Chapter 58

When they measured it, no one from the Yangs came; it was the town chief who came.
On hearing it was the Yangs, Li Qinghe was surprised; she wasn’t really close to that family, only Yang Lanrou was someone she knew well.
"That plot isn’t as good as yours," the town chief said in a low voice. "But in this village it’s still one of the better uncultivated slopes."
Indeed, the Yangs’ side was already something of a slope.
When Li Qinghe measured earlier, this side was flat; a little further on the ground sloped, and that whole slope was covered in bamboo. Bamboo isn’t easy to pull up by the roots, it sends out runners and spreads far. Even in the plot where Li Qinghe kept her chickens, bamboo had begun popping up here and there.
"From now on you’ll be neighbors, get along," the town chief said as he left.
To be honest, Li Qinghe hadn’t really thought about how the two households would get along. Between her house and the Yangs’ land lay more than an acre of scrubby ground used for raising chickens, with only a narrow path through it; if it weren’t for checking on the chickens she wouldn’t have gone there herself.
It was spring planting now, and Li Qinghe was busy, so she couldn’t spare any thought for the Yangs. She and Zhou Chengkang went into town to buy seed, still planting barley as last year. It was worth noting that the seed shop this year had a new item called sweet potato.
Dark, long and narrow, the tubers caught her eye. She brightened and asked the shop assistant, "How do you plant these?"
The clerk glanced at them and hurried, "You just bury them in the ground. I hear the yield per mu is high. Want some?"
His tone was off. Li Qinghe looked at him suspiciously. Normally most villagers don’t buy seed, they save their own. She herself hadn’t had any seed before, and only because she had more land this year had she come to buy.
Ordinary farm households generally don’t buy seed. But whether it was the grain shop or the seed store, they usually gave common peasant families the brush-off, they looked poor and couldn’t afford much.
Now that he was so eager, something was clearly up.
Li Qinghe asked, curious, "What’s the story?"
The clerk peeked into the back room and lowered his voice. "This new seed is part of an allocation from the county; each shop has to sell five hundred jin. But word is that last year in the neighboring county… If you buy, I’ll give you a discount. Normally it’s five wen a jin; I’ll charge you three. How much land do you have? I’ll work it out for you."
She tried, "About two mu."
The clerk looked surprised. "These are really weighty, five hundred jin might not even be enough to go around."
Li Qinghe thought a moment. "I’ll take thirty jin."
The clerk understood, she wanted them to try planting, and said no more. He efficiently packed them up. The two loaded the barley onto the cart, bought some meat, and headed home.
They picked up a few villagers along the way; Zhou Chengkang didn’t take their copper coins, treating it as payment for help. The sweet potatoes were tucked underneath, unnoticed by anyone.
"What did you buy these for?" Zhou Chengkang asked, pointing at the bag. "You going to try planting them?"
Li Qinghe laughed. "Isn’t it a little late to be asking that now? If you didn’t mean to plant them, wouldn’t you have asked back at the shop?"
Zhou Chengkang picked up a small one and broke it open, revealing flesh that was white tinged with red. "Since you wanted them, I figure these are probably still edible."
He’d actually seen them before and knew how to eat them. In her previous life some folks in the village had cultivated them, though they needed a lot of seed, generally a hundred jin of seed would at best yield two hundred jin back; that was lucky. So if she wanted to buy them he didn’t stop her, at worst they’d just eat them themselves.
Li Qinghe laughed and leaned in, speaking in a conspiratorial tone, "I know how to grow these."
She was close enough that her warm breath brushed Zhou’s ear, setting his head spinning. He blurted out, "Lady, tell me how to plant them and I’ll make sure it’s done right."
The two of them spent half a day burying the pile of sweet potatoes, lining them up one by one and covering them with soil, an effort that’s hard to describe. Seeing it, Zhou couldn’t help but say, "We’ve got so much land, most of it unused, no need to be stingy. Why cram them all together like that?"
Li Qinghe shook her head with a smile. "We’ll see in a while."
They were busy with spring planting. When hiring people to clear the land, Li Qinghe had them leave furrows two feet or so across as paths, after scattering the barley seed there would still be a way to walk. It looked very different from how others in the village sowed seed, some thought it wasted space.
Though some considered it wasteful, it was just unused land and people couldn’t be bothered to complain. Besides, Li Qinghe didn’t know much about farming, didn’t that mean Zhou Chengkang must know?
A few days after sowing the barley, the Yangs were already clearing their wasteland. They themselves had no one who could farm, so they hired labor; unlike Li Qinghe they agreed to pay the workers later, promising wages after the autumn harvest.
Li Qinghe hired labor at fifteen wen a day with a midday meal; the Yangs didn’t provide lunch but paid twenty-five wen a day. The pay was fairly generous, so many workers showed up, over twenty in one go, and within a few days the five mu were all cleared.
