Transmigrated Farmgirl's Scheme to Get Rich - Chapter 14
Face and a Full Meal
The day was getting so hot that even the ducklings were hiding under the shade of the trees, pecking at grass seeds as they cooled off.
Mo Ling saw that Mo Yan’s face was bright red due to the heat, and was afraid she’d get heatstroke so she took her home. When they arrived home, Mrs. Liang had already sorted and cleaned the herbs Mo Ling had brought back earlier. The dandelions and muskrat root were drying on the courtyard floor while the chinese foxgloves were still in Mo Ling’s backpack.
The Hundred Herbs Compendium said that the herbs were unsuitable to be exposed to the sun and should be dried in the shade, so the three of them carried the herbs under the tree in the courtyard together. They poured out the newly gathered herbs, sorted them, and cleaned them. They were so busy they forgot to make lunch. It was only when Mo Feng returned home from school that Mrs. Liang remembered she hadn’t cooked lunch yet, so she hurriedly got up and went to the kitchen.
Mo Feng frowned and complained, “Why isn’t lunch ready yet!”
Mrs. Liang was busy getting firewood to light the fire when she replied, “I was busy and I forgot. If you’re hungry, go eat some of the dry food first.”
Mo Feng went to see what his sisters were doing and kicked the ground impatiently, “What are you doing with these weeds? It’s not like you can eat them!”
Mo Ling slapped him on the calf, “It’s not food, but it can be sold for food. Do you understand? Esteemed ‘head of the household’?”
The ‘lead of the household’ was only thinking about the food he could eat at that point in time, and had never cared about where it came from before.
At the dinner table, Mo Ling asked about Mrs. Liu working for the Lu family, and Mrs. Liang bristled, “Sir Lu asked me to work for them before, but being the domestic servant of a military family was too embarrassing, so I refused.”
“It’s too embarrassing? He pays her five hundred dollars a month! That’s six thousand dollars every year!”
Mrs. Liang stopped eating and stared at Mo Ling, “That much, just for some domestic work?”
Mo Ling raised her brows and nodded at Mrs. Liang, “Yes! Aunt Zhang brings home thrice as much money as father every year.”
Mrs. Liang froze for a moment before saying, “Forget it! Let’s just eat!”
She was clearly regretting not taking the job, but was unwilling to admit it!
Mo Yan dipped her chopsticks into the sauce and licked it, “Mother, your sauce tastes really good. Can Mrs. Liu make this kind of sauce too?”
Mo Ling and Mrs. Liang replied at the same time, “Of course not.”
“Then her cooking must not be as good as yours either!”
Mrs. Liang raised her head proudly, “Of course!”
“Mother, make a meal and then ask Lu Junming to come over!”
Mo Ling nodded towards Mrs. Liang, “That makes sense!”
The main reason Sir Lu had hired someone to help with the domestic work was to serve his grandson. If Lu Junming said he wanted a specific person to cook for him, why wouldn’t Sir Lu comply with his wishes?
When he heard that they were going to ask Lu Junming to come over for a meal, Mo Feng vehemently disagreed. The swelling on his cheeks after being beaten up by Lu Junming hadn’t completely disappeared yet!
“No way, if there’s good food we should eat it ourselves, why would we call him over!”
Mrs. Liang smiled and looked at her son, “It’s six thousand dollars a year! Apart from paying your school tuition, we could also afford to have meat occasionally.”
Mo Feng shut up when he heard the word ‘meat’. He hadn’t eaten meat in a long time, and was willing to be beaten up again if that meant he could have some.
“But will he accept our invitation?” Mrs. Liang felt unconfident about this.
Mo Yan nodded, “If I’m the one inviting him, he will.”
“Then say it’s to make amends to him!” Compared to having a full meal, having face was worthless! Even Mrs. Liang understood this ideology.
“Let’s buy some meat and vegetables from the market tomorrow and invite him for dinner!”
The sisters agreed and got up to wash the dishes, while Mo Feng rolled his eyes before returning to his room.
It was so hot in the afternoon that everyone in the village took a nap. Mo Yan also took a nap because she was tired and woke up feeling refreshed. Hard labour really is better than any sleeping pill.
Even the chickens knew it was hot outside, so they were crouching under the south courtyard wall, scooping up dirt and spreading it over their bodies to ward off the heat.
