Traveling Through Those Years Of Farming (Quick Transmigration) - Chapter 29

“Mom, I’m hungry.”

Seeing that his grandmother ignores him, Lu Baoshu yells at his mother again. He has already spotted the two jars of sugar water in his parents’ arms, and his saliva pools on the floor.

Lu Baoshu is the child that Xu Jiaoniang is pregnant with. The boys in this generation of the Lu family are named “Bao.” Originally, Old Butcher Lu names his grandson Bao Tong because gold, silver, and iron have all been used up. Given Old Butcher Lu’s limited cultural knowledge, he can only think of names like copper, stone, and soil.

The Lu family is wealthy, and Xu Jiaoniang loves to take advantage. This is reflected not only in their daily food and clothing but also in their children’s names. Why should the children of the main branch have names associated with gold and silver while the children of the third branch at least get the relatively valuable name of iron, yet their own child ends up with the least valuable name of copper?

When they name their daughter, it is the same; they argue until she takes on the boy’s name Bao instead of the girl’s Xiu character of this generation.

Regardless of whether they gain any real benefits, the couple feels pleased psychologically by having the upper hand.

The name Baoshu was chosen by Tang Dingyuan at their request. The Lu family longs for a scholar in the family. Furthermore, Tang Dingyuan tells Lu Jiafu and his wife about an old saying: “There is a golden house in the book.” When they hear about such a valuable thing as a golden house in the book, the couple thinks it’s wonderful and decides on the name Lu Baoshu without further consideration.

It’s a pity that Lu Baoshu receives such a good name but does not grow in the direction his elders expect.

The male members of the Lu family are known for their strong physiques, but Lu Baoshu is not. He is simply fat. His horizontal body size is more than twice that of his cousins at his age. He is not only a good eater but also lazy. The shortcomings of his parents fully reflect in him, proving the impact of genetics.

Of course, the ancients don’t know about genetics; they simply think Lu Baoshu is deserving of being the child of Lu Jiafu and Xu Jiaoniang. His lazy and greedy personality is a perfect replica of both.

Fortunately, Lu Baoshu, like his sister Lu Baobao, inherits the most beautiful facial features from his parents. However, his excess weight makes these attractive features less prominent, though they are enough to keep him from looking ugly—he is fair, fat, and somewhat unique.

At least the older generation likes Lu Baoshu’s body shape and believes he looks truly blessed.

“Mom, don’t give him special treatment; he’s so fat. I just took him jogging around the village twice today, and he can’t stand it. If this continues, he will really become a pig.”

Lu Baobao puts away the smile on her face. In front of her younger brother, she is still very authoritative.

Being overweight is not a good thing. The medical knowledge in ancient times is poor. If someone has diabetes, high blood pressure, or coronary heart disease, there is no medicine to treat it.

During this time, Lu Baobao urges her brother to diet and exercise, but the effects are very minimal.

“Second sister, you’re being unfair. You obviously eat more than I do!” Lu Baoshu is so angry that he puts his hands on his hips. Cutting off someone’s food feels like killing their parents. Now his second sister controls his meals and forces him to exercise—it’s really unbearable.

“But I’m thin!” Lu Baobao lifts her head with a proud expression.

Thanks to that inexplicable golden finger, she can eat without gaining weight while always maintaining the most perfect figure. It’s truly the greatest blessing for a woman.

Lu Baoshu feels defeated. He looks at his sister’s slim waist that could be pinched with both hands and then at his own waist, comparable to that of a sow in labor. In shame and anger, he rushes back to his room.

God is so cruel to him!

Tang Xiuyuan’s attention is drawn back to this pitiful little chubby boy. His thoughts blank out, and he suddenly thinks of his own little chubby sister. She should really see what other chubby people’s sisters look like; then she would understand just how good he is as a brother.

Thinking of this, Tang Xiuyuan glances at Tang Dingyuan with sympathy.

He doesn’t expect that Dingyuan’s fiancée, who looks cute, could be so cruel. If he marries such a woman, he’ll be controlled for the rest of his life, right?

Tang Xiuyuan wipes the sweat from his forehead. Fortunately, his mother doesn’t give him a fiancée. His future wife must be someone he likes.

“Hehehe.”

He can’t help but laugh to himself, not quite sure what he’s thinking about. The tips of his ears turn redder.

******

“Today, we sell 230 servings of braised chicken with rice, 380 servings of Mapo tofu rice, and 30 plates of tofu, totaling… The warehouse receives 1,600 kilograms of soybeans, 4,000 kilograms of rice bran, as well as sugar, salt, sauce, and vinegar. As for expenditures… With the end of the month approaching, we also need to prepare the wages for hiring a few aunts to wash dishes…”

Lu Baobao holds a small abacus in her hand and, after a while, calculates the income and expenditure for today’s accounts.

