The Lucky Farmgirl
Chapter 541 - 530: The Plan

Chapter 541: Chapter 530: The Plan

After settling in, Mr. Zhuang didn’t rush to take them out but instead kept the three of them confined to their residence, resting while making them study.

Daji stayed behind to take care of them, whereas Zhou SiLang took some dried ginger and Ligustrum seeds out with him. Upon his return, he had bought quite a bit of rice, flour, and vegetables.

The money he used belonged to everyone in the group.

Zhou SiLang could also keep accounts, although his memory wasn’t as good as Manbao’s. As soon as he got back to their dwelling, he put down his things and went to find Manbao. After getting a pen from her, he noted down the expenses, and then said, "That’s it. Eating out is too expensive. I’ve bought rice, flour, salt, and oil, and today’s vegetables as well. Let’s go and cook."

Everyone in the study looked up at him.

Zhou SiLang met their gaze, directly skipped over Mr. Zhuang, and briefly made eye contact with the three children before decisively shifting his attention to Daji.

The two stared at each other, wide-eyed to narrowed eyes, and when Daji could not evade any longer, he finally spoke up, "I can’t."

Zhou SiLang hadn’t expected that he would not only have to buy rice and vegetables but also cook. He stared, wide-eyed, and after a moment let out a sigh, stood up, and said, "Alright, I’ll go."

Manbao was concerned, "Silang, do you know how to cook?"

"At least I’ve done it before, have you?"

Manbao shook her head. With parents, brothers, sisters-in-law, and sisters above her, and nieces and nephews below, when would she ever need to?

Therefore, she didn’t even know how to rinse rice or cook it, but she could light a fire!

So, Manbao put down her pen and said, "Silang, I’ll help light the fire."

"It’s fine, attend to your studies. Anyway, it’s not like frying or stir-frying like big sister-in-law does. I can handle it on my own."

For some reason, everyone felt their hearts lift at his words.

Zhou SiLang rolled up his sleeves and headed to the kitchen, and soon smoke began curling up from the stove.

Zhou SiLang knew how to cook meals, a skill that all the Zhou Family kids had, except for Manbao.

In their family, the older ones taught the younger ones household chores. The first chore Zhou SiLang did was light the fire. Once he got good at it, all rice cooking tasks became his.

When Zhou Wulang grew a little older, he passed the esteemed task onto him, and Zhou SiLang moved on to washing dishes, sweeping the courtyard, and feeding chickens...

They took turns until all the brothers had done it, and when Datou and the others reached six or seven years old, the chores finally fell to them.

As for cooking meals, he had done that occasionally, too.

With that, you just boil some water, cook the meat, then toss in the veggies, add some oil and salt, and when it’s cooked, isn’t it done?

After all, that’s always how his sister-in-law did it.

Zhou SiLang made two dishes, wild greens stewed with meat and cabbage stewed with meat.

He placed both pots in the middle of the table and brought out the steamed rice, calling out to everyone, "Come and have lunch."

Bai Shanbao looked at the two dishes in the middle and found it hard to make a move.

Manbao, though, was not picky. She served rice for everyone, picked up her own chopsticks, and looked to the teacher, waiting for him to start.

Mr. Zhuang picked up a chopstick-full of vegetables, and then everyone quietly began eating.

Zhou SiLang’s cooking might not have been terrible, but it certainly couldn’t be called delicious, so everyone was rather reserved with their appetite that noon.

After the meal, Bai Shanbao suggested, "We should hire a cook."

Zhou SiLang asked, "How much would hiring a cook cost?"

Everyone looked at Mr. Zhuang.

Mr. Zhuang said, "I don’t know."

Then everyone turned to Daji.

Daji thought for a moment and said, "Here in Yizhou City, it might be more expensive, maybe about five hundred wen a month?"

Zhou SiLang calculated the expense and immediately objected, "That won’t do. If we hire a cook, we’ll still have to buy rice, flour, oil, salt, etc. It would still be cheaper to eat out."

He counted on his fingers, "A dish with meat slices at most costs around twelve wen, a hundred wen a day is more than enough. If we hire a cook, we’d also have to cover her food and drink."

"Alright then, we’ll eat out from now on. There are many restaurants nearby. We can have food delivered or go and buy it ourselves," Mr. Zhuang didn’t want to compromise his own stomach either.

Zhou SiLang felt a bit regretful and asked Manbao in a hushed tone behind everyone’s back, "Is the food I cooked really not good? I thought it was rather tasty."

"Everyone thinks their own cooking tastes fine, Second Sister-in-law doesn’t think her food is that bad either."

Zhou SiLang: "...So tell me, is it my cooking that’s bad or Second Sister-in-law’s?"

After some thought, Manbao said, "They’re about the same. Second Sister-in-law’s is slightly worse."

Zhou SiLang breathed a sigh of relief, "Then it’s still edible. Really, you all burn money like it’s nothing."

But with five out of six people in favor, he could only agree.

After lunch, everyone went back to their own rooms to rest, Zhou SiLang followed Manbao to her room.

Including the main hall, there were seven rooms in total. The middle one was the hall, Mr. Zhuang occupied the one facing south, and the one facing north was turned into a study with particularly good lighting and spaciousness. Mr. Zhuang had moved four tables into it from other rooms so that everyone could study together there.

The remaining four rooms on the east and west sides were occupied, one per child, and Zhou SiLang shared one with Daji.

Carrying a cloth bag into Manbao’s room, Zhou SiLang shook it and cheerfully asked, "Guess what’s inside?"

"Copper coins, I heard them jingling," Manbao replied as she reached out and took the bag, opened it, and asked with surprise, "Did you get this from selling the herbs?"

"Correct, I sold the Ligustrum seeds and dried ginger I took with me. But the pharmacy doesn’t like settling accounts with silver, so they gave all copper coins." Zhou SiLang said, "I figured we’d be buying small things upon going out, and we’d use more copper coins, so I took them."

"Did they offer a good price?"

"The Ligustrum seeds were three wen more per jin than what Manager Zheng currently offers, and the dried ginger was two wen more," Zhou SiLang said. "Don’t look at it as just a few more wen per jin; these two things we have in abundance at home, especially since we planted over forty more Ligustrum trees last spring. By next autumn and winter, these trees will also bear Ligustrum seeds.

Last spring, they also cut over thirty branches from the Ligustrum trees and planted them, estimating that about twenty will survive...

So, the Ligustrum seeds from our home will only become more plentiful. One jin being three wen more expensive here in Yizhou compared to Luojiang County, imagine how much more money that would make per cartload?

The small gains add up, don’t they?

And not to mention the dried ginger. This year we even convinced Father to use the two plots of land at Xiaoling for ginger planting.

The plots yield little when growing beans, but their sandy soil is just right for ginger.

So now we have fresh ginger, and the existing ginger plots at home can be used for growing mature ginger, which, once dried and sold to pharmacies, fetches an even higher price than Ligustrum seeds."

Zhou SiLang took all the copper coins out of the bag and handed them to Manbao, "Keep track of this in the accounts. You hold on to this money, and when we get home, you can settle it with our parents."

Manbao then pocketed the money. After all, when it comes to hiding money safely and efficiently, who could be better than her?