Chapter 45

After greeting each other, Li Jinhua asked her son to play with Ye Lan, and took his basket to clean up the wild vegetables and pick back the herbs, and Qiao Zi offered to help.

There were only two children left in the room, Ye Lan saw that Wang Lan didn't dare to look at herself when she lowered her head, she couldn't help but laugh secretly, she was ten years old and she was still so afraid of life, this temperament was not good, she took the initiative to wave at Wang Lanjian,

"Lan Jian, come here."

"Rui, Sister Yelan." Wang Lan saw that she was approaching Ye Lan with a red face, but she didn't dare to look up at her, the ancient child was precocious, he was already ten years old, and when he saw Ye Lan's delicate face, he felt a heartbeat.

"The two of us have a blue character in their names, it's really fate, in the future, my mother and I want to live here for a long time, since this is the case, there is no need to be so angry, although I am only three days older than you, but three days is also big, you just call me sister." Ye Lan said.

"Sister." Wang Lan saw that he had no power to resist.

"Well, good brother, in the future, I will mix with my sister, if you have a sister, you will have a share." Ye Lan looked at such a cute Wang Lan and was overjoyed, and couldn't help but be motherly and made an oath.

Wang Lan saw that she was still a child after all, when Ye Lan pointed to a table of toys and told him that she gave them to him, the little simple child was immediately bought by Ye Lan, which strengthened Ye Lan's status as a sister, so Li Jinhua and Qiao Zi sorted out the things Wang Lan brought back and entered the house, and saw that the two children were already playing happily together.

Dinner is as simple as lunch, the weather in the north is cool in the morning and evening, and it gets dark early, after Li Jinhua washed the dishes, let Lan Jian and Ye Lan stay at home, and he took Qiao Zi to the village chief's house, Qiao Zi brought ten taels of silver and a good cloth, and the two of them came back with a happy face, Qiao Zi got the foundation next to Li Jinhua, just wait for someone to build the house, and she and her daughter will have a home.

Li Jinhua was very enthusiastic to help Qiao Zi come up with ideas, Ye Lan listened to it and didn't speak, she was not very good at things other than farming, not to mention that she was still a child and didn't have much right to speak, so as not to provoke attention.

Late at night, Li Jinhua was going to go to her son's room to make a bunk, but Qiao Zi pulled her and didn't let her go, they were all women, why separate, not to mention that their mother and daughter were guests, where could they drive the host away?

Helpless, Li Jinhua had no choice but to sleep on a kang with Qiao Zi's mother and daughter, fortunately, the kang at home was big enough, even if three more people came, they wouldn't feel crowded.

Ye Lan woke up the next day, Li Jinhua and Qiao Zi were gone, Lan saw that the courtyard was sorting out herbs and reading books, Ye Lan walked over, "Lan see." ”

"Sister, you're awake, there's porridge in the kitchen, I'll bring it to you."

"Wait, what about your mother and my mother?" Ye Lan saw that the horses in the courtyard and the carriage at the door were gone, so she pulled Lan Jian and asked.

"My mother and Aunt Qiao entered the city before dawn, they were going to ask someone to build a house, and my mother said that it was inconvenient to take us, so let us take care of the house." With yesterday's exchange, Lan Jian has been a lot more generous when she looks at Ye Lan today, maybe it is because she calls her sister and subconsciously regards her as a family, so she is so self-conscious.

"I see." Ye Lan nodded, they went into the city to do errands, it must be inconvenient to bring the children, touch their stomachs, they are indeed a little hungry, and they haven't spoken yet, Lan saw that they had already run into the kitchen and brought out the breakfast reserved for her, after breakfast, Ye Lan felt bored, Qiao Zi and they would definitely not be able to come back for a while, it was better to find something to do.

Thinking about this way, since entering the northern land, it is extremely difficult to see the crops, even if you see it occasionally, it is from a distance, and she didn't look carefully when she was in a hurry, she wanted to take a look, how barren the land in the north is, thinking like this, Ye Lan called Lan to see,

"Take me to your village's crops."

"Sister, what are you doing in the crops?" Lan Jian asked with some curiosity.

"You don't have to worry about this, just take me there."

"Oh, okay."

All the way through the village, except for a few children playing, there were no adults, Ye Lan was a little strange, and when she arrived at the crop field, she suddenly realized that everyone had gone to the ground, but after looking at it for a while, it made her a little puzzled that except for the old man who went to the ground, she was a woman, everyone lowered her head and was busy with something, but she didn't see a young man, and told Lan Jian her questions, and Lan Jian solved her confusion.

"It's not the farming season, and the men in the village are going to the city to work to support their families."

"I see." Ye Lan nodded, "Lan Jian, where is your home?" ”

"Over there, I'll take you there."

"Okay." A crop field, planted with all corn, Ye Lan followed Lan to see his crop field, just so casually saw the problem, the output value of these corn is too low, and if you look closely, most of the corn leaves are stuck with insects.

