Cannon Fodder Husband Ch.179-180

Chapter 179 – Interpersonal Relations

After bidding farewell to Aunt Cuiyun, Lu Xia finally breathed a sigh of relief.

At first, she was not used to the ritual-like avoidance and social interactions, but she had to adapt since that was how things were done in the countryside.

In fact, Lu Xia had good relations with people, mainly because she had helped two households in the village buy brown sugar before.

Everyone thought highly of her and Jiang Junmo, so they were willing to befriend her, thinking that they might seek help from her if they needed it in the future.

Of course, it was considered help, but money had to be given, and the prices were even higher than those at the cooperative. After all, they had to cover transportation costs. However, Lu Xia already had plenty of brown sugar, and the Jiang family had also sent her many sugar tickets, so they were not lacking.

Many people sought Lu Xia’s help, but she didn’t help everyone and only assisted those who seemed nice and genuinely needed it. The previous two cases were families with someone giving birth, and she bought the sugar for pregnant women.

But the villagers were already quite satisfied because they couldn’t buy it themselves.

Even when Lu Xia refused to help, she always found suitable reasons to avoid causing offense, so everyone understood and had a favorable impression of her.

In this way, she could be considered one of the best at interacting with the villagers among the educated youths in the area.

After seeing Aunt Cuiyun off, when Lu Xia returned home, she saw Jiang Junmo staring at the five half-grown chicken chicks.

She asked, “Do we need to build a chicken coop?”

Jiang Junmo nodded, “I’ll take care of that.”

Lu Xia replied, “Then I’ll get a basin for them as a food bowl. But what do they eat? Grain?”

Jiang Junmo was also unsure, “Probably… I guess?”

After thinking it over, Lu Xia found it unlikely. How could they afford to waste grain in this era? Grain was too precious, and people couldn’t even afford enough to eat, let alone feed chickens!

“I’ll go and ask to make sure,” she said.

“Alright.”

So while Jiang Junmo was busy with the chicken coop, Lu Xia went to the village to ask around. She found out that chickens were not fed grain at this time.

That made sense, considering how scarce food was in this era. Chickens were mainly fed bran and sometimes mixed with vegetables.

The vegetables could be from their own gardens, or they could use wild vegetables. Lu Xia remembered the type of popodin she had eaten in the spring. Adults didn’t like it when they grew older, but the chickens loved it when it was chopped up. It was quite common, so feeding them with that would help them grow.

After understanding this, Lu Xia bought some bran in the village. Almost every household had it, and it was inexpensive.

Meanwhile, Jiang Junmo had finished building a simple chicken coop, and the five chickens found their new home.

Occasionally, Lu Xia would also give them some spiritual spring water to help them grow faster so that they could lay eggs sooner, which would save money in the long run.

While Lu Xia and the others were contemplating raising chickens, Gu Xiangnan and Su Man’s house construction was finally about to begin.

Initially, they had planned to start building right after the frost had thawed, but the village was busy with spring farming at that time.

Later, they were busy gathering wild vegetables and selling mountain products. They didn’t want to delay other people’s income opportunities, and it was unlikely that others would give up such a good opportunity to earn money just to build a house. So, they had to keep postponing until now when they finally had time.

The two of them didn’t build their houses together; Su Man’s house was constructed first, followed by Gu Xiangnan’s. The location of their houses was adjacent to Lu Xia’s house, not too far away. They could probably hear each other talking in their yards.

With this arrangement, Lu Xia’s house was sandwiched between Su Man’s and the educated youths’, and on the other side next to Su Man’s were Gu Xiangnan and Li Yi’s house.

*

Chapter 180 – Su Man and Gu Xiangnan Move

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Because the houses were not large, they were both completed in about a month.

Su Man moved in first, and she had quite a lot of belongings. Lu Xia went to help her during the moving process.

While helping, Lu Xia took a look inside her house. It was constructed similarly to Lu Xia’s, with two rooms, but smaller in size since she would be living alone. However, it had all the essentials.

Other female educated youths were envious of her, but they didn’t have the audacity to ask if they could stay with her.

As for Gu Xiangnan’s house, since he was sharing it with someone, it was about the same size as Lu Xia’s house. However, when moving, Cheng Yujiao made a fuss again.

Her leg had already healed by now. It had been a long time, and she could walk even after a hundred days of injuries to her muscles and bones. But she kept claiming that she was still not well and tried to avoid doing work in the educated youth spot.

Everyone knew what kind of person she was, so they didn’t bother paying attention to her.

Gu Xiangnan was even more impatient with her and didn’t even want to talk to her anymore.

He had already received a reply from his family, but it seemed like the Cheng family didn’t intend to bring her back. They probably guessed that he wouldn’t leave her unattended, so without any warning, they “entrusted” Cheng Yujiao to him.

This blatant calculation made him annoyed, so he decided to change his attitude towards Cheng Yujiao in his heart as well. He would treat her like any other educated youth.

Cheng Yujiao had no idea about these thoughts. She was infuriated to see Gu Xiangnan moving out, clenching her teeth and seething with anger. When she looked at Su Man, her eyes twisted even more, as if she was contemplating something sinister.

Su Man subconsciously frowned when she saw Cheng Yujiao’s expression. She couldn’t help but shudder, feeling that something bad might happen.

Even Lu Xia thought that Cheng Yu Jiao’s expression didn’t seem right and speculated that she might cause trouble again.

However, whatever Cheng Yujiao was planning didn’t concern them.

By June, the corn seedlings in the fields had grown, indicating that they needed to start weeding again.

They had to pull out the weeds in several rounds until the corn seedlings grew tall enough not to be affected anymore.

Lu Xia hated this work the most. It was tough and unbearable, especially now that the weather was hot, making it even harder to endure under the scorching sun.

But there was no other option; they had to work.

Every time they finished, they felt completely exhausted.

On this day, after finishing work, Lu Xia and Jiang Junmo were walking back when they overheard some educated youths making plans to go up the mountain.

Lu Xia was puzzled and asked Sun Shengnan, who was beside her, “Why are they going up the mountain now? Are there still wild vegetables up there?”

Sun Shengnan shook her head, “No, they’re not going for wild vegetables. They’re going to ‘fangshan’!”

“Fangshan? What’s that?” Lu Xia was curious since she had heard of “fangniu” (herd cattle) but not “fangshan” (wander the mountain).

“Fangshan is a local term. It means going to the mountains to find wild ginseng. Since there’s no specific location, it all depends on luck. They wander around the mountains, so they call it fangshan.”

“Ah, I see,” Lu Xia understood and then seemed to recall something, “Right! This is the northeast, and there should be wild ginseng in the mountains, right?”

Sun Shengnan nodded and shook her head, “Yes, there should be, but finding it is rare. It really depends on luck. I’ve been here in the countryside for so many years, and I haven’t heard of anyone from the village finding one.

But wild ginseng is valuable, and the price is high. Finding even one root can be sold for a lot of money. Although it’s difficult to come across, many people still go up the mountains around this time to try their luck.

The male educated youths go up for a few days every year, but they don’t dare to venture deep into the mountains. They just wander around nearby mountains, so it’s probably not effective. It’s unlikely to find anything here; if there were any, the villagers would have already dug them up.”

Upon hearing this, Lu Xia chuckled.

No, there was still some nearby, but it wasn’t dug up by the villagers, but by Su Man.

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