Chapter 606: Imperial Examination Family Prosperity System (15)

From Guixiang Town to Fucheng, the water route takes two days.

The heavens were not in a good mood; halfway through the journey, a fine autumn drizzle began to drift down.

Fortunately, they had brought a small clay stove. Xie Kuixi praised his little sister for her thoughtfulness while lighting the stove and setting a delicate little ceramic pot on top.

"Little sister said to use the water in this waterskin for brewing tea."

Xie Kuixi opened the waterskin filled with Spirit Spring Water, filled the ceramic pot, and took out a tea set from the bottom of the food box, muttering under his breath:

"Women are just troublesome, needing so much gear just to drink some water..."

"Let me see... Brother-in-law, this one is yours, is your name carved on it? Anyway, I recognize the 'Xi' character on mine..."

"Little sister said the biggest fear during the exam is drinking unclean water. Although she prepared medicine for us in case of an upset stomach, if you really get sick, your spirit will inevitably suffer, so you must recognize your own cup."

Song Yanqing took the ceramic cup handed over by Xie Kuixi with both hands; the character "Yan" was carved on the cup body.

He lowered his eyes to look at the small cup, which was no bigger than a fist, and his heart felt as if it had been scalded.

"Here, have some tea leaves." Xie Kuixi opened a cloth bag the size of a sachet and put a small pinch of tea leaves into both their cups. "I don't know where little sister got these, but they smell so fragrant."

"How is she doing lately?"

"You mean little sister? She's doing well, just a lot thinner."

Thinner?

Hearing this, Song Yanqing slightly furrowed his brows, and his heart suddenly gave a tug.

【Host, your partner is definitely worried about you failing the Imperial Examination. Don't waste time, come on! You can study on the boat too!】

"..."

Song Yanqing reached out to stroke his chest, then silently took out the exam points he had organized over these days from the trunk and began to study them earnestly...

While Song Yanqing was away in Fucheng for the Imperial Examination, Xie Yang was not idle either.

The Farm had been built, and the clearing of Xiao Chai Shan was halfway done.

With the autumn harvest recently, the villagers were busy in the fields and had no time to go up the mountain, so she took Xiao Ya and made a trip to Qinghe Village.

Lin Shi had been tidying up the new house for the past few days. The dimensions for her son's wedding room had long been measured, and she was having a carpenter rush to make the furniture. Other rooms were also being cleared of miscellaneous items one after another. Once her son returned from Fucheng, she would pick an auspicious day to move in and then hold the wedding banquet at the new home.

When Xie Yang arrived, Song Zhisheng was in the backyard turning and drying the millet from that acre of poor land.

On the first day of the autumn harvest, the millet in his field had all been harvested with the help of enthusiastic villagers.

These villagers had helped out at his house for several days and earned over a hundred pieces of Silver; thinking of the work on Xiao Chai Shan after the busy farming season, they all took the initiative to come and help.

After two months of using the Spirit Spring Ointment, Song Zhisheng's waist injury had actually fully recovered. He could have handled the acre of land by himself, but he couldn't resist the enthusiasm of the crowd; before he could even get into the field, they had helped him harvest every last bit of the millet, and while the sun was good, they dried it all at once, shelled it, and stored it in the new house's granary.

With nothing to do, Song Zhisheng had been at the finishing Farm for the past two days, seeing if there was any work he could do.

Lin Shi wiped the stove, doors, and windows of the new house clean and was sweeping the Courtyard. At first glance, she didn't recognize Xie Yang at all and was even struck with admiration—whose young lady was this? Truly beautiful and imposing!

It wasn't until she saw Xiao Ya following closely behind, holding a stack of cloth, that she realized—this girl with a well-proportioned figure and clear, beautiful features was actually the daughter-in-law who would be entering her home before long?!

"H-how did you get this thin?"

For a moment, Lin Shi couldn't tell whether she should be happy or heartbroken.

She was happy, of course, because she looked much better after losing weight; if she had been this thin before, she probably would have been betrothed as soon as she reached womanhood, and it would never have been her son Yanqing's turn.

She was heartbroken because, while she looked good thin, to go from so fat to this in just six months—could it be that she had been starving herself?

Xie Yang smiled and said: "I was too fat before, which was bad for my health."

Her weight was now maintained at around 115 jin, and she felt that her height had also shot up a bit; although not much, it was definitely over 1.6 meters.

The original body had a small frame. Having lost weight to her current size, she no longer looked fat, at most "plump." The flesh was mainly concentrated on her chest and buttocks, and her waist had thinned out completely. Even if it couldn't be called "slender enough to be held in one hand," it was well-proportioned and slim. If one didn't look closely at her features, one could say she was a different person from before.

No wonder her future mother-in-law hadn't recognized her.

Lin Shi hurriedly welcomed her into the house.

"I didn't know you were coming, so I didn't prepare anything. This water I just boiled; the tea leaves don't look very good and have many coarse stems, but it's not old tea. It was picked and stir-fried by my sister-in-law from my maiden home this spring."

Lin Shi knew well that her family's conditions couldn't compare to the Xie Family, and even this new residence was built after borrowing Silver from the in-laws. She felt somewhat uneasy in front of her future daughter-in-law, fearing she would be poorly received and annoy her.

Xie Yang picked up the tea bowl and took a sip: "The tea is very fragrant. Are there tea mountains around your maiden home?"

This topic gave Lin Shi a bit more confidence: "It's not a proper tea mountain, but there is a Wild Tea Forest not far behind my maiden home. Every spring, we pick some tea leaves to stir-fry and drink, selling the tender ones and keeping the coarse stems for the family to quench their thirst."

Her maiden family had a knack for stir-frying tea, and logically, their life shouldn't have been too bad. It was just a pity that a few years ago, her eldest brother foolishly acted as a guarantor for someone, and as a result, the debtor ran away. The debt collectors sued her brother in the yamen, and if he didn't pay, they would arrest him.

But how could the family come up with two hundred taels of Silver all at once? In the end, they had to sell their good farmland and were still left with a mountain of debt to settle the matter.

Over these years, her maiden family's life had been truly tight. Although they could get a little extra money from tea leaves every spring, firstly, they had to pay off debts, and secondly, after selling the good farmland, the harvest from the few remaining acres of poor land wasn't enough to feed the whole family.

Just like this, after the news of her son's injury reached her maiden home, the whole family scraped together only one string of cash. Even that was mocked by her mother-in-law.

Fortunately, it was all in the past... Lin Shi took a deep breath.

Thanks to her future daughter-in-law, her son not only healed his leg injury but also made it to this year's Imperial Examination. She hoped his trip to Fucheng would go smoothly and that he would return as a scholar, which would also make her maiden family happy.

Xie Yang was pondering where to get tea tree seedlings.

In her own stockpile, she only had various top-tier tea leaves, including several jin of tribute tea, but she hadn't stockpiled tea trees—after all, tea trees with soil and mud took up too much space.

This time, letting her brother accompany Song Yanqing to Fucheng was also with the thought of asking him to look for tea gardens or tea mountains to see if he could get some tea tree seedlings.

She hadn't expected that what she was looking for was right there! Her future mother-in-law's maiden home had them!

And they were rare, century-old tea trees!

She planned to find time to visit the Lin family, and if they were reliable, she would hand over the work of Cuttings and seedling cultivation to them.

It would mean she provided the technology, and the Lin family provided the labor, with both sides cooperating to cultivate tea tree seedlings.