The Whole Village Thrives After Adopting a Lucky Girl

The Jiang family finally harvested all their cotton.

Zhao Da’s child was completely healed, and Jiang Sanlang was very satisfied with Zhao Da’s help, so he gave him a handful of gourd seeds and asked if he was willing to continue working, as there were still thousands of pounds of cotton seeds to shuck, requiring a lot of manpower.

Zhao Da originally intended to stay, but now it’s the busy farming season, and his family’s beans and rice still needed to be harvested. After harvesting, the fields need to be turned over for wheat planting, and only after the wheat is sold and the taxes paid, would he be free to do anything else.

Jiang Sanlang understood his predicament and did not insist.

In the following days, all the adults and children of the Jiang household started to shuck the cotton seeds.

Chunniang and her two sisters-in-law spun the wheels and began making thread for weaving cloth in the winter.

Before long, County Magistrate Wu Shi arrived.

Together with him came Mr. Liao, two scribes, and more than a dozen government officials.

The arrival of the County Magistrate caused a stir all over East and West Chen Village, with Lizheng Sun Licheng, Clan Leader Chen Sanyou, and village chiefs from several surrounding villages accompanying him the whole time.

No one was more excited than Yingbao.

“Uncle Wu, you’ve finally come, take a look at the giant gourds I’ve saved for you.”

Yingbao tugged at Wu Shi’s sleeve and brought him to her house. Against the wall were two large crates filled with three unusually large gourds.

Wu Shi was also surprised.

To be honest, he had never seen such huge gourds before.

But despite his surprise, he didn’t remember ever telling this little girl that he liked gourds.

He just couldn’t understand where this little girl had heard that he liked these things, and she insisted on giving him one, she was so relentless, it was helpless.

Yingbao said triumphantly, “Uncle Wu, look at the gourds I grew. Take two with you when you go back.”

Wu Shi chuckled, “How could I take your things for nothing? Let’s set a price, and I’ll buy them.”

“No need, no need, these are not worth anything.” Yingbao said this against her will, but she saw Jiang Quan gritting his teeth behind her.

Clan Leader Chen also chuckled and added: “These kind of gourds are common in our village, Mingfu, you shouldn’t decline, it’s just a small token from the child. ”

Standing next to him, Sun Licheng glanced at him, wondering whether what Clan Leader Chen had just said was true. His son, who was doing business in the county town, had wanted a King Gourd for a signboard for a while now. “Hehe, well, I’ll gladly accept then.” Wu Shi only took one giant gourd and had a servant carry it to the carriage, but Yingbao brought another smaller one and put it on the carriage as well.

Then Wu Shi went to see the huge pile of cotton harvested by the Jiang family.

The snowy white cotton hadn’t yet been deseeded, but was all stacked in a room which was filled to the brim.

Wu Shi picked up a bunch of cotton and examined it, praising it, “This cotton is indeed excellent. Jiang Sanlang, would you be willing to sell the cotton seeds to the county government?”

Before Jiang Sanlang could reply, Sun Licheng was anxious, stepping forward and saying, “Mingfu, there are many households in our village waiting to buy cotton seeds, you cannot…” buy them all too.

The faces of the other village chiefs became anxious, but they did not dare to interrupt.

Wu Shi laughed, “I just want to buy the cotton seeds and distribute them uniformly, Elder Sun, you don’t need to worry.”

“Hehehe, so that’s how it is.” Sun Licheng smiled awkwardly.

Jiang Sanlang said, “My older and younger brothers have also harvested a lot of cotton, and other families in our village have also planted it, so they should have a lot of cotton seeds.

He didn’t mean anything by saying this, he was just telling Sun Licheng that there was no shortage of cotton seeds.

Wu Shi considered for a moment and said, “Let’s do this – your village will have priority in cultivating cotton, and the leftover cotton seeds will be sold to the

County Government.”