Lan saw that he walked into his own crop field and got busy, although he was shorter than Ye Lan, but the action was extremely skillful, I saw that he quickly took away the insect on one leaf and threw it on the ground to trample to death, and then went to pick up another corn leaf insect on the worm,

"Our harvest here is very low, but every year at this time, the corn has to grow worms, and then the harvest is already low, and the grain is lower, I don't know what's going on this year, there are more insects than in previous years, and this year's harvest is not enough for me and my mother to eat."

Li Jinhua is an orphan and widow, there is no man in the family, and Li Jinhua does all the farm work alone, so many years, it is not easy for her to be single with her son, if she doesn't see some small problems, she will rely on the crops, and she would have starved to death, but that's it, the family is also very poor.

Ye Lan looked at the insects on the corn leaves, it should be armyworms, if this is modern, buy a bag of pesticides, and the pests will be eliminated, but in ancient times, the problem is big, and then look at the soil on the ground, cracks, dry, no wonder the harvest in the north is so low, the land here is too barren, however, these are not a problem for Ye Lan, the land is barren, she has a way to make it fertile, corn worms, although there are no ready-made pesticides here, but she is a graduate student of agricultural university, and there are a lot of soil methods, And she knows the main ingredients of pesticides in her heart, as long as the raw materials can be found, it is only a matter of time before they are formulated.

"Lan Jian, under normal circumstances, if you grow food in your crops, can you sell it for money in addition to eating it for your family? Or rather, how much money can you make a year just by relying on the crops? ”

"Our family has never made money from crops." Lan Jian shook his head, "But I heard my mother mention that in our village in previous years, it is already great to be able to earn a lot of money from the crops, and everyone's main income is that the men go to the city to work to make money during the slack time, and in two years, I can also go to the city to work to help my mother make money to subsidize the family." ”

"You don't have to go to the city to work to subsidize the family, didn't my sister say it, if you have a sister, you will have a share." Ye Lan smiled and patted Lan Jian on the shoulder, and asked herself another question,

"This crop field is full of corn, why don't you see anything else, it seems that you don't see a vegetable field."

"The vegetable planting plot is by the river, we only have Chinese cabbage here, and we don't have any other vegetables."

"Why?"

"Because don't either can't grow or it's difficult to grow, only Chinese cabbage is good to grow, so we only grow Chinese cabbage here, don't vegetables here, we here, it's more expensive than meat, ordinary people can't afford to eat it, only those rich men in the city can afford to eat." Ranmi said,

"Sister, are you going to take a look?"

"Okay." Anyway, it's fine, look at the defenseless.

Almost around the village, Ye Lan knew a lot about the situation in Jinxiu Village, and from Lan Jian's mouth, she knew that in addition to growing Chinese cabbage, people here would also go up the mountain to dig wild vegetables in autumn, and after making pickles, it was one of the main food sources in winter.

Generations of villagers have come like this, so people here know that life is hard, but very few people complain, because no one wants to go outside to see, ancient people and modern people are different, they attach great importance to the word home, going to the city to work is already their limit, and further away, you pay for them to go, they have to go through very careful consideration.

With a plan in her heart, Ye Lan asked Lan Jian to take her back, passing through the village, Ye Lan found that the children who were playing before were gone, and she felt strange in her heart, Lan Jian had already seen the tall carriage in front of her house with sharp eyes, it was her mother who came back, and jumped happily,

"Sister, my mother and Aunt Qiao are back."

Ye Lan and Lan ran home as soon as they saw two men moving things back and forth from the carriage to the yard, Li Jinhua was directing the two men, and Qiao Zi took some candy bought from the city and distributed it to the popular children.

"Mother......" Ye Lan and Lan Jian walked into the courtyard.

"Lan'er is back, where have you been?" Li Jinhua and Qiao Zi asked at the same time.

"We went around the village." Ye Lan replied.

"Come, Lan'er, Lanjian, come and get candy to eat." Qiao Zi greeted Ye Lan and Lan Jian.

"Okay." Ye Lan walked over, and saw that Lan Jian was a little shy and stood in place, looking at Qiao Zi putting the candy aside, although her eyes showed longing, she didn't dare to step forward to get it.

"Lan Jian, come here." Ye Lan grabbed a handful of sugar and put it in Lan Jian's hand.

"Thank you, sister." Lan Jian looked up at her mother, and saw that she smiled and nodded, so she took it with a smile, which shows that Li Jinhua is usually very strict with his tutoring.

"Mother, did you invite two people to come back and help?" Seeing that there were only two men, Ye Lan asked Qiao Zi.

"No, there are still two dozen workers, because the carriage can't sit down, only two men are with them, and they are the rest of them walking." Qiao Zi shook his head, "Half of the workers are strong men who go out to work in our village, and after you come back after a while, you will also get to know everyone, and you will be from the same village in the future, and you won't see you when you look up." ”

"I see, mother."

