The Lantern Festival had just passed, and Zi Qing asked Zi Fu and Zi Lu to help move the big tree saplings in the yard to the back mountain. Fortunately, the tree pits were dug long ago, so it wasn't too much trouble for the three of them to do it together. There were almost a hundred saplings of various kinds, and whenever Zi Qing had nothing to do, she would go to the market to take a stroll, occasionally running into people selling saplings. Although there weren't many, Zi Qing usually bought them all, accumulating dozens of them over time.

  Because there were more than thirty sheep, Zi Qing was afraid that the sheep would eat the saplings, so she found some baskets to hold charcoal and put them around. After finishing this, she also raised watermelon seedlings. This year, a new courtyard on the other side had ten mu of sandy land renovated, and the fence was also done, and watermelons were to be planted, so more seedlings were needed than in previous years. Zi Qing was very busy for several days.

  Because Shen's wife was pregnant again, Zeng Rui-xiang had He's wife come over before he left. He's wife said that Shen's wife had lost a lot of physical strength from giving birth in the past, so she should take this opportunity to nourish herself well. The physically demanding chores in the courtyard were mostly outsourced, either by Zeng Ru-yu or the Shens; this time, the transplanting of 15 mu of melon seedlings was all done by the Shens, and naturally, they took away the extra seedlings that Zi-qing didn't need.

  That day, Mrs. He asked her daughter Qing to go to the mountain slope outside the village to find some fresh mugwort, saying that she wanted to make some mugwort rice cakes. In her previous life, her family would also make those dark green mugwort rice cakes in spring, and Qing liked to eat them very much, with a kind of refreshing fragrance of mugwort. After coming to this world, she hadn't eaten any yet. Qing carried the basket out of the door and saw that there were several villagers on the mountain slope picking mugwort. She also picked a basket of tender tips and went home, where she saw Mrs. He soaking glutinous rice.

  There was no man at home, so Shen called on Zi Qing to invite Zeng Ruiyu to pound the mortar. Zi Qing didn't understand what it meant and didn't dare ask randomly. He Xiang carried a bowl of cooked glutinous rice, Zi Qing held a sieve, and followed Zeng Ruiyu to a house at the village head, where there were three stone mortars that required someone to step on the wooden end of the mortar. As soon as his foot loosened, the wooden mortar would just hit into the mortar, and it turned out that pounding the mortar was exactly this meaning.

  There were two families husking rice, the women crouching beside the stone mortars, quickly scooping out the crushed grains to sift, then pouring the sifted grains back in for further pounding. Zi Qing watched with a racing heart, worried that they might lose control of their strength. What if they smashed their hands?

  "Grandma, be careful. Don't hurt your hand."

  Zeng Ruiyu and He Shi both burst out laughing, and He Shi affectionately patted Zi Qing's head.

  With the help of San Tang Shu, it took more than half a time to return home with the glutinous rice flour that had been pounded. Shen Shi had already boiled the mugwort and only left the dark green liquid. He Shi poured this liquid into the glutinous rice flour and started kneading, Zi Qing, Zi Shou, and Zi Xi watched from the side.

  Originally, every year on February 19th is the birthday of Guanyin Bodhisattva. On this day, it is necessary to offer glutinous rice cakes made from mugwort grass to Guanyin Bodhisattva for her enjoyment.

  "Why didn't we do it last year?" Zi Qing asked.

  "Didn't the strong winds last year blow your wife away? How could you go out to find mugwort then? It was just the year before that we moved here, and our home had nothing in it. We didn't even have time for this." Shen said while rubbing her hands together.

  "Mother, it looks like cow dung, can this be eaten?" asked Zishou.

  "Niú shǐ, bù chī, xiǎo sì bù chī niú shǐ." Zi xǐ zài yī páng yě shuō le.

  Translation:

  "Cow dung, not eating, Little Four doesn't eat cow dung." Zi Xi also said on the side.

  The Shens, the Hes and Zi Qing burst out laughing. Shen patted Zi Shou's back and said: "This kid, you haven't eaten it for two years and have forgotten? When you were three years old, your mother brought one to you, but you insisted that it was made of cow dung and refused to eat it. Later, when everyone else ate theirs, you got hungry again, so your mother brought another one to you. You took a bite and said it was delicious, then wanted more, but your aunt wouldn't give you any. There were only a few in total, and she sent some to your older cousin's house." Shen sighed at the end of her story.

  "What's the point of thinking about those things? These days are much better, aren't they, we can eat to our heart's content, right, Sanzi?" He Shi advised.

  Zi Qing didn't understand why they had to use mugwort, and Shen Shi also couldn't explain it, only saying that it was passed down from generation to generation. Not only that, but there was also a type of rice cake, made from ordinary glutinous rice flour, with a special wooden mold. After kneading a round cake, it was pressed onto the mold, and when removed, it had an image on it, seemingly a small child offering peaches, but it was blurry, and Zi Qing couldn't see clearly either.

