Spring scenery in the fields

Chapter 245 Small talk

"Last year, locusts infested the fields, so every household didn't grow any crops. The price of food should be high this year, as there is demand." After thinking for a moment, he continued, "Plus, there has been a lot of war, and food is needed on the front lines. There shouldn't be much left in the granaries."

"They need to replenish food urgently. Logically speaking, the price of food will not be low. Aunt Lan, what do you think the price of food will be this year?"

Shen Erniu next to him replied, "I don't think the price will be higher than five cents this year."

"It's so low." Ji Wenhe calculated.

Their family's grain costs five cents per 100 jin, so one hundred jin can only be sold for five hundred cents, which is not as much as she can earn from her business.

"Brother Shen said that if our family can produce a little over 100 kilograms of grain, we'd be lucky. At this price, we won't even make a single ounce of silver."

"That's why people say that if you have a lot of land at home, you can grow crops and make money. Otherwise, the crops are only enough for your family to eat and you can't sell them for money."

Lan Qiuhua was counting on selling the grain and getting three or four taels of grain. With the money in hand, she could use it to help Shen Anguo find his relatives.

Ji Wenhe held his chin in his hand and said, "Growing crops is exhausting. I have to pay the cost and labor, and work hard for a year, but in the end I can only earn so little. I don't even want to buy land anymore."

Grain only sells for so little money, so if you calculate it this way, why work so hard to farm the land?

"You can't say that. We farmers can't survive without land. You can buy a few more acres of land when the time comes."

She nodded and said, "I will definitely buy some land." But she didn't plan to buy too much.

At this time, Shen Erniu, who had been listening quietly on the side, stood up and walked towards the village entrance.

After each family threshed the rice, they placed it at the doorstep or on the road to dry. Only Shen Zhong's family was left, and the two plots of land near their home had not been harvested.

"Hey, Aunt Lan, has the head of the village come to ask you to go to their house to help?"

"No, I'm busy at home, so I don't have the time to help them. Why did he come to call your Rongshan?"

Ji Wenhe shook his head: "No, they probably rejected me when I was transplanting rice, and they guessed that I deliberately didn't want them to help, so they didn't come to find me."

"Uncle Ping didn't go to help their family this year. Aunt Zhao is pregnant, and he has to take care of her at home."

While working in the fields, she saw Shen Ping always asking Zhao Sanniang to sit at the edge of the field and not letting her come forward to help.

Lan Qiuhua put down the sieve in his hand and looked at the fields in the east: "Let me tell you, in fact, no one in the village wants to go over to help, including your uncle Ping."

"Before Zhao Sanniang got married, he was the only one at home. He had nothing to do after work, so the head of the village came to ask him to help out at home."

"It's different now. I have a wife at home, and she's pregnant. Of course I have an excuse to reject him."

"Tsk, your Uncle Shen is really stupid. Why is he running east for no reason? Isn't he afraid that the head of the village will call him over to help?"

"I'm calling Uncle Shen back." Ji Wenhe stood up, trotted over, and shouted from a distance, "Uncle Shen, please come back and sift the rice. Aunt Lan has a backache."

Then he turned around and ran back, sitting steadily on the small bench, watching people coming over.

"Aunt Lan, please don't say Uncle Shen's faults in front of me, otherwise I will be so embarrassed."

She said it was nothing in front of her son, but she was an outsider and it was very embarrassing for her to hear it. She didn't know whether to leave or not.

Lan Qiuhua was about to scold him, but she swallowed back her words: "If you weren't here, I would have scolded him. It's really infuriating. He has so much work to do at home, but he still goes over there."

"Aunt Lan, come over and take a rest. Let Uncle Shen be busy. He won't run away if he has work to do."

Shen Anguo spoke at the right time: "Mom, take a rest, Dad and I are busy."

She put down the sieve in her hand, rolled her eyes at the person who came over, went into the house, moved a small stool, and sat next to Ji Wenhe: "My waist hurts, you two, father and son, go and do the work."

Shen Erniu didn't say anything and just squatted on the ground to work.

"By the way, Aunt Lan, where's Xiaoya?"

"My waist, legs and arms hurt. I'm lying in the house." Lan Qiuhua shook her head. "My daughter will suffer if she doesn't have a good mother-in-law when she gets married."

She complains about being tired after doing a little work. If she continues to be like this after getting married, her mother-in-law will definitely dislike her to death.

Ji Wenhe smiled and said, "It's too early to talk about this now. Wait until she finds someone to marry, and then you can help her find a good husband."

She hammered her arm and said, "I also have back pain. I have rested for several nights but it still hasn't healed. It's because I haven't worked for a long time and my body can't take it anymore."

She has been in Shenjia Village for so long, and she has never had to do any heavy housework at home. The light work she does is just cooking, herding geese and ducks, and helping them, so she doesn't feel tired.

"You only have seven acres of land. When you have more land, you will be even more tired."

"Let's talk about it when we have more land." At worst, she could ask someone to come and help. If the price is right, she doesn't believe that no one would come.

"Aunt Lan, what day is it today?"

Lan Qiuhua calculated and slapped her thigh: "Oh! Today is Shen Zhiyan's wedding day. I don't know if she has come to pick her up."

Ji Wenhe just remembered at this time: "I have been so busy these days that I forgot. Since they have scheduled it for the 12th, they will definitely come today. Didn't you see any strangers entering the village at the door?"

"No, we were busy all the time. We didn't pay much attention to whether anyone came into the village. It was almost noon, so we guessed that the person had been taken away a long time ago."

The housework had just been finished and the man came over to take the girl away.

"Aunt Niu lives behind their house. She should have seen it. Why didn't I see her come to the village to tell anyone?"

"Her family is not done yet." Lan Qiuhua stretched out her legs and pounded her fists gently. "Your uncle Ergui has a bad temper too. If Niu Guilan is running around at home and not working, he will get angry and grab her and beat her up."

Shen Ergui, Niu Guilan's husband, looks honest and simple, but I didn't expect that he would actually hit people.

"Aunt Lan, do all the uncles and aunts in our village beat their wives?"

Her eyes swept over Shen Erniu, only to hear him take over the conversation: "I never hit your Aunt Lan, but she did hit me."

Ji Wenhe held back his laughter.

Lan Qiuhua said slowly, "Why did I hit you? It was because you wanted to lift An Guo up onto your neck and you lost your balance and the child fell to the ground."

"Luckily you were playing near a haystack at the time, and An Guo fell into it. Otherwise, he would have been disfigured if not dead. I almost wanted to kill you at that time."

Shen Anguo stared at his father blankly: "Why don't I remember this?"

"You were only three years old at that time, how could you remember anything? You forgot everything after crying. You even pestered your father, saying something about riding a big horse."

She turned around and looked at the people around her: "Wen He, tell me whether your Uncle Shen should be beaten or not. If anything happens, An Guo's life will be ruined."

He nodded and said that he deserved to be beaten.