After half a month of exhausting work, everyone in the Lin family had become darker and thinner.
The autumn harvest had finally ended five days ago.
Over the past few days, the men had driven the family’s yellow ox through all the fields, plowing the land over once again. Meanwhile, the women took advantage of the good weather to dry all the harvested grain before storing it away in the granary.
Lin Xiyong and Chen Shuyun had already returned to the county town five days earlier. Since Lin Xiyong still planned to take the provincial examination again next autumn, Old Madam Lin kept urging them to go back sooner.
The couple did not live in Scholar Chen’s home. Instead, they rented a small courtyard nearby.
Their daily expenses in the county town were covered by rent from the shops included in Chen Shuyun’s dowry, along with income from the ten mu of farmland that came with her marriage.
As soon as the autumn harvest ended, Dashan led several younger siblings into the mountains early in the morning to gather wild fruit.
Today little Fuping had finally earned permission to go with the older children.
Children from farming families started following older kids into the hills to gather wild vegetables and fruit as early as three or four years old. Fortunately, they only stayed near the mountain outskirts where there were no large wild animals, so the adults were not worried.
Today’s harvest was especially fruitful.
At this time of year, the mountains were filled with wild pears and jujubes ripe for eating, and those were exactly what the children had gone to collect.
Among the villagers there existed an unspoken understanding: the fruit trees near the mountain outskirts were left for the village children. If adults wanted fruit, they would go deeper into the mountains themselves.
The outer mountain area was practically paradise for the children.
As soon as the busy harvest season ended, groups of children from every household swarmed into the hills.
Today, the eight children from the Lin family alone brought back over fifty jin of wild pears and more than thirty jin of jujubes.
Ever since the previous feeding incident had nearly scared Lin Mei to death, Tian Guihua watched the two boys very carefully whenever they approached their little sister, afraid they might cause another disaster.
Fu’an took a bite of pear while loudly slurping juice.
“Little sister, when are you going to grow teeth? Brother and I ate delicious jujubes and sweet pears today. Smell it—doesn’t it smell sweet?”
As he spoke, he shoved the pear toward Lin Mei’s nose.
“Little sister, listen to this!” Fuping added excitedly. “These jujubes are super crunchy! Today I picked up so many from the ground! Big Cousin was amazing—he climbed the tree and shook it while we gathered them below.”
As he spoke, he intentionally bit loudly into a jujube with exaggerated crunching noises.
Lin Mei rolled her eyes mercilessly.
In her heart, she silently added another grievance against the two brothers into her mental little notebook.
Half a month had already passed.
Lin Mei could now fully open her eyes, though her vision remained blurry. She could only vaguely make out two indistinct shapes nearby.
Tian Guihua had already been amused by the boys’ antics.
“You two keep tempting your little sister like this—aren’t you afraid she’ll get angry?”
“Mother, how long until little sister grows teeth?” Fuping asked curiously.
“She’ll probably start teething around one year old,” Tian Guihua replied gently. “Even after she grows teeth, she’ll only be able to eat soft foods. The things in your hands are far too hard for her.”
“Then little sister is so pitiful,” little Fu’an sighed sympathetically. “She can’t eat any tasty things.”
“Hahaha!”
Tian Guihua burst into laughter.
Meanwhile, Lin Mei snorted inwardly.
Just wait until I grow teeth. I’ll make you two jealous to death.
There’s so much delicious food in my space. In the future I’ll only let you smell it while you drool helplessly.
After half a month of recovery, Tian Guihua had finally regained a bit of weight.
Yet Lin Mei still drank goat’s milk.
Though Tian Guihua eventually began producing milk, there was far too little of it. Lin Mei could only suck a few mouthfuls before it ran dry.
Besides… Lin Mei somehow always felt embarrassed about breastfeeding.
After a few failed attempts where Lin Mei stubbornly refused to drink, Tian Guihua eventually gave up, and Lin Mei continued solely on goat’s milk.
Since the goat now belonged to their own family, there was far more milk than Lin Mei alone could finish.
The two little brothers now each drank a bowl of goat’s milk every day as well, and the mischievous boys had visibly become sturdier.
The brothers continued chirping nonstop beside Lin Mei’s ears until she simply could not endure it anymore and pretended to fall asleep.
Unexpectedly, she actually fell asleep for real almost instantly.
Meanwhile, Little Liu and Li Xue sat in their respective rooms sewing and patching clothes.
