stomach heat or mouth ulcers." Xia Yu shared the benefits of bitter melon that she had learned about in her previous life with her parents.

"Is it that good? Then it can replace the medicine soup." When Liu heard her daughter say that the lychee had so many benefits, she wanted to try it.

"It can't replace the herbal decoction, but when you have these kinds of illnesses, taking it should help you recover faster."

"Dad, Mom, let me cut you a cantaloupe so you can try it. It's really delicious." Xia Yu said, picking up a cantaloupe and placing it on the table, ready to cut it with a knife.

"no"

"Don't cut it!" the couple shouted at the same time.

"Huh? Why?" Xia Yu asked, puzzled as to why her parents would stop her.

"This is what Lord Shen asked you to plant. Have your father take it to the Shen residence this afternoon. What if Lord Shen blames us if we eat it?" Madam Liu explained to her daughter.

“Mother, Lord Shen wants me to plant them, but the number of fruits a vine can produce is not fixed. Just send him a few to see, and it won’t matter if we eat the extras.”

“What my daughter said seems to make sense.” Zhang Youtie thought Xia Yu’s words made a lot of sense.

Hearing that her father supported her, Xia Yu quickly cut open the cantaloupe on the table. It was really sweet; as soon as it was cut open, its sweet aroma wafted out. Later, the whole family ate the cantaloupe clean. Even Liu Shi was momentarily overwhelmed by the sweetness and forgot her worries.

After storing all the vegetables and fruits that had grown that morning and didn't need to be sent away into her spatial storage, Xia Yu took out some previously stored food from her space, including braised offal, hot sesame cakes, and shumai. Finally, she cut open a watermelon that she had stored in her space. The family had a simple meal together.

During the meal, Xia Yu suggested clearing out the remaining wasteland so they could plant something; otherwise, with only one shrimp pond there, everything else would be wasted.

"I've made up my mind. Everyone's busy with autumn planting now. Once things calm down in the next few days, I'll find some people to help. You guys should also think about what we should plant."

Hearing what Zhang Youtie said, the mother and son fell silent, pondering the matter in their minds while eating.

After a short afternoon nap, Xia Yu and her father discussed it and decided to deliver the things to the Shen family in the county town that afternoon, so as not to delay Lord Shen's business.

It must be said that Zhang Youtie and his daughter, along with Steward Ding of the Shen family, acted very quickly. The goods were delivered to the Shen family that afternoon, and by evening they were loaded onto the cargo ship bound for the capital. Also on board was a barrel of diluted space well water to ensure that the goods would still be fresh when they arrived in the capital.