The Whole Village Thrives After Adopting a Lucky Girl

Yingbao carried several Mulberry sticks back to her room, disregarding her little brother, she immediately retreated to her cave abode.

All the crops inside the cave were harvested completely, piled up in the corner, there were three huge mounds that still needed to be threshed.

Whenever she had spare time, Yingbao would go into the cave to thresh, yet she didn’t know when she could finish.

If she had known earlier, she wouldn’t have planted so many crops. Now she had work to do: turning over the soil, threshing crops. Despite all her efforts, she was just one little girl, too busy to handle everything.

She soaked the Mulberry sticks in the pond for a while, then took them out and inserted them into the soil. She looked them over and smiled more and more.

Gold grains… In her past life, she had only seen them once in the Prefecture, contained in a gift box before a servant accidentally knocked them over. They scattered across the floor in a golden shimmer.

She remembered the stern rebuke from the steward, “Fool! Your life wouldn’t even begin to cover the cost, the Prefecture does not need useless beings like you! Drag him away and beat him! If he dies, feed him to the dogs!”

Afterward, the servant was dragged away, and several young girls squatted to pick up the gold grains from the floor.

Back then, Yingbao was naive and fearless. Out of curiosity, she secretly took two grains she found in the grass. She thought to herself: these are the gold grains that Sister Wen mentioned – they’re pretty, golden just like gold.

Sister Wen was an older girl she met when she was around ten at Wuchun Yard, who also taught her how to read.

She heard that Wen’s family was initially a medicine shop. However, after a nobleman was poisoned to death by their drugs, her family was ransacked. All the adult men in her family were sentenced to exile, while the children and women were sold as slaves.

Sister Wen said that she was only ten when she was sold off to Wuchun Yard and never saw her family again.

When Yingbao first arrived at Wuchun Yard, she was incredibly stubborn but eventually suffered a lot. Wen, who was sixteen, often came to take care of her, brought her tasty foods and read her stories.

Later, Yingbao learned that Wen was the best dancer in Wuchun Yard. She danced exceptionally well and was often invited to perform at various mansions to liven up the banquets of the wealthy families. Thus, she was able to bring back all kinds of refined pastries and delicious foods.

Now, where was Sister Wen? Where was her family’s medicine shop?

She sighed, knowing that she should have asked more at that time.

Based on her calculations, Sister Wen should be eight years old now, and it would be another two years until her family’s medicine shop falls into disaster.

She wondered if she would meet Sister Wen in this life. If possible, she would try to remind her.

Leaving the cave, Yingbao began to organize the gifts she bought.

The seven clever boards, Kongming lock and small dove car were for her little brother.

Two colorful little horse heads, one for Yuanbao, and the other one for Huzi.

Two pairs of silk flowers were for her two little cousins.

The three pairs of wooden combs, she planned to give one pair to her mom, one pair to her aunt, and her grandmother would get a pair as well.

As for this copper pipe, naturally, it was for her grandpa.

On New Year’s Eve.

The meal for New Year’s Eve was prepared at Uncle Jiang’s house.

Jiang Erlang, bringing his son and daughter, Jiang Sanlang carrying his twin sons, Spring Maiden holding Yingbao’s hand while carrying a basket of gifts, all arrived together for the New Year’s Eve dinner.

Yingbao handed out the gifts one by one, mumbling, “Uncles and my dad, my elder and second elder brothers didn’t get any gifts because all of you are already adults, no more toys for you.”

Everyone laughed.

Her uncles quickly waved their hands, “It’s okay, we don’t play with toys.”

Her elder and second elder cousins were dissatisfied and jokingly said, “We are not married yet. How can we be considered adults? Yingbao, you’re being biased.”

Yingbao, without any embarrassment, said: “Your marriages have already been discussed by Auntie.”

Everyone burst into laughter.

