He wasn't stopped from teaching those two cats a lesson, but rather worried that he might break the tree.
For a fleeting moment, Lu Taobao felt a sense of confusion. He looked closely at the tree, and finally took a step back.
Sister-in-law was right. Teaching the cats a lesson was a minor matter, but it would be bad if the tree broke.
"Luoluo, Baibai, you two come down," Shen Xiaoyan called to the two cats in the tree.
Lu Taobao's mouth opened, about to say that even if she called them, they wouldn't understand.
But before he could speak, two cats, one black and one white, actually jumped down.
Luoluo led the way, head held high, tail erect, and passed by Lu Taobao with his nostrils almost flaring.
"This... are they looking down on me?" Lu Taobao froze, then asked.
"You're quite clever," Shen Xiaoyan said with a smile.
"Mainly, you know yourself," Zheng Wei chimed in from the side.
Lu Taobao raised his hand to cover his face. He was wrong. He shouldn't have argued with these two cats. He saw that his elder brother and sister-in-law had already started making fun of him on behalf of the cats.
"By the way, you just said Luoluo picked a peach, so where is the peach?" Shen Xiaoyan looked around, not seeing any peaches on the ground, and was a little surprised.
As Shen Xiaoyan said this, Lu Taobao also remembered. Why had he forgotten the main business?
But he looked around, even ran a circle, and couldn't find a single peach on the ground.
"Huh? Where did it go?" Lu Taobao scratched his head, unable to understand. Had he misremembered?
No way. It was broad daylight, the sun was shining brightly, he couldn't possibly be hallucinating?
Just then, they heard the roar of a leopard cat, and then saw a large, yellow and white shadow rushing towards them.
"Huadadian is here," Shen Xiaoyan said, looking at Huadadian, who had run up to her, and smiling as she rubbed its head.
Huadadian closed its eyes, enjoying Shen Xiaoyan's touch, a look of contentment on its face.
"Luoluo was picking peaches up there earlier, it was for you to eat, wasn't it?" Shen Xiaoyan continued to Huadadian.
Huadadian nodded, then looked up at the peaches on the tree, its eyes full of longing.
Seeing this, Luoluo leaped back onto the peach tree, walked to a peach in a cat-like manner, and patted it with its paw. A peach thus fell. Seeing the peach fall, Huadadian darted from Shen Xiaoyan's side, tilted its head back, and opened its wide mouth. The peach fell right into Huadadian's mouth. Huadadian lowered its head and began to chew.
The cat and the leopard cat cooperated seamlessly, making Lu Taobao's mouth gape.
So, all the peaches Luoluo had knocked down had gone into Huadadian's belly. No wonder he couldn't find them.
But... leopard cats eat peaches too? Don't they eat meat?
Although he was confused, he didn't ask further. As long as it wasn't wasted, it didn't matter who ate it.
Lu Taobao no longer hesitated about this matter. He asked for a bamboo basket from the servants and prepared to start picking peaches.
He was already quite tall, and the peach tree wasn't high, so he could easily reach the peaches on the tree.
Shen Xiaoyan watched Lu Taobao's actions. His cautious demeanor was as if he were protecting a rare treasure.
However, she didn't find it funny.
Because in a glutton's eyes, food was everything, it was their whole world.
Shen Xiaoyan asked the servants who had followed to pick peaches, and instructed them to only pick ripe ones and to be careful. Then, she and Zheng Wei, holding a bamboo basket, went to another peach tree.
Although there were over 200 peach trees, each tree wasn't large, and the peaches on them were packed tightly. Some were ripe, some weren't, so picking them required care, so as not to knock off the unripe ones.
When Lu Taobao arrived, he didn't know that the peaches had already ripened, so he hadn't brought a large cart for hauling.
And Shen Xiaoyan didn't have a cart large enough to hold so many peaches. Therefore, Wu Yong had been sent back to town by Lu Taobao earlier.
Wu Yong's actions were also swift. While they had picked over 10 baskets of peaches, he had already returned with over 10 large carts. Not only that, but he had also brought back some hands to help with picking the peaches.
"You all be careful when you pick later. If you don't do a good job, your young master will be angry."
Before these people started working, Lu Taobao had issued a warning.
All the servants bowed and agreed, and were also alerted.
Their young master was good at everything, except for one thing: he was particularly particular about food.
Anyone who dared to disturb his enjoyment of food, or prevented him from eating, would definitely have a bad end.
Therefore, when Lu Taobao said this, everyone picked peaches with extreme care.
With sufficient manpower, all the peaches were picked by noon.
This time, a total of 200 baskets of peaches were picked. After weighing each one, the total weight was 20,000 jin. At 15 wen per jin, the total came to 300 taels of silver.
After Lu Taobao gave the money and tickets to Shen Xiaoyan, he didn't even stay for lunch and hurried away.
He said he wanted to go home to let his parents taste the freshness, and then took his leave.
Shen Xiaoyan didn't believe he would keep so many peaches for himself, because by the time he finished eating them, they would have spoiled.
However, such delicious peaches, even if more expensive, would definitely sell.
Especially for wealthy families, they sought enjoyment and wouldn't care about such a small difference.
After Lu Taobao's carriage had left for a while, Shen Xiaoyan suddenly remembered something: she had forgotten to ask him to take the body powder with him.
Just as she was wondering whether to send someone to deliver the body powder, she heard someone report that Wu Yong had returned with a cart, saying he was here to pick up the body powder.
Shen Xiaoyan, along with Zheng Wei, went to the courtyard and saw Wu Yong driving a large cart into the main courtyard.
Seeing the two, Wu Yong bowed and then said with a smile, "Our young master was in a hurry to go back and eat peaches, and forgot about important matters. He specially sent me back to pick up the body powder."
Wu Yong had followed Lu Taobao since he was young and was deeply trusted by him, so he occasionally dared to make some harmless jokes.
Shen Xiaoyan was not a person with strong class consciousness, so she didn't mind this and also said with a smile, "I was just wondering if I should find someone to send it to your young master. Fortunately, besides eating, he can still think of other things, which saves me trouble."
As Shen Xiaoyan was speaking, Zheng Wei had already called people to carry over the cabinets containing the body powder.
After loading all the body powder onto the cart, Wu Yong took his leave.
The summer sun was scorching, especially with no smog, no pollution, and very good air quality, the UV rays were even stronger.
Therefore, the temperature was exceptionally high.
In such hot weather, unless there was something important, Shen Xiaoyan didn't even want to leave the house. Only in the evening, after the sun had set, would she take the children out for a walk from the house.
Time flew by, and it was August 12th. The triplets were exactly six months old.
Everyone said that children could flip at three months and sit at six months, and crawl at nine months.
This meant that most three-month-old babies could flip over, and by six months, they could start learning to sit.
However, this was not absolute. Many six-month-old babies couldn't sit, not because they were dumber than other babies, but because their spines hadn't developed enough to support their bodies, so they couldn't sit yet.
But Shen Xiaoyan's triplets had all learned to sit on their six-month birthday.
Looking at the children sitting there stiffly, Shen Xiaoyan's lips were about to split to her ears.
To Shen Xiaoyan now, earning more money didn't bring her as much joy as the small advancements in the growth of her three children.
Moreover, this wasn't a small step, but a significant one.
For the triplets, this was also a very novel experience.
Lying there to see the world, lying on their stomachs to see the world, or being held in someone's arms to see the world, none of these were as good as sitting there themselves to see the world.
Babies who had just learned to sit found everything around them to be new again, even if they had seen it for a long time.