The eldest sister-in-law was busy working beside her, making clanging noises as she worked.
The younger children all wanted to help, but Lin Qiaoyun chased every one of them away.
Thinking about how her parents would be moving in tomorrow, she told Zhao Tiezhu to clean out the family’s storage room.
Lin Qiaoyun had already looked at it.
The Zhao family’s storage room was more than twice the size of her parents’ room.
She told Zhao Tiezhu to clean it up and then use wooden boards to partition off a room for her parents.
Originally, Zhao Tiezhu wanted his three younger sisters to give up their room for his father-in-law and mother-in-law.
Lin Qiaoyun disagreed.
Calling it a storage room just sounded unpleasant. The room itself was no different from any other room.
There was no need to make everyone move things around.
As long as it was cleaned up, that was enough.
That was just how Lin Qiaoyun was.
As long as her family stayed by her side, everything else could be discussed.
Since his wife had said so, Zhao Tiezhu could only agree.
Instead of making his three younger sisters move rooms, he went to a villager who made furniture and bought a large bed, a cabinet, a small table, two chairs, and a wardrobe.
Before long, the room had been fully furnished.
Of course, when it came time to pay, he asked Lin Qiaoyun for the money.
Mm!
Lin Qiaoyun was very satisfied with her status in this household now.
The braised meat she was making had already gone into the pot and started cooking.
The three “flowers” gathered around their sister-in-law to watch.
They only saw her adding all sorts of strange medicinal herbs into the pot and thought the meat would end up smelling strongly of medicine.
Who would have guessed that half an hour later, the aroma of the braised meat was so delicious it made people’s mouths water just from smelling it?
Fortunately, the Zhao family lived at the very end of the village.
Otherwise, if other people smelled it, someone would definitely come knocking to ask about it.
The Zhao family only had a backyard.
They raised chickens, ducks, and geese there and grew vegetables as well.
There wasn’t even a front yard.
Lin Qiaoyun had noticed earlier that if someone came to the Zhao house, they could simply push open the door and walk right in.
There was no privacy at all.
So she told Zhao Tiezhu to take advantage of the time he still had at home and see if he could get some bricks to build a courtyard wall.
As a result, Zhao Tiezhu was sent off once again by Lin Qiaoyun, this time to the town to find his comrades and get some bricks.
Before leaving, he took two pieces of wild boar meat weighing five jin each with him.
How could you ask someone for a favor empty-handed?
Under Lin Qiaoyun’s arrangements, everyone became busy.
The Zhao parents’ room.
“Wife, you’re really comfortable letting a sixteen-year-old girl take charge of the household like this?”
“What do I have to worry about? No matter how much she fusses around, everything stays within this family. Besides, how much can a little girl eat? Even when her parents move in later, they’ll still be living in our house. That’s much better than families where people keep carrying things back to their own side of the family. No amount would ever be enough for them.”
“That’s true. At worst, we’ll just have three more people eating with us.”
Zhao Tiezhu returned home right around dinnertime.
He came back with a bicycle.
Behind him was a large truck loaded with bricks.
The truck never entered the village.
It drove directly from the road to the village’s far end, so nobody in the village noticed that the Zhao family was building a courtyard wall.
Zhao Tiezhu had bought both bricks and cement.
Since it was still bright outside, Zhao Tiezhu immediately led his three younger brothers in building the wall.
As they worked, he taught them.
Very quickly, the three younger Zhao brothers learned how to do it.
Once the three flower sisters finished making the dried meat, they also joined the wall-building team.
“Big Brother Zhao, you even know how to build houses?”
“Yeah. I do. Our family’s house was built by me and my younger brothers and sisters. It’s only a single-story house, so it’s pretty simple. I can even build a three-story building.”
Lin Qiaoyun discovered yet another one of Zhao Tiezhu’s good qualities.
He really was a treasure of a man.
Since Zhao Tiezhu would be leaving tomorrow, he carefully taught his younger siblings everything they needed to pay attention to while building the wall.
That way, after he left, they would still be able to finish the courtyard wall themselves.
After hearing Zhao Tiezhu explain it once, they all remembered it.
Jinhua said, “Big Brother, we’ve remembered everything. Don’t worry. We guarantee we’ll complete the mission.”
Zhao Jinhua felt that maybe it was because she had just learned some of these concepts in her physics textbook yesterday.
As her eldest brother spoke, she was able to connect his explanations to the knowledge she had learned.
She even felt that she could do an even better job than him.
Maybe even better than her eldest brother.
Why had she never realized this before?
Her eldest brother had taught them before, but back then she had found it very difficult to remember anything.
They worked until dark before Zhao Tiezhu finally stopped and led his younger brothers and sisters inside for dinner.
Dinner was braised meat over rice.
White rice was mixed with rich braising sauce, topped with thick slices of braised meat, and served with refreshing cold cucumber salad.
For the first time in his life, Zhao Tiezhu understood what it meant to eat until he was stuffed.
Zhao Dahu spoke during a meal for the first time.
“Mm. This braised meat tonight is really good. It tastes excellent.”
“Thank you for the compliment, Grandpa. If you like it, I’ll make it for you often in the future.”
“Good.”
As for everyone else, they had no time to talk.
They were all busy eating the food in their bowls.
After dinner, everyone washed up and prepared for bed.
Only Zhao Jinhua, after finishing her meal, ran back outside to the pile of bricks.
She walked around them, looking here and there, her mind filled with ideas.
When Lin Qiaoyun returned to her room and saw her, she casually asked,
“Big Sister, what are you doing? Why aren’t you resting yet?”
“Ah… Sister-in-law, I’m thinking about how to build the courtyard wall more efficiently.”
“Oh? You’re interested in this sort of thing?”
“Mm. I think it’s really interesting.”
“Then tell me how you’d like to build it.”
Zhao Jinhua hadn’t expected her sister-in-law to actually listen to her.
Excited, she immediately poured out all the ideas in her head.
After listening to Jinhua’s thoughts, Lin Qiaoyun considered them carefully.
The village they lived in, Guyun Village, was very close to town.
Traveling there was convenient.
It wasn’t some remote mountain village.
When she started high school, she could simply ride a bicycle to school.
The family currently had seven rooms.
If nothing unexpected happened, Zhao Tiezhu would definitely take these younger brothers and sisters out into the world in the future.
That made this house very important.
Because they would never split the family.
When holidays and New Year’s celebrations came around, the entire extended family would return and stay together.
What would happen when Second Pillar, Third Pillar, Fourth Pillar, and Fifth Pillar all got married?
And what about these younger sisters?
Lin Qiaoyun certainly wasn’t going to marry them off casually.
Even after they married, they should still have a room to stay in whenever they returned home.
Since money wasn’t a problem anyway, they might as well build a proper house.
“Big Sister, I agree with your idea. But first, you’ll need to draw a plan. Only then can construction begin. Take your time and think it through. I’ll talk to your eldest brother about it.”
“Really? Sister-in-law isn’t lying to me?”
“Why would I lie about something like this? Isn’t it just giving each of you sisters your own room? Mom already told me this entire piece of land belongs to our family. Plan it properly. Once you’ve finished and drawn a blueprint, show it to me. If I think it’ll work, you can start building. I’ll find a way to get the materials.”
“That’s wonderful, Sister-in-law! We can make our own mud bricks. We don’t need to buy them.”
“Alright. We’ll do it your way.”
After saying that, Lin Qiaoyun returned to her room.
Meanwhile, Zhao Jinhua ran back to her sisters to tell them the good news.
Before long, cheerful screams and excited laughter could be heard coming from the girls’ room.