Two men, one surnamed Li and one surnamed Wang, are all villagers of Jinxiu Village, they are waiting for the work to be done in the labor station in the city, Li Jinhua took Qiao Zi over, and when he saw that his village was going to build a house, he asked Jinhua how many workers he needed, and learned that the more the better, and the salary was twice as much as usual.

This man surnamed Li is a furniture, because he is very good at dealing with interpersonal relationships, he usually has a lot of say in the village, and among a group of men who work outside, he is also very prestigious, in Jinhua dialect, he takes the lead, Qiao Zi's house is not only built but also the quality can be guaranteed.

Invite workers to work, generally speaking, to eat, Qiao Zi bought a lot of meat back, looking at a lot of things in the yard, Jinhua suggested that Qiao Zi ask a few hard-working women in the village to help, one is to let them earn some money, and the other is to take the opportunity to get closer to everyone.

"Then I'll trouble you about this, Sister Jinhua, it's all up to you." Qiao Zi politely agreed.

"What's polite, don't be polite to me, Lan Jian, come here, go and call Aunt Li, Aunt Wang, Aunt Zhao, and Aunt Liu to come over, and say that you want to trouble them to help." Jinhua Chonglan beckoned when he saw it and asked him to invite someone.

"Okay." Lan ran away as soon as he saw the smoke.

After a while, a few women rushed to the ground, Li's, Wang's, it was the man surnamed Li and the man's mother-in-law surnamed Wang who returned to the village in advance, and when they saw that the men in their family were so happy, Jinhua called the four women to him, and told them to help, and they could eat every day, and one person could also get twenty literary wages, but they were so happy that they promised to come down again and again, you must know that the men's daily wages are only forty Wen.

Since Qiao Zi entered the city today to buy a meat rack, Li Jinhua already knew that she was not short of money for the time being, so she would be so generous to pay wages to several women of the Li family, these women are not only good hands in the village, but their men are also more promising men in the village, and if they have a good relationship, it will definitely be beneficial to get along in the future.

Qiao Zi only let Jinhua make her own decisions, took fifty taels of silver to Jinhua, and asked her to use it as she pleased, and then ask her to get it when she ran out, don't save money, as long as she thinks it is good, she will spend it directly without telling her.

Jin Hua is a real woman, and seeing Qiao Zi trust herself so much, she can't help but leave a few tears of emotion.

After the four women came, they immediately cleaned up, noon was coming soon, and it was estimated that it would be too late to cook more than 20 people's meals, and everyone had to work after lunch, so Jinhua proposed to make cakes for everyone to eat at noon, and everyone had no opinion, because they went to work at other people's homes, and they also ate cakes.

After a while, the rest of the men came, these men's foot strength is not comparable to ordinary people, just when the cake is almost done, Jinhua took out her pickles, and then brought out the cake and beckoned everyone to eat, because there was no place to sit, everyone stood in the yard, but no one cared about this.

Ye Lan and Lan saw that one of them was sitting on the threshold with a cake and gnawing on it, while looking at the men in the courtyard, and suddenly found that many men were quietly peeking at their mothers.

Because I don't know these people, I can't tell what their surnames are or what is not in this village for the time being, and most of them appreciate beauty in their eyes and have no lustful meaning, so Ye Lan didn't say anything, but secretly wrote down the faces of those men who looked at Qiao Zi, if it was pure appreciation, it would be fine, if she remembered anything, don't blame her for being ruthless.

After a simple meal, the man surnamed Li asked the man in the village to go back to greet his family, and then he was ready to go up the mountain to cut down trees, carry and build a house, and the Li family was preparing dinner, when they saw most of the pork, everyone was stunned, this is dinner to make?

Due to the rarity of vegetables in the north, Qiao Zi only bought ordinary cabbage, then bought half of the pig, and then rice, flour and other things, she used to be a child of a poor family, and she naturally had pity for the poor in her heart, so she didn't save much when she went to the city to buy things, and the workers worked hard, if they didn't eat better, their bodies would not be able to stand it for a long time, look at this group of men, in fact, they are thirty or forty years old, but many people have bent their waists, and they look older than their actual age, This is the result of working all the time and being malnourished.

Even if the rich people in the city are not as generous to their subordinates as Qiao Zi, it is no wonder that the Li family is so excited when they see half of the pork, in fact, when the man surnamed Li and the man surnamed Wang helped to buy things, they were also stunned by Qiao Zi's generosity, and at the same time, they were also glad that there was a generous and good-looking beauty in the village, and they were blessed to enjoy it now.

Although the food in the northern city is more expensive than meat, ordinary people can't eat meat a few times a year, so when they learned that there was meat to eat at night, the Li family and several people worked hard.

(End of chapter)