The Whole Village Thrives After Adopting a Lucky Girl

The next day, Yingbao and Chunniang woke up early.

Chen Zhao, who had been sleeping on the nearby pallet, quickly got up, dressed, and put on his shoes and stockings.

Once they were ready, the maids Xiaoqing and Xiaodai came over carrying water.

“Oh, young doctor is up so early. Why didn’t you sleep a little longer?” Xiaoqing asked with a smile.

Chunniang quickly took over the water jug, “We plan to go to the West Market early in the morning. Please inform your young mistress, Xiaoqing.”

The Duke Residence was managed by Her Highness the Crown Princess, and Xiaoqing and Xiaodai were part of her household, so Chunniang only needed to mention it to Xiaoqing and take her daughter out.

“Since madam is going to the West Market, should I inform the Crown Princess and have someone from our household send a carriage for you?” Xiaoqing asked.

Chunniang promptly replied, “There’s no need to trouble them. Yingbao and I are just heading out. Taking a carriage would actually be less convenient.”

Xiaoqing didn’t press the matter. She stood by the side, chatting for a short while, instructing one of the inn’s maids to follow and tend to Chunniang and her group, before she left with Xiaodai.

After everyone finished washing up and had a simple breakfast, Yingbao, Chunniang, and Chen Zhao, guided by the maid, left the house.

Li Qing, who had been living across from them, had long since been brought to Wen Jingyan’s residence by his grandfather, Dr. Li, so only Chunniang and Chen Zhao were left in the whole hostel, along with two gatekeepers and a pair of sweeping girls.

Chunniang, Chen Zhao, and Yingbao were led by the maid from the side door of the Duke Residence, alongside the outer courtyard lane, before they reached the main street.

On both sides of the street were large stores, like gold, silver, and jewelry stores, silk and satin fabric shops, antique calligraphy and painting shops, fragrance shops, restaurants, karaoke bars, banks, and horse-drawn carriage stores, etc.

After the group had been walking for a while, the maid started to grow impatient and complained to Chunniang, “Madam, the West Market is about five or six miles from here. I am old and cannot walk such a long distance. Should we use a bullock cart for commuting?”

Chunniang looked at her daughter. Seeing that she did not object, she nodded in agreement, “We could hire a bullock cart.”

They didn’t have to go far before the maid flagged down a bullock cart.

The driver was an old farmer who had come to the city early in the morning to sell vegetables and was about to head home after selling his load to traders. Then, he encountered people needing a ride.

The maid negotiated the price with him: to shop at the West Market and then return to the Duke Residence would cost two hundred coins.

The old farmer was delighted. He cleaned the cart and invited them to sit.

While the bullock cart slowly moved down the street, Yingbao would jump off whenever she saw food being sold at the side of the road, buy it, and share it with everyone.

The roasted, crunchy, and fragrant lard sesame pancakes, coated with a layer of fragrant lard on the outside and stuffed with delicious mutton on the inside, were very tasty.

Yingbao bought thirty of them in total, and weighed out five kilograms of raw lard sesame seeds from the shopkeeper.

She gave out a few pancakes for everyone to eat, and the rest were given to her mother to keep for their journey back home.

Then they encountered stalls selling fried white intestines, blood sausage with lamb offal, and lamb wonton, pepper and goose offal soup, stir-fried stomach and lungs, stir-fried pancakes, eel soup, etc. She also bought some for everyone to taste.

Soon everyone was full, including the old farmer driving the cart, who was patting his belly and belching contentedly.

Seeing Yingbao still buying lamb buns, cow cakes, hibiscus pancakes, and crispy ring pancakes, the maid said to Chunniang, “Madam, you shouldn’t pamper the child like this. The weather is hot. If we buy so much food to take home, it will spoil in a night, which is a waste of food.”

Chunniang smiled, “We rarely come to Beijing. Besides, we are leaving for home tomorrow. Yingbao is buying these for the road, it won’t be a waste.”

The maid rolled her eyes but didn’t say more.

The bullock cart passed a fruit shop, a large wholesale fruit market.

All fruits coming to Beijing from other places had to go through this market before they could be sold in the city, so there was a wide variety of fruits here.

Yingbao selected some ripe watermelons and dragon fruit to weigh, and bought a lot of lychees and melons.

