Chapter 232

The fragrant white rice was spread flat on the plates, waiting for Li Feng to slice the pork hock and lay it on top. Every plate held a big chunk of hock—no fine carving. Everyone then drizzled on their preferred sauce.

Once they sat at the table and nudged the meat with their chopsticks, the hock simply slipped off the bone. Steam rose in thick waves; the fatty and lean meat fanned out over the rice, the sauce squeezed to the edges and soaking down along the grains.

A little mixing brought the whole bowl together—rice coated in pork, lean strips, soft fatty pieces, pockets of sauce clinging to the grains. Every bite was pure bliss.

And the crispy rice crust at the bottom—dipped in a bit of sauce—was the perfect finish. The sauce didn’t soak too deeply, so the crunch stayed, cutting through the richness and filling the belly.

More than three jin of hock, split among four people, and they still couldn’t finish it.

They warmed it up again for lunch; this time it was just a side dish. Two bites each and it was gone.

Lu Liu was full and satisfied—so full he couldn’t sit properly on his little stool. His stomach felt stretched to the brim.

Just then, Li Feng came home with two reams of paper. Lu Liu headed to the little shop, stood behind the counter, and started trimming paper—something light to help him digest.

Yao Fulang came looking for him. When he didn’t find him in the courtyard, he glanced over and saw Lu Liu standing behind the counter, surrounded by an abacus, account books, brushes, ink, and piles of paper. He instantly broke into a grin.

“Oh my, look who it is—so handsome! Turns out it’s our little shopkeeper!”

Lu Liu laughed. “Brother An, come here! I can write your name now!”

Yao An’s eyes lit up and he hurried over.

He didn’t step behind the counter—he stood on the other side, the narrow table between them no more than half a meter wide, leaving them quite close.

Lu Liu still held his brush awkwardly, his characters so big that each sheet only fit ten or so. He was nowhere near ready to write small characters.

On a freshly cut slip of paper, he wrote five words: “Yao An” and “Yao Fulang.”

“Yao” he had specifically asked to learn together with the family names earlier.

The character for “An” was something Li Feng had recently learned—picked up from a hunter’s chant. When Lu Liu heard that chant included the word “安,” he had Li Feng point it out to him so he could learn it first.

Lu Liu pointed at the words. “This says ‘Yao An,’ your name. And this says ‘Yao Fulang,’ what everyone usually calls you.”

After thinking a moment, he added another: “Brother An.”
Yao Fulang practically melted with delight.

“It’s so good! I asked the old scholar before—he wanted ten coins just to write me a name! I told him ten coins could pay a real scholar in town to write a whole letter. He told me to go, then. I went to the county but couldn’t bring myself to spend the money. Mm, this is great. I’ll practice when I get home!”

He held the paper in his hands, admiring it from top to bottom, left to right, leaning close, then stepping back to look again. When the ink dried, he carefully folded it and tucked it into his chest. Then he asked Lu Liu, “You look much better today. No more throwing up?”

Lu Liu whispered conspiratorially, “I had three meals of pork hock today!”

Yao Fulang was stunned. “Three?”

What kind of rich family eats pork hock three times a day?

Lu Liu gestured. “I got hungry in the middle of the night and had some. Then breakfast and lunch again. I told Da Feng our baby was craving it, and he told me to go ahead and eat. Hehe.”

Yao Fulang’s pregnant belly was bigger than his. He rubbed it, eyes turning sly. “Looks like I should pick a nickname for my baby soon too. Makes it easier to order Da Qiang around.”

Lu Liu kept cutting paper and asked what kind of nickname he wanted. “I’ll help you think.”

“I want something that sounds clever,” Yao said. “Da Qiang’s a big fool. No prospects.”

Lu Liu suggested, “Then… Cong Cong? Clever-Clever?”

Yao muttered it a few times and shook his head. “Too simple. People will call him Scallion, Spring Onion, or Wild Onion if they’re mad. That’s awful.”

It was his first child, so the chance of ending up with a vegetable nickname was indeed high.