Lu Xiuyu loves her little cousin, but she also doesn’t intend to spoil her into becoming a useless person. Since Lu Baobao turned eight, Lu Xiuyu has been consciously teaching her some essential knowledge.

For example, Lu Xiuyu takes Lu Baobao to class with her. The teachers are brothers who have studied at home, and after a few years, Lu Baobao has learned all the common characters of this era.

To simplify accounting, Lu Xiuyu “creates” an Arabic counting method and “teaches” it to Lu Baobao.

While Lu Baobao certainly knows these numbers and how to perform addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, she pretends not to understand and re-learns it to avoid exposing her knowledge.

Now she serves as the accountant for her cousin and receives a salary every month.

“Sister, there are 43 fewer ceramic bowls in the warehouse this month.”

The ceramic bowls Lu Baobao mentions are specially made by Lu Xiuyu at a kiln. Their design is similar to modern stainless steel bowls found in cafeterias, featuring three grooves: the largest for rice, the second largest for vegetables, and the smallest for appetizers or sauces.

Each bowl also has a lid, crafted from fired clay. The pottery firing skills of this era are already quite advanced, allowing the two parts to fit perfectly together. When tied with hemp rope, there is no need to worry about the food inside spilling out. Moreover, this tableware can be recycled an unlimited number of times.

Since the bowls are made from the cheapest clay and do not require painting or carving—except for some special shapes—the production process is very simple. Moreover, due to Lu Xiuyu’s large order volume, the price is very reasonable, averaging just five wen each.

Those who wholesale lunch boxes from her must pay a certain deposit. When they return the bowls, they can reclaim the deposit, but if any are damaged, one cent is deducted from the deposit for each bowl. For the buyers, this means they effectively receive the bowls for free, making them reluctant to incur such losses.

Of course, they aren’t required to wash the bowls and chopsticks.

Lu Xiuyu hires a few people in the village, and the ten cents a day pay attracts many women with no income to this job.

“Well, remember this for now. I will go to the kiln to order a new batch of tableware when the time comes.”

Lu Xiuyu nods. After all, these pottery products can be easily damaged. However, compared to the wholesale volume of hundreds of pieces sold daily, this loss is negligible.

She isn’t worried that someone will deliberately misplace the ceramic bowls to make a profit. First, the unique shape of the bowls makes them unsuitable for normal households. Second, the vendors who supply the bowls keep records of the deposits, and if one person takes too many bowls and damages them, they won’t be able to purchase lunch boxes from her in the future.

The takeout dishes she prepares are always in high demand; no one would ruin a long-term source of income for a few difficult-to-sell ceramic bowls.

“According to the statistics, today’s total income is 47 taels, 3 qian, and 11 wen,” Lu Baobao quickly calculates on the abacus.

However, net profit is not calculated this way. First of all, cooking ingredients cost money, but today the warehouse receives a large shipment of soybeans, rice bran, and other goods, which are included in today’s accounts.

Lu Baobao thinks to herself that today’s actual net profit should be over 50 taels, and the net profit from tofu far exceeds that from meat.

Such an inconspicuous stall, with limited manpower, operates more like a small family workshop. The wealth it generates far surpasses that of the shops along the busiest street in the county. It truly is making a fortune in silence.

******

Because it is Tang Dingyuan’s birthday and there is a guest at home, today’s dishes are particularly abundant.

In fact, ever since Lu Xiuyu no longer has to turn over her earnings to the public account, the food in the Lu household becomes excellent. While she doesn’t want others to benefit from her hard work, that doesn’t mean she is unwilling to let her relatives enjoy some advantages.

The dishes she sells each day always appear on the Lu family’s table in full portions. They eat well and are satisfied. Lu Jiafu and his wife are left speechless, and the third room of the Lu family can no longer complain about her special treatment.

“It’s really delicious! My father ordered this kind of lunch box several times, but I never knew it was actually made by your cousin Dingyuan,” says Tang Xiuyuan.

In front of Tang Xiuyuan sits a pot of fragrant braised chicken. Although the chicken is reheated, it does not affect its taste at all.

The chicken is fresh and tender, with a slight spiciness that instantly stimulates the taste buds. The side dishes—potatoes, mushrooms, and green vegetables—are just as impressive. The potatoes are soft and absorb the soup, the green vegetables are crisp and refreshing, and the mushrooms are particularly delightful. Their freshness complements the spicy broth perfectly. With a mouthful of white rice, it truly is a meal that leaves one feeling fulfilled.

Tang Xiuyuan takes a bite of the yellow braised chicken, stealing glances at Lu Xiuyu several times out of the corner of his eye.

Dingyuan’s elder cousin is very different from the girls he has seen in wealthy households, and she is not like ordinary village girls either.

