Xie Yan felt hopeless. For the past decade or so, he had never had much of a taste for meat, and that was fine.
Lu Yang tried to cheer him up: “Look at you, you’re tall with a big frame. If you put on some muscle, you’ll be a sturdy, strong man. Where does muscle come from? You have to eat meat to build muscle.”
Xie Yan didn’t have a large frame; he was slender and of average build.
Lu Yang liked this build; no matter how much he trained, he wouldn’t be a match for him. In the future, when they fought, he could overpower Xie Yan.
He thought about it and smiled.
In the future, if they fought, it would definitely be on the bed.
He coaxed Xie Yan to eat more lamb and drink less alcohol, and Zhao Peilan also served him meat.
Since taking the medicine, Lu Yang’s appetite had been extremely poor, and he ate small meals throughout the day.
Before taking the medicine, his main meals were just to fill his stomach so he could take the medicine. Shortly after taking the medicine, he would feel hungry again after a few trips to the bathroom.
There was rice and flour at home, but he didn’t want to eat buns or steamed bread, so he made something else. The stove was always lit, so it was convenient.
Zhao Peilan said, “Our family’s circumstances are improving. You need to focus on recovering your health. Don’t let yourself get worse.”
In a few days, it would be the 15th day of the first lunar month. After the 15th, she could take Lu Yang to see the old doctor for a follow-up examination.Chapter 155
Xie Yan wanted to earn some more silver. This time, when he went to buy medicine, he wanted to get pills.
Pills are more expensive, but they are small and don’t take up much space in the stomach.
Lu Yang wouldn’t have to make room in his stomach for medicine, so he could eat properly.
Eating properly would nourish his body, so he could recover quickly.
After the fifteenth, those who were going to take the童生試 (civil service examination for young scholars) would start preparing.
He planned to visit several of his former teachers and humbly request their recommendations, so that the young scholars at the academy would come to him for guarantees. He could earn some silver to cover the medical expenses.
He still had some silver left for Lu Yang’s medical treatment, and he hadn’t touched a single coin of it.
He was just a little short of what he needed to buy a month’s worth of pills. He was determined to save up the money.
Lu Yang felt warm inside and ate a large piece of mutton.
He also wanted to get better soon, but unfortunately, he couldn’t eat any more.
After the meal, the family gathered in the kitchen to tidy up.
They were in high spirits today and hadn’t gone to bed early. Since they had nothing else to do, they prepared the buns early so they could steam them and sell them tomorrow morning.
Before washing up, Lu Yang took two large basins to soak the mountain mushrooms.
Over the past few days, he had tried selling mountain mushroom meat sauce, and the sales were better than expected.
His selling price wasn’t too expensive, similar to that of soybean paste, at twelve coins per pound.
In the sauce, he used less salt, but more soybean paste, essentially using soybean paste to make the sauce.
Mushrooms are light, so a pound of sauce only contained three or five mushrooms. It might even be less, as they were all diced. There weren’t many meat cubes either.
However, stir-frying the sauce requires a lot of oil, and the soybean paste is also purchased, so when you add it all up, the price goes up.
This sauce is suitable for rice and noodles.
When Lu Yang delivered the sauce to Mr. Ding, he brought him a bowl of noodles, which he ate with relish and introduced Lu Yang to many business opportunities.
This was like having a patron for Lu Yang.
His family rarely buys wine, but this time, to thank Mr. Xie, he wanted to buy some good wine, two jars.
After returning home, he settled accounts with Xie Yan, hoping to get a couple of silver coins from Xie Yan’s pocket to spend.
Xie Yan, the tightwad, wouldn’t give him any.
Xie Yan also wanted to make money. He asked Lu Yang, “Does Mr. Ding still want the door god paintings? If I paint them for him now, can I make some money?”
Lu Yang laughed, “Don’t just focus on him. We should also make money from others.”
Xie Yan was a little disappointed.
He suddenly remembered that he also knew some wealthy people.
Wu Pingzhi was very wealthy.
He remembered that Wu Pingzhi also liked to dress up.
