133 Preparing to Plant Chillies

Xiao Qing was in front of the stove. Lin Xiaoyue didn’t see Li Xiao and Xiaozhi.

“They went to Uncle Sun’s house. He finished some furniture and asked Xiao’er to collect it. Your little brother went with him.” Liu Shi said.

“Oh.” Lin Xiaoyue responded.

“All the furniture we ordered should be almost done, right?”

“Yes. Uncle Sun said that there are two more pieces left and that they will be completed tomorrow. After breakfast, ask Li Xiao to go to Stonemason Yan’s house to bring the grinding stone back. This way, we can prepare to sell the cold glutinous cakes.” Liu Shi said.

The cold glutinous cakes could only be sold on hot days. When the weather cooled down, not many would buy them.

After the autumn harvest, they would be sending the two children to the academy. They heard that it would cost a total of eight or nine taels of silver.

They also had to prepare some money to buy the two children a brush, ink, paper, and inkstone each.

Additionally, they had to prepare for the winter.

There would be a lot of expenses.

Liu Shi thought that she had to ask Lin Xiaoyue how much money she had left.

“Alright, soak the rice after lunch and we’ll start cooking in the afternoon. We’ll bring them to town tomorrow morning to try selling them.” After washing her face, Lin Xiaoyue hung the face towel.

Then, she brushed her teeth and helped Liu Shi bring the congee she made to the living room.

Before the dishes were served, Li Xiao came back with the furniture.

Lin Xiaoyue asked them to eat.

After a while, the family sat down at the table and had breakfast.

“Mom wants you to go to Uncle Yan’s house later and bring back the grinding stone. In the afternoon, we will grind the rice to make cold glutinous cakes.” Lin Xiaoyue said to Li Xiao as she ate.

“Alright.”

“In addition, the chili seedlings I got previously should be almost ready. We haven’t finished cleaning up the field, so it’s your job now” Lin Xiaoyue added.

The four pieces of land that she took from the Lin family were actually quite big. Her family had used less than half of it to build their house, and there was still a lot of land left.

She planned to use some of the land to make a vegetable plot, and the rest to plant chilies.

Although the weather was hot during this season, the seedlings could still survive if they were watered a few times.

After planting the seedlings, they could be harvested in two months. By then, it would be the end of October and the beginning of November.

After collecting the chilis, the red ones would be dried and made into chili oil. The green ones could also be made into pickled peppers, which were excellent seasonings.

When winter came, she couldn’t sell cold cakes anymore.

Then, she would be counting on these chilies to continue her food business.

How cool would it be to have some mala broth in the middle of winter?

“Okay.” Li Xiao replied.

Seeing her daughter assigning chores for her son-in-law, and he responded obediently, Liu Shi began to feel sorry for him.

“We don’t have much land. Let’s go and do it together. We’ll get it done very quickly.” Liu Shi said.

She even looked at Lin Xiaoyue in annoyance.

“Mom, you still have to make cold cakes with me.” Lin Xiaoyue said.

Liu Shi paused as she remembered that.

“Oh, then you’ll have to do it alone,” she said to Li Xiao.

“Yes.” Li Xiao replied.

After thinking for a while, Liu Shi said, “go when the sun isn’t too bright. We don’t have much land, there’s no rush.”

“Yes, mom,” Li Xiao smiled and replied.

How fortunate was he to have met such a caring mother-in-law?

Lin Xiaoyue glanced at Li Xiao and Liu Shi and continued to eat.

After the meal, Li Xiao went to transport more furniture and retrieve the grinding stone.