I played as an assistant in ancient times

After hearing everything, Lin saw her eldest daughter-in-law busying around and realized that she was the only one being kept in the dark. She said, "The other party is a third-rank military officer. We'll accept the thank-you gift and the matter will be over.

In the future, if someone greets you, treat them with courtesy and don’t try to curry favor with them. "

"Well, grandma, what are these things?" Shen Xiaoye responded vaguely, then pointed at the gifts on the table and asked.

Lin opened a bag of pine nut candies, fed her one and said, "Use it if you need it. They said that those who lent a helping hand that day will get a gift. Erniu will also get a share."

"Then I help grandma move into the inner room?"

"Wait a minute, old man, come here."

"Mom, what's going on? A few guys brought a whole slaughtered pig here. They said the strong one was sold directly to the butcher at Tangjiaji, and the other two were almost sold to the villagers.

We are not selling it as you ordered, so we are going to share it with our relatives now?" Huang felt a little guilty for hiding what happened the day before yesterday from her mother-in-law.

If you are not deaf or dumb, you don't need to be an old man. Lin didn't pursue her, but said: "Fat pork raised at home is only fifteen cents a pound, and it takes too much material to remove the fishy smell of wild boar meat, and ten cents is already expensive if sold separately.

After dividing it, five kilograms were given to Erniu's family, five kilograms to your uncle's family, five kilograms to the village head's family, and two kilograms to the families of several village elders and Qian Daqian.

The rest will be enough for two meals.”

If you sell it to butchers or restaurants, they have familiar suppliers, and it is common for strangers to lower the price to six or seven cents per pound. It is better to do favors.

"This pig weighed more than 80 kilograms and produced 38 kilograms of meat. The pig's head, trotters, bones and offal have been distributed to the butchers. They are cooking the butcher's dishes in the threshing ground to boost their morale when patrolling the mountains and chasing wild boars.

After dividing the meat, we have nine pounds of meat and some ribs left." When Huang was dividing it just now, she had carried it too heavy with her hands, so she told her mother-in-law the number.

If you want to break it down more accurately, we have a scale at home.

Lin nodded slightly, "Xiaoye, send some pickled cabbage to the threshing ground later."

"Okay." Shen Xiaoye said again: "I heard that fat meat is now 18 cents a pound."

"How much has the price of grain dropped?" Lin immediately grasped the key point. After the summer harvest, grain becomes cheap and meat becomes expensive.

The harvest from the few acres of land at home was not enough to eat, not to mention the taxes they had to pay. "Have the notices for conscription of corvée labor been posted this year?"

Shen Xiaoye said embarrassedly: "I didn't have time to ask."

"No hurry, go and pack up the things with your aunt." Lin never held onto things, so she let the two of them pick out the ones they liked and didn't just keep them in her own room.

Shen Xiaoye naturally chose to give the writing brush, ink, paper and inkstone to her uncle, cousin and herself. After a busy period, they still hadn't come back. "Grandma, how about I go to Uncle Qian Wu's house to take a look?"

As soon as she finished speaking, she heard someone appear outside the door, "Is your aunt home?"

Shen Xiaoye looked carefully and said, "Uncle Lin." She and her aunt hurried out to greet him.

"Aunt, my sister-in-law and Xiaoye are all here." Lin Erniu's father came into the courtyard carrying a heavy bag on his back. "I was watering the land when someone suddenly gave me a bunch of gifts. Sui Ge'er just told me to accept them, but Er Xiaozi was hesitant to explain.

After thinking about it, I feel uneasy, so I'll ask Sui Ge'er."

Even though he had beaten up the second brat before coming, he was still nervous. When he saw his aunt coming, he put down his bag and helped her into the main room, "It's hot, you should take a rest."

"His head is full of sweat." Lin took out a cloth from the basin brought by her daughter-in-law and wiped her nephew's face. He was the only one who survived among her group of nephews and nieces.

Uncle Lin pressed his face: "I can do it myself, I can do it myself."

