lcionline Chapter 39 A Wise Mother
Chapter 39 A Wise Mother
Liu was a wise woman. Perhaps she was illiterate and had never been to school, but she was able to accurately grasp her children’s thoughts from their daily conversations and provide timely guidance when problems arose.
Next, Xia Yu and Chang Yun both adjusted their mindsets. One dug a hole, and Xia Yu, imitating her mother, carefully and diligently placed the watermelon seedlings into each hole, then carefully covered them with soil. She thought that while the space could help their family prosper, they still needed to take things one step at a time. They couldn't rely on their space for farming their whole lives. Once they bought more land, she was determined to get a watermelon field and grow watermelons properly. If this crop could be popularized in this era, it would be a good thing for ordinary people. Then, in suitable fields or family gardens, seeds could be sown and watermelons could grow, allowing every household to enjoy this fruit in the summer. However, this year, their family still needed to earn that money.
Having thought all this through, Xia Yu looked at the planted rice seedlings and asked Liu Shi, "Mother, should we sprinkle some water from the space well now?"
"Don't sow yet. Let's wait for your father to come back tonight and see if we can buy an oxcart. Also, let's try planting these seedlings that were soaked in the space well water in normal soil and see if they can survive." As if remembering something, he asked his daughter, "Xiaxia, have we used up all the seeds we bought?"
"No, I've only used a little bit. I still have plenty left."
"Take out some more, let's try planting them directly in the ground without soaking them in the well water from the space to see if they can sprout," Liu instructed her daughter.
Xia Yu took out the bag of watermelon seeds from her spatial storage and gave fifty seeds to Liu Shi. "Mother, this land was sprinkled with spatial water before, so it might still be effective. Why don't we try planting these seeds in the wheat field?"
"You're right, but isn't it too late to plant it now? Didn't you say the watermelon would be ready to eat when the wheat is harvested? That's only two months away."
"I don't know either, Mother. How about we plant a small amount and try it? What if it's not the right season? Wouldn't that be a waste?"
"Mom, Xiaxia, how about we use ordinary well water to raise seedlings first, just like we planted them before? Once the seedlings have grown, we can transplant them into the field," Changyun said, also thinking of a solution.
“Your brother has a point. How about we plant half of these fifty seeds directly in the field and use the other half to grow seedlings with ordinary well water at home?”
"it is good"
"Okay," the brother and sister said in unison, both feeling that this method was very safe.
Without further ado, Liu put the newly made hats on her daughter and herself to protect their faces from the sun. The boys, having spent so much time climbing trees and wading in rivers, were already tanned and didn't really care whether they wore hats or not. Grabbing a few small shovels and a water bag for each of them, they headed out to their fields.
This was Xia Yu's first time doing farm work since arriving here. If her mother and brother hadn't been there, she wouldn't have been able to find her family's fields at all. Looking into the distance, all she could see were the same wheat fields. They stopped at one end of the field. Liu pointed to the distance and told her daughter which fields belonged to them: "Back then, because of your health, your grandfather separated us. When he gave us the land, he chose large plots that were all together. From there to there, it's all our land. Further over is the old house's land. The old house isn't on this plot; there's another large plot on the east slope. But most of that land was sold off by your grandfather; he only collects rent."
"Mother, why are people still digging for land? Doesn't every family have land?" Xia Yu was a little confused about this.
"What a silly girl. Some families have a lot of people but little land. They don't have enough food to eat every year, and they can't afford to buy land. So they end up taking other people's land."
"Then how come our family has so much land? Did my grandfather buy it all?" Changyun asked from the side. Xia Yu also wanted to know. The original owner of this body had no memory of this. She only knew that her family owned a lot of land, and the old house also had a lot of land, but she really didn't know how they got it.
"Let's get to work first. I'll tell you about this later," Liu said to her two children. It wasn't even 9 a.m. yet, and it would get hot if they waited any longer.
Liu selected a plot of land, glanced at it a few times, and silently marked it in her mind. She planted watermelon seeds in the gap between the two rows of wheat fields. This was much easier to plant than the seedlings from the morning; all she had to do was dig a hole and cover it with soil. However, watering was still necessary. She dared not use her daughter's spatial water, and besides, these seeds were originally for experimentation. She planned to bring a bucket to the field tomorrow and irrigate them with ordinary river water.
On the way back, Liu slowly told her two children about the family situation. Of course, she didn't go into great detail, but she knew the general outline.
According to her account, Xia Yu learned about her family's ancestral history and why her grandfather had gone to such lengths to support her fourth uncle's education. She seemed to see that gifted scholar from a humble background who, through his knowledge and intellect, became the emperor's most trusted advisor and single-handedly led his family to the ranks of the nobility. But fate was cruel; her brilliant great-great-grandfather contracted a strange illness at the prime of his life and died. From then on, no one in the family could uphold its honor, and the newly established aristocratic family was squeezed out of the capital's aristocratic circles before it could even shine. It was truly remarkable that her grandfather's generation still retained nearly a hundred acres of ancestral land. So Xia Yu understood that the family's land was not earned by her grandfather, but inherited from their ancestors, and that's how much remained in this generation. However, these generations had dedicated themselves to cultivating scholars, hoping that another person as brilliant as their great-great-grandfather could emerge from the family. Unfortunately, despite spending a lot of money on education, the family never produced another scholar who passed the imperial examinations.
After hearing about her ancestors' history, Xia Yu couldn't help but sigh, and a dark thought crept into her mind: her great-great-grandfather might have been murdered. However, the past cannot be changed, and that was just her own thought; whether it was true or not had no impact on their current lives. Their most important task right now was to sell the watermelons and earn money so they could have the opportunity to send her brother to school.