Chen Ergou said confidently: "I am not borrowing money and not paying it back. Sanlang, saving a life is better than building a seven-story pagoda. Please be kind. At worst, I will wait for my donkey to come back and recognize you as my godfather and work for your family for the rest of my life..."
Jiang Sanlang and Chunniang were so angry that their faces turned green. They shouted angrily, "Get lost!"
He picked up a wooden shovel and was about to hit him.
Chen Ergou and his wife were so scared that they got up and ran away, still yelling, "Then... can you lend me your deer? When my donkey comes back, I'll go to the mountains and hunt one for you. No... I'll hunt three for you..."
Jiang Sanlang was so angry that he chased after him with a wooden shovel in hand.
Chen Ergou and his wife were so scared that they ran away and disappeared in a flash.
The villagers on the threshing ground couldn't help but curse after hearing this: "How shameless! No wonder Chen Lu'er dared to rob people on the road. With such parents, it's a wonder he can learn well."
The more Jiang Sanlang thought about it, the more he felt something was wrong. He always felt that Chen Ergou's visit was suspicious.
"No, I have to go find Patriarch Chen and ask him to come forward and resolve this matter."
After all, Chen Ergou is a member of the Chen clan, and only the patriarch of the Chen clan can control him.
Chun Niang nodded: "You go ahead. I wonder if Chen Ergou will do something weird again."
"Yeah." Jiang Sanlang threw away the wooden shovel in his hand and walked towards the house of Patriarch Chen.
The midsummer sun is already like a small stove.
Yingbao took Youyou for a walk outside, and when she saw Xiaowu and Xiaojie sweating under the sun, she hurried home.
He carried the two younger brothers out of the backpack, and then asked Yuanbao to carry Hu Zi out.
There were two mats on the floor of the main room, and four boys were sitting on them playing with Kongming locks and tangrams.
Little Yingbao went to the kitchen to cook.
She couldn’t stir-fry any vegetables, but she could wash rice and cook a pot of water chestnuts at the same time.
Since no one was watching at the moment, Yingbao simply took out a basket of water chestnuts, washed them, and put them in the pot to start cooking.
The stove in her house has two pots, one for cooking rice and the other for cooking water chestnuts.
Soon, the rice was cooked and the water chestnuts were ready.
Take out the water chestnuts, pour the water into a clay pot, add some brown sugar and stir it, and when it cools down, give it to Yuanbao and Huzi to drink.
Then take out some vegetables, pick them, wash them and put them aside, and let A Niang come back to cook.
A hen at home hatched a group of chicks in early spring, twenty in total. They were able to find food, so Yingbao threw the picked vegetable leaves for them to peck at.
The little chick was a fluffy ball, with a few hard feathers grown on its wings. It chirped as it circled around Yingbao's feet.
It was not until the evening that Jiang Sanlang and Chunniang returned home.
Seeing that her little girl had cooked all the rice and picked and washed the vegetables, Chunniang couldn't help but touch her little head and said lovingly, "Bao'er is really capable."
Yingbao smiled and said, "I also cooked some water chestnuts and asked Yuanbao and Huzi to take some back. There is also a small pot. Mom, you can try it."
Chunniang was surprised: "You went to look for water chestnuts again?"
Yingbao nodded.
"Did you take your brother with you?" Chunniang asked.
She seemed to see the little girl leading a big deer for a walk.
"No, I found it by myself." Yingbao said without blushing.
Chunniang did not doubt him and said, "Bao'er, next time you go out to play, it's best to go with your brothers and sisters."
The previous incident had not yet been resolved, and she did not dare to let her daughter out of their sight alone.
"Well, don't worry, mom. I will stay with Sister Dani and the others in the future." Yingbao nodded obediently.
Chunniang prepared the food and the family sat down to eat.
Xiaojie and Xiaowu smelled the fragrance of the food and crawled over quickly, clinging to their parents and sister and calling out "Oh!"
