After returning from Gu's house, Mrs. Ming asked Mingyue to help her write a post and invite Mrs. Wu to come to the door. It just so happened that Mrs. Wu also wanted to visit Mrs. Ming, and the two families almost hit it off.

Helping Mrs. Ming prepare the menu, Mingyue was preparing to go home, but Doctor Qi suddenly sent his ten-year-old little apprentice over to send silver to the Ming family.

Mrs. Ming called someone in and asked only to find out that Gu Zhixian had already settled the expenses for the consultation and decoction by himself, and the twenty taels of silver that Ming Xu left behind were not used by the medical hall, so they all returned to the Ming family.

Mrs. Ming thanked the little apprentice of Doctor Qi, and seeing that he was young but extremely clever, she couldn't help but directly rewarded the other party with a small silver coin of two taels as a meeting gift.

When the little guy bent his eyes and said goodbye and left, Xie, who was overflowing with maternal love, hurriedly stuffed him with two packets of jujube flower cake, two packets of white sugar cake, two packets of millet cake, two packets of fish skin peanuts, two packets of spiced melon seeds, and two packets of sugar-fried chestnuts, and asked him to take them back to share with his family or brothers.

The little guy blushed and refused to ask for it, he didn't want silver, he didn't want food, and in the end, Mingyue asked the little guy at home to stuff things into the little guy's hands.

In the next few days, a few of them were allowed to stay in the study to study the books given to them by Gu Zhi County.

Mingyue has also learned from Yu Jiayan that these books were actually used by Gu Zhixian during the imperial examination before, and there are many experiences he has marked on them, and some of them are directly various "exercises" before he took the exam, he bothered to collect them together, and then bound them into a book by hand and gave them to Ming Xu to study and figure out.

“... He also said that if we don't understand something, we can go directly to the county office to find him. When he said this last sentence, Yu Jiayan's dark eyes shone with undisguised joy.

Mingyue is also very happy for her husband and brothers, with the guidance of Gu Zhi County, they can take the test at worst and come back to support the court.

As soon as she was happy, her motivation to cook suddenly became more sufficient, Yu Jiayan stayed in the Ming family and studied the books given by Gu Zhixian with the Ming Xu brothers, and Mingyue changed her tricks to make food for them.

Thanks to her, although several people studied hard with lamps and oil, they were not thin but fat in the end.

By the time the county school had a long vacation, San Lang and Qi Su'e had set up a marriage, and the five brothers Mingyue, Yu Jiayan, Mrs. Ming, Xie and Ming Xu, who lived in the county seat, had also gloriously hidden a good winter fat.

After sending New Year's gifts to all the familiar people in the county as quickly as possible, the five brothers Mingyue, Yu Jiayan, Mrs. Ming, Xie and Ming Xu, who originally lived in the county, as well as the rest of the Ming family who came over to participate in the engagement ceremony of San Lang, returned to the Ming family mansion in Wulitun.

The return convoy was mighty, and a full twelve mule carts drove into the distance like a long dragon on the dirt road leading from the county seat to Wulitun.

In addition to the four mule carts in front of the Ming family, which were owned by the Ming family and the Yu family, the two mule carts in the middle and the six mule carts with things in the back were all hired by them.

After dropping them off at Wulitun, the car and the driver would transfer them back to the county seat, and they would only have to pay one day's rent.

***

At the end of the hour (eleven o'clock in the morning), the Ming family got off the mule cart in the courtyard of their house.

Except for the four mule carts they were riding, the other mule carts were all led by Mr. Lin, the bookkeeper of his family, to the cross-yard parking.

There, the people would unload the things, count them, and then carry them to the courtyard in the middle of the road for the masters to see and assign a place to go.

"Let's eat Yumai noodles at noon, and if there are ready-made ones, they will be frozen in the basket of the warehouse." While the people were still unloading the car, Mrs. Ming put on an apron and began to direct the ladies of the family to cook on the fire.

They are all diligent people who have worked for a long time, and when Mrs. Ming gave an order, the ladies who had already washed their hands suddenly became busy.

