CH 28

Mrs. Liang only returned home in the evening. Today, she wore clean clothes, and even her shoes were new. Her hair was also done up in a more elaborate bun than usual.

The most important thing to her was her dignity, so she couldn’t let anyone from her maternal family know she wasn’t living a good life.

When they saw her return, the sisters’ hearts clenched. Mo Ling subconsciously pulled Mo Yan behind her, but Mrs. Liang didn’t yell at them and was instead smiling.

“I checked with the clinic in your uncle’s village. They’re buying chinese foxgloves for two hundred dollars per kilo, just like Mr. Cao, but they don’t need a lot, just a few kilograms. They also want a small amount of dandelions too.

The two of them looked at each other. It’d be fine if they got scolded, but they were buying the medicinal herbs at half the market price. Thankfully, they didn’t need much.

Mo Ling replied with an embarrassed smile on her face, “Ok, I’ll go deliver the medicinal herbs they need after they’re dried.”

“Where’s Feng’er? He went out to gather medicinal herbs with you today, how did he do?”

Mo Ling nodded, “He did pretty well. These are all herbs we gathered this morning! To reward him, I made egg biscuits for lunch.”

Mrs. Liang was ecstatic to hear that her son could work, “That’s good, that’s good! In the future, our days will just become better and better.”

She changed and went to the Lu family’s, humming cheerfully as she went.

While Mo Ling was making dinner, Mo Yan was reading her ‘Hundred Herb Compendium’ [1] in the courtyard and planning which medicinal herb would be best to plant. Although Mrs. Liang still hasn’t agreed to it yet, she might agree to it in the future. It would only be better to prepare in advance.

The egg biscuits they had this afternoon were really good. Mo Yan was still reminiscing about them up until now.

“Sis, do you think we could sell egg biscuits? Would we make more of a profit than if we sold wraps?”

“Egg wraps don’t require a lot of ingredients and are cheap to make. But the people who’d buy them aren’t idiots! They’d definitely know that.”

“If a food item is to sell well, it has to have a distinctive feature. The meat isn’t anything special, but our sauce could be our specialty.”

When that topic was raised, Mo Yan realised something and asked, “Mum, have you finished making the latest batch of sauce yet?”

“I would’ve forgotten if you hadn’t reminded me! It’s been quite a few days, so it’s probably done already.”

Mo Yan ran out to see Mrs. Liang uncover the container with the fermented beans inside.

“It fermented well!” Mrs. Liang removed the wheat malt and mould from fermentation to leave behind just the beans.

“I’ll finish making the sauce tomorrow. It’s too dark right now.”

The next morning, Mrs. Liang made a flour slurry and let it cool down in a large bowl, stirring it occasionally.

The pot was being used to cook ingredients, so they couldn’t make breakfast and just had to make do. Next to it was a jar, which has been washed so it can be used to store sauce.

The medicinal herbs had finished drying. Mo Ling put it in a bag and was about to leave to sell them but Mrs. Liang intervened, “Let me do it! I’ll come back quickly to cook for the Lu family, you just have to focus on digging up medicinal herbs.”

She was just trying to pocket all the money for herself!

When both the flour slurry and the ingredients in the pot had cooled down, she added these together along with some water and the fermented beans. She couldn’t add too much water, as the sauce’s consistency would thin after fermentation.

The sauce was currently thick and sludgy. Mrs. Liang sealed the jar and left it out in the sun on one of the walls to ferment.

After finishing with the sauce, she hurriedly left. It might’ve been because she hadn’t drank any water since she woke up, but she immediately broke into a coughing fit as soon as she exited the door.

Mo Ling looked at her mum coughing and raised her brows at Mo Yan, “Yan’er, it’s time to think of money-making methods we can use during winter.” [2]

“Why winter?”

“When it’s cold, mum gets a lot of coughing fits. Don’t talk about earning money, she doesn’t even get out of bed most of the time.”

