The Whole Village Thrives After Adopting a Lucky Girl

After the Double Ninth Festival, everyone in Dongchen Village was at home stripping cotton seeds, including the Jiang family.

Yingbao thought about it for a night, sorting out the plot in the book, and found that the focus was on the female protagonist, with little description of peripheral characters.

Even her own parents and younger brother, who were part of the supporting cast, were not mentioned, let alone Chuchu and others.

However, in the book, a process of cotton farmers using a machine to remove seeds from cotton was described. They used a machine called a cotton gin, which was a lot faster than manually picking out one seed by one.

The description mentioned securing a set of shelves on a table, with a wooden axle and an iron axle horizontally installed on top.

The iron axle was uppermost, with the wooden one beneath. The right side of the wooden axle had a crank, and the left side of the iron axle had a spinning wheel attached to a cross-shaped wooden frame.

During operation, the two axles cranked against each other, with one hand feeding the cotton in between the axles. The cotton was then ejected from the front of the machine, while the seeds fell to the ground behind.

Yingbao took a charcoal pencil and roughly sketched the shape of this cotton gin on paper, guessing that the craftsman would have to figure out the finer details.

“Dad, we can use this to strip the cotton seeds. It should be faster than picking by hand.” She handed the drawing to her father.

There was an overwhelming amount of cotton in their home, and the removal of seeds was a huge task. It would take their entire family at least a month or two to complete it.

Jiang Sanlang took the drawing from his daughter, examined it, and nodded, “I’ll ask Wang Ke to make one and see if it works. If it does, we’ll make a few more.”

Now as the village chief, he was responsible for all matters big and small in the village, and cotton ginning was a major one.

Sun Licheng kept urging him to hurry and sort out the cotton seeds, staying some for the villagers to plant and selling the rest to the County Government.

It was said that the Imperial Court attached great importance to this batch of seeds, and ordered the County Magistrate to send a batch of seeds and cotton to the Ministry of Revenue of the Capital City.

Yingbao suddenly thought of something and asked, “Dad, why haven’t the two looms we ordered from Zhou arrived yet?”

“I asked the Steward Zhou, Zhou Mao said he would definitely bring them when he came to collect golden corn ears.”

Jiang Sanlang often took his wife to the county town to visit their eldest son, which caused more interaction with Zhou Mao.

Yingbao nodded.

Their golden corn ears would be harvested in half a month, so she should first go to the county town and spend a few days there, and return after dealing with shop matters.

At noon, Jiang Quan loaded several baskets of chestnuts on to the wagon, and hung several large gourds on the roof of the wagon.

The gourds were as big as washbasins, and it was scary when they hung on both sides of the wagon.

Erni took a carry-all and climbed onto the cart, sitting next to her young cousin.

Today, her third uncle asked her to accompany Yingbao to go to the county. Erni was absolutely thrilled.

She had never been to the county town even once in her whole life, and this time she would definitely have a good time there.

“Bao’er, take Xiaohei with you. Dacheng said having a dog at home can prevent theft at night.” Chunniang took Xiaohei onto the wagon and instructed, “Xiaojie also wants to see Xiaohei, so just leave it in the county town afterwards.”

“Alright.” Yingbao held Xiaohei in her arms and waved to Chunniang, “Mom, I’m leaving.”

“Be careful on the road.”

“I know.”

Jiang Quan whipped the horse to start the cart and quickly left the village.

After a long and tiring journey, they finally arrived at the shop in the county town before nightfall.

By this time, the shop was already closed, but luckily Jiang Quan had a key.

Jiang Quan and Erni unmounted the chestnuts and gourds, and after putting everything into the shop they finally locked the door and led the cart to the backyard.

The backyard was piled full of bricks and tiles, almost filling up the whole yard.

“Where is big brother?” After entering the grass hut and not seeing Jiang Cheng, Erni asked Jiang Quan, “Doesn’t he live here at night?”

“Big brother should have gone to Plum Blossom Lane.” Jiang Cheng usually slept in the shop, probably knowing that his younger brother was coming back today, and thus went to Plum Blossom Lane instead.

