"It's in the main room." Yingbao thought that the head of the village came to her house to touch the gourd like everyone else, so she took him to see it.
There was only one big gourd in the main room now. Jiang Quan carried the other one back home, saying that he would take it to the market next time to act as a matchmaker and attract people. After all, he couldn't take his little cousin to the market every time.
Sun Lizheng touched the big gourd and asked, "Yingbao, how much do you want for this gourd?"
Yingbao thought about it and offered a compromise price: "Last time, the shopkeeper of Simen Town offered thirty taels of silver. This one is about the same size as that one, so it's also thirty taels."
Sun Lizheng was very happy when he heard this, because his second son gave him fifty taels of silver and asked him to buy a signature gourd to run his shop.
This way, Sun Li saved twenty taels of silver for nothing, and he would not return it to his second son.
Whoever says that a father doesn’t make money for his son is talking nonsense. When encountering such a good thing, the right thing to do is to go with the flow.
"I bought this gourd." said Sun Lizheng.
Yingbao was of course happy to do so and nodded immediately: "Okay, do you want to carry it back yourself?"
Of course, Li Zheng Sun would not carry the tax himself. His youngest son and several village guards were collecting taxes in the village and would come up to the south slope to pick him up soon.
At noon, when Jiang Quan learned that his little cousin had sold the big gourd for thirty taels, he was so angry that he beat his chest and stamped his feet.
"You fool! You sold it for thirty taels. It's the King of Gourds. Many people have asked me about it. I've already offered eighty taels. One person is going home to discuss how to get the money."
"There's another one, right?" Ying Bao said nonchalantly.
She was thinking about how to take the big gourd out of the cave. The gourd in the cave was much bigger than the one outside.
"That's the matchmaker! Doesn't the matchmaker understand? He can't sell it!" Jiang Quan sighed.
Yingbao blinked and whispered to comfort her: "Why are you so anxious? In fact, I have hidden two of the largest gourds, but I can't show them to you now."
She made up her mind, and quietly took out two large gourds at night, saying that they were hidden in the mushroom shed.
"Really? How come I didn't know that?" Jiang Quan was a little unconvinced.
Ever since his little cousin’s gourd grew to the size of a washbasin, he has come to check it out every day. How come he didn’t know that there were two other gourd kings
Yingbao made up a lie in all seriousness: "Because I hid them in the bamboo shed, of course you didn't know."
Jiang Quan touched the back of his head, a little confused.
But despite his doubts, he still looked forward to having two more gourd kings.
The two men finished their conversation and went about their respective business.
Tomorrow is Mid-Autumn Festival. Yingbao gave Chuchu a few days off, asking her to go back and have a good time during the festival. She can also come back next month.
Yan Ru bought a lot of candles, boiled a can of wax, dripped some red sumac into the wax, and taught her nieces how to make river lanterns.
She used an egg to lightly dip it in the wax and then picked it up.
There was a layer of red wax on the eggshell.
When the wax solidifies, carefully peel the wax shell off the eggshell and set it aside for later use.
By dipping the wax again and again, a bunch of oval red wax pieces are peeled off, and then these wax pieces shaped like petals are glued together one by one to form a red lotus seat.
Use a piece of sheepskin as the base and place a wick candle in the middle of the lotus, and the river lantern is ready.
Yingbao learned how to make a few lanterns and prepared to go out with her sisters to light lanterns on Mid-Autumn Night.
Jiang Erlang cut some bamboo and built a bamboo tower on the open space outside the yard, preparing to erect it on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Old man Jiang and his grandchildren were also busy. They bought various colored oil papers and cut bamboo strips to make various lanterns at home.
Chunniang and her sister-in-law and mother-in-law used the newly bought carved molds to make mooncakes with red bean paste and osmanthus sugar crisps as fillings.
After making the river lanterns, Yingbao took her two younger brothers to knock red dates.
Her family has planted several jujube trees. The jujubes are ripe now, hanging red on the treetops, each one bigger than a bird's egg.
"Delicious." Jiang Jie picked up the dates and stuffed them into his mouth, eating them happily with a crunching sound.
Seeing that there were still many jujubes out of reach at the treetops, Yingbao decided to climb up the tree and knock them out.
It is easy for children to climb trees. They can climb up in no time and sit on the branches to look around.
In the distance, there were several families building houses, all of them brick and tile houses, with three main rooms facing south and two kitchens on the east side, similar to the layout of my house.
Once these new houses are built and people move in, the south slope will no longer be so deserted.
Yingbao suddenly remembered the flood in her previous life and felt uneasy.
Although my family has moved to the south slope, most of the fields are at the bottom of the slope and there is no way to move them away.
The best fields like rice fields and wheat fields are basically within the flood range, and just one flood can destroy everything.
"Sister, come down!" Seeing that his sister would not come down from the tree, Jiang Wu and Jiang Jie became a little anxious. They looked up and shouted, "Stop picking dates. Come down quickly, sister!"
Yingbao let out an "oh" and knocked on the tree a few times with a bamboo pole, knocking down all the dates within reach, then slowly climbed down the tree.
Jiang Jie and Jiang Wu bent down to pick up dates. The two puppies rushed to snatch them from them. Da Huang even picked up the dates and put them into the basket.
Xiao Hei grabbed one and crushed it to pieces. The dog ate the dates with gusto, just like its owner.
After picking the dates, the three siblings carried the baskets home. When they arrived at the haystack at home, they saw a child hiding behind the haystack and peeping at them.
Little Black and Big Yellow barked towards that side, jumped around and wanted to pounce on them, but they didn't dare.
"Who! What are you doing?" Jiang Wu rushed over and waved the bamboo stick in his hand to intimidate the other party.
"It's me." A dirty boy with messy hair leaned out from behind the haystack. "I'm Wei Zhan."
Yingbao and her brother were stunned.
How did this damn kid get into this state and hide behind her haystack
Jiang Wu and Jiang Jie also knew him and asked in confusion, "What are you doing here?"
Wei Zhan stepped out, scratched his messy hair, and said dejectedly: "I...I got separated from my elder brother..."
"Lost?" Yingbao expressed disbelief. "You have so many guards in your family, how could they lose you?"
Wei Zhan frowned and said, "We encountered a large group of bandits on the way, and I...I managed to escape with great difficulty."
"A large group of bandits? Where did you encounter the bandits?" Ying Bao had never heard of any bandits near Qinchuan County in her previous life.
"It's in Zhouhe County, more than a hundred miles away from here." Wei Zhan whispered, "I haven't eaten for several days."
He was smart enough to exchange his outer garment for some dry food from villagers on the roadside, and then he walked along the official road all the way back to Chuanhe Town.
When Jiang Wu heard that he hadn't eaten, he handed over one of the dates that Ah Huang was holding, and said, "Here you go."
Wei Zhan took the dates and started eating.
"What about your brother and those people from the Chen family?" Yingbao actually didn't quite believe what the boy said.
Wei Zhan: "I don't know. There were too many bandits. My guards told me to run quickly, but I... got separated from them."
In fact, he didn't say that he deliberately rode his horse back. Finally, the horse was so tired that it foamed at the mouth and fell to the ground. He then ran into the woods and hid.
Wei Zhan came out of the woods only after there were no more pursuers behind him, and walked along the official road towards Chuanhe Town.
He could have gone to Qinchuan County, but he didn't. Instead, he went straight back to Chuanhe Town and ran to the Jiang family in Nanpo.