The lively New Year celebrations passed in the blink of an eye.
After the fifth day of the New Year, the snow accumulated around the village began to show signs of melting.
The Lin family had originally planned to use the more than thirty taels of silver they had saved to tear down their shabby mud house and build a proper house with blue-brick walls and a tiled roof.
But at the dinner table, Lu Yuan calmly persuaded his father-in-law not to rush into it.
“Dad, I’m not against building a new house, but we can’t do it right now.”
Sitting on the warm kang, Lu Yuan carefully explained the pros and cons to Lin Dashan.
“First, we haven’t chosen a suitable plot of land yet. If we want to buy one now and get it approved, Village Chief Zhou would have to make several trips to the county office. It would take a lot of time and effort.”
“Second, if we tear down the house and rebuild it on the same site, the whole family would have to live in temporary shelters in the courtyard.”
Lu Yuan turned his head and looked at the twins sleeping nearby. His eyes softened.
“Qingyue has only just recovered a little, and Changsheng and An’an are still so young. The cold spell after winter is especially dangerous. If they get seriously ill from the cold, even ten large houses wouldn’t be worth it.”
“Besides, after the New Year, I’m planning to start a new business that will require a lot of money. I also need to keep some silver for my studies and the imperial examinations. We can’t spend all our liquid funds on bricks and tiles.”
When Lin Dashan heard that it concerned the health of his daughter and grandchildren, as well as his son-in-law’s future, he immediately slapped his thigh.
“You really have thought this through, brother-in-law! I was only thinking about how satisfying it would be to have a new house!”
“We won’t build it! Not for now!”
Lin Dashan made the decision on the spot.
“Eldest and Second, tomorrow go and invite Zhang the bricklayer from the village. We’ll spend a little money to repair this mud house from top to bottom. That’ll be enough!”
Over the next few days, the Lin family’s little courtyard became bustling with activity once again.
To save money, they hired Zhang the bricklayer only for skilled work such as rebuilding walls and setting the roof beams. The three Lin brothers took care of all the heavy labor themselves.
They went to the back mountain and dug up the stickiest yellow clay, mixed it with chopped wheat straw, and kneaded it into mud in the courtyard.
With their upper bodies bare despite the biting cold, they worked hard and thickened the drafty earthen walls by a full half-foot.
The old thatched roof, which had gone unrepaired for years, was completely stripped away and replaced with thick, dry new rice straw, which they tied down securely.
San Niu even climbed into the stove pit and thoroughly cleaned out the blocked smoke channel beneath the heated kang.
Although the Lin family’s house still looked like an ordinary, unimpressive mud hut from the outside, the inside was now sturdy and well protected from the wind.
With just a little extra firewood, the kang became scorching hot, and the entire house was as warm as spring.
The corners of the courtyard were neatly piled high with coarse grains and chopped firewood for the winter, resembling little mountains that gave everyone a reassuring sense of security.
One afternoon, the winter sunshine was exceptionally beautiful. Golden sunlight poured into the courtyard, and there wasn’t a trace of wind.
“Creak—”
The thick cotton curtain covering the main room was lifted.
After being confined indoors for an entire month, Lin Qingyue had finally completed her postpartum confinement. Carefully, she stepped outside for the first time.
She was wearing the cherry-red fine cotton jacket Lu Yuan had bought for her in town before the New Year. The bright color made her look especially cheerful and radiant.
The sunlight fell across her face.
After a month of being carefully nourished with fattened chicken, bone broth, and other nutritious foods, the thin, sallow appearance she had once had was long gone.
In its place were rosy cheeks and a slender waist that could easily be encircled with one arm.
Even after giving birth to two children, the gentle and elegant beauty she naturally possessed seemed to have become even more captivating after being softened by time.
“Don’t stand where the wind can reach you.”
Lu Yuan had just walked around from behind the house. When he saw his wife standing in the sunlight, his heart skipped a beat.
He strode over, took off his old cloak without saying another word, and wrapped it tightly around her shoulders.
“Husband, I’ve already finished my confinement. I’m not that fragile.”
Lin Qingyue tilted her head up and looked at the tall, handsome man before her. Her eyes curved into a smile, sweeter than the warm winter sunlight.
“That’s still not allowed. If you develop some lingering illness from the cold, I’ll be the one worrying about you.”
Lu Yuan took her hand and led her to a sheltered, sunny spot in the middle of the courtyard.
His mother-in-law, Madam Wang, and his second sister-in-law, Li Shi, were each holding one of the babies, who were bundled up like little silkworms. Their faces were filled with affection as they played with them.
Changsheng blew little bubbles of saliva while waving his tiny hands around.
An’an, meanwhile, opened her large, round eyes and curiously examined this bright new world.
Lu Yuan took out a small rattle he had just carved from old elm wood.
“Dong dong, dong dong.”
The crisp rattling sound immediately caught the twins’ attention, and they began giggling.
“It’s really wonderful…”
Second Sister-in-law Li sat on a small stool nearby, slowly picking through soybeans.
She was visibly pregnant now, her belly slightly rounded.
The Lin family treated her with great care and wouldn’t let her do any heavy work. Even the water she used for washing clothes had to be heated before they would allow her to touch it.
Li Shi gently touched her belly.
“When I was still an unmarried girl at my parents’ home, I was always afraid that after getting married, my mother-in-law would make things difficult for me and my sisters-in-law would scheme against me.”
Li Shi sighed emotionally.
“Who could have imagined that the greatest blessing of my life, Li Chunhua, would be marrying into this poor Lin family?”