Jiang Quan lit an oil lamp with a fire-starter and said, “You two stay here tonight, and go to Plum Blossom Lane tomorrow.”

“Alright.” Erni had no objections, she took the oil lamp and looked around.

The room was fairly neat and clean with a wooden bed and complete set of bedding, which was just quite enough for two people to rest.

“Don’t the people in the county town build Kang (heated bed)?” Erni asked, “Isn’t it cold in the winter?”

“Don’t know, we just don’t feel cold without a Kang.”

Jiang Quan: “You and Yingbao don’t run around in the room. I am going out to buy some food. What do you want to eat?”

Yingbao said: “I want to eat osmanthus glutinous rice balls, and donkey meat buns.”

She turned to Erni: “What do you want to eat? Let second brother buy it for you.”

Erni didn’t know what else to eat, so she said, “Same as you is fine.”

“Alright then.” Jiang Quan took out three hundred coins and merrily left the house.

The advantage of living in the county town is that you can eat many kinds of delicious food every day, as long as you have money, you can buy anything.

The little black dog was barking at him as if it wanted something too.

Yingbao ran to the door and shouted towards the direction where Jiang Quan had disappeared: “Second brother, buy some food for Xiaohei as well.”

“Got it!” Jiang Quan ran off swiftly.

Erni sat down on the bed, touched the edge of the bed, and asked her cousin: “Yingbao, where are we going to play tomorrow?”

Yingbao thought for a while: “Nowhere tomorrow, I need to set up the shop and place some orders. I’ll take you out the day after tomorrow.”

“Alright.” Erni didn’t mind.

She was more than satisfied just to be in the county town. Besides, she really didn’t know any good places to play in the county town.

After a while, Jiang Quan came back with a whole bunch of delicious food.

There were donkey meat buns, osmanthus glutinous rice balls, lamb dumplings, pepper grilled meat skewers, and lamb wontons.

Aside from the rice balls and lamb dumplings that Erni had eaten before, she had never even seen the rest.

“Wow! This smells so good!” Erni took a lamb dumpling and bit into it.

Jiang Quan brought several earthenware bowls and served the rice balls and wontons separately to the two cousins. He held an earthenware pot and ate his wontons.

A bite of pepper grilled meat skewer and a spoonful of wontons, it was simply divine.

While eating a bowl of rice balls, Yingbao said to the second brother: “Where did you buy these fruit baskets? I need to order a batch of bamboo boxes to package those fruit candies.”

Jiang Quan took a bite of the meat skewer: “I used to buy them from street vendors, but later I found the price at the bamboo shop was similar, so I bought them there. I’ll take you there tomorrow.”

The next day, Jiang Cheng came from Plum Blossom Lane, bringing a basket of steamed bread he had made himself.

Seeing his second brother spending money on outside food again, he couldn’t help but scold him: “We have rice, flour, and eggs at home, plus we’re growing a lot of vegetables by the yard wall. Why don’t you make your own food?”

Jiang Quan grumbled: “Well, Yingbao and Erni came, and I didn’t buy that much.”

Jiang Cheng harrumphed, took the steamed buns to the kitchen to make porridge. Erni rushed to help him light the fire.

After the meal, Jiang Cheng minded the shop while Jiang Quan took the two cousins to the bamboo shop to order bamboo boxes.

Yingbao favored one book-sized, finely made bamboo box. She asked the bamboo craftsman to make it a bit larger and to include a chic cover.

“If we create it according to your requirement, it would certainly not be cost-effective at eight coins each.” The Craftsman Master said.

Yingbao: “How much do you want then?”

The Craftsman: “At least twenty-five coins each is about right.”

“That’s too expensive.” Yingbao seriously said: “We’re planning to order hundreds, and it’s going to be a long term order. You’re asking too much. Forget it, I’d better check out the other shops. You’re not the only bamboo shop in the county town.”

With that, she turned around and left.

Erni and Jiang Quan quickly followed her out.