Old Man Jiang and his wife, Jiang Liu, received gifts from their grandchildren for the first time, their smiles were so large they couldn’t close their mouths. The old lady cradled Yingbao in her arms, repeatedly calling her a good girl and sweet granddaughter.

She even took her to a room, secretly gave her a string of coins, whispering, “Good Girl, keep this carefully. The New Year money given to you by your grandma is the most, don’t let others see it.”

Yingbao nodded with a smile, stuffing the money into her pocket.

Yuanbao dashed in, his face watchful as he gazed at his grandmother, thinking she must have secretly given Yingbao some delicious treats and left him out.

Jiang Liu poked his forehead, took out a few copper coins, “Yuanbao, come, grandma has New Year’s money for you too.”

Yuanbao’s face immediately lit up with a grin. Taking the money, he knelt down and kowtowed thrice to his grandmother.

Seeing this, Yingbao also hurriedly knelt down and kowtowed to her grandmother, wishing her a happy new year in advance.

Everyone happily feasted on the New Year’s Eve dinner, distributed New Year’s money to the children, and sent them off to bed. The men stayed up late to welcome the New Year.

Just before dawn, the three Jiang brothers replaced the old charms with new ones on the main doors of each house. They lit bamboo in the courtyard to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new one.

For a moment, the village was filled with continuous sounds of bamboo explosions. Many houses also set off bamboo crackers.

Yingbao had an uneasy sleep and a dream.

In the dream, there was still that sea of fog, and that same book.

Yingbao thought for a moment, then decided to open the book.

She skipped the irrelevant parts, directly looking for mentions of Chen Ying or

Yingbao.

But there were none. She flipped through dozens of chapters, but her name didn’t appear anywhere.

The story revolved around Chen Tiantian and her second sister, Chen Zhao, with a detailed portrayal of their rivalry and scheming.

At last, Yingbao found the chapter where Chen Changping passed as a scholar.

Chen Changping expresses to his wife, Han Family, his fear of not being physically able to make it to the rural examination and his intention of leveraging connections for a government position. He asks her to seek her brother-in-law’s help.

Han Family complies and finds her brother-in-law, Chen Guanglu.

Chen Guanglu taps on his chest confidently, saying it’s not an issue. He assures that as long as the superiors are properly appeased and their preferences catered to, a position for the brother-in-law at the County Government would be no problem…

As soon as she reached this point, the pages of the book turned into paper butterflies and dissipated.

Yingbao: ..

Alright, she knew this would happen.

Actually, it didn’t matter if she read the book or not, since she had already experienced the event in her past life.

She was given away by her parents in the hope of acquiring a governmental position.

After waking up early, Yingbao’s first task was to visit the Golden Ear in the cave dwelling.

The withered Golden Ear seemed to have freshened up a bit, but she couldn’t tell if it was because of soaking in the pond.

She will have to wait and revisit this later.

For now, she should return to digging the soil and plant some more crops.

And about the three piles of wheat, rice, and soybeans, they will have to be dealt with later.

After eating some Five Ding Ganoderma, Yingbao spent a good while in the cave before going out to wash up.

She was to visit her elder uncle’s house this morning. And tomorrow morning, she will accompany her mother to visit her maternal grandmother. She was a little bit busy, indeed.

After washing up, she heard her mother call, “Baobao, come over and put on your new clothes. We’re going to your grandfather and grandmother’s house to wish them a happy new year.”

Spring Maiden had made a new cotton suit for her little daughter. The neckline was lined with a round of soft rabbit tail fur, which was warm, and didn’t rub against the neck.

Yingbao happily ran over, changed into her new red cotton suit embroidered with bat patterns, a pair of new green cotton trousers, and a pair of colorful tiger-headed cotton shoes.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have much hair on her head to wear any floral headpieces. She only managed to tie two little tufts on top of her head with a red string.

Luckily, she had a tiger-head hat, so no one would be able to see her sparse braids as long as she was wearing the hat..