Rebirth: Making a Fortune in Ancient Times

After several months of observation, Xia Yu finally found the reason why his space had become larger—planting new varieties of plants. As long as it was a plant that had never been planted in the space before, planting it in the space for the first time would make the space larger. Now, those few trees were already a foot away from the edge of the space. This discovery made Xia Yu very happy.

So, after the autumn harvest, Xia Yu's favorite thing to do was go into the mountains. She would throw any unfamiliar plant into her spatial storage, and any seeds she encountered that she didn't recognize into her storage as well. As a result, her spatial storage expanded at a visible rate, but she also grew a bunch of useless things.

Every day when she goes into the mountains, besides finding new plant species, another thing she does is get rid of the messy, useless things that have grown in her space. Of course, there are a lot of useless things, but there are also good things. For example, the few plants with a few red beads on their tops that she is looking at now, she is not sure if they are the ones she is thinking of.

Take a shovel and carefully dig out the rootstock under one of the plants; the rootstock is shaped like a radish.

"It really is ginseng!" Xia Yu murmured, looking at the thing in her hand. She had lived here for more than half a year and had never heard of ginseng before. She thought there was no such thing in the mountains here! She tried hard to remember where in the mountains she had picked up the seed. But after thinking for a long time, her head was throbbing, and she still couldn't remember. In the past few days, she had run all over the mountains, except for the deep mountains where she hadn't gone. She had searched every place in the outside world. She planted every seed she saw in her space, and threw every plant she saw into her space. To be honest, she couldn't even remember what the seed looked like.

Carefully carrying the ginseng out of the space, she found Madam Liu, who was making cotton-padded clothes for her and her brother in the main room.

"Mother, look what I've grown!"

Hearing her daughter's voice, Liu looked up. When she saw what her daughter was holding, her hand trembled involuntarily, and a sharp pain shot through her. Liu wiped the bead of blood from her fingertip into her mouth before softly asking her daughter...

"How did you manage to grow this?"

"I don't know either. I've been picking things up on the mountain and planting them in my space these past few days. I don't know where I found the seeds, but I found a few of these sprouting today. Mom, can we sell these for money?"

"It's definitely worth selling; it looks good. I just wonder how effective this ginseng is, since it grew overnight. Judging by its size, it would normally take decades to grow." Liu replied somewhat uncertainly. She didn't understand pharmacology, but she knew that ginseng was a life-saving substance, unlike the vegetables we eat. She wasn't sure if this ginseng had the same medicinal effects as normally grown ginseng.

"Should we go to a clinic and ask?" Xia Yu wasn't sure about the efficacy of the medicine. It was different from *Anoectochilus roxburghii*, which only takes a year to grow outside. Ginseng, however, was different; something the size she held would take decades to grow in reality. But it had grown so much overnight in the space—she felt guilty!

"Then have your father take you to the clinic tomorrow to ask. Oh, do you still have a few ginseng roots?" Madam Liu suddenly asked her daughter.

"Sanzhu, what's wrong, Mother?" Xia Yu didn't know why her mother was asking this, but after thinking about the ginseng in her space, she answered.

"If it works well, we'll keep one as a backup. Your second aunt should be arriving around the New Year or the Lunar New Year, so we can send her a section that might come in handy then," Liu said with some concern, thinking about Li's condition over the past few months.

Xia Yu understood her mother's worries, thinking of Li's frail body. Li's pregnancy was particularly difficult; from the moment she was diagnosed until now, she vomited everything she ate—two out of every three things she ate. Now, more than seven months pregnant, she was getting thinner and thinner, her enormous belly a frightening sight. Liu Shi stayed in the old house all day, afraid to go anywhere, lest something happen to Li. Even Qiu Yu no longer needed to cook; she only needed to stay with her mother. This made Xia Yu's opinion of the severely sexist and extremely biased old woman improve somewhat.

