"You child, why have you bought so much meat again?" Qin Mu said, upset, seeing Qin Junyao carry back half a basket of meat.
Qin Junyao squatted beside Qin Mu, taking out the paper, ink, and books from another basket, as well as the carpenter's tools for Sanniu.
"Mother, we don't eat meat every day. Every time I buy some, you either cure it into cured meat or salted meat, or dry it. Let's make braised pork today, with nothing but meat."
Qin Mu glared at her daughter, "Even the county magistrate doesn't dare to eat like this. If we each had two pieces of braised pork, it would take two catties of raw meat."
"Without anything else, if we ate our fill, our family would eat at least eight catties of meat in one meal."
Qin Mu held a piece of pork, weighing it for Qin Junyao, "This meat alone could cost your second uncle a month's wages for one meal."
"One mu of wheat only yields three hundred catties per harvest. After paying taxes and keeping enough for food, the rest wouldn't even buy this much meat."
Qin Junyao watched Qin Mu, tears welling up as she spoke, and felt a little lost.
"Mother, what's wrong?" Qin Junyao didn't understand why Qin Mu was crying. She bought a lot of meat every time she went to Yan County.
Qin Mu pursed her lips, wiped away tears, "Your grandmother said she's going to start preparing your dowry quilt."
"You say you like to spend money carelessly. You can do that here, but once you're at the Zhao family's, with so many eyes watching, what will you do if you're discovered?"
"If you don't know how to cook, or do needlework, what if General Zhao dislikes you, or his stepmother bullies you?"
Qin Mu cried harder as she spoke.
When the matchmaker came to propose, she hadn't felt too strongly about it, just that it was different from her own experience.
It wasn't until today, when her mother-in-law said she was preparing a dowry quilt for her daughter, that she truly realized her daughter was going to belong to another family.
She knew how difficult it was to be a wife, the hardship of pregnancy, the danger of childbirth, and the challenges of raising children.
The Zhao family was too high-ranking; everyone said it was a miracle that the Qin family's ancestral grave had smoked to achieve this marriage.
But Qin Mu thought that her daughter would end up like herself, with a family that was as good as no family, unable to help, and possibly becoming a burden.
Her tears could only flow inwards, and her bitterness could only be swallowed.
Qin Junyao gently rested her head on Qin Mu's shoulder, encircling her mother's shoulder with one arm and stroking it.
"Mother, don't worry, I won't be bullied."
"Mother, it's so good to have you."
Qin Mu shook her head through her tears, "I'm not good, Mother. I haven't satisfied your grandmother, and I haven't let you and your siblings eat and dress well."
"Mother is always too soft-hearted and can't control herself from giving things away. When Mother first married in, she was often beaten by your grandmother because of this..."
Grandma Qin turned and withdrew from the doorway, signaling Qin Mu not to enter the kitchen.
Cry, it's good to cry it out.
Lunch had only one dish: two large pots of braised pork.
With such a good dish, Qin Junyao certainly wouldn't let Qin Mu make coarse grains, so she steamed a large pot of white rice.
The thick braised pork sauce was poured over the rice. Taking a piece of the trembling meat and putting it into her mouth, she scooped a mouthful of rice and took a bite of garlic. It was incredibly delicious.
After lunch, Qin Mu and Aunt Qin Er stayed home to wash clothes, while the others went to dig wolf poison roots.
Qin Junyao continued with the task of cutting wolf poison leaves. When Qin Fu finished placing the wolf poison and was about to leave, she called him back.
"Dad, can you go find Deng Zui tomorrow night? Ask him how much it would cost to buy this piece of land we're digging on and the nearby shuttle land?"
Qin Fu looked around at the endless Gobi Desert, then turned back to Qin Junyao, "How big do you want to buy?"
"Depends on the price. If it's cheap, buy more. Once we clear the wolf poison from this land, we can plant saxaul."