  After finishing all this, Shen's family lit three incense sticks on the long table in the hall, knocked three heads in front of Guanyin Bodhisattva's Buddha statue, and respectfully offered a plate of mugwort rice cake and a plate of vegetarian cookies.

  Ziying took a greenish mugwort rice cake, as if she could still smell the fragrance of mugwort, which was more fragrant than what she had eaten in her previous life. Inside, there were bean powder and red sugar. Ziying ate three in one breath and wanted to eat more. He Shi said that eating too much glutinous rice would cause bloating, so Ziying rubbed her belly and stopped. Turning back to look at Zixi, his face was covered with bean powder and sugar stains, and Zishou wasn't much better off either.

  At this time, Zilu returned home from school. Ziqing pulled him and said: "Second brother, come and see, our family has raised two little fat cats."

  Zi Rong couldn't help but laugh and said: "Where did this little glutton come from? We don't even raise fish at home."

  "Sister is bad, second brother is bad, don't like sister." Zi Xi's teary eyes looked at Zi Qing as she complained. After laughing, Zi Qing quickly found a wet towel to help them clean up.

  Just a few days after Guanyin Bodhisattva's birthday, good things happened one after another in Zi Qing's family. First, Zhou Zhuang brought a letter from an intermediary saying that there was a shop for sale, and Shen Shi wanted to take Zi Qing to see it. He Shi was worried, but Shen Shi had not experienced such things before. So the whole family hired a donkey cart to go to the city with the intermediary to look at the house. The location of this shop was really good, on the busiest Qian Shui Street where there were the most shops. The original owner wanted to sell it because he planned to move away from here.

  Zi Qing and his family went in to take a look, it turned out to be a silk store, the storefront was about 50 square meters in size, operating all mid-to-high-end silk fabrics, the owner was a local, surnamed Liu, upstairs were two storage rooms and one room for the apprentices' quarters, there was also a small backyard, inside the yard there was a well, several houses. Because of the good location, the storefront and backyard together cost 500 taels of silver, the original owner's inventory was also priced at 500 taels of silver, Shen Shi and He Shi looked but didn't know if it was suitable or not.

  Shen thought that he didn't have so much silver on hand, so it would be better to first ask Zhou Zhuang to find out clearly. Unexpectedly, Zhou Zhuang was familiar with Liu Zhuang of the silk store, and after the two talked for a while, they told Shen that the annual rent for this shop was around 50 taels, and Liu Zhuang was willing to take over this batch of silk and continue operating, but he didn't have enough silver on hand and needed two days to borrow some. In this way, Shen didn't have to worry about not having enough silver or the problem of renting out the storefront, so he readily agreed to buy the storefront and made an appointment with everyone to go through the formalities together in two days.

  After returning home, Shen asked someone to deliver a message to Zeng Rui-xiang, and they agreed to meet at the entrance of the government office in Anzhou City two days later to handle various contracts and transfer procedures. On that day, when Shen and He returned from the city together, they said that everything had been settled, and they also received 42 taels of rent for the remaining ten months of this year. Shen was overjoyed and said that now he could be considered as having property in the city too.

  The village head came to see Shen Shi a few days after the purchase, saying that there was a family in the village whose son had committed a crime elsewhere and urgently needed to raise some silver to send to his son. The family's silver was not enough, so they wanted to sell 20 mu of their water field, which happened to be next to Zi Qing's home, and most of it was planted with rape. Shen Shi immediately said he would buy it, and since it was because of the son's trouble, he didn't have the heart to haggle over the price at this time. In addition to the 300 taels for the water field, he also gave an additional 10 taels of silver for the rape seeds. The next day, Li Zheng helped complete the transfer procedures.

  Now Shen's heart felt much more at ease, having been a farmer for so many years, the fervor for land was unimaginable to ordinary people, always feeling that only by grasping the land firmly in one's hands would there be no fear of going hungry.

  Zi Qing knew that this was her mother's first time buying a house, and she couldn't help but feel excited. She smiled and said: "Mom, our family's life will definitely get better and better, just wait patiently and enjoy the blessings."

  After finishing all this for half a month, it's time to harvest the rape. Of the 20 mu of paddy fields, 18 mu were planted with rape, and the remaining two mu were left idle to nurture the land. When the rape in other families was almost harvested, Shen Shi asked Ruiyu to find ten young and strong men from the village, who worked for 40 cents a day without meals, and spent two days drying the rape in their own courtyard. Then Shen Shi rented out the 20 mu of paddy fields, just like Ruiyu's family, with an annual rent of three shi of grains and six dou of rape seeds per mu.

  "This money is still worth spending, and it's all because of us few. This oil vegetable will not be harvested until next year." Shen sighed, probably thinking of the hard work she had done with her two children in the first year.