Chapter 178: Chapter 174: Snatching the Child (Seeking Monthly Tickets, Recommendation Tickets)_1

Translator: 549690339

“What a blockhead!”

Wang Erlang’s Aunt Wang was so angry she wanted to hit him with a wok spatula. “Our Yingbao is already ten years old, soon she’ll start going on matchmaking visits, if you don’t get moving, a good daughter-in-law will become someone else’s.”

“Mother, you need to wake up. You know our family situation. What do we have to marry into the Jiang Family with?”

Wang Erlang didn’t want to argue with his mother over pointless matters. He picked up a sizzling hot pancake and turned it from hand to hand to cool it down, eating it while leaving the kitchen.

Instead of dreaming unrealistic dreams like his mother, it’s better to plant more JinEr mushrooms to make money. Once he earned a lot of money, who wouldn’t want to marry him?

There was no shortage of people with the same mindset as Auntie Wang, these days the Jiang Family’s entrance was almost ruined by all the foot traffic.

Some were matchmaking for Jiang Cheng and Jiang Quan, some found Jiang Erlang directly, trying to get Yingbao married.

Some even more outrageous ones, were trying to betroth little four-year-old Jiang Jie and Jiang Wu.

Chunniang was speechless, gently refusing the processions of relatives.

For some reason, no one mentioned Yingbao.

Recently, Yingbao was very busy, studying medicine on one side and practicing martial arts on the other. She also had to accompany her master to the wilderness to identify medicinal herbs.

They could find many medicinal herbs in the countryside, such as Ji, Ban Zhi Lian, Bei Chai Hu, Bo He, Ban Xia, Ban Lan Geng, Bai Tou Weng, etc.

Each one had different medicinal uses. Such as Ji can stop bleeding and reduce inflammation, Chaihu and Banlangen can treat colds, Baitouweng can treat women’s postpartum blood deficiency diarrhea, and Cat ‘s claw grass can treat throat swelling and pain.

After identifying the herbs, Yingbao found that the ordinary wild plants she saw normally were all medicine.

Including some fruits, flowers, and trees, each had its unique health benefits.

But Yingbao had given up using the shovel to dig herbs, now she only carefully recorded the names of the wild weeds.

Combining this with the medicinal formulas she memorized before, she felt like she had entered a natural pharmacy.

Every weed in the wild could be medicine, as well as every wild vegetable. In the future, if they needed medicine, they could obtain it themselves directly, without having to go to the pharmacy to buy it.

“Eh? Look at that hen!” Yingbao’s fellow student pointed at something.

Yingbao looked up and saw their home’s Reeve’s Pheasant fighting with a wild duck. The feathers on its neck were standing on end.

The wild duck with its flatter beak was no match for the sharp-beaked and fat chicken, but it didn’t run, it just circled the Reeve’s Pheasant, quacking angrily.

Underneath the pheasant, there were some fluffy little ducks, as many as eight.

It turned out that the Reeve’s Pheasant had stolen the wild duck’s chicks and was even kind enough to gently feed them bugs.

The little ducks were very attached to it; wherever the Reeve’s Pheasant went, there they followed.

The mother duck wasn’t willing to let her offspring be taken and repeatedly tried to snatch them back.

Unfortunately, the ducklings didn’t want to follow the mother duck and stayed close to their adoptive Reeve’s Pheasant mother.

Everyone was stunned, including Yingbao.

This was one domineering hen.

Stealing the wild duck’s offspring and then bringing them home.

The mother duck followed them all the way to the entrance of the Jiang family, watching as her children were taken inside by the damned fat chicken. It quacked angrily outside before finally flying away unwillingly.

Chunniang was quite happy to see their Reeve’s Pheasant bring back a group of little ducks, and she immediately grabbed a handful of millet to feed them.

From then on, the Jiang family had a few more little ducks.

In mid-April, the fruit in the Jiang’s orchard gradually ripened.

Apricots and peaches filled the branches, their yellow and tender skins making your mouth water.

Jiang Quan was exceptionally happy about this.

After getting approval from his little cousin, he picked a few baskets of apricots and peaches to sell at the market, but it didn’t go as expected.

After the disaster, the families in Chuanhe Town were living quite frugally, and not many were willing to spend money on snacks.