The next day, Zhang Youtie drove his mule cart with Liu Shi and Xia Yu to the county town. Recently, due to the drop in temperature, the amount of shrimp their family supplied to the restaurants had drastically decreased. Two restaurants and several eateries in the town had closed down some time ago, leaving only Zuixiaolou remaining. Zhang Youtie planned to clean the shrimp ponds in the next few days, turning over the silt, so that he could put shrimp back in when the weather warmed up next year. Therefore, he came to discuss this matter with Manager Liu and also to settle the accounts.

Originally, Mrs. Liu hadn't planned to come, but winter seemed to have come earlier this year, and the weather had been rather gloomy these past few days. She planned to come again to buy some fabric and cotton to make a few more quilts. She also needed to take care of Uncle Ma and Aunt Ma; Aunt Ma was blind, and she needed to prepare those things for her. Once it snowed, the roads would be difficult to travel.

The group first drove the mule cart to deliver the shrimp to Zuixiaolou Restaurant. It was still early, and Manager Liu hadn't arrived yet. After Zhang Youtie put the shrimp down, he told the waiter who was receiving the goods, and then took his wife and daughter to have breakfast in the street. The group, quite familiar with the area, drove the mule cart to the west side of the city, parked it at a shop, and then headed into the market. While other streets were still quiet, this place was already bustling with activity and fragrant aromas. Xia Yu loved the lively atmosphere of the morning market. The group walked around the stalls and finally arrived at the spicy soup stall. Each person ordered a bowl of mutton spicy soup, four fried dough sticks, ten mutton buns, and a plate of shumai. They ordered a lot of staple food so that any leftovers wouldn't go to waste; they could reheat them and eat them again later.

After breakfast, Liu took her daughter to the cloth shop, while Zhang Youtie filled a clay pot with mutton soup and five mutton buns and went to the pork vendor's stall. This time, besides buying some pork, he also wanted the vendor to buy him two lamb shanks. The lamb shanks he bought last time, aside from the ones for guests, his daughter had used the rest to make cumin mutton, braised mutton, stewed mutton, and hand-pulled mutton. Zhang Youtie discovered that well-cooked mutton was even more fragrant than pork. Simply boiled in water and served with his daughter's homemade chive blossom sauce, it was incredibly delicious.

"Brother, what brings you to the market today?" Pig-headed Dragon was picking bones when he sensed someone approaching his stall. He looked up and saw Zhang Youtie holding a jar.

"I was waiting for Manager Liu to discuss some things today, and since it's still early, I thought I'd come and see you, brother. Here's some spicy soup and freshly steamed mutton buns. Please eat them while they're hot."

"Okay, fine. I'll wash my hands first." Pork Dragon didn't stand on ceremony with Zhang Youtie. He immediately put the boning knife on the cutting board, pulled out a basin of water from under the board, washed his hands, poured a bowl of spicy soup from the jar into his usual large drinking bowl, and slurped it down with hot steamed buns. He chatted with Zhang Youtie while eating.

"Brother, thanks to you, I now deliver thirty catties of pork to Zuixiaolou every day. You're truly my lucky star! Ever since we became friends, good things have been happening to my family! Haha...haha..."

"Brother, you're joking. We brothers help each other out, so there's no question of one of us benefiting from the other. If we really want to get to the bottom of it, it's me who benefited from you, brother. If you hadn't led me to Steward Ding back then, I wouldn't have been able to get in touch with the Shen family, would I?"

Zhang Youtie was grateful to "Pork Dragon" for introducing him to Steward Ding. Later, after becoming acquainted with Manager Liu of the restaurant, he introduced "Pork Dragon" to him. Since the restaurant used a considerable amount of pork daily, it didn't matter where they bought it. Manager Liu and Chef Zhao found "Pork Dragon's" meat to be indeed excellent, so they gave Zhang Youtie face and bought all the meat the restaurant needed daily from Pork Dragon.

“Brother, you’re right. We brothers should help each other.” Pork Dragon’s voice was already loud, and he couldn’t control it as he was talking to Zhang Youtie. This attracted the attention of the vendors and passersby who kept glancing over.

"It's been a long time since I've seen you at the market. Are you here to sell shrimp today?" Zhang Youtie, who was talking to Pork Dragon, turned around when he heard someone speaking. It was someone he knew.