After some thought, since these individuals weren't skilled in the same areas, Fang Er didn't have them demonstrate their abilities on the spot.
Liu Wu, go to the vocational school and report to Zhao Gang. Tell him this Marquis sent you. This fellow is an excellent blacksmith, and it would be a waste not to have him study forging.
Then he assigned tasks to the others.
Xie Yuchen, with his good legs, was dispatched by Fang Er to find a shop in Chang'an City.
The Su Feng brothers, along with Ma Guocai and Yang Buji, were kept at home to serve as guards and general helpers.
Ever since Hua Niang took on the role of master craftsman for the sewing workshop, there had been no cook at home, so Li Baoju was kept on as the full-time head chef.
The next morning, Lai Yifa was gone.
Liu Meng and the others had already begun deploying all the personnel from the Tianhuo Camp to search for him on the estate.
To his embarrassment, after searching all morning, there was no sign of him.
Fang Er didn't bother with these matters and instead strolled over to Liu Laosi's house.
Laosi's courtyard had been expanded several times since he started raising chickens. Whenever he ran out of space, he would have the neighbors move away to make room for him. In his words, "The Marquis told me to raise chickens, and I'm out of space, so move your coop over for the chickens to live in."
Seeing Liu Si's house, which had expanded from a two-courtyard to a four-courtyard residence, Fang Er knocked on his front gate.
Creak!
The gate was opened, and an old woman peeked her head out from inside. "Ah! The Marquis is here, quickly, quickly come in."
The old woman recognized Fang Er and quickly opened the gate wide, stepping aside to invite him in. This was Liu Laosi's wife. Fang Er glanced into the courtyard, not seeing Liu Laosi, and asked, "Is Laosi home?"
Laosi's wife pointed inside, "He's inside hatching eggs, Marquis, please come in."
Hatching eggs? What on earth?
Fang Er walked in with confusion, and Laosi's wife hurried ahead to lead the way. The large courtyard, though kept very clean, reeked of chicken droppings, and some chicks scurried back and forth in the yard. Fang Er couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt, wondering how Laosi managed to get used to it.
Upon reaching the back courtyard, Laosi's wife pointed to a room and said, "Marquis, you go in yourself. Laosi doesn't let me into this room."
Why is it so secretive?
Fang Er pushed open the door and went in. Laosi's wife closed the door from the outside.
"Who the hell let you in, get out!" Laosi's voice came from inside the room.
Fang Er's head went black. This Laosi, is his temper this fiery? As he got closer, he saw that the man was actually boiling a basin of eggs in a pot?? A fire stove with a large pot of water on top, and a basin filled with eggs suspended above the water. Liu Laosi's hands were submerged in the water in the pot.
What was this guy doing?
Fang Er cleared his throat: "Ahem, ahem, ahem!"
Liu Laosi, hearing the voice sounded wrong, looked up and said, "Marquis? Why are you here?"
Fang Er pointed to the eggs in the basin: "Laosi, what are you doing?"
Liu Laosi said mysteriously, "Heh heh, Marquis, please sit aside and wait, it should be ready in about an hour!"
Seeing his serious demeanor, Fang Er sat aside and waited. The pervasive smell of chicken droppings kept drilling into his nostrils, so he took out a cigar and lit it to block the smell.
Liu Laosi immediately said, "Marquis, you can't smoke here!"
Fang Er...
He had to stub out the cigar on the ground and watch helplessly.
Liu Laosi kept his hands in the water, occasionally adding firewood to the stove, and then adding a bowl of water to the pot. After watching for a while, Fang Er's eyes lit up. This old fellow was artificially incubating eggs! No wonder his wife said he was hatching eggs earlier!
Just as Fang Er was getting bored and about to fall asleep, he suddenly heard a faint pecking sound from the pot. Fang Er's spirits immediately lifted. He rushed over and looked into the wooden basin containing the eggs. Some of the eggs had cracked open. Tiny beaks poked out from the cracks, then retracted, pecking at the eggshells from within. Soon, chicks began to emerge from the shells.
Liu Laosi picked up a bamboo basket from his feet, gathered the chicks into it, and removed the eggshells, discarding them to make space for the other unhatched chicks. After another half an hour, about ninety percent of the eggs in the basin had hatched chicks.
Looking at the remaining eggs, Laosi shook his head slightly. "These eggs won't hatch."
Fang Er casually picked one up, removed the shell, and indeed, the chicks inside, which had already grown down, had died. However, even this amazed him.
"How did you think of doing this?"
Liu Laosi grinned, "I saw that mother hens take too long to hatch eggs. A clutch takes twenty days, losing twenty eggs. So, I took some eggs from the nests and tried to see if I could hatch them myself. This is the second time. Last time, I incubated them for ten days, but the water was too hot one day, and they all got cooked."
"Good! This is also a great achievement. Come, take this Marquis to see how well you've raised your chickens now!" Fang Er said, looking at the chicks in the bamboo basket.
Afterward, Liu Laosi handed the chicks over to his wife and then led Fang Er on a tour of the courtyard. In each room, wooden cages filled with chickens were placed on the ground. The three large roosters had the best treatment, each occupying an entire room.
"I bring different hens to the roosters every day. After they are done, I take the hens back and put them in their cages. These three roosters eat two jin of feed daily. It's a mixture of crushed beans, wheat, and millet, stir-fried and mixed with ground cooked eggs. Sometimes, I also give them small pieces of fish or shrimp."
"My wife even complains that I treat the chickens better than her." Speaking of which, Laosi chuckled.
ps: Four chapters delivered. Yesterday's update request was 1437. Heh heh, you know.