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The Green Lotus Peasant Girl

Chapters List

Chapter 107: Herbs

Despite speaking for so long to so many people, Zhao Tianshou only had one sentence - "If there is no grain, the land can be taken to plant."

However, since getting married all these years, Qian Shi had never worked hard and what she did in the countryside was just to kill time. Unfortunately, there was no one to help Zhao Tianfu to work on his land. Even though the people in the village were not wealthy, there were many stubborn people who refused to help.

Qian Shi looked around with tearful eyes, but all she saw in the people's faces were expressions of amusement. Her tears began to fall even more fiercely and she asked, "Can you guys help us?"

Who would be willing to help the son of a thief?

Li Qinghe didn't care about the child's background, but she didn't like Qian Shi and wouldn't help her.

Actually, she was the one who wanted to raise the child. Perhaps the child's mother abandoned him after seeing what she wanted.

Besides, no one really saw the hardships of the two, the family's land was still there, she could continue to cultivate the Zhao family's land, at most it would be a bit harder this year, but if they worked hard, they would not starve to death next year.

Moreover, no one could see what hardship those two had. The land of the Qian family was still there and the Zhao family's land could be continued to be planted. At worst, they would suffer this year, but with hard work, they would not starve to death next year.

Even though they didn't have any grain at all now, they only went to the land to grow vegetables to eat, but as a grown-up and the child, a little bit of anything would do, they would definitely not starve to death.

So, no one really paid attention to her tears.

Li Qinghe had seen her cry too much, and was a bit impatient. She stretched out her hand to pull Mother Zhou, "Mother, I've picked some mushrooms, let's go home and sort them out."

Mother Zhou turned around and pulled Zhang Haiyao before leaving.

Recently, Mother Zhou said that she was living here and was very busy, so Zhang Haiyao even helped her with the cooking. In fact, during the days that Mother Zhou was living there, she didn't even start a fire.

When they arrived in the courtyard, Li Qinghe poured the mushrooms on the ground and the three adults and two children squatted down to organize them and took them to wash. Mother Zhou kept nagging them to have children.

Though Zhang Haiyao liked to take advantage of the situation and was not forgiving with her words, her daughter was very well-cared for. Her clothes were made of fine fabric and washed cleanly, with a few small flowers embroidered on the hem and cuff, which looked quite elegant.

Of course, if one rolls on the ground twice, it's still the same silly cat. Today, Xiyu also ran to the woods to roll around all day, and he got quite dirty. The two squatted and played together. Not long after, Xi Wei's body was almost the same.

Zhang Haiyao, upon seeing this, hurriedly picked up the child and went inside to change clothes. She occasionally could be heard saying words such as "Girls must keep their clothes clean and not roll around on the ground".

Mother Zhou divided the mushrooms in half and gave them to her, saying "Send some to your father".

"Sure," Li Qinghe picked up the basket and took Xiyu out with her. Zhang Haiyao just happened to see her leave and called out quickly, "Aren't you going to eat the mushrooms you picked?"

"No," Li Qinghe headed off towards Li's house. Now that Zhang Haiyao and Mei’s family had a fight, they weren't as unfriendly as before and got along well with her and Qingmiao.

When she reached Li's doorstep, she saw that Qian was crying at the doorstep. Li Qinghe ignored her and opened the door and went in. Not only did she not invite her in, she also slammed the door shut.

Mrs. Liu kept looking out of the room and upon seeing her, ran out, "Qinghe is back?"

"Here are some mushrooms," Li Qinghe placed the mushrooms on the table as Li Fu also came out. He was quite happy, "Are you back?"

He then bent down to talk to his grandson without another word.

Mrs. Liu lowered her voice, "It’s so annoying. She kept knocking on the door outside. Your father wouldn't come out. To be honest, I don't want her to come in either."

Seeing that she still hadn't left, if she came and cried here three times a week, Li Fu would soften and if it spread, it would be bad. She suggested, "Let's get a dog."

Liu's eyes lit up, "There is a big one in the mountains. I'll have him bring it over later."

Li Qinghe chuckled, "Doesn’t it bite people? Make sure it doesn’t bite you."

By the time she went out with Xiyu holding a piece of candy in his hand, Qian had already gone home, probably.