Now, looking at what had been the stretch of wasteland, one saw, first, a large, flat expanse here with Li Qinghe’s house in the middle; looking toward the edge of the village there was a swath of scrubby land, and beyond that another broad, gently sloped flat area. Apart from the patch left for keeping chickens, it looked much improved from the original desolation.
he Yangs’ fields had all been sown with barley. Notably, they’d already been hauling blue bricks over, as if planning to build a house. They’d even built a yard wall along the boundary between the two households, leaving only a narrow path at the very edge.
A wall wasn’t a bad thing. The side of Li Qinghe’s land that faced the Yangs had been fallow and used to raise chickens; she’d had Li Kui and the others weave bamboo screens to keep things out. Now a tall wall did the job far better.
As for why the Yangs had built the wall, who cared? Li Qinghe had no intention of getting chummy with them anyway.
By the time they finished sowing, it was already early February. Everything was stirring to life and the weather was getting warmer.
The sweet potato slips Li Qinghe had planted earlier had grown thick and lush. After inspecting them she pinched them off at the base and went with Zhou Chengkang to set them in the ground.
Looking at the cuttings, there wasn’t even a root to speak of. Zhou Chengkang, hoe in hand, dug the holes, several times on the verge of saying something, only to fall silent; his face was hard to read.
“Do those even take?”
“Those slips would be better off in a stir-fry,” Zhou muttered.
All their land, aside from the vegetable patch, had already been sown with barley. The holes they were digging were in the little paths left between the barley beds, essentially planting into the barley plots.
Li Qinghe saw his expression. “Do you think this is a waste of effort?”
Zhou Chengkang wanted to nod but feared discouraging her. Tentatively he said, “They don’t even have roots…” In his past life he knew folk in the village who grew sweet potatoes and it hadn’t paid well; and he’d never seen them planted this way.
Li Qinghe crouched and pressed a slip into the prepared hole. “They’ll have roots in a couple of days.”
The two of them labored for nearly half a month before they’d planted all the little paths. They took two days off when one batch failed to take.
By the time they finished it was late February. After spring sowing, the more industrious villagers set about chopping wood or going into town for short jobs, but Li Qinghe was busy raising pigs. Pork could be eaten and sold, but most important was the manure, at the moment that was the only fertilizer they had.
She didn’t even have a pig pen yet, so they began making bricks. Building a house called for blue bricks, but those were too expensive for a pigpen; they used earthen bricks instead. It took effort, but cost no silver.
That year Li Fu had really done all the fieldwork himself; Madam Qian lay about and didn’t even help scatter seed.
Occasionally Yu Yan would come by and complain that Madam Qian lay around all day. She didn’t go into the fields, didn’t even cook. After Li Fu finished his work he mostly boiled thin porridge to get by, surprisingly, Madam Qian had learned to tolerate it. Now that the fields were done, word was that her father had even learned how to stir-fry.
Her ailment wasn’t over yet.
Li Qinghe didn’t know if Li Fu was annoyed, but he indulged Madam Qian because she and her father had always lived together, cooking, washing, someone to ask if he was cold or hot. Since Madam Qian hadn’t straightened herself out, there were other ways to deal with it.
Li Qinghe sent Zhou Chengkang to fetch Li Fu to help build the pigpen, starting with making earthen bricks.
Li Fu already felt guilty for being too busy to help his daughter. With the fieldwork done and an invitation extended, he changed his clothes and came the next day. When Zhou Chengkang had gone earlier he’d warned that breakfast would be ready over there.
When Li Fu arrived, thick porridge was already simmering, steaming into his hands, with two appetizing side dishes beside it. Only after eating did he start work. By noon the buns were made from refined flour and the table held meat, vegetables and soup, everything hot and tasting good, truly his daughter’s handiwork.
It was tasty, and he couldn’t help but ask, “Isn’t this a bit extravagant?”
Li Qinghe smiled. “No, food isn’t something to be miserly with.” Li Fu wasn’t asking for wages; it was only meals, and she could afford it.
Li Fu said no more; as he made the bricks his arm swung with even more force.
That evening the food was just as good. Li Fu felt content; tired, yes, but comfortable after a proper meal. For farm families, all the hard work was for the sake of eating well now and then.
While he worked here, at home Madam Qian…
She’d slept too much during the day and so couldn’t sleep at night, only dozing near dawn. When she finally woke, it was already bright; the house was empty and the chickens in the yard were starving, calling loudly and restless.
She listened carefully for sounds in the kitchen. After a long while there was nothing, more than the kitchen, the whole yard seemed empty. She closed her eyes again; if no one was home, they must have gone out.
She glanced at the sunlight outside. At this hour they should have been back to make breakfast. She closed her eyes once more.
But she couldn’t sleep. Time slipped by and the sun climbed higher; by all appearances it was almost noon.
Expecting Li Fu would at least come back for lunch, she kept an ear out for any sound, but she waited so long the sun began to set. Still no movement outside; the yard’s chickens seemed to have flown away.
Madam Qian could no longer lie still. She sat up, clutching her belly, she was starving!