Chapter 612: Imperial Examination Family-Raising System (21)

It's just that sheep are rarely seen in Guixiang Town; I haven't heard of anyone raising them yet, and if there are any, they are transported from the neighboring town or Qingfeng City.

After the Xie Family's braised food stall opened, Xie Yang originally suggested the family bring in a few sheep to try selling boiled mutton or braised lamb legs, but unfortunately, the supply channels were far too few, and the cost of transporting them from the neighboring town or the County was too high.

Plus, mutton is the sort of thing that those who like it really love, while those who don't like it will pinch their noses and walk the other way the moment they smell that gamey odor.

The Xie Family Braised Food business is currently not lacking in trade; besides selling the pig heads, pig trotters, and offal from the pigs they slaughter themselves every day, they also collect chickens and ducks from the surrounding villages to sell braised chicken and duck, and business is already so good they can barely keep up.

Even the families of her three sisters-in-law, seeing that the in-laws and the two daughters who married into the County and the neighboring town also had such successful braised food stalls, found that while they couldn't afford the high capital to raise pigs, they could raise a few more chickens and ducks to earn some pocket money alongside their in-laws, and their lives had also become prosperous. Therefore, the sisters-in-law really didn't care whether they did the mutton business or not.

But Xie Yang still intended to try; otherwise, seeing the prairie mutton in her stockpile and being able to look at it but not eat it was quite a test of one's patience.

Once spring arrives, she will entrust someone to scout for a few lambs in the neighboring town or Qingfeng City.

At that time, she will feed them some diluted Spirit Spring Water, let them graze on the sunny slopes, and let them eat their fill of the alfalfa that sheep and cattle love so much, raising them to be sturdy and strong so that by the second half of the year, she will be able to eat delicious mutton.

Clear-stewed, red-braised, braised, charcoal-grilled... she can eat it however she likes; life will be sweet.

She will also get a lactating ewe to bring back to milk every day. If the gamey smell is too strong, she can put in a small pinch of jasmine tea to boil with it. These are all cooking methods she figured out during those years in the Northwest military camp in her previous plane, and they are absolutely reliable.

Fang Shi was made hungry just by her daughter's description and said immediately, "Leave this matter to your second sister. Her husband's family has a relative who was a sheep dealer for a time. Although he doesn't work in that trade anymore, he is still better than us laymen at it. We'll entrust him to help scout for a few lambs. But don't raise too many at first; you can't get fat in one bite, so take it slow."

"That's for sure!" Xie Kuixi, who had come back to drink water, poked his head into the kitchen to tease them, "Little sister spent sixteen years eating until she was a big fatty, but it's a pity she got this thin in just two months! It was truly a waste of all that meat Mom and Dad fed you!"

Fang Shi made a move to hit him, but he laughed and dodged it: "Mom, your son is already a father now, can you give me some face!"

"You're just like your sister, your mouth has no gate!"

Xie Yang: "..."

Truly, she was hit while lying down.

In the blink of an eye, it was the eighth day of the ninth lunar month, the joyous day of Xie Yang and Song Yanqing's wedding.

Since binding with the Main System, this was the first time Xie Yang had experienced an ancient wedding.

How should she put it? To summarize it in one word—exhausting!

She was woken up when the rooster crowed for the second time, and it wasn't until dark that all the rituals of the wedding were completed.

Listening to the sounds of clinking glasses coming from the direction of the Courtyard, she knew the banquet hadn't ended yet, but Xie Yang had already had her bridal veil lifted by Song Yanqing with a balance scale and was free to move about the room.

Unlike the twenty-table spread at her maiden home, the six tables at her husband's home were not many, but the main hall couldn't fit them all. Fortunately, the Courtyard was spacious enough, and red lanterns were hung on the covered corridor in front of the Side Room and on the transplanted osmanthus trees, lighting up the Courtyard very brightly. Not to mention six tables, even if six more came, they would fit perfectly.

