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On the third day of November, the dark clouds were heavy, and thick snowflakes fluttered down early in the morning.

Flakes of snow fluttered down from the sky, quickly covering the earth with a layer of white.

Jiang Sanlang and his two brothers, their father Old Man Jiang, and two nephews, gathered around a bonfire in the new tiled house, warming themselves and talking.

“Yesterday, the village chief notified everyone that the Imperial Court demanded grain. For every acre of high-grade land, they demanded two pints, and for each acre of low-grade land, one pint. Fortunately, we didn’t sell our grain, or else… This time, they don’t want silver, but only grain. It seems the price of grain will indeed rise this winter.”

Old Man Jiang sighed, “With all these changes, who knows how many people will freeze or starve to death.

Jiang Sanlang nodded, thinking that if it weren’t for his daughter finding golden ears for them to cultivate, the Jiang family would probably have a hard time. They might not starve to death, but they would inevitably go hungry.

Now, looking at his brothers, not only had they built large tiled houses at the same time, but their family members were also dressed in thick cotton clothes and wore cotton shoes with thick soles.

The granary was filled with hundreds of pounds of wheat and rice, there was plentiful beans and other cereals, needless to say, they also had a reasonable amount of surplus money.

Living all these years, Jiang Sanlang had never felt as comfortable and relaxed as this winter.

“After the requisition of grain, they might also requisition soldiers.” Old Man Jiang’s gaze swept over his sons, “If they do, our family would definitely be drafted.’

“No problem, we have money. If necessary, we can just buy a substitute soldier.” Jiang Sanlang shrugged it off.

Jiang Dalang and Jiang Erlang nodded, “We don’t need to worry about this.”

From the last batch of golden ears, Jiang Dalang and Jiang Erlang each made twenty taels of silver. After deducting the cost of building the house, they still had one or two taels left.

It was a pity that golden ears did not grow in winter, otherwise, they could fill the newly built bamboo shed with mulberry wood.

However, winter had its advantages too. At least they could take a break and relax after a year’s hard work. For instance, going hunting.

They had decided not to fish anymore because Sanlang said there was no bait to catch fish.

But the three brothers could go hunting for hares and wild chickens in the snow. They might even catch some roe deer or wild boars.

“After the snow stops, we brothers can go hunting hares and wild chickens.”

Jiang Sanlang stirred the fire to make it burn more vigorously, “Take some wheat and yellow corn, we can also catch some owls.” That would be delightful.

Upon hearing this, Jiang Dalang laughed, “Right, we can catch owls right at our door. Just scatter some yellow corn and cover it with a basket.

At present, only their three families had built houses on South Mountain. They had bought the surrounding lower-grade land, so the area was very open. As long as they scattered corn grain outside the courtyard, there would be no shortage of birds to catch.

“Good idea, good idea.” Jiang Cheng and Jiang Quan were thrilled at the idea of catching birds, readily agreeing with their hands raised.

They had been assigned by the adults to stay in the new tiled house to look after it, and each day was quite dull and lonely.

Now, hearing that they could go outside to catch birds, they were keenly interested.

Hehe, they could roast the birds they caught directly. If they also smeared some honey, the taste would be exquisite.

The old house in Dongchen Village belonging to the Jiang family.

Now there were only women and children living in the old house. Jiang Liu and her elder daughter-in-law were sitting on the warm kang-bed sewing clothes with her two granddaughters.

The New Year was approaching, so they had to make a new cotton coat for each family member to wear when visiting relatives.

“Matchmaker Yang from West Village told me today that her niece, who is twenty years old this year, wants to be Erlang’s second wife.”

Jiang Liu twisted the needle and thread in her hand and muttered, “But Erlang is absolutely unwilling, ahh, that stubborn boy, he makes me so furious.”

Zhou: “I guess Erlang is afraid that marrying too soon will negatively impact his two children, that’s why he’s not willing to.”

