At noon, most of the chicks were exchanged for eggs.
Granny Tang exchanged ten chicks, Wen Shu's wet nurse also exchanged ten, and then gave fifteen to Zhou and Yan Ru each. Other villagers also exchanged for more than forty chicks. Now there were only a dozen chicks left in the house.
The dozen or so chicks, led by a hen, were foraging in the yard.
The other two hens were in a miserable situation. Because they were unwilling to give up the eggs that had hatched late, the chicks around them were stolen one by one by the hostess. In the end, only a few weak chicks that had just hatched and whose feathers were not even dry were left.
Chunniang originally wanted to take these chicks away and have them raised by the same hen so that the other two hens could recover faster and lay eggs earlier.
As a result, one of the hens was very stubborn. Once the hostess took away the chicks from her, she would chase after them frantically, snatch one or two more from the hen with chicks, and then take the two chicks to find food elsewhere.
After a few times, Chunniang just let it go.
After a few more days, the hen was able to take her chicks out of the yard.
Chunniang was afraid that her chicks would be confused with others, so she used red dot to make a red mark on the chicks' heads.
Every morning, after feeding the hen and the chicks with millet, the hen would go out with her chicks, clucking.
The egret chicken also followed along with its two chicks.
Perhaps because the egret chicken has few chicks, it often walks far away, sometimes even running to the wasteland.
This piece of wasteland is close to a pond, and there is a wild bamboo forest in the distance. The wasteland is covered with lush vegetation and dense shrubs. The hen with her chicks can not only find insects in it, but also avoid hawks in the sky.
However, there are also many ground predators, such as weasels, foxes, and wolves, which will sneak out to hunt.
Fortunately, there are often people washing rice, vegetables, clothes and fetching water near the pond, so those animals dare not approach during the day.
Unexpectedly, not long after, the two chicks of the egret chicken disappeared. They were probably taken away by an eagle or caught by other wild animals.
Recently, there are always one or two eagles gliding over the village, scaring all the chickens in the village.
Not only were the chickens frightened, but the villagers were also uneasy. They immediately asked the young children in their homes to hide back in the house and hid the lambs and piglets.
Because this kind of eagle is very large, it can easily capture a four or five-year-old child or a half-grown lamb.
Whenever they saw an eagle swooping down, the villagers would bang copper basins or gongs, wave their arms and shout loudly to drive it away, temporarily scaring it away.
But they would come again soon, and several times they even circled over the Jiang family's yard.
Chunniang had no choice but to drive the hens and chicks into the house and release them after the eagle flew away.
She didn't pay much attention to the pheasants, so the two cubs disappeared.
However, the egret chicken did not give up on itself after losing its chicks, but tried again and again to snatch chicks from other hens.
But now the chick has recognized its mother and is unwilling to go with it.
So, Yingbao often saw this egret chicken going to the pond alone, not knowing whether it was looking for food or looking for its lost children.
Jiang Sanlang stayed in the county town for three days and came back happily driving a new carriage. As soon as he entered the house, he showed a house deed to his wife and daughter.
This is a five-room courtyard house not far from the county school, and the price of the house is more than three hundred taels of silver.
Including the hundred taels of silver for the carriage, Jiang Sanlang spent a total of more than four hundred taels of silver this time, including one hundred taels of silver given by his little girl.
Chunniang had almost spent all the silver she had, leaving only a dozen copper coins.
She was not reluctant at all, but very happy. Her family finally had a house in the county town, a five-room house made of blue bricks and tiles.
"The house is nice, and the yard is quite big. It's no problem to grow some vegetables and flowers. I'll go there again in a while and ask a few masons to repair the house and buy some furniture. After the autumn harvest, I can send Xiaojie and Yuanbao to the city to study."
Jiang Sanlang then said to the little girl, "When the time comes, you and your mother will go to the county town together. I will be the girl of the county town in the future."
After eight or ten years, the little girl will be a proper city dweller, and then she can find a good husband in the county town.
Yingbao shook her head: "I'm not going to the county town, it's OK for mother to take my eldest brother there."
In her previous life, she lived in a county town for several years. There was nothing interesting about that place except that there were a lot of people.
Moreover, water supply is a big problem in the county town. If there is no well at home, one has to either fetch water from the river or buy it.
A load of water is barely enough for a family of three or five to use for a day, but for washing clothes, rice and vegetables, they can only go to the nearby pond.
The big pond in the county town is like a stinking ditch. The water is green. It is okay in winter, but in summer, the whole pond is filled with a faint stench.
Even if you live near a river and wash in the flowing water, you can't guarantee that someone upstream may be emptying the chamber pot or flushing the toilet while you are washing rice here.
That's why she didn't want to go to the county town.
Chunniang asked: "Why doesn't Baoer go?"
"I still need to learn medicine from my master." Yingbao explained.
She not only studied medicine, but also martial arts, and growing golden fungus to make money. She couldn't do anything in the county town.
Chunniang smiled and said, "Yes, our Baoer still needs to study medicine. It's our parents who are confused and have forgotten about this."
Within a few days, the news that Jiang Sanlang's family had bought a house in the county town spread throughout the village.
There is no way around it. One of the duties of the village head is to register the property of the villagers, and the fields and houses must be kept on record.
Jiang Sanlang had just signed the deed at the government office, and within two days, Sun Lizheng received a notice from the county government, asking him to re-register the amount of Jiang Sanlang's property.
Doesn’t everyone know about this going on
"Oh, did your family really buy a house in the county town?" Aunt Wang saw Chunniang and pulled her aside to ask.
Chunniang pulled her sleeves away without leaving any trace and said with a smile: "It's not a house at all, it's just two rooms."
"Hey, two rooms are also a house." Aunt Wang smiled mysteriously and asked in a low voice: "So are you planning to move to the county town? Are Erni and Yingbao going with you?"
"How can that be possible? Our fields are all here. Why would we move to the county town?"
Chunniang was in a hurry to get away: "Second Aunt, I have something else to do, so I won't talk to you anymore." After that, she walked away quickly.
Aunt Wang was unwilling to give up and wanted to go over and talk more, but her second son stopped her and said, "Mom, the pancakes are burnt. Go and have a look."
"Ouch." Aunt Wang slapped her thigh and quickly ran to lift the lid of the pot. It turned out that the pancakes in the pot were fine and not burnt at all.
"You little brat! How dare you lie to me!" Aunt Wang turned the pancake over angrily.
She turned around and saw her second son standing by the stove looking at her. She glared at him and said, "What are you looking at?"
Wang Erlang: "I'm hungry, waiting for the pancakes to come out of the pan."
"Eat! You only know how to eat!" Aunt Wang gestured in front of her son with a spatula and said unhappily, "Er Ni will go to the county town soon. Let's see what you can do!"
"What should we do?" Wang Erlang stared at the pancakes in the pot.
Aunt Wang rolled her eyes at her son and said, "Didn't I tell you to spend more time with Erni and Huzi? Maybe our two families can become relatives in the future."
Wang Erlang finally reacted and twitched his lips, "Mom, how old is Erni? Why should I get along with her?"
He is already fifteen and Erni is only ten. What's the point of him getting along with a yellow-haired girl