Transmigrated as a Stepmother: Time to Bring the Family to Prosper!-Chapter 103 - 102: Draining Water to Catch Fish

Chapter 103: Chapter 102: Draining Water to Catch Fish
Liu Ji knew that Qin Yao was going to bring home silver today, so he ran to the village entrance early in the morning, specifically waiting for someone heading to the town to buy meat.
There were ribs and pork belly with the perfect balance of fat and lean meat. They made several fragrant meat dishes that night, which tempted Da Lang and the others to linger at the kitchen door, uninterested in practicing their calligraphy.
As soon as Qin Yao entered the house, she smelled the enticing aroma of the meat, and her mood lifted significantly.
Liu Ji looked over from the kitchen, "Wife, you’re back!"
"The last dish is almost done. Once you freshen up, we can have dinner."
Qin Yao curiously peered into the main room, "Quite a spread today, so many dishes."
On the dining table, there was a pot of clear stewed red date yam ribs, a plate of green peppers stir-fried with pork belly, a dish of refreshing pickled radish, and a Chinese cabbage tofu soup cooking in the kitchen.
They didn’t eat this well even during the New Year celebration. Qin Yao clicked her tongue twice, "Looks like the water mill’s business has been quite good recently."
Second Lang knew about this and immediately raised his hand to say: "Mother, in the past half-month, we’ve been getting ten copper coins every day. Sometimes, we’d even find eggs, green vegetables, or a bowl of freshly ground flour."
Da Lang also chimed in: "Now, everyone prefers not to go to the village’s stone mill and instead comes to our water mill, saying that it’s more convenient."
Calculating this, a monthly income of 300 coins indeed allows Liu Ji to make so many meat dishes, as, after all, Qin Yao didn’t take this money and let him use it entirely as living expenses.
However, the fact that the meals at home are getting increasingly better is reason enough not to reclaim any extra money.
Liu Ji had already dished out the cabbage tofu soup and, seeing that Qin Yao wasn’t demanding any pocket money collection, his smile became two shades more genuine, "Wife, dinner is ready."
Qin Yao urged her four siblings to wash their hands, then together went to the kitchen to get bowls and chopsticks. Each filled a bowl with white rice, gathered around the table, and waited for her to make the first move, before diving in.
It was all meat, and it was all prepared very well. The family savored every bite, unwilling to break the moment with conversation.
It was only after they were seventy to eighty percent full that their pace of eating slowed down.
By now, most of the dishes on the table were nearly finished.
Liu Ji, quick-handed, grabbed the last bit of cabbage tofu soup, poured it into his bowl, then added two pickled radishes, mixed it up— crispy, tangy, a bit spicy, and very appetizing.
Having eaten to satisfaction, his mood improved, and Qin Yao’s lips maintained a light smile throughout.
Liu Ji finished the last of the broth over his rice, set down his bowl and chopsticks, and wiped his mouth, curiously asking:
"Wife, is the water mill in Lower River Village finished?"
Qin Yao nodded, knowing what he wanted to ask, she directly informed him, "Your tuition fees for the year are covered. After finishing copying the books by the end of the month, you can return to the school in the county town in early July."
Liu Ji converted the tuition into a concrete amount in his mind, approximately five taels of silver, and she earned it in less than half a month!
Although the money wasn’t in his hands, it would still be spent on him, which made him burst into laughter, "Wife, having you as part of this family is truly a blessing for us."
Qin Yao chuckled softly, telling him to tone down the flattery, "How much of the book copying is done?"
"Almost done, just two more books with dense text; I’ll finish by the end of the month," Liu Ji confidently replied.
Thinking about the upcoming academy life made him feel excited.
Not having to work in the fields and being able to stay in the county town for a long time, gathering old friends for fun and leisure— how exciting that would be!
Seeing his hopeful expression, Qin Yao’s eyes darkened slightly.
In June, the rain comes quickly; at night it suddenly started raining heavily, the mountain breeze was cool, and the heat was entirely extinguished by the rain, a sneeze of cold catching came from the children’s room.
Qin Yao quickly got up and went to the next room, pushing open the door to take out the thin quilt from the wooden box for them, reminding the four to cover their bellies and not to sleep with their clothes open.
With undeveloped medical care, minor ailments could be treated with some medicine from the village barefoot doctor, but if it became severe, one could only rely on fate.
Sanlang and Si Niang slept soundly, wearing only small tummy covers, and the noise in the house couldn’t wake them, but they knew cold, and as soon as the quilt was on, they immediately rolled in, wrapping themselves up, showing just half of their puffy little faces.
Qin Yao, feeling a bit mischievous, pinched them, and the little ones mumbled, smacked their small lips, and fell back to sleep.
"Boom!" A peal of thunder rolled over the rooftop, and the rain intensified.
Qin Yao glanced down and saw that the two little ones hadn’t moved at all.
She truly envied their quality of sleep.
She gestured to Da Lang and Second Lang sleeping on the top bunk to keep sleeping, and Qin Yao closed the windows and returned to her room, taking quite a while to fall asleep.
She kept worrying whether the heavy rain would cause leaks, periodically opening her eyes to check the rooftop beams, ensuring the tiles were tightly covered, finally falling asleep to the pitter-patter of the raindrops.
Waking up in the morning, the rain had lessened significantly, but it was still coming down.
With this weather, morning exercise wasn’t possible, and Da Lang and Second Lang were unusually able to enjoy sleeping in.
Listening to the distant sighs of farmers from the fields below the mountain, Qin Yao mentioned it to Liu Ji, who was preparing breakfast in the kitchen, then donned a raincoat, wore a bamboo hat, and carried a hoe to the fields.
The mud on the road had been turned into a small stream by last night’s heavy rain, and luckily Qin Yao was wearing straw sandals; otherwise, her shoes would have been soaked through.
The water level in the river had risen by about twenty centimeters, and the banks of the fields close to the river had been destroyed by the river water, which flooded the rice paddies, damaging a small part of the rice.
Qin Yao couldn’t help but sigh with the farmers, then rolled up her pants, moved stones and mud to reinforce the banks, and straightened the fallen rice.
A few stalks were crushed, and seeing the ravished rice flowers— each meant to yield grains— she felt a pang of heartache.
A field with too much water is no good; as soon as the rain started to lessen, nearly all the villagers came out to the fields to clear the ditches, cutting openings in the banks to release the water.
Those who had fields near the river or in low-lying areas saw the muddy water rushing into their fields and cursed in anger.
But they had no other solutions, the disadvantages of low-lying areas were something they just had to accept, so they piled the banks higher near the water channels.
Following suit, Qin Yao reinforced her banks near the water channels. Out of nowhere, a farmer’s field carp was swept down the channel.
Her sharp eyes and quick hands caught a plump carp.
This made those in the low-lying areas happy, while those on higher ground were shouting in urgency: "My carp, my carp!"
"I don’t care whose it is, if it lands in my field, it’s mine!" everyone laughed.
Qin Yao joined in the laughter, and seeing another fish being swept down quickly, she knocked out the fish in her hand against the bank and reached to grab the oncoming carp.
The village children, hearing the commotion, swarmed in, making it impossible to distinguish whose was whose; they just slung the baskets on their backs, blocked the middle of the channel, and stuffed the fish they caught into their own baskets.
Da Lang and Second Lang had a remarkable catch, their two small bamboo baskets filled to the brim.
Sanlang and Si Niang didn’t dare to enter the deeper channels, so they stood on the banks cheering their brothers on. The rice paddies were full of the children’s joyful shouts.