Chunniang fed them steamed eggs with a spoon and asked her husband, "Sanlang, what did Patriarch Chen say when he went to West Village?"
Jiang Sanlang ate his rice in big mouthfuls and said, "Chen Ergou said that it was Chen Laoshuan who instigated it, so the Chen clan leader went to his house and gave him a lecture. This matter probably ended there.
However, Chief Chen promised me that Chen Ergou will not come to harass us again."
"That's good." Chunniang felt slightly relieved.
After dinner, Jiang Sanlang cleaned up the dishes and washed them, while Chunniang boiled water for the children to bathe and change their clothes.
Ever since the two little monkeys learned to crawl, they have been running all over the ground, their bodies covered in mud like monkeys, and their shorts and jackets look as if they had been washed out of the mud.
After changing clothes, Chun Niang slapped her son's butt and said, "If you crawl around on the ground again, I'll beat you to death."
Xiaojie giggled, Xiaowu wrinkled his nose, turned around and looked around for his sister for comfort.
Yingbao was now lying on the table in the west room, first copying a piece of calligraphy, and then copying two pages of Thousand Character Classic.
Now her handwriting has taken shape. Although it lacks any style, it is very graceful and neat.
The summer harvest is over.
The head of the village brought the villagers to collect taxes. Jiang Sanlang paid the taxes first, and then paid for his eldest and second brothers' families.
Once their golden ears are sold, the eldest and second brothers will naturally return the money.
During this period, the Jiang family purchased several hundred kilograms of wheat from other villagers and kept it as food storage at home.
After the wheat harvest, the next step is plowing the land, transplanting rice seedlings, and planting soybeans, which can take a month.
It just so happens that the golden ears are ripe at this time and need to be harvested and dried urgently.
Jiang Sanlang scratched his head, not knowing what to do first.
"Dad, I know how to harvest golden ears, so leave these to me."
Yingbao volunteered to help: "We only have 300 golden ears, I can pick them all in two days. Now the sun is bright, so we don't have to dry them."
"Then leave it to Baoer." Jiang Sanlang agreed readily.
So Yingbao started to get busy. The two younger brothers were very well-behaved and didn't make any noise. As long as they could see their sister, they could sit quietly on the mat and play the tangram for two hours.
The golden ears were dried in the scorching sun for five days and were completely dry, without a single mold or rot.
It just so happened that Jiang Sanlang and his wife had just finished plowing the dry land and planting the seedlings.
Taking a day off, the three Jiang brothers took the dried golden ears to the county town and sold all of them.
This time, Jiang Sanlang sold eleven catties of gold ears and earned thirty-three taels of silver.
Jiang Dalang's one hundred golden ears weighed three pounds and were sold for nine taels of silver.
Jiang Erlang made the same profit, earning nine taels.
Even Old Man Jiang earned 1.8 yuan.
The family returned from the county town in great joy, bringing back a lot of cloth and daily necessities.
Now, the whole village knew that the Jiang family made a lot of money selling golden ears.
The first person to come and inquire was Aunt Wang Er.
Her home is not far from Jiang Sanlang's. In recent days, she has seen yellow mushrooms drying in Jiang Sanlang's house. Although she is curious, she just takes a look.
Later, the three brothers of the Jiang family went to the county town with many baskets of yellow mushrooms, and came back with a cart full of cloth and other items. Even a fool could tell that their family made a lot of money.
"Mother Chun, how do you grow those yellow mushrooms at your home? Can you give us some seeds?"
Aunt Wang smiled and pulled Chunniang aside to ask her some questions.
Chun Niang smiled and said, "Of course you can, but our seeds are very expensive, ten cents a plant."
"What? Ten cents a plant? Why don't you just go and rob it?" Aunt Wang's face darkened and she turned and left.
Chunniang ignored it.
It's a loss to give her ten cents per plant, wouldn't it be better to grow it yourself
Alas, if the bamboo shed was full, Sanlang would have wanted to plant four or five hundred trees at a time.