Yes, in the eyes of the villagers, these fruits are nothing but trivial snacks that do not fill their stomachs, and only pregnant women and children would eat them.

Most villagers would rather spend two coins to purchase a black bread roll and not even spend a coin to buy two apricots to try.

This discouraged Jiang Quan.

Yingbao plucked an apricot and took a bite. It was quite sweet and slightly sour, tastier than last year’s apricots.

The peaches were also not bad, big and sweet, with a strong peach flavor. They were much tastier than last year’s peaches.

Could this be the contribution of the Pupil Spring?

Some time ago, she used the Pupil Spring to irrigate all the plants in their home, including the pepper and grape seedlings.

Those plants that were watered with spring water grew rapidly, to the point where she dared not water them anymore.

Later on, from time to time, she would water the vegetables because the Jiang family had many members. In addition, Zhang Meng and Xu Kun, her two martial arts teachers, also had big appetites, hence the vegetables were consumed quickly and needed to be quickly harvested.

The few apple trees Yingbao planted in the brown soil grew even faster and they were now more than three meters tall and seemed to still be growing.

However, those apple trees had not bloomed or born fruit but rather expanded their branches and leaves upwards. It was predicted that in a matter of days, they could reach the cave’s roof.

The melons, which were planted at the same time, had already borne ripe fruits that were very sweet and delicious.

Yingbao took away some melons under the pretext of the vegetable garden and distributed them among her family and her master.

Her teacher Xiu Zhenniang was extremely fond of them and sighed that her son and husband missed out on this delicacy.

Elder sister Wen also liked it very much, but she was reserved and would not express it openly.

“So many fruits can’t be sold or eaten all, alas, it’s such a waste.” Jiang Quan sighed while looking at the fruit trees.

Yingbao didn’t care, “If they can’t be eaten up, they can be made into dried fruit. Aunt Er said to me yesterday that apricots make the best dried fruit.”

Jiang Quan’s eyes lit up, “Can they really be made into dried fruit?”

“Yes, why don’t you ask Aunt Er about it? Once we sell the dried fruit and make money, we three can split it equally.”

Yingbao plucked another peach and took a bite. It was sweet and delicious.

It’s unbelievable that these delicious fruits aren’t bought by anyone.

Jiang Quan went to find Aunt Yanru. “Second Aunt, Yingbao said that you can make dried fruit. Is it true?”

Yanru nodded, “It’s not difficult to make dried fruit, but it uses a lot of sugar. At least two pounds of sugar need to be used for every ten pounds of apricots.”

“Oh? That much.” Jiang Quan scratched his head. This is problematic.

As everyone knows, sugar is quite expensive, even more so than salt.

The cheapest now is brown sugar, but brown sugar isn’t very sweet anyway. It’s not as sweet as granulated sugar and frosting. Jiang Quan has tasted candied fruits, and those are awfully sweet—not something made with brown sugar.

Frosting costs sixty coins a pound. If two pounds of frosting are used for every ten pounds of apricots, the dried fruit produced and dried would probably not even weigh a pound.

This is very unprofitable.

Jiang Quan left dispiritedly.

He found his younger cousin again and complained, “It’s not profitable. Second Aunt said that at least two pounds of frosting should be used for every ten pounds of apricots, otherwise it won’t taste good. Two pounds of frosting would cost more than a hundred coins, and in the end, it will only dry to a pound of apricot fruit. How can we make money like this?”

Yingbao asked, “How much does a pound of dried apricots sell for in the market?”

Jiang Quan blinked his eyes, thought for a while, and said, “I have never bought dried apricots, but I have bought candied fruit. Six candied fruits in one portion cost fifteen coins.”

Six candied jujubes should at least weigh two ounces, that is to say, two ounces of candied fruit cost fifteen coins, so a pound of candied fruit would be one hundred and twenty coins.

So one pound of dried fruit would cost a hundred or so coins, not even counting the cost of the apricots.

However you look at it, this seems like a losing business.

“The candied fruit are weighed with the pit included, so undoubtedly the weight is taken into account. The dried apricots don’t have pits, so the price is naturally higher,” said Yingbao. “Why don’t we try making a small amount first to see how it goes? If it doesn’t work, we can just eat them ourselves.”

Jiang Quan reluctantly agreed, “All right, let’s try it first.”