Almost all the people of the village gathered in front of the unfinished house, pointing and discussing loudly, their eyes full of surprise.

Although Chen Xu's house is still the structure of a thatched house, it looks much taller and spacious, with the lowest pillars nearly three meters high, the beams on the central roof are four meters, and there are three rooms in a row, each with an area of more than 20 square meters, and the area of any one is larger than the original thatched house.

There is also the foundation, which amazes everyone and admires Chen Xu's generosity, because most of the houses in this era are to find a place with higher terrain to repair the foundation flat, and pay attention to the stones around the stone to build up half a foot high, but Chen Xu's house foundation is fully raised half a meter, and three steps are built in front of the door, this project took more than ten men three days to fill in, the grain has eaten nearly one stone, and the meat and vegetables are also consumed, according to the current cost, Chen Xu's house was repaired at least and cost seven or eight hundred yuan.

Seven or eight hundred dollars, God, this group of villagers in tattered clothes don't dare to think about it.

The annual income of every household in the village will not exceed 100 yuan, the food is not enough to eat, except for the sale of salt on weekdays, the burlap cloth used to make clothes cannot be bought, and if a clay bowl and pot of two or three yuan are broken on weekdays, they will feel distressed for half a month.

However, most of the villagers knew that Chen Xu made a fortune a few days ago, and the big wild boar and a big snake were sold for nearly three thousand yuan, which not only gave Chen Xu confidence, but also made the people in the village envious, plus Chen Xu was also very generous when he divided the meat, and Chen Xu actually cured Erxi, who was supposed to be poisoned, which made his status in the village suddenly improve to an unparalleled status.

The so-called poor in the downtown no one asks, and the rich have distant relatives in the mountains.

There is nothing wrong with this sentence at any time.

Chen Xu's family is now rich and status, so the people in the village are willing to help, in the past, when Jiang Chen's family pulled a son and a daughter alone, the poor family couldn't open the pot, although the people in the village did not look down on her, but she also felt that she was a widow without a man worse than her own family, although she greeted warmly when she met, she would still help when she should help, but she would always be careful to guard against and alienate her, she was poor and a widow, the man was afraid of being gossiped by others, and the woman was afraid that she would seduce her man. After coming and going, Chen Jiang's family almost became the loneliest person in the village, although Niu Dashi's family next to him did not have a man in the prime of life, but his uncle was in the village, Niu Tian's family was also from this village, even if there were relatives to help, the situation at home was much better than Chen Xu's family.

But now, almost all the people in the village are enthusiastic to come to Chen Xu's house to help, purely voluntary to help do some work within their ability, men and half-grown children to help move stones and soil, women and a few girls to help Chen Jiang's fire and boil water, cook and wash vegetables, etc., even Xing'er has now become the head of the children in the village, a group of children under the age of ten follow her buttocks all day long, help pull pigweed by the Tiankan River ditch in the village to feed a few little wild boars, collect wild onions, ginger, garlic and other condiments, anyway, the family is extremely popular in the village.

"Brother Xu, the mugwort you want has been cut back, how do you get it next?"

After hoisting the frame of the house, Chen Xu was accompanying Uncle Ma and others to drink water and chat, and the sweaty Niu Dashi took a few half-sized children over ten years old each to carry back a bundle of mugwort, and threw it in front of the house.

"Light a few fires inside and outside the house and put the mugwort in and burn it!" Chen Xu pointed to the unfinished house and said.

"Burn? Why do you burn it? I thought you were drying and building a house? Niu Dashi asked very puzzled.

Mugwort has a strong smell, has the effect of repelling insects and itching, people a long time ago knew that making beds and building houses can put some dry wormwood to repel ants, insects and snakes, in this era when there is no mosquito net and mosquito repellent water, mugwort is almost an indispensable universal insect repellent at home, usually hang some in front of the house and behind the house, and use mugwort to fumigate the house around the house to kill insect eggs in the spring, even after more than 2,000 years, the countryside still has the custom of wormwood to repel insects, even if it is a city person, to the Dragon Boat Festival on the fifth day of the fifth month of May, will also buy some wormwood to hang at home, The first is to commemorate Qu Yuan Qu Da, who brought a three-day holiday to the people of the whole country, and Qu Da is still a native of Chu, and his civil status in Chu is very high, so he will also be commemorated during the Dragon Boat Festival, and eat some zongzi to express his nostalgia, and the second is that it can also have some mosquito repellent effects.

(Special note: The Dragon Boat Festival was not born to commemorate Qu Yuan, hundreds of years before Qu Yuan's death, there was already the custom of rowing dragon boats and eating zongzi on the fifth day of May every year, and it was the custom of the vassal states of the entire China, and Qu Yuan was only a native of Chu, and the Qin, Zhao, Han, Wei, Qiyan and other countries at that time would never commemorate Qu Yuan, the Sanlu doctor who was not famous in the Warring States Period, and later generations involved these two things together but Qu Yuan committed suicide by throwing himself into the river on the fifth day of the fifth day of the fifth month of May. On this day, the people of Chu also began to commemorate Qu Zi in the Miluo River, and slowly formed a later version of the Dragon Boat Festival, which has not been recognized in the academic world. ）

"If you want to burn it, go quickly, and you can eat when it is burned!" Chen Xu is too lazy to waste brain cells with this future brother-in-law who boiled the whole frog, I'm afraid it will take a lot of words to explain this, and he may know so much for you? How can that be explained?

So Chen Xu simply said a lot of things directly, never explained.

Under the leadership of Niu Dashi, a group of half-sized children soon lit a few fires next to each other in front of the new house, behind the house and even on the foundation of several houses in the room, and after the fire burned very strongly, they spread the wormwood on the fire, and suddenly the blue smoke billowed, with the help of the wind, these thick smoke shrouded the whole house including the surrounding radius of hundreds of meters, like a beacon tower rushed to a height of several hundred meters, and looked quite spectacular in the sunset.

Such a large-scale use of mugwort to smoke the house is naturally also to repel insects, mainly to kill the eggs on the soil and stone crevices and wood.

Sure enough, after dinner, the smoke had slowly dissipated, and when Chen Xu walked to the vicinity of the new house with a bamboo tube holding a cup of mint leaf brewed water, he found that the ground was densely packed with smoked ants and centipedes, and even a few small snakes the thickness of his thumb, all of which were smoked out of the soil and grass.

The helpers gradually dispersed, went home to wash and go to bed.

After eating, seeing that it was still early, Chen Xu pulled Niu Dashi to mow grass on the river beach.

"Wait, wait, bring the fish basket, catch some fish, and come back for a barbecue supper!" Niu Dashi hurriedly lifted the fish basket, and threw a few uneaten bones into it before hurriedly following.