She packed all these fruits into the bullock cart. The maid was too lazy to say anything more and just closed her eyes and dozed off.

Chen Zhao, on the other hand, was very happy, helping to move things without complaining about being tired.

After buying the fruits, Yingbao asked the old farmer to continue driving and slowly made her way down the street.

Upon coming across a merchant selling charcoal, she purchased a basketful, as well as two charcoal stoves and copper kettles for boiling water, in addition to cooking pots for soup and rice.

Then, she spotted a noodle shop selling assorted varieties of dried noodles. Yingbao also bought two large bags of them.

Later, she parked herself in front of the shop for a while, observing how they pulled and dried the noodles.

Adjacent to the noodle shop was a store selling whole grains, where Yingbao bought heaps of local vegetable and whole grain seeds like eggplant, radish, celery, ginger, spinach, fava beans, flat beans, gourds, etc., buying a large pack of each variety.

Madam Chun, as she received from Yingbao the seeds she’d purchased, was greatly pleased.

She herself hadn’t given much thought to such details, yet her daughter had thought of everything.

Bringing back local vegetable seeds not only guaranteed a supply of vegetables for their own household but would also greatly benefit the villagers.

The ox cart slowly trudged along; Yingbao and Chen Zhao did not climb aboard, instead, they took a leisurely stroll.

Every time they spotted something interesting, they would buy some for the ox cart – shrimp paste, crab paste, aged vinegar, as well as vinegar-preserved radish, cucumber, and garlic. They purchased two jars of each item.

Finally, they arrived at a large liquor outlet, and Yingbao bought two jars of lychee liquor, two jars of plum liquor, two jars of fermentation starter, as well as two jars of sweet rice wine.

After the autumn harvest, they would use the fermentation starter to brew their own liquor, to be used during festivities.

After all, they had an abundance of rice at home and weren’t required to sell their grain to pay taxes. As long as the wine was only brewed for personal consumption and not for sale, the government wouldn’t intervene.

Further along, they stumbled upon a shop selling icy beverages. Two young ladies were standing by the counter, each holding a bowl. The white balls in the clay bowls were garnished with apricot slices, emanating a chilly aura that was quite tempting.

Chen Zhao swallowed, looking pitifully at Yingbao.

She didn’t have a single coin on her, so whenever she wanted to eat something, she had to turn to the little girl. “Sister…”

Wiping some sweat from her forehead, Yingbao said, “Help yourself to whatever you fancy, I’ll cover the bill.”

Chen Zhao had given her quite a bit of assistance along the way, and she wasn’t prohibitively stingy. Treating her to a bowl of a cold beverage seemed reasonable.

“I’ll have that one!” Chen Zhao pointed at the icy bowls that the two young ladies were holding.

As such, Yingbao bought three bowls of sugar-coated snowballs – one bowl for her mother, another for herself, and the last one for Chen Zhao.

Having a bowl of a frosty delight during the height of summer was indeed refreshing. It was a pity that she didn’t have ice at home; otherwise, she could have made some for her father and brothers to sample.

After finishing the snowballs, they all rode the ox cart back to the Xiao Residence.

The servants called over a couple of young boys to help shift the items into the guest compound.

Maid Xiaoqing looked at the myriad of miscellaneous items in the room and expressed her surprise, “Miss, you’ve bought so much stuff. How are we going to transport it all?”

Yingbao replied, “No worries, everything will fit once I clear out two chests.”

Xiaoqing glanced at the cluttered room, then at the wooden chests piled up in the corner, falling silent.

Even if every single chest was emptied out, there wouldn’t be enough space to pack all these things.

Madam Chun was also concerned, “Baobao, are you sure everything will fit?”

“Yes.” Even it couldn’t fit, it had to. All that mattered was that no one saw how she packed it.

That night, Yingbao had her mother and Chen Zhao go next door to wash up while she quickly opened the chests and started packing up the day’s purchases.

Fruits, mutton buns, pickles, liquor jars, etc., all went into the cave dwelling while some seeds went inside the chests with the remaining items.

By the time Madam Chun and Chen Zhao returned, Yingbao had cleaned up the room, successfully packing everything into the chests and locking them. Both of them were astonished.

“Did everything fit into the chests?”

“Yes, everything has been packed away. We can set off tomorrow.”