After the harvest, everyone was actually quite relaxed. On the road, you could see people gathering and chatting everywhere. Many were probably the same people who had just watched the show. Li Qinghe ran into quite a few people on her way home.

That morning, someone knocked on the front door. Li Qinghe had just finished washing up in the yard when she opened the door and saw a carriage outside. There was a young man around twenty standing at the door, "May I ask if this is the Zhou family who planted herbs?"

Li Qinghe was a bit surprised, "Do you need something?"

Planting herbs is also something new in this town, and many people know about it, especially since she bought forty acres of mountain forest. Not only in the town, but even people from the county town may have heard of it.

"That's it. We heard that you have been planting for almost half a year, and some herbs have been harvested. We would like to see the quality... Oh, my surname is Wu, we live in the county town, and we have our own pharmacy, not only in this county town, but also in the surrounding counties."

So someone came to buy herbs?

Li Qinghe was quite surprised and quickly invited them in. It was not only the young man standing at the door, he also brought two old doctors with him.

After inviting them in, Chen served the tea, and Zhou Chengkang brought the freshly made herbs for them to see. There were many herbs that were dug up from the forest and processed by her.

"These are all good," Wu Li looked at the processed herbs, "Can I go and see where you grow the herbs? If possible, I'll buy all these herbs from your family in the future."

Of course, that's great!

After taking a walk in the forest, Wu Li took all the dried herbs away at a slightly lower price than what Dr. Huang told her.

Standing at the door, Li Qinghe watched the horse-drawn carriage go away and said, "He doesn't look like a doctor, more like a businessman."

Zhou Chengkang nodded in agreement, "It doesn't matter, if he presses the price too low, we won't sell him in the future. In this world, herbs are definitely sellable."

If people eat whole grains, they will get sick and need to take medicine. Such as honeysuckle, notoginseng, coptis, ginseng, gastrodia elata, etc, which are definitely useful. These medicinal herbs could be planted in her forest. They had already been cultivated, but there were not many seeds now. In a few years, they will surely be planted in large quantities.

When Zhou Chengkang and Li Qinghe entered the door, Zhou suggested, "I think we should also learn a bit of medicine."

Li Qinghe spread her hands, "But I don't know how to read."

The current writing and characters were completely different from those she knew before, but if she was determined to learn, it would not be difficult. They could afford the pens, inks, papers, and inkstones that other people found expensive. And considering their age, they were only in their early twenties, and there was a long life ahead.

Thus, in the following days the two of them secretly planned to find a suitable teacher to learn to read and write. In fact the most suitable person was Dr. Huang. Originally, they had wanted to learn medicine, and it would be a one-stop shop if they followed him.

However, Dr. Huang was too busy on weekdays. Not only during the big gatherings, but even on regular days there were many people coming to look for him. Even when he came to take a look at the forest, he had to hurry back to the town in case of any urgent patients coming to look for him.

Since they couldn't learn from Dr. Huang, Zhou Chengkang secretly thought of something. Dr. Huang had a grandson who was 12 years old and had already studied with him for 6 years. After some persuasion, they managed to bring him over.

The 12 year old boy was not tall and had a stern face. The medical books they bought from the county bookstore only had the basic knowledge of pharmacology, which was most obvious for someone studying medicine, but it was enough for the couple.

The two of them not only studied medicine, but also learned to read and write. They also brought along Xiyu. This child had been taken care of by Mother Zhou recently, and he became a bit too wild. There's nothing he dared not to do, so learning characters was a way to temper his nature.

The two of them also studied characters earnestly, even letting Chen help with the cooking.

Therefore, when Mother Zhou moved back, she found that the young boy in the house, her son and daughter-in-law had started to learn characters.

"You guys sure know how to make trouble." Mother Zhou muttered, "Doing so much every day, at this age he’s learning characters, isn't this a waste of money? It would be better to send Xiyu away in two years."

She was just talking, and she didn’t resist much. When she saw her son practicing characters, she ran over to watch. "If I had money when you were young, I would have sent you to learn characters."

With so many children, it would be great if they could be taken care of and learn to recognize characters. Zhou Chengkang knew it well and smiled, "It’s great that you could raise us."

Mother Zhou didn't know what she was thinking and was in a trance. "Yes, I almost lost you back then."

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