Mo Yan was worried the chickens would cause damage to the property fetched the book that Mr. Cao had given her and sat under the tree in the courtyard to watch after them while she also continued reading it.
She looked carefully through the pages and found that everyday herbs and spices such as onion, ginger, and garlic all had medicinal properties. Even different types of grains could be used to regulate the body if used properly.
If she had a nice father who was a doctor, she definitely would have studied medicine, but Cao Zhang had decided to ignore this good fortune. Mo Yan had studied history, so she knew that most of the officials of this era were members of important families. A peasant passing the imperial examination and becoming an official was harder than ascending to the heavens.
It was evening before she knew it, and Mo Yan wanted to gather a few more herbs. Her sister and Mrs. Liang couldn’t go with her because they had to fertilise the crops.
Second grandmother was fetching water at the well again. She thought Mo Yan was digging for wild vegetables and asked, “Yan’er, why are you digging up wild vegetables?”
Mo Yan dropped her basket, ran to her second grandmother’s side and told her about the medicinal herbs. She replied, “I can help with this. Just tell me which ones you need and I’ll dig them up for you.”
“Aren’t you afraid that my other grandmother will find out?”
Second grandmother smiled and said, “If I don’t tell her and you don’t tell her, she’ll never find out, now will she?”
She put her water jar next to the well and followed Mo Yan.
Mo Yan taught her how to harvest the herbs, “The dandelions should be dug up whole with the roots, we just need the stem of the chinese foxgloves but they can’t be broken, the muskrat root…”
The two kept searching when a plant with large leaves which was about two feet tall suddenly came into view. Mo Yan’s eyes brightened, “This is a mandrake, also known as a datura. It’s a high-quality medicinal herb!”
Unfortunately, there was only one mandrake plant and it only had a few flowers. Mo Yan lingered around it and was unwilling to walk away, If only there were more mandrakes here!
She straightened up, and the green wheat saplings of the wheat fields entered her view. Why not grow medicinal herbs in the fields! The two meagre acres of land they had wouldn’t grow much food, but if she could use them to grow medicinal herbs instead, they would be worth much more than wheat.
However, she couldn’t decide this by herself. She would need Mrs. Liang’s consent and she’d also have to carefully consider which medicinal herbs to grow.
Lu Junming saw Mo Yan at the pond from afar and ran all the way over, “Yan’er, are you here to gather medicinal herbs again? Let me help you!”
Mo Yan raised her hand to stop him, “There’s no need, you don’t know how to do this. But, I do have something to ask of you.”
“What is it?”
“Come to my house for dinner tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“My mother wants to apologise for what happened two days ago.”
“That’s not necessary!”
“Just come over, ok?”
Lu Junming was a bit puzzled, but he agreed, “Alright, then I’ll come over tomorrow.”
It was almost dark, so Mo Yan, chasing the ducklings with a basket and second grandma, holding her water jar, went home together.
When they got home, Mo Ling was cooking in the kitchen and Mrs. Liang was shaking a straw basket. It was filled with soybeans she had cooked in the morning and there was white flour on top of them.
After the white flour was evenly distributed, she used a sieve to add wheat bran to the basket, and mixed it with the beans and white flour.
“What’s this for?” Mo Yan asked in confusion.
“I’m making soybean paste. The wheat bran makes the beans ferment faster.” [1]
So this was how soybean paste was made!
Mo Yan took advantage of the remaining rays of sunlight to sort the herbs in the basket. The herbs that had been drying before were gathered and covered with a tarp to prevent them from becoming wet by the morning dew.
Author’s note: My readers may be wondering why every single household has a pagoda tree. It’s because the villagers like pagoda trees. Pagoda trees grow slowly, have glossy bark, their flowers have a sweet scent, can provide shade, look nice, and rarely get infested by insects. Additionally, there’s a folk saying, “If you have a pagoda tree in your family, then fortune will come your way.”
PS: Edited Oct 20th, 2023, to try and get the rest of the story up to the current standards. This includes using the current terms and polishing up the translation. I think the author just likes pagoda trees. Also, this is the only author’s note which has currently shown up within the story (180+ chapters of translation and none others have popped up as far as I remember).
PPS: I accidentally republished this chapter instead of editing it, so if you saw two versions…sorry about that. Should be fixed now.
[1] Yet another thing I think I accidentally renamed in future chapters.