Without Mrs. Liang restricting them, they were free to do whatever they liked. She didn’t know how much money they earned, so they just had to hand some of it over.

Mo Ling called her brother, and the three of them were about to leave to gather medicinal herbs when the Cao family’s servant Ms. Li came over.

Ms. Li was in her thirties and was an extremely efficient person. As soon as she entered, she asked, “Ling’er, does the Mo family have any salted eggs left? Mrs. Cao said the ones Yan’er brought over last time tasted delicious and she wanted to buy some more.”

They could sell some for money! However, Mrs. Liang wasn’t at home, so Mo Ling didn’t dare make a decision, “Ms. Li, my mum is currently not at home, and we don’t know which eggs are salted. When she comes back, we’ll steam some and send them over.”

“Ok, then I’ll go back first.”

“Sis, if salted chicken eggs can be sold for money, then so can salted duck eggs! After our ducks lay their eggs, we can salt them and sell them for money!”

“Ok, we’ll go gather medicinal herbs, you stay here and work on the rest of the medicinal herbs. When mum comes back, tell her Mrs. Cao wants salted eggs.”

When she thought of the prospects of earning money and being able to be rid of her mum’s control one day, Mo Yan was in a good mood. She hummed a little tune as she worked on the medicinal herbs.

“Today’s such a good day!”

“Why is today a good day?”

It was Lu Junming. He came over after seeing that her family members weren’t here yet again.

“Don’t you have anything to do? Even my brother has gone to dig up medicinal herbs.”

After Mo Yan compared him to her brother, he felt dissatisfied.

“At the Upper Valley, I practised martial arts diligently every day. Now I’m here, I’m not being strictly governed anymore, so can’t I slack off occasionally?”

“Then what do you want to do in the future?”

“What can I do? I come from a military family. My fate is to be on the battlefield!”

Then, Sir Lu called him, “Junming, quick, come back! Your father’s here!”

If his dad’s here, he must be going back to Upper Valley! Mo Yan subconsciously stood up as Lu Junming’s face became one full of unease.

“Coming!” After he said that, he ran out of the door.

Mrs. Liang had just come back. Mo Yan said, “Lu Junming’s dad came back, he might be leaving the village. Quick, go check up on the situation!”

Mrs. Liang didn’t care if Lu Junming left or not, but she cared about her monthly eight hundred dollars. She immediately ran over without even changing.

Mo Yan wanted to follow her, but didn’t have a suitable reason. She went by the pond, pretending to check up on the ducks when she was actually watching the other side of the pond, where the Lu family home was.

Smoke came from the kitchen; Mrs. Liang was cooking dinner, and it seemed like nothing was out of the norm.

Then, Mo Yan remember she hadn’t told her mum about Mrs. Cao wanting to buy salted eggs, which conveniently enough gave her a reason to go to the Lu family and see what the situation Lu Junming was in was like.

When she arrived at the Lu family, the first thing she got was a glare from her mum, who tried to shoo her away, “Go back!”

She must’ve thought Mo Yan was here to ask for food.

Mo Yan said, “Mum, I forgot to tell you that Ms. Li came over this morning. She said Mrs. Cao wanted to buy some salted eggs, but you weren’t here, and we didn’t know which ones were salted. So we said we’d steam them in the afternoon and send them over. I was wondering if we could steam the salted eggs with lunch.”

Mrs. Liang’s face instantly brightened once she heard there was an opportunity to make money, “The salted ones are marked with ash.”

“How many should we steam?”

“There’s probably less than twenty left, just steam them all. Remember to wash them before steaming so the porridge doesn’t get contaminated.”

Mo Yan responded in the affirmative, but she didn’t have a chance to see Lu Junming at all.

Post-edit notes: I don’t think Lu Junming is leaving…or at least, he’s not leaving permanently. He’s set up by the description to be a love interest after all.

[1] The book Mr. Cao gave her many chapters ago.

[2] This is really mercenary thinking on Mo Ling’s part.