Chapter 58 - 58: Earning Money Is Easy
They had some leftover bricks from building the house last winter, which were enough to build a stove.
Qiao Changshun prepared to start work while Qiao Xiaomai placed the ten chicks they had bought in the chicken coop.
In order to spend all their silver and extinguish the Sun family’s hopes, Zhuang Luhe had not only built a chicken coop, but also a pigsty, and bought chicks and piglets.
However, Qiao Changshun broke his leg, and before the chicks and piglets could grow, they had to sell them all, leaving only empty nests.
After putting the chicks in the coop, Qiao Xiaomai took out a ceramic pot and started boiling soybean pulp.
She heard that raw soybean pulp should not be directly fed to chickens. Despite being unsure, she took precautions and decided to boil it before feeding.
“You have to cook it first?” Qiao Changshun was a little surprised.
“Hmm, we’ve never done it before, so let’s boil it first,” said Qiao Xiaomai.
Qiao Changshun didn’t say anything, but he was already regretting buying the chicks.
Boiling the soybean pulp would require firewood, which was a hassle.
With his lame leg, he couldn’t go up the mountain to pick up firewood and had to rely on Qiao Xiaomai.
With that thought in mind, Qiao Changshun silently carried on with his work, trying his best to lighten Qiao Xiaomai’s burden.
Qiao Xiaomai was unaware of Qiao Changshun’s thoughts. She asked Qiao Dami to boil the soybean pulp while she went into the kitchen to cook lunch.
They had been eating steamed buns and pancakes for the past few days, and she felt like having some noodles.
She scooped out some flour from the jar, kneaded it into dough, rolled it into noodles, cut it into thin strands, and then called Qiao Dami in to start the fire.
After finishing a delicious bowl of noodles, Qiao Dami patted her stomach and exclaimed, “That was really tasty.”
Qiao Xiaomai nodded in agreement. She had made soup noodles and added a few eggs.
Whether it was the eggs or the chewy noodles, the taste was absolutely delicious.
However, making noodles here was too much of a hassle without a noodle machine.
After lunch, Qiao Changshun continued building the stove while Qiao Xiaomai washed a few ceramic pots and a bathing tub.
Thankfully, they had a well at home, otherwise carrying water would have been a big issue.
Qiao Dami picked up a broken ceramic pot and said, “Sister, 1 want to pick snails. 1 want to eat Brewed Snail.”
Despite having had plenty of good food lately, he could not forget that night’s Brewed Snail!
The fragrance was simply irresistible.
“Let’s go together tomorrow,” Qiao Xiaomai wouldn’t let him go alone. “We might also catch some small fish while we’re at it.”
Since they didn’t have any farmland now and only needed to make tofu each day, she could afford to spend some time with Qiao Dami.
“Let’s go cut some grass later to feed the donkey,” she outlined her plans.
Qiao Dami agreed, “Then let’s go cut some grass!”
Qiao Xiaomai gave him a pleased look and continued her work.
She placed the ceramic pots and bathing tub under the sun to dry, took a hemp bag, put on a carrying basket, and went to cut grass at the foot of the mountain with Qiao Dami.
The day passed by like this. In the evening, she boiled a large pot of hot water and took a hot bath.
By this time, Qiao Changshun and Qiao Dami were already asleep, so she comfortably took the bathing tub full of water and poured it out in the courtyard.
It was good to be strong!
Before going to bed, she set an alarm on her phone to ensure she woke up early.
With the alarm, she woke up quite early and made thirty taels of tofu and two pots of tofu pudding with Qiao Changshun.
When pouring the tofu pudding into the ceramic pots, she specially measured it with a bowl. One pot held twenty-six bowls.
Each bowl cost ten copper coins, which made two hundred and sixty coins for twenty-six bowls. So, two pots of tofu pudding amounted to five hundred and twenty coins, plus three hundred for the tofu, making a total of eight hundred and twenty coins.
Seeing eight hundred and twenty copper coins stacked together, Qiao Changshun had a complex expression on his face.
He wondered, was making money always this easy…