She is tall and slender, with slightly dark skin, a trait common among the other members of the Lu family present. For convenience, she gathers all her hair into a bun at the back of her head, securing it with a wooden hairpin, which gives her a clean and refreshing appearance.

Cousin Lu is not conventionally beautiful. In Tang Xiuyuan’s opinion, she even resembles a boy. Aside from Dingyuan’s fiancée, the other two girls in the Lu family also have boyish features, with sharp facial lines and pronounced characteristics. They all appear somewhat hard and lack the softness typically associated with girls.

Especially Lu Xiuyu’s gaze—perhaps due to her deep-set eyes and elongated shape, her stare is serious and a bit fierce when she looks at someone.

Yet, despite her lack of conventional beauty, Tang Xiuyuan can’t help but sneak glances at this not-so-pretty sister. The vitality she exudes is captivating and hard to ignore.

“If you like it, eat more,” says Lu Miao, being hospitable and placing the best dishes on the table in front of him.

Lu Xiuyu hardly notices this younger brother at all. To her, Tang Xiuyuan is simply a friend of Tang Dingyuan—two years younger than her and somewhat foolish-looking—so she doesn’t entertain any romantic thoughts about him.

******

That night, after Tang Xiuyuan goes home, Tang Dingyuan begins to ponder ways to make money.

He doesn’t need to spend much; the rewards from each small test are sufficient to cover his daily expenses, allowing him to save a little for gifts for his lovely girl. However, discovering that his little fiancée has a potential knack for being a money-grubber adds pressure to his finances.

He doesn’t have many ways to make money. Copying books is one option, but it is too slow; in a day, excluding study time, he can only manage to copy half a book by hand. Selling calligraphy and paintings is another option, but until he gains fame, he will only earn a small fee for pen and ink.

After contemplating his options, Tang Dingyuan decides to write a storybook.

When his father is alive, he enjoys reading storybooks and even attempts to write one himself, but his plot is too ordinary and gets rejected by the library. Tang Dingyuan’s roommate at the academy is a fan of storybooks and has collected nearly all the ones circulating in the market. Whenever he has free time, Tang Dingyuan browses through them and feels confident that he can write a storybook of a similar caliber.

“What do you think?” he asks Lu Baobao for advice. In his mind, the little girl often has strange ideas that surprise even him.

“What’s the current trend in stories?” Lu Baobao perks up; aren’t ancient stories just like modern ones? It sounds quite interesting.

“They’re all about talented men and beautiful women, scholars taking imperial examinations, and so on. The best-selling one lately is about a widow and a blacksmith…”

Tang Dingyuan stops abruptly halfway through his sentence. He glances at his little sister, who only comes up to his chest, and realizes he has been foolish to mention such inappropriate content. The last story is particularly risqué; he has only flipped through a few pages before blushing and throwing the book back at his roommate. Even the earlier topics aren’t appropriate for someone her age.

It is also partly Lu Baobao’s fault for often trying to act like an adult in front of him, making him overlook her true age.

“It’s getting late. You should go back to your room and sleep.”

Tang Dingyuan covers Lu Baobao’s ears, turns her around, and gently pushes her out of his room, wanting to focus on plotting his story.

“You can’t just stop mid-sentence and send someone away!” Lu Baobao angrily slaps Tang Dingyuan’s door and returns to her room, curiosity bubbling inside her.

A widow and a blacksmith? That story sounds really thrilling… no, it’s profound.

Widows are a group that suffers oppression in feudal society, while blacksmiths are part of the military households during the Li Dynasty. When war breaks out, the court immediately recruits blacksmiths to make weapons, often sending many to the front lines, putting their lives in constant danger.

Fortunately, the Li Dynasty is now prosperous, and the people enjoy relative peace. The neighboring small countries dare not stir up trouble, and there has been no war for many years.

But strictly speaking, blacksmiths are also hardworking and brave, with a heroic quality as lower-class individuals. A story documenting two such groups must be profound and thought-provoking.

After returning to her room, Lu Baobao rolls around on her bed, her mind full of this story that sounds full of “substance.”

Life in ancient times really is quite boring; aside from eating and sleeping, Lu Baobao feels she needs a bit of literary influence.

******

Tang Dingyuan has conceived a general plot and is ready to write when a cold breeze sweeps into the room. He stands up to close the window.

Just as he approaches it, he is startled by the sudden appearance of the little girl.

“That…”

Lu Baobao pokes her index finger, glancing to the left and right before looking directly at him and speaking hesitantly.

“It’s about that widow and the blacksmith… I have a friend… she says she wants to read it…”

The expression on Tang Dingyuan’s face gradually turns to stone. Creating a friend out of thin air is quite the development.