First Business

But she had another worry. "If we grow so many vegetables and they all grow this fast, we won't be able to finish them before they spoil. Greens like bok choy get rotten leaves easily and turn old especially fast."

Hmm, that was a problem.

"Why not sell them at the market?" The idea surfaced, and Xu Han immediately thought it was feasible. "We don't have much income right now, so we can sell vegetables to cover our daily expenses."

Grandma Qiao: "..."

Had she really decided to get rich by farming here?

Still, it was a good idea. The two of them decided that once the vegetables had grown, they would take them to the market to sell.

Although most people in their village were self-sufficient, the elementary school and kindergarten that provided lunch still needed to buy vegetables. Some people were too busy with other work to grow vegetables, while others did not grow much. When they went to the market, they would buy some to keep in the refrigerator and cook whenever they ran out of vegetables.

They had also been buying vegetables at the market lately. Although Aunt Li had said they could pick some from her garden, vegetables were needed for every meal. Once or twice was fine, but they would feel embarrassed if they picked too much.

Xu Han sorted the vegetables while Grandma Qiao washed them. Perhaps it was the effect of Koukou's Spirit Urine, but every leaf of bok choy had grown especially well, with hardly any bad leaves. Still, Xu Han picked off the leaves with too much dirt on them and threw them to the chickens.

She wanted to know whether feeding these leaves to the chickens would make them "grow faster."

"The next time we go to town, let's buy a few geese to raise." Xu Han looked at the chirping chicks and said, "When the geese lay eggs, Koukou can eat them."

She had originally wanted to raise pigs too, but she had heard that pigs smelled terrible and pig feed was difficult to come by, so she gave up on that for now.

Grandma Qiao had already been surprised into calmness by Xu Han's determination to put down roots here. She nodded. "All right."

Xu Han made lunch. Although she had only just graduated from college, cooking was one of her specialties. On top of that, she had watched many food livestreams and had a head full of recipes.

She first diced the pork belly, marinated it with starch and oyster sauce, then stir-fried it in hot oil with fragrant minced scallion, ginger, and garlic. She added a handful of diced onion, and once it changed color, she poured in her homemade sauce, covered the wok, and simmered it slowly over low heat.

Once the meat sauce became thick and glossy, she took it off the heat. The rich, fragrant meat sauce was ready.

Xu Han scooped up a little and tasted it. The salty sauce slid over her tongue. She had added just a tiny bit of chili, so it carried the spicy fragrance of chili sauce as it met her taste buds—refreshingly hot and fragrant. It tasted fantastic.

Xu Han nodded in satisfaction. This was exactly the flavor.

The dough for the noodles had already rested. Xu Han rolled it into a thin sheet, sliced it into noodles with a knife, then tossed them with a little raw flour to keep them from sticking together.

She brought the water to a boil, cooked the noodles for a minute, then scooped them out. She grabbed a handful of bok choy and blanched it in the noodle water before placing it on top of the noodles.

She added a little noodle water and two spoonfuls of the cooked meat sauce. A bowl of meat sauce noodles, perfect in color, aroma, and taste, was finished.

This was Xu Han's first time cooking since coming here. Grandma Qiao had originally thought she would burn down the kitchen, so she was astonished when Xu Han brought out two proper bowls of noodles.

"Grandma, try it. I haven't cooked in a long time," Xu Han said. That was the truth. She was still a student, after all, and rarely had the chance to cook.

"All right. It already looks delicious—far prettier than anything I make, and it must taste especially good too." Grandma Qiao praised her first before picking up her chopsticks and taking a bite of noodles.

The noodles Xu Han had made were wonderfully smooth and chewy, springy with every bite. The meat sauce was savory and spicy. Because the meat had been coated in starch, the sauce was thick, and the fragrance of the meat had seeped into it, making it smooth and flavorful.

But the most surprising part was the bok choy. The stems were fresh and crisp, touched with the saltiness of the meat sauce, and sweet and refreshing when chewed.

The two of them finished both heaping bowls of noodles. After they had eaten their fill, Grandma Qiao cleared the dishes while Xu Han fed Koukou.

Newborns changed every day. Koukou was nearly two months old, and with plenty of breast milk, he ate and slept well, growing chubby and round. The moment Xu Han held him in her arms, he habitually burrowed against her, searching for milk.

Xu Han could not stop laughing at his eager expression. He would definitely be a little foodie in the future.

On market day in the village, Grandma Qiao picked a basket of bok choy and took it to sell. Before long, she came back after selling it all. She said the cafeteria auntie from the village's only elementary school and kindergarten knew her. When she saw Grandma Qiao selling vegetables, the cafeteria happened to be out of greens, so she bought them all.

Greens sold for 3.5 yuan per jin here. The basket of vegetables brought in a total of 38 yuan, their family's first income.

Xu Han told Grandma Qiao to use the money to order a pork leg from the family in the village that sold pork, so they could celebrate.

Two days later, however, the cafeteria auntie who had bought their vegetables came to their door.

The students at the school had eaten the greens grown by their family. Even children who normally hated vegetables had actually finished every bit of green vegetable in their bowls, and said they were delicious and wanted to eat more.

Even the kindergarten children who did not like eating had eaten with great enthusiasm!

Author's note:

I think the vibe of my farming novel is rather unusual...

Also, many of you might live in the city and not really understand the farm manure used to grow organic food. It is actually fermented from human waste, livestock waste, kitchen scraps such as leftover dishes and meals, and so on.

So the vegetables grown this way in the story are completely natural and healthy. There is no question of them being inedible.

It is just that many people may find it hard to accept on a sensory level (:з"∠)

First Business

Dongyang Village and the nearby villages had only this one elementary school in the area. Children from neighboring villages all attended here, so there were quite a lot of students. Including the kindergarten children, there were several hundred in total.

Originally, the school had no cafeteria. Fortunately, several years ago, provincial officials came for an unannounced inspection and happened to arrive at lunchtime.