CH 54

Mo Yan was starting to feel frightened, and when she heard the sound of a horse galloping in front of her, she ducked sideways in the field of crops to observe, and saw a white horse running from the direction of Chenzhong Village.

“Lu Junming!”

“Yan’er!”

Hearing that warmed Mo Yan’s heart.

When his big white horse got near, Mo Yan walked over and waited eagerly for Lu Junming to dismount and put her on the horse’s back.

Afraid that she would be afraid, Lu Junming didn’t rush the horse forward. His big white horse trotted over leisurely and snorted.

Another gust of wind blew, but Mo Yan was no longer afraid. [1]

She opened the paper bag in her hand and saw in the dying rays of the sun that there were two large pieces of rock sugar inside. She tried to break it with her hands, but couldn’t, so she bit off a piece, and then bit that piece into two smaller pieces. She stuffed the piece that hadn’t been inside her mouth into Lu Junming’s, and ate the other piece by herself.

Lu Junming smacked his lips and said, “Rock Sugar? That’s a delicacy, where did you get it?”

“My master gave it to me!”

“You were the one who took over his job back then. I didn’t expect you to form a master-disciple relationship.”

“That’s right! It’s better to make amendments than to make an enemy.”

Lu Junming rubbed his chin on top of her head, “You’re right!”

Mo Yan suddenly laughed and tilted her head back, rubbing Lu Junming’s chin her hair.

Lu Junming was confused, “What are you laughing at? DId you learn some funny jokes from your master? Tell them to me, you haven’t told stories just to me for a long time.”

Mo Yan smiled and said, “Of course I have some, I’ll tell you another day. I’m laughing at you!”

“What about me? I heard from your mother that you went to see your master and haven’t come back yet, so I came to pick you up immediately!”

Mo Yan gently tapped his chin with the back of her head, “That’s why I want to thank you! You ate my saliva! I bit the candy I gave you just now.” After she said that, she laughed out loud.

Lu Junming raised his hand and pushed the back of her head gently, “It’s just your saliva! I’m happy to eat it, and I’ll never get tired of eating it.”

If he was just joking around, Mo Yan would be unfazed, but Mo Yan was speechless when he said that. Fortunately, it was dark, and Lu Junming couldn’t see her face turn red.

When they arrived at the entrance of the village, Mo Yan was afraid of being gossiped about, so she insisted on getting down. Lu Junming had no choice but to carry her down and let her walk in the front, while he led his horse at the back.

After walking Mo Yan back, Lu Junming rode his horse and returned home.

When Mo Yan returned, she saw that the package and letter were still on the table in the main room, “Sis, why haven’t we given the money to the old lady yet?”

Mo Ling replied from the kitchen, “Mum said she’ll give it tomorrow night, so that she can think about her darling son one more day.”

They couldn’t keep the money, but they could delay giving it for a day.

“Our mother said to buy a kilogram of meat to stew, and also a few mooncakes to sacrifice to the moon for tomorrow’s Mid-Autumn Festival.”

She said it was to sacrifice to the moon, but they’d still eat it themselves anyways.

The next day was the Mid-Autumn Festival. Most people were at home, and it wasn’t a market day, so they didn’t have much business. They closed shop early and went to buy meat.

Early in the morning, they had asked shopkeeper Zhou to save them some meat, and the two took it home. After lunch, Mrs. Liang cut up the meat, browned it with the rock sugar that Mo Yan brought back, and started braising the meat. [2]

The pork they had in the past wasn’t as good as the pork they were making now. After all, pork only tasted good after being cooked for a long time in a small fire.

Mrs. Liang said that Sir Lu bought food from Dengyun Tower to celebrate the festival, so she didn’t have to cook for the Lu’s that evening.

Mrs. Liang was drying green bean pods in the yard while the pork was stewing. The green beans were planted in the sorghum field, but the pods were already ripe. If she waits until the sorghum is harvested, the pods would burst. She wouldn’t be able to retrieve the beans once they fell to the ground. So she had to pick the green beans first.

