Chapter 222 (2/2)
Naturally, the more her G.o.dfather traveled to and from the capital, prefectural city, and Dongshan Village, the more jewelry Xiaocao ama.s.sed. Her one jewelry box was now two, and, by the trend, would soon become three. There was nothing she could do though since her G.o.dfather would always think of bringing a gift back to her every time he went out. And what did little girls like? If it wasn't jewelry, then it had to be pretty material to make clothes, right?
She was pretty sure that all of the jewelry stores in the capital and the prefectural city were familiar with General Fang Zizhen. Almost every couple of months, this giant brawny man would grace a jewelry store and scare away all of the matrons and young maidens inside. Afterwards, he would ask the shop a.s.sistants to show him the newest and latest jewelry most suitable for a young girl around ten years old. Without even asking the price, he would buy all of them to take back. His two a.s.sistants had now become servants who were only there to settle the bill...
Yu Hai also pampered his daughters and had a similar mindset to Fang Zhizhen. Fortunately, Xiaocao wasn't a true young girl of ten. Otherwise, between her two fathers, one biological and the other adopted, she might have been spoiled until she didn't know right from wrong! When Fang Zizhen and his wife heard Xiaocao's idea of having them live in the courtyard next door, after thinking a bit, they both agreed. A house halfway up the mountain was truly not a good place for a pregnant woman to live during the winter, especially after snow fell as the roads would become slippery. In fact, yesterday, their daughter had stumbled in the snow. Luckily, she was dressed in thick layers and didn't hurt herself. Otherwise, Lady Fang would have blamed herself to death.
The couple also had a manor in town. However, if they moved into town, then they'd be farther away from their daughter and it wouldn't be as convenient to see her. If a blizzard came by, then carriages wouldn't be able to drive for a few days. The two right now felt that going a single day without seeing their daughter would create a feeling of loss, let alone a few days.
The couple weren't delicate flowers. After all, it was just lodging at the Yu Family's residence for a winter, that's all ah! If they were afraid of outsiders gossiping about them, then they could just broadcast that they were renting the rooms. As long as Fang Zizhen said that he wanted to rent a place to live, even the village chief would have to let him rent his own house even if he had no place else to go.
They acted on what they agreed on! The next day, the couple, along with their servants, moved into the west courtyard of the Yu Family's residence. The west courtyard had been designed to be an independent single family living s.p.a.ce. It had two wings, a kitchen, and a storeroom. Fang Zizhen didn't have a lot of servants with him in Dongshan Village, so the servants were a.s.signed the west wing. One room from the east wing was given to his two a.s.sistants.
Li Li and Wu Yun would occasionally come by in the afternoon to report to him about the harbor's matters. Why did they pick the afternoon? Wasn't it because they wanted to b.u.m off the evening meal and the next morning's breakfast off of them? Fang Zizhen, his wife, and the rest of their servants were all used to these two staying over, so when they moved, they didn't forget to leave them a s.p.a.ce either.
Wintertime was the idle season for the villages. Everyone generally stayed at home, resting during the winter. Furthermore, at this time of year, there wasn't as much business at the docks either, so all of the temporary workers left and returned home. The regular workers (the salaried ones) could also take turns going back home to rest. Having about a dozen days a month to rest at home was quite nice!
The Yu Family liked to congregate on a kang bed together during the winter. This year was also the same. They didn't do this to save on firewood, as all of the rooms had their kang bed fires going. Why did they do this in rooms that didn't have people living in them? That was because Xiaocao had her father bring more than twenty wooden chests over into the rooms and fill them all with soil. The soil filled boxes were then put on the kang beds and planted with some vegetable seeds. Some examples included: lettuce greens, Indian lettuce, romaine lettuce, garlic shoots, garlic chives and so-forth...that's right, Xiaocao was trying to grow vegetables out of season!
The Yu Family's kang beds all faced the windows, and the windows all had gla.s.s in them. Thus, the cultivated vegetables on the kang beds had plenty of sunlight. With the right temperature, enough light and Xiaocao adding some diluted mystic-stone water, the out of season vegetable sprouts grew quite well. The Yu Family never lacked green vegetables to eat during the winter, a time when other people could only become rabbits and gnaw on cabbage and daikon.
Lady Fang, who was being pampered and protected at every turn due to her pregnancy, also had lots of green vegetables to eat. Thus, she felt like winter, which usually felt long and arduous, had unconsciously slipped away.
Right after they celebrated New Years, the Yu Family started to weave straw mats before the ground had thawed. Last year they were able to sell their vegetables at a good price because they were able to bring them to market a month before other people could. This year, with experience under their belts, the Yu Family had carefully prepared the front and back courtyards in advance.
The courtyard this year was multiple times larger than last year's. The front courtyard's two s.p.a.ces combined had to be around three to four mu. Naturally, the back courtyard wasn't much smaller.
Before the first breath of spring came around, Xiaocao had already sprinkled various vegetable seeds onto the ground. As for tomatoes, cuc.u.mbers, and hot peppers, she had also started to incubate them on the kang bed in one of the wings.
All of the members of the Yu Family, including Little s.h.i.+tou, who was off on his winter break, had the same task every morning when there was plenty of sunlight. They had to lift up all of the straw mats and allow the new vegetable sprouts to bathe in the warmth of the morning sun. When the sun moved towards the west and the temperature started to drop, they all had to carefully cover the sprouts under the thick straw mats again. Every time she had to do this, Xiaocao sighed in regret that this time period didn't have thin plastic films to use. Otherwise, she would build a large vegetable greenhouse, which was much easier to use compared to the straw mats!
The west courtyard's fields hardly needed any members of the Yu Family to go there. Lady Fang's two capable handmaids, along with the rest of the servants, had taken over the care of the fields there. Zhenzhu and Linglong were all born in the Xia Family, so they were very good at being personal servants. However, they had never looked after fields before. Nevertheless, they both had a fine hand at lifting and covering the straw mats. When they first saw a tiny sprout coming through the ground, the two maids were so happy that they chattered at their mistress for half a day. With every pa.s.sing day, the sprouts grew taller and larger and the satisfaction within their hearts grew as well…