As he spoke, tears streamed down his face.
“I’m really short on this amount, otherwise I wouldn’t have to beg you like this!”
Li Feng paid the silver. The Chen family was Lu Liuming’s maternal family, and since the brothers had exchanged brides, they couldn’t just accept the good and reject the bad.
Chen Lao Ye also wanted Li Feng to help with the move: “I’ve already picked out the shop. We’ll go to the brokerage on the fifth day of the new year to finalize it. The move will begin on the sixth day!”
Li Feng was going to the county seat on the fifth day to deliver goods to Lu Yang, and he had time to help with the move on the sixth day. He agreed.
Chen Lao Ye thanked him repeatedly and gave the two of them another twenty pieces of tofu to take with them.
As a favor, the two of them left six pieces of tofu at Chen Da’s house.
He then said a few words to Wang Meng and Chen Jiu’s couple, left first, and took a detour to Lu Jia Tun to pay New Year’s respects to the two fathers.
Lu Yang had already discussed with the two fathers that this year was busy, and proper etiquette might be neglected, but they would return to pay respects later, though it would be after the tenth day, which was considered late, so they should not worry.
Lu Liu and Li Feng returned first, with Lu Liu still covering most of her face. Their family’s circumstances were clearly improving, with many relatives coming and going. Even at home, she dared not remove her headscarf and spoke with her father inside the house.
Wang Fengnian was afraid the child would worry, so he chattered on and on to Lu Liu.
In the twelfth lunar month, Lu Erbao returned to his old trade, slaughtering pigs for the surrounding villages.
He didn’t go to Li Zhai, nor had he gone in previous years. Li Zhai had many hunters who knew how to handle such matters, so they didn’t need outsiders to slaughter pigs.
He went along with them and visited Shangxi Village several times.
Unfortunately, Lu Yang and Xie Yan were always out early and returned late, so they only met Zhao Peilan.
Pig offal is difficult to prepare, and cleaning it thoroughly is a hassle. Wang Fengnian cleaned a bucketful and sent it over to them.
This year, the two families celebrated the New Year together. They now had rice, flour, meat, and eggs, so when they went to eat at other people’s homes, they could hold their heads high and dare to pick up their chopsticks to eat meat and vegetables.
Before leaving, Wang Fengnian gave Lu Liu two taels of silver. This silver was to be passed on to Lu Yang by Lu Liu.
In the spring, they would need to buy piglets to raise, and piglets also cost money. They couldn’t let Lu Yang pay for them.
They had asked about the price of piglets before, and Lu Yang had only told them to rest assured. They had once thought that the Xie family was well-off, but after seeing the couple working tirelessly through wind and snow, opening the shop early and closing late, they realized that the family wasn’t as well-off as they had imagined.
Under these circumstances, they couldn’t let Lu Yang cover the cost of the piglets. They had to pay for them themselves.
Since they didn’t know the exact amount, they took a little extra.
Lu Liu put the silver into a small pouch and felt worried about their livelihood.
“So you only have one tael of silver left?”
He knew how much silver his family had.
Wang Fengnian nodded: “Yes, we sold the fields and exchanged them for better ones, so the two balance out. But your father and I only have two mouths to feed. Yang Ge is filial; he sends rice, flour, and meat to the house from time to time, and he’s also brought oil and salt. He says he has everything in his shop. We have enough to eat and drink, so we don’t spend much money.”
We saved seeds from the crops. This year, Lu Yang asked Luo Dàyǒng to look into it at the county office and secured fifty pounds of high-quality seeds for us. We’ll plant them first and see how they go.
He wasn’t in a hurry to leave. The idle people at home wouldn’t keep him for dinner, so he hurried to stew it for his two fathers, waiting only for it to be done and add some salt, with Wang Fengnian watching the heat.
Lu Liu and Li Feng didn’t stay for dinner either, as they had a banquet to attend to back at the village.
When they left, they also took a bucket of pig offal. This was the main ingredient for the appetizer.
Everyone in the village said that this year’s banquet was flavorful because the wine was strong.
Strong wine meant good business for the shop.
A lot of wine was sold, at least ten pounds every day during the New Year.
Peanuts could be eaten as a snack with wine, so when they bought dried goods earlier, Li Feng bought some extra peanuts.
Earlier, when families chatted and bought a few ounces of sunflower seeds, the peanuts remained untouched. But on the day of the banquet, the peanuts sold quickly. Chen Guizhi helped sell the goods and mentioned this to Lu Liu, asking him to buy more peanuts next time he went to the county.
Lu Liu smiled and agreed.
The wine was consumed in a steady stream from household to household. Two meals a day—lunch and dinner—were insufficient, and some families even added an evening meal.
With multiple fires burning in the home, there were daily snacks to accompany the wine.
Li Feng grew tired of the food, so they secretly simmered a pot of lamb soup in the middle of the night.
Li Feng preferred pure lamb soup and didn’t like radishes in it. But radishes could also remove the lamb’s odor, so they stewed them together. When serving, they just didn’t scoop out the radishes for him.
Chen Guizhi saw him eating radishes with such satisfaction that he closed his eyes, and believed Li Feng’s words that he was a fool.
Lamb is chewier than pork, even after it’s stewed. It still has a lamb flavor when you taste it carefully, but overall it’s acceptable.
The parts with lamb bones are hard to chew, and Lu Liu felt that it wasn’t stewed well, so he would make some adjustments next time.
By the afternoon of the fourth day, his family stopped drinking and started collecting mountain produce.
After a few days of visiting, they had spoken to everyone they needed to. In addition to the men who were close friends with Li Feng, his uncles and aunts also came to deliver mountain produce.
They worked together to keep clear records.
Since they had just started learning to write and had little time to practice, and there was no paper at home, Li Feng used a wooden board to keep accounts, writing with charcoal sticks.
Lao Tongsheng lived in Xincun, where everyone in the mountain village was illiterate.
They couldn’t recognize what he wrote, so they stood by, pointing and laughing.
The first batch of dry goods delivered were from close relatives who trusted Li Feng, so no one was afraid he would record the accounts incorrectly.
Chen Guizhi and Shun Ge watched the weighing and counting. After today, two carts weren’t enough to carry the goods, so they had to borrow another one.
Relying solely on the county officials to teach him, it would take until the year of the monkey and the month of the horse.
Although Lao Tongsheng was old and had forgotten many characters,
Li Feng agreed.
On the fifth day of the month, Sanmiao and Wang Meng came to help load the goods, along with Li Feng’s mule cart, making a total of three carts.
Lu Liu went early to Yao Fulang’s place and brought back his family’s beehive.
The beehive was placed in a wide-mouthed sand pot, piled high up to Lu Liu’s thigh level, covered with a basket.
Daqiang cut off a few pieces to taste, and Lu Liu was also given a piece by Yao Fulang. It was a different kind of sweetness from sugar, and he liked it too.
It was now the home of Er Tian and Wang Dongmei. The couple felt ashamed, so on New Year’s Day, they went to Shangxi Village to Wang Dongmei’s parents’ home. They haven’t returned yet.
Lu Liu felt relieved.
It was good that his brother had already moved to the county, otherwise he would have run into Wang Dongmei.
Her brother had told her that as long as they were open about the situation at home, it was best to maintain appearances outwardly.
When the truth could no longer be hidden, they would simply be long-lost brothers, with no such thing as an arranged marriage.
Public opinion was formidable, and they could not afford to be careless.
The person who had accompanied them to deliver the goods today had been carefully selected by Li Feng.