Lin Daniu, the eldest brother, was sitting not far away. His rough hands moved skillfully as he wove a bamboo basket. Hearing this, he smiled honestly.
His father-in-law, Lin Dashan, squatted in the corner smoking his pipe, while Madam Wang smiled so broadly that all the wrinkles on her face spread out.
Lu Yuan sat beside Qingyue, shaking the little rattle in his hand.
Looking at this small courtyard filled with laughter and joy, and at these simple, kindhearted family members who were willing to fight with everything they had to protect him, his heart was filled with a sense of security unlike anything he had ever experienced.
This was the ordinary, warm life he had wanted to protect ever since crossing into this world.
For the sake of this peaceful life, he had to become stronger!
“Eldest Brother, Second Brother, Third Brother, stop what you’re doing for a moment.”
Lu Yuan put away the rattle and stood up. With a serious expression, he called the three Lin brothers over.
On a flat patch of ground in the courtyard, he spread a thin layer of fine sand over a wooden board and held a sharpened twig in his hand.
“Our family is going to do big business in the future. If you can’t even read an account book or recognize the characters on a contract, you’ll suffer huge losses when you go out into the world.”
With the twig, Lu Yuan firmly wrote the three characters “Lin Daniu” in the sand.
“Starting today, every day at noon, all the men will learn arithmetic and writing with me.”
Lu Yuan then turned toward Madam Wang, Li Shi, and Qingyue, who were staring at him in astonishment, and smiled.
“Mother, Second Sister-in-law, Qingyue, you need to learn too. I’m not asking you to become top scholars. At the very least, you should be able to write your own names. That way, when you put your fingerprints on documents in the future, you’ll at least know what you’re signing.”
In a rural village of ancient China, this was practically unheard of!
“Oh my, brother-in-law! I’ll happily swing a hoe, but holding a writing brush is harder than killing me!”
Lin Daniu stared at the crooked characters in the sand and scratched his head anxiously, his palms covered in sweat.
He gripped the twig as though it weighed a thousand pounds and awkwardly drew a circle in the sand.
“Hahahaha! Big Brother, did you draw a turtle?” Lin Sanniu mercilessly burst out laughing.
“You brat, you try it!” Lin Daniu angrily kicked his younger brother.
Lu Yuan wasn’t annoyed. Instead, he patiently taught them one by one.
He didn’t teach them difficult texts such as the Three Character Classic. Instead, he directly taught them practical things: numbers, weights, measures, and how to write amounts of money.
With Qingyue, Lu Yuan was even gentler.
Standing behind his wife, he held her soft hand and guided it stroke by stroke through the sand, writing the three characters “Lin Qingyue.”
“Qing like clear water, Yue like the moon. Your father originally traded a carp for this name for you. It’s a wonderful name.”
He whispered softly into her ear.
The tips of Lin Qingyue’s ears turned slightly red, and her heart felt as sweet as honey.
After teaching his family, Lu Yuan would return to the desk beside the window.
In this era, where “everything is considered inferior except studying,” a person without academic honors would forever remain at the bottom of society, vulnerable to anyone more powerful.
Whenever he had free time, Lu Yuan would combine the ancient texts that the original owner had memorized by rote with the powerful logical and analytical abilities of a modern person.
While reviewing his studies, however, Lu Yuan’s mind was also constantly calculating how to make a living.
How should he use brewing alcohol to establish himself after the New Year?
Lu Yuan put down his brush and rubbed his aching brow.
Most alcohol in ancient times was low-proof fermented wine. It was cloudy and had a sour, unpleasant taste.
If he could use the principle of condensation distillation from physics to purify this cloudy wine, he could not only remove the impurities but also dramatically increase its alcohol content, producing a clear, fiery liquor that burned the throat.
This kind of “heavenly nectar” would definitely drive the wealthy gentlemen in the county—who were accustomed to drinking sour, cloudy wine—wild with enthusiasm!
When that happened, would he still have to worry about finding a linsheng scholar willing to vouch for him?
But everything was difficult at the beginning.
The first step in brewing alcohol required a distillation apparatus with excellent airtightness and extremely efficient heat conduction.
In ancient times, such a device was called a “sky pot” (tianguo).
Not only that, purification required a large amount of base wine or inferior grain, which would also be a considerable expense.
Lu Yuan pulled a sheet of rough paper from beneath his books and quickly sketched a simple design for a condensation distillation tower using a charcoal pencil.
As long as he could find a skilled blacksmith or coppersmith who was trustworthy and knew how to keep his mouth shut to make this thing, he would already have accomplished half the task!
“Second Brother!”
Lu Yuan carefully folded the drawing, tucked it into his clothes, and suddenly opened the window.
“Second Brother Lin!”
He called out to Lin Erniu, who was chopping firewood in the courtyard.
“Hey! Brother-in-law, what’s up?”
Lin Erniu wiped the sweat from his forehead and hurried over.
A shrewd, almost feverish gleam unique to a businessman flickered in Lu Yuan’s eyes.
“Tomorrow morning, hitch up the village chief’s ox cart and come with me to the county.”
Lin Erniu froze.
“Why are we going to the county? We’ve still got enough New Year’s provisions to last another half a month!”
A mysterious smile appeared at the corner of Lu Yuan’s mouth as he lowered his voice.
“We’re going to the county to find a coppersmith who knows how to keep his mouth shut.”
“And while we’re there… we’ll collect some sour, foul-smelling wine that nobody else wants!”