"Are you hungry? Mom made you a bowl of noodles, want to eat some?"

After Song Yanqing finished the nuptial wine with her, he had gone out to socialize and then returned, bringing her a bowl of hot noodle soup along the way.

It was white noodles cooked in a broth of salted pork and fresh bamboo shoots, with a few wild mushrooms picked from the mountains and a few stalks of frost-bitten Bok Choy, looking very appetizing.

"Thank you."

Xie Yang was indeed hungry, so she didn't stand on ceremony with him and took the noodle soup to eat.

Seeing him standing there blankly, Xie Yang looked up at him.

Upon looking, she discovered he seemed to be drunk.

His gentle, jade-like face was stained with a thin mist of crimson, and against the backdrop of his red wedding robes, he had a bit more of a worldly air than usual, as if he were an immortal who had fallen into the mortal world.

"Have you eaten?" Xie Yang asked him, "If not, shall I share half with you? I can't finish such a big bowl by myself."

"Okay."

"Did you not eat anything to pad your stomach outside? You just drank alcohol?"

"Mm."

"Next time before you drink, remember to eat some hot food to pad your stomach, otherwise it hurts your health."

"Okay."

Xie Yang asked a question, and he answered one.

His expression was so obedient that Xie Yang wanted to reach out and pinch his face.

She couldn't tell; such a cold and aloof person on weekdays, he was actually this obedient after getting drunk?

Xie Yang thought of the fine wines in her stockpile; it seemed this plane could consume quite a lot of her inventory.

She was a person who was quite fond of alcohol; although her tolerance wasn't high, she just liked to taste all kinds of fine wines.

Ever since she discovered the bug in the Main System's built-in space, she had stockpiled all kinds of fine wines and liquors that interested her. In the previous plane, she had even personally brewed several jars using diluted Spirit Spring Water.

But tasting it alone, how could it be as interesting as drinking with two people?

"In the future, the two of us can often have a little drink together."

"Okay."

"So obedient? Then call me 'older sister' and let me hear it?"

"..."

"Tsk! You have your reason back now? But I didn't trick you; I am indeed one year older than you, you won't lose out by calling me 'older sister'."

"Wife."

"... Hm?"

"The hour is late, let's rest."

"..."

The next morning, after waking up, Xie Yang, who was still too tired to move, stared at the embroidered mandarin ducks on the bed canopy and lazed in bed for quite a while.

Men, regardless of the dynasty, regardless of whether they are young or not, seem to have an innate ability in that regard; there is simply no need for anyone to teach them.

Especially a man who has tasted the sweetness of the marrow; he is like a plow ox that has just been fitted with a new plow, wishing he could plow through the field.

On the contrary, she, who had thought she could experience the joy of an Imperial Sister, ended up being the one... begging for mercy.

Looking at how lean and thin he was, his stamina was actually better than hers, even after her physique had been improved by the Physical Fitness Potion and she practiced martial arts every day!

What kind of principle is this?

Regardless of the principle behind it, her married life in this plane had begun.

On the first day of the new marriage, after ten or so days of continuous clear weather, a drizzle suddenly began to fall.

She had originally planned to go look around the Farm and the hills, but now that plan had fallen through.

After offering tea to the elders, Xie Yang told Song Yanqing to go to the study and stop hovering around her, while she returned to the bedroom to organize her dowry.

First was the dowry Silver.

Her maiden family's braised food business was very prosperous; the dividends from two months and the dowry Silver put together totaled five hundred taels. Among them, four hundred taels were in silver banknotes, and one hundred taels were in five-tael silver ingots.

But no matter how good the braised food stall business was, Guixiang Town only had that many people, so even if wealthy families ordered a lot, a monthly dividend of ten taels was already the absolute limit.

It could only be said that after Song Yanqing passed the Cultivated Talent exam and even became the top-ranked scholar in Fucheng, it put quite a bit of pressure on her maiden family. When her two older sisters got married back then, they certainly didn't have this much money as a dowry.