Chapter 253: Meritorious Official

Translator: 549690339 |

Only Zhuang Qingning was consulted on the details of gathering mugwort leaves from the village.

Once all matters had been discussed, Zhuang Jingye arranged to gather everyone together and share the details with them.

“Harvesting mugwort leaves? This is really a golden opportunity. Normally, when we take cut mugwort to the pharmacy, they rarely accept it. We have to wait for the right time. But now, they’re accepting however much we have?” “The village chief himself said so. Unless you don’t even believe his words?” “Exactly, even if you don’t trust the village chief, can’t you trust Qingning? