She's skilled in medicine, martial arts, and even understands animal language—the abandoned dau

With the agreed delivery date with the Zhu family drawing ever closer, Lanxiang, along with Shen Man, thoroughly searched all the bee hives.

Because several bee colonies didn't have much food stored, only a little over a hundred kilograms of honey were harvested in total.

However, according to their agreement with Master Zhu, at a price of two taels of silver per catty, these honeys could be sold for two or three hundred taels of silver.

Lanxiang was overjoyed to see the large jar full of honey in her home, while Shen Man began to worry about the source of the honey.

That night, Shen Man couldn't sleep because she was thinking about the honey source. When she turned over for the fifth time, Lanxiang finally couldn't help but ask, "Man'er, what are you thinking about?"

Lanxiang often couldn't understand why this child, who was only three years old, was no less intelligent than adults like them, and perhaps even more so.

"Mother, I'm thinking about those bee colonies," Shen Man answered truthfully.

Lanxiang asked in confusion, "What's wrong with the bees?"

Shen Man said, "I promised the queen bee that I would provide them with enough nectar so that they would have an endless supply of honey next year. This way, we can make more money, the bees won't have to worry about going hungry, and they won't have to fly far away to collect nectar."

Lanxiang asked again, "How can we provide them with nectar?"

“If you want bees to collect more nectar, you need enough flowers.” Shen Man’s eyes lit up. “I originally planned to plant flowers all over the wasteland we just bought, so the bees would have plenty of flowers to collect nectar from. But after thinking about it carefully, just planting flowers would diminish the value of that land. If we plant something that can both flower and bear fruit, or generate other economic benefits, wouldn’t that be killing two or three birds with one stone?”

Lanxiang nodded, thinking it was a good idea, but then asked doubtfully, "So what exactly do we need to grow so that, besides providing flowers for bees to collect nectar, we can also make money from it?"

"That's exactly what's troubling me!"

"If you can't figure it out, think about it tomorrow. Anyway, it's winter now, so you can't plant it anymore. Go to sleep, or it won't grow tall!"

Looking at the still dark sky outside, Shen Man thought to herself, "If this were modern times, I wouldn't even be off work by now. Here, everyone is already asleep."

Shen Man turned over, still wide awake. At this moment, she missed the days when she had a cell phone and the internet. If she had a cell phone and the internet, she could just look things up online.

Suddenly, a fruit she loved in her previous life popped into her mind—jujubes. "Why don't I plant jujubes?"

Lanxiang had never heard of this fruit before. "Jujube? Is it tasty?"

"Of course it's delicious. When it's ripe, it tastes sweet and can be eaten raw. After drying, it can be used to make soup or sliced ​​and steeped in water." Shen Man became more and more excited as she spoke. "Moreover, there are many jujube flowers, and the flowering period is relatively long, which can provide enough flower source for bees."

"That sounds great," Lanxiang said, perking up. "But we've never grown jujubes here before, so we don't know if they'll even survive."

"Give it a try!" Shen Man suddenly jumped out of bed and said excitedly, "Master Zhu is coming to our house tomorrow, so I'll ask him to help me find out where I can buy jujube seedlings. Besides jujube trees, I also want to plant some osmanthus trees around that wasteland, so we can harvest osmanthus honey in the fall."

Looking at Shen Man's determined appearance, Lanxiang couldn't help but shake her head with a smile, but still encouraged her, "Okay, then I'll listen to you. But it's already very late, so hurry up and lie down to sleep. Master Zhu and the others will be coming to collect the honey tomorrow, so be careful you don't have trouble getting up."

Shen Man nodded obediently, lay back down on the bed, and closed her eyes.

However, although her body had relaxed, her thoughts, like a wild horse, had already drifted off to distant places.

In her mind, a vast and boundless land appeared, covered with lush jujube trees.

Each jujube tree was lush and laden with heavy, bright red jujubes, as if beckoning to her.

A slight smile appeared on Shen Man's lips as she murmured softly, "I will definitely succeed in planting it..."

With beautiful dreams in mind, she slowly drifted into a sweet dream.

Around 9 a.m. the next day, two carriages slowly drove into Xiaoyao Village.

The lead carriage was decorated very luxuriously and quickly attracted the attention of the children playing at the village entrance.

They all crowded around, eager to see who was sitting in the carriage.

The coachman had no choice but to stop the carriage when he saw that a child was blocking the road.

"Young master, we've arrived at Xiaoyao Village!" the coachman reported to the people inside the carriage.

The carriage curtain was lifted, and a boy dressed in fine clothes stepped out. He had a fair complexion and was very handsome; he was none other than Zhu Jing, the young master of the Zhu family.

The village children looked at him curiously, their eyes sparkling with envy.

Zhu Jing greeted the children with a smile, then asked them, "Do you know where Man'er's house is?"

“I know, it’s right there!” The children eagerly pointed the way for him.

Seeing their enthusiasm, Zhu Jing took out a bag of pastries from the carriage and shared them with them.

"Thank you all. This is a gift from me to express my gratitude. Please help yourselves to share it!"

The children accepted the pastries and left happily.

Zhu Jing got back into the carriage and gestured to the driver to continue.

The carriage finally stopped in front of Shen Man's house.

Zhu Jing stepped forward and gently knocked on the door. Behind him stood the steward who had come with him.

A moment later, Lanxiang came out of the house and quickly walked to the door.

When she saw Zhu Jing, a hint of surprise flashed in her eyes, but she quickly regained her composure.

Zhu Jing politely said to Lanxiang, "Aunt Lanxiang, my father went to the county today. He entrusted the task of picking up the goods to me and Manager Liu. I wonder if it would be convenient for us to come in?"

Lanxiang smiled and nodded, inviting Zhu Jing and the steward into the courtyard. Then she hurriedly brought out two small stools from the house and had them sit down in the courtyard.

When Manager Liu saw how simple Lanxiang's house was, with no place to entertain guests, he couldn't help but wonder: what were his master and young master thinking when they did business with such a poor family?

After Lanxiang invited the two to sit down, she said to them, "Please wait a moment while I go and fetch the honey from the house so you can take a look." With that, she walked into the house.

While Lanxiang was away, Zhu Jing took a look around the courtyard. Although it was simple, it was well-organized, and there were some potted plants in the corners, adding a touch of life to the whole courtyard.

Shen Man was playing with the little green snake in the back of the yard when she heard Lanxiang say that Zhu Jing and the others had come to pick up the goods, so she quickly got up and came over to help.