These things are precious, and if they don’t get involved, the nobles and big families might soon be buying them at high prices.

This way, the cotton will once again flow into the hands of the nobility, and ordinary people won’t be able to spread its cultivation.

What he wants is for the whole county to cultivate cotton, not for the aristocratic families to monopolise everything.

Upon hearing this, Chen Sanyou was delighted and quickly stepped forward, “Our village has a total of 28 households, all of which have already decided to each plant 20 acres of cotton next year.”

If they calculated according to 10 pounds of cottonseeds per acre, their village would need over 5,000 pounds of cotton seeds alone. No, actually, they would need 10,000 pounds, because although there were only 20-plus households registered in East Village, the actual number that split households without separating lands took up half of this figure.

Just as Chen Sanyou was regretting his blurt about there being only 28 households in the village, he heard Jiang Sanlang say, “If every household in our village is to plant, it’s estimated that we would need 10,000 pounds of cotton seeds. The remaining ones, could then be left to the local magistrate to manage.”

Wu Shi nodded in satisfaction and ordered a scribe beside him to calculate the potential vield of cotton in East Village.

While they were discussing these matters, Yingbao snuck off to pick some grapes.

Jiang Quan followed her and whispered, “Why did you say the gourds aren’t worth anything? How are we going to sell our gourds in the future?”

“Stupid!”

Yingbao said, “Our gourds are sold to people from other villages, and no one in our village is going to buy them. If I had said the gourds were valuable, and we sold all ours, do you think you could keep buying gourds in the village?” Jiang Quan understood and chuckled, “Yup, Baobao is the smartest one.” “Of course.” Yingbao said unabashedly, “I am the one and only fairy child.”

“Haha, right, you are the one and only fairy child.” Jiang Quan, already accustomed to his young cousin’s thick-skinned talk, found her remarks very reasonable.

A few children followed Yingbao and went to pick pears and grapes, picking and eating meanwhile. The grape skins were discarded all over the place.

Yingbao, on the other hand, used a bamboo basket to collect grapes, picking a whole basketful of red and purple ones.

Too bad the peaches have all been eaten, otherwise she would also pick some for Wu Daozi to taste.

With this round of harvesting, only a few grapes were left. The pears remaining were a few unripe ones in the middle of the tree.

Yingbao calculated that next spring, she should transplant the new grape vines, pepper seedlings, and apple seedlings that were growing in her cave, to her own orchard and expand the yard a bit more.

This year, only a few apples were harvested from the apple tree. She had picked them a while back and had her family eat them. The apple seeds were left, and all planted in the cave.

“Yingbao, the basket is heavy. Let me help you carry it.” Chuchu took the bamboo basket from Yingbao.

She claimed to be Yingbao’s little helper and refused to go home, despite her family living considerably better now.

Since the time Yingbao gave her family the mushroom spores, after two cycles of cultivation, Chu Yan has now planted four hundred golden mushrooms. As long as these mushrooms are harvested and sold, Chuchu’ family’s life would take a great leap.

But Chuchu insisted on staying here, learning to read and write with Yingbao when free, and playing with Dani and Erni during leisure times. She was quite content.

Yingbao just let her be, assigning her some work on a daily basis, and continuing to pay her three coins a month.

Having Chuchu as her daughter’s companion put Chunniang more at ease when it comes to her daughter’s constant wanderings. Sometimes, she even allows the two to go to town to do the shopping, of course, either accompanied by Jiang Quan or Jiang Cheng.

“Yingbao, why aren’t you afraid of Lord Mingfu?” Chuchu asked out of curiosity.

The sight of the highly revered County Magistrate made her legs tremble. She didn’t even dare to look him in the eye, let alone chat with him.

Yingbao: “Why should I be afraid?”

Even in her previous life, she was never afraid of anyone, not even those who had blood on their hands. As long as they dared to offend her, she would grab anything within her reach and beat them until they scrambled away in fear, never daring to provoke her again..