Mingyue, who was the most skillful, grabbed the job of burning the fire, Xie went to the warehouse to get Yumai noodles, Tao took a basin to fish for sauerkraut in the big tank, and Zhou took a pig belly from the cupboard in the stove.

While working, the women did not forget to instruct their men to help, first Xie entrusted Mingdi to go to the cellar to get radishes, cabbage, artichokes, and tomatoes, and then Zhou called Mingtang to go to the yard to smash ice cubes together.

After the temperature dropped to below zero, the Ming family specially poured well water and froze in the yard, and they were frozen together with the ice, as well as dozens of hares, dozens of pheasants, and a whole pig that had been divided in advance.

Zhou asked Mingtang to help her get a hare, a pheasant, and a few pork chops, and then instructed his man to clean the rabbit, pheasant, and pig chops and cut them into small pieces.

Mingxu was not idle, Erlang was assigned to go to the Huang family to report the safety of his father-in-law, and some of the others went to help Mingdi carry the big basket with radish, cabbage, artichoke, and tomatoes, and some went to the West Cross Courtyard to collect small greens at Mingyue's instructions, went to the inner room to get a basket containing eggs and duck eggs, and went to pick sausages and bacon under the eaves.

The only old man who was not called by his daughter-in-law - Ming Cheng, he very consciously went to the main landlord's house to accompany the tired old man Ming.

As for Zheng Caixia and Huang Xiaoying, who are granddaughters-in-law, because they are both pregnant, and Zheng Caixia will give birth soon, Mrs. Ming directly drove them back to her room to rest as soon as possible, "... Go and lie down, wanting to serve me and your mother-in-law, and wait until you are in good spirits. ”

Xie Shi also nodded on the side, Zheng Caixia and Huang Xiaoying didn't dare to disobey, plus they were running around in a mule cart on a cold day, and their bodies were indeed a little tired, so after they repeatedly thanked Mrs. Ming and other elders for their kindness, they also obediently returned to the courtyard together.

It is worth mentioning that as the children in the family grow up, the Mingcheng family has now moved to the third courtyard on the middle road.

The first courtyard is still inhabited by the people who used to be, and the second courtyard is now only inhabited by the two members of Ming Xu and Erlang.

None of them went to live in the main house, but lived in the south and north rooms of the east wing of the second courtyard.

As for Shiro and Goro, they have been living in the south room of the east wing of the first courtyard after they got married.

It was originally Goro's bedroom, and Shiro, who grew up together, wanted to rub it in, but Gorou couldn't wait to raise his hands and feet to welcome him.

Everyone worked together for about three quarters of an hour, making a large pot of Yumai noodles, a porcelain basin of pork and sauerkraut stew, a porcelain basin of tomato and egg marinade, a porcelain basin of spicy fried rabbit meat, a porcelain basin of stewed chicken pieces of artichoke, a porcelain basin of stewed pork ribs with radish, a porcelain basin of steamed bacon sausage platter, a porcelain basin of cooked salted duck eggs, a porcelain basin of cold cabbage shreds, a porcelain basin of cold spinach, and a porcelain basin of hot and sour artichoke shreds.

When the food was served, the men had just finished counting the things they had brought back from the county seat, and the servants who were in charge of the kitchen had already started to light a fire to wash the vegetables and prepare lunch for all the people who worked in the Ming family.

Like the Ming family, their lunch is also Yumai noodles, but the marinade prepared for them by the chef is only pork sauerkraut, and the dishes are only braised pork belly, cold cabbage shreds, and sour and hot potato shreds.

Compared with the four meat and four vegetables of the Ming family, the meat and two vegetables eaten by the people of the Ming family seem to be not worth mentioning, but the fact is that their food standards are already the top level in Wulitun and even the ten miles and eight towns in the vicinity.

Mingyue alone knows that there are at least half of the people in Wulitun who can't have meat for a meal, and they are even reluctant to put more oil.

In this backward era of generally low productivity, Wulitun, a village where almost every household can eat enough, is already rare in the whole country.