The mung beans Zhong Cheng had exchanged for wheat previously were just green beans with their pods removed.

Under the sun, the pods burst open one after another with a crackling noise. Then, with a single stroke of the hand, the pods burst open more, and there was no need to pick the beans out manually. After shaking them in a basket, the beans would naturally fall to the bottom, and the empty pods would float on the top.

Mo Yan was reading in the yard when Zhong Cheng walked in, “Auntie, Yan’er, I’m here to deliver duck eggs. You’ve probably used up your flour too, so I’m sending some more.”

After speaking, he went back and pushed his cart in. After coming here several times, he knew where everything was, so he put them in the kitchen. Mrs. Liang was sure that he was an honest person after dealing with him so often, and no longer counted the amount of duck eggs. It wasn’t like he ever tried to shortchange them, anyways.

Mo Yan invited him to sit, and reminded him quietly, “Renting animals”.

Seeing that Mrs. Liang seemed to be in a good mood, Zhong Cheng said, “I heard Yan’er say that you want to reclaim wasteland, and you want to rent livestock for after the autumn. My family has a cow and a horse, and they can plough the land and pull carts.”

Mrs. Liang shot a look at Mo Yan, blaming her for talking about this.

“Then how much for reclaiming an acre of land?” Mr. Liang asked.

Zhong Cheng smiled and said, “I’ve never done this before, and I don’t know the price. I just thought that since the animals would be idle, it’d be better to use them to earn some money.”

It was the same as not saying anything. Neither of them were. When Mo Ling knew that Zhong Cheng had come, she didn’t want to come out, but she was getting anxious in her room, so she came out and said, “Two hundred dollars per acre of land. You provide your own food and food for the livestock. I asked Mrs. Cao for the usual price.”

The Cao family had a lot of land, and Daqiang was their long-term worker. In the harvest season, they often had to hire people, so the price she stated should be reasonable.

Zhong Cheng hurriedly agreed, “Okay, let’s go with that. When do you want to begin work?”

“Are we really going to reclaim wasteland?” Mrs. Liang was still hesitating.

Mo Ling persuaded, “That patch of land is over a dozen acres! If we reclaim it, we might even be comparable to the Cao family in a few years, and it’d be easier for Feng’er to marry.”

Allowing Mo Feng to marry earlier; for Mrs. Liang, this was a precious gift, and for Mo Ling, this was the trick that would always make Mrs. Liang agree to anything.

“Ok, fine. I’ll listen to you, and reclaim the land! But let’s wait until after the harvest to talk more. Today, when I was harvesting the green bean pods, I saw that the sorghum ears were turning red. I’ll harvest them after the next market day!”

“Okay!” Mo Ling agreed quickly.

That was when Lu Junming ran in while calling Mo Yan’s name, holding two duck eggs in his hand, “Yan’er, Yan’er, your duck has laid eggs!”

Mo Yan jumped up, “Really? Were these really laid by my ducks?”

Lu Junming handed the duck eggs to her, “I saw them lay the eggs with my own eyes. You can touch them, they’re still warm! Let’s go out and look for them, there might be more!”

The duck eggs in Mo Yan’s hands were indeed warm, and Lu Junming hadn’t been lying. Mo Yan picked up a basket and ran out, followed closely by Lu Junming. Mrs. Liang laughed from behind, “There’ll be three or five duck eggs at best, what are you doing with such a big basket!”

Post-edit notes: Yeah, this has shaped up to be a chapter with a lot of potential plot threads to be discussed…next time, on “Transmigrated Farmgirl’s Scheme to Get Rich!” Where the transmigration part is still kinda fuzzy and still doesn’t really exist outside of the main character being less reserved than the other women shown to be in the story and of course, her absolutely insane storytelling aptitude!

[1] Oooh, more Lu Junming and Mo Yan shipping? I’d say it’s prime romantic material but neither of them are even eighteen yet, so…

[2] Casual reminder that I am not anywhere near a culinary expert (or even know how to cook), and the Chinese terms for all of these cooking instructions are incredibly confusing. Almost as much as the English ones!