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“He’s in the hall.” Yingbao thought that the Lizheng was there, like everyone else, to see her gourd, so she led him there.

Only one large gourd remained in the hall at this moment. The other had been taken home by Jiang Quan, who planned to bring it to the marketplace next time to draw a crowd. After all, they couldn’t always bring his little cousin to the market.

Sun Licheng touched the large gourd and asked, “Yingbao, how much are you selling this gourd for?”

Yingbao thought for a moment and gave him a middle-of-the-road price: “The shopkeeper in Simen Town offered thirty taels of silver for it last time, and this one is about the same size as that one, so it’s also thirty taels.”

Sun Licheng was quite happy to hear this because his second son had given him fifty taels to buy a gourd to attract business.

He just saved twenty taels out of nowhere, which he had no plans of returning to his son.

Whoever says a father doesn’t profit off his son is likely lying. When such good luck comes along, it’s best to take advantage of it.

“I’ll buy this gourd,” Sun Licheng declared.

Yingbao, of course, was happy to agree, nodding immediately: “Great! Would you like to carry it back yourself?”

Sun Licheng certainly wouldn’t carry it himself. His youngest son and a few townsmen were collecting taxes in the village, and they would come up to the South Slope to pick him up shortly.

At noon, when Jiang Quan heard that Yingbao had sold the large gourd for thirty taels, he pounded his chest in frustration.

“You fool! Sold for just thirty taels? That was the King Gourd! Many people have asked me about it. I was already offering eighty taels. One guy is at home discussing how to get the money.”

“There’s still one more,” Yingbao replied with nonchalance.

She was pondering how to get the large gourd out of the den. The ones in the den were much bigger than the ones grown outside.

“That one is for advertising! You understand? It cannot be sold!” Jiang Quan sighed heavily.

Yingbao blinked, whispered soothingly, “Why are you in such a hurry? Actually, I have two more of the largest gourds hidden away. But I can’t show them to you right now.”

She had decided to sneak out two big gourds that night and claim they were previously hidden in the mushroom shed.

“Really? How didn’t I know?” Jiang Quan was a bit skeptical.

Ever since Yingbao’s gourds grew to the size of washbasins, he visited every day. How did he not know about another two King Gourds?

Yingbao made up a serious lie, “Because I hid them in the bamboo shed, that’s why you didn’t know.”

Jiang Quan scratched the back of his head, a bit puzzled.

But puzzled as he was, he was still very eager to have two more King Gourds.

With their conversation done, each of them went about their own business. Tomorrow is the Mid-Autumn festival. Yingbao gave Chuchu a few days off, so she could enjoy the holiday at home and come back next month if she wanted.

Yanru had bought many candles, and melted a potful of wax. She added some red dye into the wax, teaching her nieces to make floating lanterns.

She took a chicken egg, lightly dipped it into the melted wax, and then picked it up.

A layer of red wax stuck to the eggshell.

Once the wax hardened, she carefully peeled it off the eggshell and set it aside.

This tedious process of dipping and peeling created a pile of oval, red wax petals, which she then attached to each other, forming a red lotus base.

She then used a slice of sheepskin as a base for the lotus, put a candle in the middle of the lotus, and thus, a river lantern was created.

Yingbao decided to make a few of these lanterns, to release with her sisters during the Mid -Autumn night.

Jiang Erlang chopped up some bamboo and built a bamboo tower outside the yard, preparing for the Mid-Autumn festival.

Old man Jiang and his grandsons were not idle either. They bought all kinds of colorful papers and sliced up bamboo strips, making a variety of lanterns at home.

Madame Chun and a few other women used new mooncake molds to make mooncakes. The mooncake filling was red bean paste and osmanthus sugar crisp.

After making the river lanterns, Yingbao took her two younger brothers to knock down some dates.

Several date trees were planted in their yard. At this time, the dates were already ripe, hanging from the treetops, red and glossy, each larger than a bird’s egg.

“Delicious.” Jiang Jie picked up a date and crammed it into his mouth, chomping away eagerly.

Seeing there were still many dates high on the branches, unreachable, Yingbao decided to climb the tree to knock them down.

It’s easy for children to climb trees, with a few pushes and pulls she was up, sitting on the fork of the tree, looking around.

Some families were building houses in the distance, also building brick houses, with three main rooms facing south, and two kitchens on the east side, similar to their own house’s design.

Once these new houses are completed, and people move in to live, the South Slope won’t be remote anymore.

Suddenly, Yingbao recalled the flood from her past life and felt uneasy.

Although they had moved to live on the South Slope, most of their fields were still at the bottom of the slope, and they could not be moved.

Finer fields like paddy and wheat fields were fundamentally within the flood area, and a single flood could wash everything away.

“Sister, come down!” Jiang Wu and Jiang Jie saw their sister still in the tree, growing anxious – they ran to the tree, calling upwards: “Stop knocking down the dates, sister, come down quickly!”

Yingbao responded with an “oh”, used her bamboo pole to knock a few times to get the reachable dates down, then slowly climbed down the tree.

Jiang Jie and Jiang Wu bent down to pick up the dates, two puppies rushing about, vying with them for the dates. Dahuang would even pick up the dates with its mouth and actively drop them into the basket.

Xiaohei on the other hand would bite and break every date it got, a pup who enjoyed eating dates just like its owner.

When they had gathered the dates, the three sibling carried the baskets home. On reaching the stack of straw near their house, they saw a child sneakily hiding behind it, peeping at them.

Xiaohei and Dahuang barked insistently in the direction the child was, jumping about and wanting to pounce over but not daring to do so.

“Who is there! What are you doing!” Jiang Wu rushed over, brandishing the bamboo pole in his hand as a threat.

“It’s me.” A dirty boy with tousled hair emerged from behind the straw stack.

“I’m Wei Zhan.”

Yingbao and her brothers were stunned.

How did this brat end up like this, hiding behind their straw stack.

Jiang Wu and Jiang Jie also recognized him and asked in confusion: “What are you doing here?”

Wei Zhan stepped out, scratched his tousled hair and said in a low voice,

“I…l’ve got separated from my elder brother…”

“Got separated?” Yingbao expressed disbelief. “You have so many guards, how could they lose you?”

Wei Zhan frowned and said, “We met a large group of bandits halfway… I barely escaped back.”

“A large group of bandits? Where did you run into the bandits?” Yingbao had never heard of any bandits near Qinchuan County in her past life.

“Near Zhouhe County, a hundred miles from here.” Wei Zhan spoke softly, “I haven’t eaten for several days.”

He was quite smart and had exchanged his outer clothing for some dry food from villagers along the way. After that, he followed the official road andwalked all the way back to Chuanhe Town.

When Jiang Wu heard that he hadn’t eaten, he gave him a date that Dahuang had held in his mouth, “Here, eat this.”

Wei Zhan took the date and started eating at once.

“What about your brother and those from the Chen family?” Yingbao didn’t actually believe this boy’s words.

Wei Zhan: “I don’t know, there were too many bandits, my guards told me to run, and I…got separated from them.”

In fact, he didn’t tell them that he had deliberately ridden his horse back home, until the horse was exhausted and fell down with froth at its mouth. He then hid in the forest.

After he was sure that no pursuers were behind him, Wei Zhan came out of the forest, and followed the official road back to Chuanhe Town.

He could’ve gone to Qinchuan County, but he didn’t. He chose to return directly to Chuanhe Town, even running to the Jiangs’ house on the South Slope..