flstandardbreds Chapter 171 Growth 1
Chapter 171 Growth 1
In the warm sunshine of March, the grass grows tall, orioles fly, and swallows carry mud.
In March, the morning market in Yiling is bustling with people. Vendors enthusiastically hawk their wares, and rows of densely packed rice seedlings line both sides of the street. A dazzling array of goods are neatly displayed on the stalls for visitors to choose from.
Wei Chaoyan, who had just sent Wei Ying and Qi Ye to the school specially set up by Lady Yan, walked happily through the bustling morning market with a vegetable basket on her shoulder and Xiao Qingyan by her side. She looked around and picked out some fresh ingredients to take home so that she could cook a good meal for Wei Ying and Qi Ye when they returned from school in the evening.
"Hey, Sister-in-law Amu, I heard that your Dashan and Xiaoshan are working in Yang Dong's newly built workshop! That's really impressive! I heard that the wages in that new workshop are very high. You're going to be living a life of luxury from now on!" A round-faced woman complimented with envy and a hint of sourness.
The woman in the floral plaid shirt, whose face was beaming with joy at being specifically complimented, pretended not to notice the round-faced woman's jealousy and laughed heartily, "Hahaha, Sister Dafang, don't envy my Dashan and Xiaoshan! Before the New Year, Yang Dongjia bought so many beans and radishes from your Xiahe Village at high prices, and every household made a lot of money! Your family has always been hardworking and has reclaimed a lot of land, so you must have a considerable amount of beans and radishes in stock. You must have had a good harvest!"
"I heard from Yang Dongjia that he buys these crops all the time, including other vegetables and grains, and the prices are a bit higher than at the market. He buys as much as you can get! I don't know how many people in our surrounding villages have benefited from this. It's really a blessing from heaven!"
As soon as the words "Master Yang," "workshop," and "vegetable harvesting" were mentioned, three or four women walking with the two who had spoken first excitedly chimed in.
"Yes! That Mr. Yang is truly a living bodhisattva reincarnated! Not only has he built several large workshops near Yiling, allowing many young men from the surrounding villages to work there, but he also buys our worthless farm produce at high prices, giving us another source of income. More importantly, he even invited a celestial master to come and exorcise evil spirits for the surrounding people free of charge, no matter how small! He's such a good person!"
May God bless Mr. Yang, a good man, with a peaceful and safe life!
……
The chattering and gossip, along with the figures of five or six people carrying baskets as they moved through the bustling morning market, reached Wei Chaoyan's ears as she and Qingyan stood in front of a stall selling exquisite bamboo crafts, picking and choosing.
Although the market was noisy and the women's voices weren't particularly loud, Wei Chaoyan had successfully cleansed her marrow and meridians for the first time by revising the Nine Cleansing Heart Method, which greatly improved her hearing and eyesight. Therefore, she was able to clearly hear everything that was said.
Yang Dongjia?
New workshop?
Can a celestial master exorcise evil spirits for free?
Although Wei Chaoyan already knew about her or the court's general plans from Lady Yan, she couldn't help but smile when she heard the relevant information from the people who had benefited greatly from the court's series of plans. Her various measures over this period of time had indeed brought some benefits to the people at the bottom of the demonic world, even if they were minor. But no matter what, changes had already begun to happen, hadn't they?
Yes, the newly emerged wealthy man Yang in Yiling Town is actually Lady Yan, or rather, someone sent down by the imperial court. Didn't Wei Chaoyan give Lady Yan a whole bunch of recipes from Huaguo before? They not only contained cooking methods for all sorts of fresh and delicious dishes, but also covered the preparation methods for various ingredients or seasonings such as soybean oil, soybean paste, soy sauce, and pickled radishes.
Having received this detailed and comprehensive information, Lady Yan, or rather the secular court behind her, decided to rely on these recipes to open restaurants and eateries of all sizes in various prosperous areas. Her purpose was twofold: first, to amass wealth, and second, to establish a covert intelligence gathering network. The court decided to have its own workshops produce the condiments needed for the operation of these restaurants and eateries, such as soybean oil and soy sauce. These workshops were mostly located in remote and vast areas like Yiling, where there were no powerful immortal sects stationed.
After the imperial court officials agreed on the plan, they quickly dispatched personnel to various places to carry out the corresponding tasks in an orderly manner. Yang Dongjia was the person in charge sent by the imperial court to build soybean oil pressing workshops, soybean brewing workshops, soy sauce workshops, and vegetable and grain processing workshops such as radish workshops in Yiling, a place with vast land and few immortal families.
During the construction of the workshop, he also encouraged the surrounding villages, large and small, to cultivate various crops needed by the workshop under the leadership of the village head and village chief. After the crops matured, he would buy them from the villagers at a price slightly higher than the local market price and process them in the workshop. Then, the processed products, such as soybean oil, soybean paste, and soy sauce, would be transported to the kitchens of newly opened restaurants and eateries in the Yunmeng area for their use.
In this series of processes, in order to ensure the harvest in the surrounding rural areas, Yang Dongjia also paid out of his own pocket to hire a number of decent rogue cultivators (mixed with cultivators secretly trained by the imperial court) to thoroughly clean up all the evil spirits, monsters, wild beasts and demons around the villages that cooperated with him in clearing land and planting crops, without accepting a single penny of offerings from the villagers!
Therefore, the villagers who benefited from it were all deeply grateful and determined to devote themselves to cultivating the land and taking good care of the crops it needed in order to repay its kindness.
Although these things were done by people from the imperial court, the starting point was still the pile of recipes and information that Wei Chaoyan had provided before. So, it's not unreasonable to feel a little smug when you hear the beneficiaries' words of praise and gratitude, is it?
Wei Chaoyan smiled and secretly reveled in her own happiness ( *︾▽︾).
"Sister, what's wrong?" Seeing Wei Chaoyan standing there motionless for a long time, Qingyan, who was anxious to get an exquisite bamboo cat from the stall, asked her with dissatisfaction from her arms.
"Huh? Oh!" Startled by Qingyan's question, Wei Chaoyan immediately came to her senses and said, "Nothing, I just remembered some things. Qingyan, which one have you taken a fancy to?"
"Oh. That, that cat!" Wei Chaoyan casually dismissed it as nothing, and the carefree Qingyan didn't care about his sister's momentary lapse in attention. He stretched out his finger and pointed at the bamboo cat crouching among a pile of exquisite bamboo crafts, tilting its head and acting cute, and said loudly.
"And there's that rabbit, fox, tiger over there..." Seeing Wei Chaoyan reach for the bamboo cat, Qingyan gestured and pointed to several other bamboo toys nearby, "Brother Aying likes rabbits, and that fox is a good match for Brother Qiye..."
"Okay, okay, I'll take them all!" Wei Chaoyan smiled and told the happy stall owner to put away all the bamboo weaving items that Qingyan had pointed out. She paid for them readily, put the items into the bamboo basket in her arm, and then continued to stroll leisurely through the bustling morning market with Qingyan in her arms.