Lu Liu didn’t know many characters. He thought of “clever,” then thought of foxes—they were clever, but you couldn’t name a kid after one.

Then he remembered what people said—boys were usually naughty when young but grew clever later. So he suggested, “What about Tao Tao? Naughty-Naughty?”

Yao tried it and still wasn’t thrilled.

Lu Liu pressed both hands to the table and thought harder. Nowadays, “clever” was often used to praise scholars. He had heard his brother talk about exam ranks—zhuangyuan, huiyuan, jieyuan; then the small three “yuan,” the big three “yuan”—so many “yuan.” Call the kid “Yuan Yuan,” and he’d sound brilliant!

He explained it all carefully. Yao listened with a big smile.

“Yuan Yuan… Yuan Yuan… Mm! Not bad! Yuan Yuan it is!”

With the name settled, they chanted it a few times, then went back to cutting paper.

Yao hadn’t brought his embroidery today. After doing needlework for days on end, his eyes were tired. He helped Lu Liu trim paper instead.

He asked about the book business. “You guys haven’t finished canvassing the whole village yet, right?”

Lu Liu nodded. “Yeah, a few people asked earlier, but we ran out of paper. I’m cutting more now. I’ll print a batch later and stitch a few books. When Da Feng comes home, I’ll have him deliver them.”

Two qian of silver per book—definitely worth a trip.

Yao asked, “With all those different illustrations, you’re only selling that ten-page booklet?”

Lu Liu shook his head. “We don’t have much silver right now. Those woodblocks are expensive.”

He didn’t mention the exact cost—Yao might figure out the math and feel bad for him.

Yao sighed. “I wanted to buy one to keep at home. But the pictures I like are scattered across several books. It’s a headache.”

Lu Liu listened and asked which ones he liked. “Once we save enough silver, we’ll buy more blocks. Since they’re sold individually, I can print your favorite pictures first.”

They were going to print them eventually anyway.

Yao leaned in and whispered all sorts of things—this one, that one, a whole list.

Lu Liu counted on his fingers. “You want how many pages?”

Yao had already forgotten. “Doesn’t matter. No rush. I’m pregnant—I can’t do much anyway.”

True enough.

So Lu Liu stopped keeping track and just chatted with him.

Earlier that morning, Li Feng had done some chores—fetched water, tidied the garden. After lunch, he and Wang Meng went up the mountain to catch grass snakes.

Past mid-third month, fewer people came to the shop to chat. Over in the new village it was farm season; the two villages had relatives among them, so they helped each other out.

Speaking of farm season, the Lu family’s village was busy too.

After Li Feng brought them the good news, his two fathers wanted to stop their work to celebrate, but Li Feng persuaded them otherwise, did some chores at home, then came back. He told Lu Liu about the piglets afterward.

Thinking about it, an idea took shape in Lu Liu’s mind.

Raising livestock required experience—passed from generation to generation. That’s why everyone knew how to raise cattle, donkeys, mules, chickens, and ducks. Even dog-raising was well-developed here in Li Village.

But rabbit-raising was different. Every time a litter died, people gave up and sold whatever was left. When they got a new mother rabbit, they started from scratch again. Progress was slow. What if they gathered the people with experience and raised rabbits together?

If problems came up, they could brainstorm solutions.

It was a tough idea to implement, but Yao Fulang had raised rabbits before. Maybe the two of them could work together.

Yao was born and raised in the village. The Yao family was big—asking around for advice later would be easy.

And since both of them were pregnant, they couldn’t do heavy labor, but they could manage a few rabbit nests.

So he shared the idea. “Brother An, what do you think? Should we team up and raise rabbits? Doesn’t your family have a mother rabbit too?”

With a baby on the way, Da Qiang felt the pressure and had been going up the mountain more often to earn money while he still could.

With another mouth to feed, expenses were going up. The thought of not being able to support his spouse and child embarrassed him.

He had a hunting area—hard to catch big animals, but rabbit burrows were fair game.

He did have rabbits, but he wasn’t raising them well.