Transmigrated as a Stepmother: Time to Bring the Family to Prosper!-Chapter 126 - 125: Yield of Five Hundred Jin per Mu
Liu Ji took a sharp breath, unable to believe as he looked at Second Lang, such a small kid, yet he managed to earn such a big bag of copper coins and bring them home.
His own son, Liu Ji’s bloodline, truly extraordinary!
"Second Lang." Liu Ji walked over, heavily patted his son’s shoulder, and said with relief, "Not bad, kid, your father didn’t raise you for nothing, you’re making something of yourself, and you even know to bring money home."
Second Lang heard this but couldn’t muster any happiness, frowning tightly, shrugging his shoulder to fling away the large hand, and dumped the copper coins in front of him, pressing his whole body over them, glaring vigilantly at Liu Ji, not allowing him to take a single cent!
Liu Ji awkwardly let out a couple of low coughs, touched his nose sheepishly, "Well, I’ll go make dinner."
Da Lang put down the Yang Mei, rolled up his sleeves, "Auntie, I’ll help, let’s hurry."
"Go ahead." Qin Yao nodded with a smile, reminding the young boy, "Be careful not to get splashed by the oil."
Da Lang nodded, "Got it." Then turned and followed Liu Ji into the kitchen.
With the eyesores gone, only then did Second Lang get off the table, planning to hand over all the copper coins he earned today to her.
Qin Yao didn’t want them, telling them to keep it themselves.
After all, it was money they earned with their pocket money, little by little, maybe one day they’ll have a large sum.
Seeing Qin Yao didn’t take them, the three little ones were a bit disappointed.
But they soon got busy with tomorrow’s Yang Mei Soup, cleaning the Yang Mei and discarding the spoiled ones.
While Da Lang and Liu Ji prepared dinner, Second Lang led his younger siblings under the eaves to sort the Yang Mei, keeping all the good ones and then washing them with clean water for use.
Then Second Lang ran to Liu Huolang’s house and bought a pound and a half of rock sugar, fifteen cents per pound, spending twenty-two cents.
This bowl of wild Yang Mei can be simmered into two jars of Yang Mei Soup, roughly about forty bowls.
Sanlang and Si Niang tried to count with their fingers and toes but couldn’t figure out how much two coins a bowl made from forty bowls.
Second Lang rolled his eyes, quickly calculating it in his head, the multiplication table Qin Yao taught him was well memorized and came in handy now.
"Eighty coins minus twenty-two coins, we can make... fifty-eight coins!" Second Lang said excitedly.
Si Niang tilted her head and asked, "Second Brother, how much is fifty-eight coins?"
"Enough to buy ten cuju balls." Second Lang replied.
The Dragon and Phoenix Twins gasped in amazement at how much it was!
Second Lang shrugged, "Too bad we can only sell them for these few days a year, otherwise we could earn even more."
How much more was beyond the imagination of the Twins, so it didn’t affect their current happiness at all.
Dinner was ready, Liu Ji brought it all to the table one by one.
Three pounds of meat were all stir-fried, with a layer of sauce added before taking it off the heat, a perfect match with the large white rice grains.
Also prepared was a pot of egg soup and a plate of mixed stir-fried vegetables.
Such a colorful, fragrant, and tasty dinner, the mother and her five children hadn’t had in a long time. As soon as Liu Ji finished setting the table, it was filled with the sounds of serving food.
The way they wolfed it down was like they had just escaped from a refugee camp, giving Liu Ji quite a fright, who quickly picked up his chopsticks to join in.
If he slowed down any more, he wouldn’t even get a taste of the meat!
Qin Yao had four bowls of rice and a couple of bowls of egg soup before satisfiedly putting down her chopsticks, gently rubbing her slightly bulging stomach, eyes squinting in aftertaste.
Da Lang and Second Lang put down their bowls and chopsticks and rushed to the kitchen to make the Yang Mei Soup, while Sanlang and Si Niang took the initiative to clear the dishes, though with their small bodies and hands, they couldn’t handle large items, so in the end, Liu Ji cleaned up everything.
By the time he returned, it was quite late, with the cleanup taking a while, the night was deep, and the village already quiet and serene.
As drowsiness struck, they each returned to their rooms to sleep.
Before sleeping, Qin Yao told the little ones that there were snacks in the low cabinet in the main room, and they could help themselves whenever they wanted.
The four Da Lang siblings were both surprised and delighted. The feeling of having snacks at home that they could eat whenever they wanted was something they’d never experienced before.
Not just them, no kids in the village were pampered by parents like this.
Liu Ji, hearing this in his room, was taken aback, thinking Qin Yao was spending money carelessly, not saving at all.
Kids wouldn’t understand the hardships of earning money; watch, in half a day, these four at home would finish off those packets of snacks.
But the slap to the face came quickly. The scene Liu Ji imagined didn’t happen. Even without adult supervision, the four siblings ate a bit more, but there was still more than half left in the low cabinet, enough for two or three more days without any issue.
Da Lang even gave him two pieces, "Dad, these are tasty, you should try some."
As he spoke, he gave two pieces of the best-preserved lotus cake they had sorted to Si Niang, letting her take them to the step-mother.
Qin Yao munched on the snacks as she headed to the village.
She was going to find the village chief to quickly finalize the location for the new factory.
The concerns had already been clarified, and with no more worries, the site was quickly chosen.
Qin Yao chose a piece of wasteland by the road.
This place was usually deserted; in the spring, the village women would come by to pick some wild vegetables. The soil wasn’t fertile, and since it was a family’s public land, no one objected to Qin Yao renting it.
The rent was cheap, just eight hundred coins a year.
Qin Yao knew the villagers were giving her a favor by charging such a low price.
And once her water mill factory was established, it would benefit everyone in Liu Family Village in return.
With the site settled, the relevant procedures were completed that day, and the village elders served as guarantors.
The lease was in hand, marking a good start for the next phase.
Qin Yao was relieved and began the most important harvest of the year in the fall.
As early as the beginning of the month, the villagers had their eyes on her family’s ten acres of land.
The heavy and full rice ears were mouth-watering.
Now it was finally time to get a definite number, and to say the whole village looked forward to it was an understatement.
With the experience of the wheat harvest in February, this time reaping the rice, neither Qin Yao nor Liu Ji found it too daunting.
Mainly, seeing the golden grains falling into the pail, the joy of the harvest instantly overshadowed all fatigue.
Qin Yao, with great strength, was responsible for threshing, while Liu Ji handled the cutting.
Their four children were not idle; the Yang Mei Soup had been sold for two days, earning them one hundred cents.
After that, they followed their parents, the older ones helping to move the rice, the younger ones carrying a small cloth bag to pick up the fallen grains.
Not a single grain of food was wasted.
As soon as the first acre was harvested, the villagers immediately gathered to see Liu Gong weighing it for Qin Yao’s family.
"Five hundred catties!" Liu Gong declared excitedly.
In just three words, it stirred up a huge wave among the villagers.
What does a yield of five hundred catties per acre mean?
Generally, a good piece of land, meticulously cultivated, produces at most about four hundred and fifty catties a year.
And the situation of Qin Yao’s plot was clear to everyone in the village, usually just checking the water, removing weeds, never even seen fertilization, basically in a semi-wild state.
Achieving a yield of five hundred catties per acre in such a state, how could it not be shocking?
Liu Gong couldn’t stop grinning, as the landlord renting out the land, the more the tenants harvested, the more rent they would get, how could they not be happy.