“We would be there to supervise, what could go wrong?”

Jiang Liu sighed, “Seeing him so lonely every day, with no one to take care of him, makes me feel uncomfortable.’

Every other family consisted of a husband and wife, sharing all burdens hot or cold. However, her second son had to manage everything alone as a grown man with two children, busy running around, even having to wash his own clothes when he came back.

Zhou Family’s sister-in-law refrained from saying more, instead comforting her mother-in-law, “Don’t worry, perhaps Second Uncle hasn’t found someone suitable yet.”

Jiang Liu thought about it, then laughed, “That may be true. Since Erlang has built a tiled house and isn’t lacking in money, it wouldn’t hurt to consider a few more families.

This time, she was determined to be more discerning. She absolutely couldn’t let Erlang end up with someone like that Leng woman again.

At the Jiang’s house, Yuanbao and Huzi were running around playing with Xiaojie and Dawu.

They ran from the east room to the west room, then from the west room to the east room, laughing and screaming, not staying still for a moment.

Yingbao sat on the Kang bed writing, occasionally glancing at the frolicking devils, shaking her head helplessly.

As expected, boys were all mischievous creatures. If a strict teacher didn’t constantly guide them, her plan to cultivate a child prodigy might fall through.

Two days later, the snow stopped, revealing a clear azure sky.

Early in the morning, Yingbao collected seventeen eggs from the chicken coop, six of which were double-yolk eggs.

She placed the eggs in a grass basket and covered it.

These days, the new hens had started laying eggs. By this morning, she had collected seventeen eggs at once.

She was delighted beyond her expectations. It was worth the effort of painstakingly raising them for over six months.

These eggs were essentially copper coins. They not only could be bartered for salt and goods but also used as currency.

A salesman had come to the village recently. She had exchanged eggs for toothbrushes and toothpaste, as well as two packs of salt and a large jar of soybeans.

The soybeans were delicious, mixed with sliced white radish, fragrant and crisp – a must-have pickled dish for a rural family in winter.

Unfortunately, her mother couldn’t make it, and her grandmother’s wasn’t as good as the one sold by the salesman.

After collecting the eggs and feeding the chickens, she refilled Youyou’s food trough with hay and water, then Yingbao quickly ran back into the house.

It was too cold outside, not suitable for walking the deer, so she decided to stay cozily in her blanket.

Luckily, her two younger brothers were also not allowed off the bed by their mother, so she could continue to lie down for a while.

Last night, she spent half of the night in the cave dwelling, picking thirty mutated Golden Fungus and laid them out on bamboo trays – two full trays.

The remaining parts were left to continue to grow.

Previously, she had watered the Silver Fungus several times with the solution of Wuding Mushroom and pond water. Those were also harvested and laid on another bamboo tray.

Furthermore, the gourds she planted before had flowered, fruited and matured, producing dozens of gourds of various sizes, with the largest one taller than herself.

Such giant gourds could astonish anyone.

So, she decided not to plant gourds again and dared not bring the giant gourds out.

She originally thought that she was planting cute petite gourds. She hadn’t anticipated that these cute little gourds would turn into something gigantic and not so cute anymore.

Yingbao counted; among these gourds, the biggest ones, about five feet tall, numbered around ten.

The next largest ones were about her height, around a dozen.

The rest were about the size of a household’s water scoop.

The smallest gourds were roughly the size of her father’s palm, only four or five of them.

But those large gourds, though they seemed useless, were actually valuable. In her past life, she had seen one hanging in a liquor store, even smaller than her gourds, used as a sign with a large character ‘Liquor’ attached to it.

The shopkeeper of the liquor store had said that his large gourd was worth twenty taels of silver. She didn’t know if it was true or not.

Her gourds were much bigger than the one in the liquor store, so they should be worth at least twenty taels too.

If only she could go to the city. Then she could sell these damned things and likely earn a large sum of silver..