Siheyuan: tomb robbing? I am serious about hunting.

Chapter 983 Lion

When Su Qingyuan opened her eyes, the scent of damp straw lingered at the tip of her nose. The hard earthen kang jarred her back, and the coarse linen quilt covering her was stained with mildew. From outside the window, the clucking of hens echoed, mingled with a woman's curses: "You idiot girl! It's already past noon and you haven't gotten up to feed the pigs yet? Are you expecting me to serve you?" She sat up abruptly, a stinging pain in the wound at the back of her head. Fragments of memories flooded in—the original owner was a peasant girl named Su Erya, who had been pushed into the river while washing clothes the previous day and died of a high fever, leaving this modern-day self to occupy this body. "Still standing there?" The door was kicked open, and a woman in a coarse shorts stood at the doorway, her hands on her hips. It was this body's stepmother, Wang. "If you don't finish chopping that basket of pig grass today, don't even think about eating!" Su Qingyuan touched the cloth at the back of her head; blood was seeping out. She stood up, holding onto the mud wall. She saw her patched-up clothes, with a hole in the cuff. Next to the stone mill in the yard was a half-filled basket of pig grass, its edges already yellowed, clearly the unfinished work of the previous owner. "I see," she replied hoarsely, but she was calculating. The Su family was notoriously poor in the surrounding area. Her father, Su Laoshi, worked odd jobs year-round, her stepmother, Wang, was mean, and they had a spoiled younger brother, Su Xiaobao. The previous owner was essentially free labor for the family. The pigpen in the backyard reeked of stench, and two skinny pigs grunted and scratched at the fence. Su Qingyuan scooped up the slop from the slop bucket to pour it in, but suddenly remembered a modern farming video she'd seen: pigs grow faster on cooked food and are less likely to get sick. She poured the slop into the nearby pit and went into the kitchen. There was only half a can of brown rice on the stove, and a few sweet potatoes were hidden in a cloth bag hanging from the beam. Presumably, Wang had secretly left some for Su Xiaobao. "What are you moving?" Wang came out of the inner room with a bowl of egg custard, the edge of the bowl still stained with oil. "Those sweet potatoes are for Xiaobao to fill his stomach. If you dare to touch one, come and try!" Su Qingyuan retracted her hand, the ashes from the stove still on her fingertips. "I want to cook the pig feed. The book says that cooked feed can make pigs fat." She made up an excuse. Since the original owner knew a few words, it was not unreasonable. Wang curled her lips. "You are so capable! The firewood is almost burned out. If you have the time, you might as well go to the mountain to pick up some dead branches." She handed the egg custard to Su Xiaobao in the inner room, her footsteps very brisk. When Su Qingyuan went up the mountain with a machete and a bamboo basket, the wound on her back was still aching. The mountain forests were lush with vegetation in early summer, but she had no time to enjoy the scenery - she had to find edible wild vegetables to fill her stomach first, and then find a way to get some medicine to treat her wounds. In the cracks of the rocks by the stream grew clumps of purslane, with thick and juicy leaves. She remembered that this thing can reduce inflammation and can also be eaten as a vegetable. Just as she squatted down to pick it, she heard a rustling sound behind her. She turned around and saw a young man in a green cloth shirt, standing behind a tree with a medicine basket on his back and a piece of hemostatic grass in his hand. "Are you the Erya of the Su family?" The young man's voice was a little tense, and his ears were slightly red. It was Lin Yan, a barefoot doctor from the next village. He was the one who came to see the original owner when she had a fever last time. Su Qingyuan's fingers paused: "Yes." "The wound on your head needs to be dressed up." Lin Yan put the hemostatic grass on the stone, "Crush this grass and apply it. It's more effective than a cloth strip." He put down the medicine and turned to leave, but she stopped him. "Wait." Su Qingyuan pointed to the dandelions in his medicine basket, "Can this thing be sold for money?" Lin Yan glanced back and said, "The drugstore in town buys it, but the price is low, only two copper coins per pound." Su Qingyuan's eyes lit up. She picked a basket full of purslane and dandelions, and also gathered some dead branches. When she went down the mountain, the sunset had dyed the sky red. Wang Shi saw the wild vegetables in her basket and rolled her eyes: "You pick these broken grasses to eat as food?" "These are edible wild vegetables, and you can sell them for money." Su Qingyuan spread the dandelions on the stone slab in the yard, "I'll go to town and try tomorrow." Wang Shi sneered: "You? Don't let the human traffickers kidnap you!" Having said that, she didn't stop him - after all, it wasn't her daughter who was lost. At night, Su Qingyuan lay on the earthen kang, looking through the old account book that the original owner had hidden under the pillow in the moonlight. It recorded the expenses of the Su family. They owed the landlord Zhang in the west of the village three taels of silver, and the interest was almost five taels. She touched the copper coins in her arms. Lin Yan had secretly stuffed them into her today. There were five in total, enough to buy half a pound of brown rice. "I have to find a way to make money." She whispered to the beam, her fingertips tapping unconsciously on the edge of the kang. She studied agriculture in modern times, and her skills in improving soil and cultivating new varieties might be useful in ancient times. The next morning, Su Qingyuan went to the town with dandelions in her pocket. The owner of the medicine shop pinched his beard and examined them for a long time, then gave her three copper coins: "Pick more next time. If you have dried ones, the price will be higher." When she passed by the grain shop, she stared at the grain seeds at the door for a long time. The owner was a fat old man. Seeing that she was looking at it seriously, he joked: "Little girl, you want to buy grain seeds? This is the newly arrived Champa rice, and the yield is very high." "How high is the yield?" Su Qingyuan asked. "One acre of land can yield three stone, one stone more than ordinary rice." The fat owner counted on his fingers, "It's just delicate. It needs to be watered frequently and weeded three times." Su Qingyuan clenched the copper coins in his hand. Three stone of rice is enough for the Su family to eat for half a year. But she didn't even have the money to buy grain seeds, let alone rent good farmland. On the way back to the village, she saw the wasteland at the east end. Because the land was low-lying and perennially flooded, the villagers called it a wasteland. Only a few clumps of weeds swayed in the wind. But Su Qingyuan's eyes lit up—that place was suitable for growing rice. All they needed was a drainage ditch and some soil improvement. "What are you looking at?" Lin Yan emerged from the field, his trouser legs stained with mud, carrying a medicine basket on his back. "You can't grow anything on that land. Landlord Zhang tried it last year, and it yielded nothing." "You can," Su Qingyuan knelt down and scooped up a handful of soil, moist and sandy. "Just dig a ditch for drainage and add some wood ash as fertilizer. It should work." Lin Yan's eyes widened. "Wood ash can be used as fertilizer?" "Yes, it has potassium, which helps crops grow strong." Su Qingyuan was talking excitedly, but suddenly realized his slip and quickly corrected himself. "I read it in a book." Lin Yan didn't question her, but handed her a few astragalus plants from the basket. "They're expensive. Pick some and try them in town." His fingertips touched her hand, and it felt like they had touched a branding iron, and he jerked back. Su Qingyuan took the astragalus to the herbal medicine shop and exchanged it for ten copper coins. Instead of buying rice, she went to the blacksmith's shop and got a small hoe made—the size of a palm, just right for her frail frame. When she got home, Wang saw the hoe in her hand and started to scold her: "You stupid girl, you didn't buy rice but bought this rubbish. Are you trying to rebel against the heaven?