Qin Fu put down the cart and squatted in front of his eldest daughter, "Why plant saxaul? I see a lot of it growing here."
"Dad, if we don't plant anything here, the wolf poison will grow back. Planting saxaul here can conserve water, and it can live for many years. It can also be used as fodder for camels and sheep, can be burned as fuel, and its seeds are edible." Su Dan Fiction Network
Qin Fu hadn't paid much attention to the previous points. It was even better if wolf poison grew back, as they were planning to make money from it. But Qin Junyao said the saxaul seeds were edible.
"How do you plant saxaul, when do you plant it, how many seeds per mu, how many seeds will it yield? Do you plant them in rows or patches?"
Qin Junyao quickly interrupted Qin Fu's questions, "Dad, Dad, saxaul is planted when there's rain in the summer. We harvest when the seeds are almost mature. I don't know the rest."
"However, there's a significant distance between each row of saxaul, and we can plant some drought-resistant and easy-to-grow crops in between."
This was all Qin Junyao knew.
As for how to eat saxaul seeds, or what grains to plant in between saxaul, she had no idea.
Fortunately, she had the well water from her space; anything should grow, though it would consume quite a bit of water, indirectly consuming her energy.
"Alright, I'll ask tonight. You say it's a shame that Village Chief Hao is the village chief," Qin Fu muttered as he pushed the cart away.
Qin Junyao sighed. The land was managed by the village chief.
Buying land was something Qin Junyao hadn't considered before.
She often heard Qin Fu talk about the high prices of first-grade and second-grade fields, but never about buying Gobi or desert land.
It was only when Ling Manshuang told her this morning to buy more land that produced grain and to stock up on food, that she asked if deserts could be bought.
The answer she received was that if it wasn't bought, it was still imperial land and ownerless, which anyone could occupy, and the imperial court could use it as they pleased.
Qin Junyao didn't want someone else to claim the land she had worked so hard to improve, which was why she asked Qin Fu to inquire.
After digging more than two hundred catties of wolf poison roots, Qin Fu and the others stopped and went home.
The remaining rice vinegar at home was only enough to soak over five hundred catties.
The rice vinegar Qin Junyao ordered wouldn't arrive until the day after tomorrow. For these few days, they would adapt to the intensity of the work and arrange their time. From now on, the Qin family would only buy, not dig.
When washing the wolf poison roots, Qin Mu and Aunt Qin Er, feeling sorry for their sons who were tired from carrying water back and forth with the cart, decided to wash the wolf poison roots one by one by hand in the water basins, instead of rinsing them with water like yesterday.
When Qin Junyao successfully finished sewing a sock and came out of the room, both Qin Mu and Aunt Qin Er's hands were red and swollen. Seeing this, she turned back to find the medicinal ointment she had bought from Doctor Sheng.
Grandma Qin saw Qin Junyao go out and come back in, and then go into the courtyard. When she saw the hands of her two daughters-in-law, she was so angry she felt a pain in her liver.
"Stop it! You make trouble the moment I don't look at you. How many times have I told you that grass root is poisonous, poisonous!"
"Rinse it with water when you wash it, and don't touch it if your skin is broken. Why? I'm asking you why!"
Qin Mu and Aunt Qin Er took their hands out of the water and stood up to be lectured.
They hadn't been poisoned by wolf poison either, and didn't expect it to be so severe.
Many villagers also dug up the roots of this plant and boiled water to sprinkle in their yards and fields for pest control, so they thought it wasn't a big deal.
"Don't stand there silently, I'm the one talking. You're both not young anymore, do you need me to nag you like a child every day?"
"Kneel down and tell me what you're thinking."
Qin Mu and Aunt Qin Er knew that their mother-in-law was angry at the moment, and they didn't care about the curious villagers. They immediately knelt in the courtyard.
The surrounding neighbors and passing villagers were already curious about the Qin family digging up the roots of the dog's hoof flower. Now they all gathered outside the Qin family's courtyard to watch the spectacle.