When Gou returned to Sheshan, it was already late and time for dinner. He might not be able to eat meat, so he finally spent money to buy a piece of pork and gave it to Li Banxian. Fortunately, he finally bought an iron pot today, so he didn't have to eat fried rice. He poured some rice out of the gourd, put it on the stone slab and knocked it gently for a while to crack the husk, then blew the chaff casually and poured it into the pot and added water to cook rice. These rice grains have been stored in the gourd for more than three months. I wonder if they will undergo some magical changes like water. When the rice was cooked, Gou remembered that he should buy a few bowls and chopsticks today. But he was not a pretentious person, and he could do it with two branches and a broken tile. As long as there was food to eat, other details were not important. He scooped a large bowl of rice into his mouth. Although it still had some bran, it was much more delicious than fried rice. It was very fragrant, soft and elastic. He took out the bitter salt he had treasured, ate three bowls of rice, and licked the salt gently. It tasted delicious.
That night, he cooked a liter of rice, and he ate it all, making his stomach round. After eating, he lay down in the straw to rest. He felt warm in his stomach. Gradually, this warm feeling spread throughout his body, just like taking a hot bath, very comfortable. He slept in the straw in this state for a night. When he woke up the next morning, he felt vigorous and energetic, and his whole body was full of energy. With such a strong energy, it would be a pity not to dig the soil and open up the wasteland. He immediately picked up the hoe and hatchet and walked towards the wasteland. There are about three mu in this stone nest, but it is not flat. There are many large and small stones, and some thorns and miscellaneous trees grow between the stones. The first thing to do when reclaiming land is to cut off the miscellaneous trees and thorns. He had cut off some of them when he had time a few days ago. The most difficult thing is to level the land. The wasteland is full of stones. The big ones are about ten feet big and weigh hundreds of pounds. The small ones are as big as fists and eggs. All these stones must be cleared away. In the next few years of farming, small stones must be picked out continuously. However, the dog is irrigated with gourd water, and its adaptability is relatively strong. There are not so many requirements. It only needs to move the big stones away. At this time, he pushed a big stone weighing more than 300 pounds and rolled it aside. In the past, the old stubborn donkey cleared a lot of stones and had accumulated a lot of them. The dog planned to use the large rocks cleared from the land reclamation to build a stone house for himself. Perhaps the rice stored in the gourd was really effective. He didn't feel too tired after moving the stones for a whole morning. The next few days confirmed his guess. Eating the rice in the gourd really didn't make him tired easily and could increase his energy. Every day he felt that he had endless energy, and the speed of land reclamation increased greatly. As long as he moved the large rocks, dug out the weeds, planted rice, and then watered it, the rice seedlings would grow in the next day. As time passed, the area of the rice field became wider and wider. Finally, after a month, almost all of the three acres were planted with rice seedlings. In the past six months, in addition to land reclamation, he also built a stone house with large rocks.
The room is two zhang long, one zhang wide, and one zhang high, with a straw roof. The gaps between the stones and the interlayers between the straw are all covered with a layer of mud to prevent rain and cold. Inside the room, he built a stone bed with stones, and filled the uneven areas with soil and pressed them tightly. A thick layer of straw was laid on the bed, which was very comfortable to lie on. In front of the bed, against the wall, there were more than a dozen sacks full of rice. In fact, in addition to these, he stored more rice in his gourd, with at least 80 shi on both sides. These are his harvests for most of the past six months. As long as he keeps the rice seedlings well watered, they will mature and be harvested once every half a month. About four shi can be harvested per mu. Immediately after harvesting, water the rice stubble so that it can sprout again, saving both planting costs and breeding time. Now the three mu of land has been cleared and planted with rice. The harvest is done once every half a month, and each crop can yield about 12 shi. If it is harvested twice a month, there will be 24 shi of rice. When the price of rice is the cheapest, it is 10 wen per liter. One shi has 100 liters and can be sold for 1,000 wen. When the price is expensive, it can rise to about 3,000 wen per shi. 1,000 wen copper coins equal one guan, which is equal to one tael of silver. Even if calculated at the lowest price, he can earn 24 taels of silver from the grain he produces every month. Converted into silver, it is more than enough to show sincerity to Li Banxian and become his disciple to learn martial arts. It will take some time to transport the grain to Sancha Town to sell it. This day, Gou picked up a load of rice and went up the mountain after breakfast. When he left, he also brought a lot of thorns to block the way up the mountain. In order to prevent people from discovering his secret of planting with gourd water, he has been doing his best to destroy this way up the mountain for more than half a year. This made the road extremely difficult to walk on, and some places were even completely blocked. He had to use several long ropes to go up the mountain by himself. Fortunately, his strength has increased a lot now, and he can withstand such tossing. He has been thinking about it. When he saves enough money, he will go to Huang Laocai to see if he can buy the snake mountain. If the buyer buys it, it will be his private deal, and he can justifiably surround the mountain and prevent people from going up the mountain. This time, he carried two large sacks of rice for 20 miles, and he didn't feel tired. Even though it was hot now, he was still wearing the same pair of cotton pants. Even if he was shirtless, he was still very hot. There was no other way. He only had this set of clothes. After selling the grain today, he could sew another set of clothes and pants for summer.
After entering Sancha Town, he went directly to Zhou's grain store. There was only this grain store in the town, which could purchase and sell grain on a large scale. It was said that it was opened by the Zhou family, the richest family in Sancha Town. The purchase price was a little cheaper than the retail price at the market. Now, he had a lot of grain to sell, and efficiency was more important, so he naturally couldn't care about these small price differences. As the autumn harvest was approaching, the price of grain had begun to fall. Today, the purchase price was only 1,600 coins per stone, equivalent to 16 coins per liter. His two large sacks contained 12 dou and 6 liters, earning him 2016 wen. With the money, he went to a tailor shop to have a set of summer clothes tailored for him. He also bought some bowls and chopsticks and other daily necessities in the town. In the next few days, he went to Sancha Town every day to sell a load of rice. As the autumn harvest was approaching, and the weather was good this year, everyone had no shortage of food, and the purchase price of Zhou's grain store was getting lower and lower. After selling for more than ten days, the purchase price of one stone of rice was only 1080 wen. He had saved enough money to become a disciple, and he didn't want to sell it at a low price. Anyway, his gourd could store a lot of food and it wouldn't go bad, so he didn't have to rush to sell it.