Just after wiping, he was greeted by Shen Xiaoye's two-handed tea. He took it without hesitation and drank it in two or three gulps. "Ice and sweet."

"More." Shen Xiaoye quickly poured it again.

"Wait a minute, I picked two watermelons. Don't put them in the yard to dry." Uncle Lin came to the yard like the wind and picked up a bag. He took out not only watermelons, but also eggplants, cowpeas, cloth, snacks and tea.

Lin was anxious. She put more food into the bag and said, "Let's not talk about food first. What are you going to do with the cloth given by others? Don't your wife and children at home need clothes or food?"

"I give it to my aunt as a gift." Uncle Lin insisted on giving it.

Lin stuffed the cloth into his arms with all her might. While they were having a friendly conversation, Huang quietly pulled out Shen Xiaoye and said, "Except for the cloth, your cousin Lin will definitely not take anything else back. Later, you can pick out some rabbits that are not good and give them to him to raise.

I'll go get him some more pickled fish and meat to take away."

"No problem." Shen Xiaoye responded and quickly picked out several rabbits. These could be bred and several cages would be raised in a few months.

She was feeding water to the rabbits when her two uncles came back and asked, "How's Grandma Xia?"

"Who's here?" Shen Cungeng spoke almost at the same time as her.

Shen Changsui said, "I agreed to go to the Taoist priest's sumu," and walked to the main hall to talk to his cousin.

"Where did Fourth Uncle get the money to buy Sumu? Why did Taoist Hengxi ferry our family across?" Although Shen Xiaoye was not the head of the household, she knew that the family was only able to survive on a few taels of silver, so she still prepared to buy some cheap rice and flour for the next two days.

Shen Changgeng gestured to her to wait, and went to see his uncle before coming back to say, "After a few injections, Grandma Xia is in much better spirits. The stomachache is because she drank too much medicine and couldn't eat and was hungry.

It was bought by Fourth Uncle She Zhang. A senior brother from Taixu Temple where the Taoist priest works bought a large amount of medicinal herbs that are not easily found in the north while traveling in the south.

As a result, I was persuaded to buy more, intending to resell them in the pharmacy to make money. However, on the way back, some of the medicines got damp, and after the dampness was removed, some of them were of poor appearance or had reduced medicinal properties, so they were piled up and could not be sold. "

“It’s not easy to preserve. But the Taoist knows a lot and can dye the cloth and sell it himself.” Shen Xiaoye feels that Taoist temples and monasteries rarely run out of money.

Shen Cungeng shrugged and said, "They still have to buy cloth, dye it, and then sell it. The Taoist priest said that this would interfere with their spiritual practice."

"It's too much trouble, right?"

"If you see it, don't tell it."

"Do you want to send it?"

"That's too much. We're going to haul the goods, and he'll take care of the food, lodging, and transportation down the mountain."

The two siblings smiled at each other and decided to serve more food to the Taoist priest during dinner.

My uncle prepared a sumptuous dinner, including charcoal-grilled spare ribs and stir-fried pork, braised rabbit meat and spicy chicken, stir-fried cowpea with three fresh delicacies, sweet soup, and a big bowl of pig-killing dishes from the threshing floor.

After enjoying a feast, Shen Xiaoye worked hard to skim off the water from the two basins of settled paint, separate them, and then put them into the earthen oven built last year, fill it with coal, and bake them for twelve hours.

You read that right. It was coal, not firewood. The coal industry in the Great Zhou was extensive. One hundred catties of coal had a market price of one hundred wen, while one hundred catties of firewood had a market price of one hundred and fifty wen. Of course, the Shen family was the only family in the village that would occasionally buy coal. After all, one didn't have to stare at the fire all the time when burning coal to bake things.

"Tsk tsk tsk, the undried realgar pigment is wet and slippery, like egg custard." Shen Cungeng was reluctant to dry it.

Lin laughed at him: "If you are hungry, we will add another meal. I can feed you."

"I'm not hungry, I just think it tastes delicious and I want to take a bite." Shen Cungeng immediately clarified.

The result was even more laughter, and he himself found it hilarious just thinking about it.