Chapter 44: A Small Plan to Settle the Family

Li Yaoguang's words were sincere, so the driver wanted to accept the money. Even Erqiao, whose monthly wage was not high, was quite tempted. After all, it was an easy trip, and they made money without having to please people in the store. Now they were earning more than their monthly wage. How could people who were not rich not be tempted?
So Erqiao and the two coachmen smiled and said, "Sir, please accept it politely." Seeing this, Fusheng felt uncomfortable being stared at by Li Yaoguang, so he accepted it reluctantly. He comforted Li Yaoguang with shame and guilt, and then got on the carriage, and left Lao Wo Mountain one after another with Erqiao's carriage.

When everyone walked away, I heard the cute voice of my little cousin behind me.

Li Yaoguang looked back and saw that the little head that had been poked out of the door had finally a rosy face, no longer looking like a frozen cat. Li Yaoguang was relieved and told the little guy to go into the house and warm up on the kang, but he was worried about how to prepare a meal to feed his family.

After thinking about it, Li Yaoguang was forced into a corner. His eyes lit up when he saw the small red clay stove where the medicine was boiled. He quickly added a few pieces of charcoal to the remaining fire inside.

Thank you very much. In order to survive the winter and considering the heating problem in Green Garden, she had asked Yang Gou to order a cart of charcoal for her. Although it was not the precious silver frost, it was also good charcoal, weighing more than a thousand pounds. She even took the green willows and fragrant grass into consideration, and it came in handy right now. She was really foresighted.

She rekindled the fire, and then cleverly went to the space, carefully selected a small cast iron pot for cooking sukiyaki from the kitchen, and secretly took it out, even showing it in front of her aunt and the others, and made the excuse that she bought it specially for this trip.

I am very grateful that my aunt and uncle are not familiar with household chores. Even though they have a low status in the mansion and are often treated harshly, they have never really suffered from life. They have never cooked by themselves. The most they have done is boil water on a ready-made red clay stove, so they were fooled by her.

As for the oil, Uncle Qian gave her half a pork. Li Yaoguang simply cut a piece of pork belly and used the brown sugar she brought to make a braised pork. Since she had no pot to cook rice, she rolled out two sheets of noodles with the flour she brought and cut them into strips. Because the pot was too small to cook all the food, she divided it into two pots and made two pots of braised pork and noodles to feed the family of four.

At noon, the family sat around the kang, watching the three aunts eating with their mouths drooling, Li Yaoguang felt both relieved and bitter.

Being sent to this remote mountain villa, she didn't know when her aunt and the others would be able to return, and she couldn't stay there forever. Moreover, judging from the current situation, the Marquis' Mansion might no longer be able to send expenses to her aunt and the others. But now her uncle was still injured, and the three of them needed money for food, drink, defecation and urination, and they also had to buy medicine.

Although she had saved more than 400 taels in her own space, after several twists and turns, she only had a little over 300 left. She was afraid that she would not be able to use it easily. She felt anxious without money, and she could not lose her job.

So before leaving for work, everything here needs to be arranged.

Do I need to buy a cooking pot? Do I need to get cooking oil? I wonder if two kilograms of salt is enough? In winter, there is no vegetable, do I need to pickle some pickles for my aunt?
In addition, my aunt has to take care of my uncle and look after the children. No matter how poor my maternal family was, my aunt and her biological mother in this body were raised in pampered pampering. After marrying into the marquis's mansion, they had never done any rough work. They couldn't even cook medicine, let alone cook.
She also couldn't bear to see her aunt working so hard, so, not to mention buying a maid, she had to hire a housewife to cook and wash the dishes, right?

It is said that the seven necessities of life are firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea. None of them can be lacking in life. It seems that I have to buy all of these urgently to prevent my family from suffering.

While eating the noodles in the bowl, Li Yaoguang inexplicably turned his attention to the village that he saw when he came here, which was relatively close to the village. He decided to go to the village to check it out after dinner.

After eating a bowl of noodles, washing the pots and pans, and taking a nap with her little cousin, Li Yaoguang went out in the afternoon, taking her chubby but not expensively dressed little cousin. Before leaving, she specially carried the small shoulder bag that her aunt had made for her to carry money and other things when she went to the stall.

There were some candies and cakes in her bag, which were the daily welfare benefits she could not finish. She led her little cousin out of the village and walked to the village where Fusheng said he bought firewood. At the entrance of the village, Li Yaoguang saw a group of children picking up manure. She immediately stuffed two soft cakes into the little guy beside her and let him eat them. She led the group of children. The dozen children in front of them were of different ages, the youngest was only three, four or five years old, and the oldest was seven, eight or nine years old.

As the siblings approached, a group of children saw Yangyang munching on cakes beside them. Their eyes widened with envy. They couldn't move their feet and their saliva was secreted like crazy. They were obviously greedy and envious, but they just watched and no one came up to beg or snatch. Li Yaoguang nodded secretly and thought that these children were cute and approachable.

So he pulled his cross-body bag, grabbed a bag of cakes and opened it in front of them.

"Hello, children. I am a newcomer to the village. I am not familiar with this place. I have nothing at home. I can't find a place to buy something. Can anyone tell me where to buy something? I will treat you to some snacks."

As soon as these words were spoken, the dozen or so kids started to get excited.

The little ones looked at each other, still unconvinced, yet unwilling to give up.

Finally, the snacks wrapped in the oil paper in Li Yaoguang's hand were really real and smelled oily and fragrant. They were probably the good stuff that was not available in the grocery stores at the market. The children pushed each other, and finally pushed the oldest child, who was about eight or nine years old, out.

The other party looked at Li Yaoguang with a worried look on his face: "Little, the young master really gave us cakes, isn't he lying to us?"

Li Yaoguang simply stopped talking, let go of his little cousin's hand and told him to be quiet, then took two steps forward and gave each of the little ones in front of him a piece of cake, speaking directly with facts.

The leading child saw the cakes being stuffed into his hand, and thought that although this person came from that scary mountain villa, he was really not a bad person, so he stopped being on guard. The child quickly put the cakes in his arms and looked at Li Yaoguang, "What do you want to know, young master?"

Of course she wanted to know everything, especially the situation inside and outside this old nest in the mountains.

After Li Yaoguang said this, the little guy did not hide anything and hurriedly poured out everything he knew, such as where they usually went to collect firewood and dig wild vegetables; where they went to the market to buy things, how often, where exactly, and what was sold at the market; what kind of personality the manager of Lao Wo Mountain was, how he usually behaved, who in their village were the tenants of the villa, etc.; the child told him everything he knew.

Li Yaoguang understood almost everything she wanted to know. In the end, she was grateful to the children for not hiding anything. After thinking for a while, she took out the candies from her bag and gave a small handful to each of the children in front of her, and gave an extra handful to the one who introduced the situation to her.

The child held the candy given by Li Yaoguang, his eyes sparkled, and he couldn't help but remember Li Yaoguang, the generous "young master".

(End of this chapter)