He would go to compliment Wu Pingzhi tomorrow, saying that he was handsome, and see if Wu Pingzhi wanted a portrait as a keepsake.
If he could earn money by painting, he could save up enough for the medicine.
Speaking of Wu Pingzhi, this was also a household he needed to visit.
Once the village affairs were settled, Xie Yan could go visit Mr. Wu.
He couldn’t describe his feelings—he was a bit happy, yet also a bit uneasy.
Meeting Mr. Wu and reconciling the two families was a happy occasion.
But Mr. Wu’s face had to be saved. Should he charge for the portrait?
This was really troubling.
…………………………
After finishing his business in the county, Li Feng had time to take care of household matters.
The most important thing was to make a table first.
The chairs were just thrown together; whatever was available at home was used first. If there weren’t enough, a few more high stools were made temporarily. Long benches were out of the question, as they weren’t convenient for moving around.
The table took several days to make, so the rabbit hutch was delayed. Erhuang was upset about this.
It stayed at the Sanmiao family’s house for a while, and when it returned, the doghouse had become a rabbit hutch, with rabbits nesting inside and giving birth to litters! The hutch was filled with the smell of rabbits, and it couldn’t be cleaned up in a short time, which made it feel very wronged.
Lu Liu has been taking it into the room to sleep these past two days, letting it lie on the straw pile under the bed, but it’s still unsatisfied. During the day, it runs back and forth between the front and back yards, giving the family members meaningful glances, trying to drive the rabbits out of the doghouse.
Li Feng is too busy, and Lu Liu can’t build a rabbit hutch on her own, so she’s been learning how to make pickled radishes. Once the radishes are ready, she’ll try making a mushroom and pork mince sauce, so she’s too busy to help.
Shun Ge saw how pitiful it was and cleared out a small area in the house where it used to live, built a straw nest for it, and let it make do for now.
This room had a bathtub on one side and bamboo poles and other miscellaneous items on the other, with cured meat hanging on them.
There was no choice, so he called Lu Liu to help. The two of them worked together to move the cured meat to the kitchen.
When people came to visit their home, they saw them busy with Er Huang’s affairs, and they all laughed.
That day, Er Huang reached his limit. While Li Feng was tidying up the table, he used his front paws to dig a large hole in the area where Li Feng was doing carpentry work and buried himself in it.
Lu Liu was terrified. He put down his tools and came over to pull him out, but he couldn’t move him, let alone pick him up.
The once obedient dog wouldn’t respond to coaxing today. It whined and howled.
“Da Feng! Da Feng! Er Huang has buried himself!” he called out.
Li Feng didn’t understand and came out to look.
Er Huang was quite smart, with a melancholy expression on its doggy face. Its tail wagged happily, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Impressive, it even knew how to play the victim.
It was a dog he had raised himself—what else could he do? Pamper it, of course.
Li Feng gave it an order: “Clean yourself up.”
Bathing a big dog is a hassle. Most dogs don’t bathe often. Whether they go to the river or have two buckets of water poured over them, they’ll roll around and rub themselves, dry their fur, lick themselves, and be clean again.
Li Feng usually bathes it after coming down the mountain. At this point, Er Huang has bloodstains on its body, and it doesn’t understand why.
Er Huang lets out a “woof” and quickly climbs out of the pit. Its dog face even has a hint of flattery, and it randomly digs at the soil beside it, trying to fill the pit.
Lu Liu: …?
He just doesn’t understand dogs.
Er Huang went to the river to clean himself up, jumped in to get wet, shook himself off on the shore, and happily ran home.
Since it had caused such a commotion, the family hurried to prepare its den.
Li Feng made a temporary fence and put the rabbit inside the house, which was the room where they bathed.
Unexpectedly, Er Huang didn’t even leave the straw it had slept on for the rabbit. When it saw this upon returning home, it picked up the straw one mouthful at a time and carried it out.
Li Feng: “…”
This stupid dog.
The extra straw wasn’t wasted. The straw with the urine smell couldn’t be fed to the livestock, so Li Feng tidied it up and, along with the straw that Lu Liu had replaced earlier, carried it to the vegetable garden.
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