After the autumn harvest, nearly every garment in the house had gained several new tears and holes.
Lin Dayong and Lin Eryong had gone together to the county town early that morning to look for temporary work.
Lin Sanyong had also pushed out his “little cargo wheelbarrow” to sell small goods around the neighboring villages.
Today, however, Lin Sanyong returned especially early—before the end of the Hour of Shen.
Very little merchandise remained in his cart.
As soon as he got home, he immediately handed over half of today’s profits.
After all the brothers married, Old Man Lin had established a household rule: regardless of whether the sons earned money from labor work or small businesses, half of the profits belonged to the family fund, while the other half stayed with their own small household.
Lin Sanyong had always been clever and silver-tongued since childhood.
He could chat happily with almost anyone.
Ever since the age of three, after discovering the existence of peddlers, he had firmly decided he wanted to become one someday.
The reason was simple:
Peddlers always carried endless delicious snacks in their goods baskets.
Lin Sanyong’s “little cargo wheelbarrow” had been specially built by Old Man Lin.
It was a single-wheel cart enclosed by wooden boards. Bamboo poles rose from the four corners, and curved bamboo strips supported a woven mat canopy overhead.
To protect against rain, Lin Sanyong always carried an oilcloth sheet. Whenever it rained, he simply covered the canopy and never had to worry about his goods getting wet.
Old Man Lin had even thoughtfully designed a small overhanging brim on the canopy, so Lin Sanyong did not suffer much from the sun while pushing the cart.
Whether other peddlers envied the cart or not, Lin Sanyong absolutely adored it.
Even when carrying one or two hundred jin of goods, he could push it all day without feeling particularly tired.
After handing over the money to his mother, Lin Sanyong immediately returned to his room.
He found Tian Guihua mending the boys’ clothes while their little daughter slept peacefully nearby.
Immediately grinning broadly, he said:
“Wife, business finally opened up today—it went really well. Here’s the other half of the money. Put it away. Where are those two little rascals? What trouble are they off causing now?”
Tian Guihua opened the money pouch and counted the coins.
“So much? Did you sell everything today?”
“Almost,” Lin Sanyong replied cheerfully. “Only a bit of cotton cloth didn’t sell. Everything else was basically gone. The harvest just ended, and since this year’s yields were good, everyone’s willing to spend a little more money. Tomorrow morning I’ll have to take the ox cart into the county town and restock some rare goods.”
Tian Guihua pulled a cord from around her neck.
Attached to it was a tiny key—the key to the locked cabinet built into the kang bed.
The cabinet had six doors total. The two closest to the wall were locked.
Inside were only a newly made quilt, several pieces of fine cotton cloth, a bundle of cotton stuffing, and a jewelry box.
The jewelry box had two layers.
The upper layer held the longevity locks Tian Guihua’s father had gifted the two boys, along with her dowry jewelry: a pair of silver bracelets, a silver hairpin, and a gold bracelet.
The gold bracelet had belonged to her late mother.
When Tian Guihua married, her father had insisted she take it as part of her dowry.
Tian Guihua originally refused because she had always planned for it to eventually pass to her eldest younger brother’s future wife as a family heirloom.
But her father would not agree.
He said her mother herself had wished for Tian Guihua to have it as dowry.
Aside from that, there was little else.
The second drawer contained:
Altogether, Tian Guihua and Lin Sanyong had saved thirty-four taels of silver over five years of marriage.
For an ordinary farming couple, that was considered quite impressive.
Sleeping Lin Mei was awakened by the sound of her parents talking again.
Ah… truly, Chinese people possessed gossip-loving souls in every lifetime.
Ever since arriving in this world, Lin Mei loved secretly listening to her parents’ conversations, hoping to better understand this unfamiliar era.
But when she overheard that her parents had thirty-four taels of savings, she suddenly froze.
She had forgotten something critically important.
Her space contained no gold.
No silver.
Not even a single hair ribbon or accessory.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
In her previous life, she had been a short-haired girl who rarely wore jewelry and never cared for accessories.
When stockpiling supplies before transmigrating, she had never even considered such things.
But this was ancient times now!
Gold and silver were hard currency!
Even modern jewelry craftsmanship would probably count as rare luxury goods here and could easily be sold in emergencies.
Now she was doomed.
Completely doomed.
She did not possess a single valuable object that could be pawned.
Everything she had stored was food.
Back then, her only thought had been survival supplies.
She had paid zero attention to anything else.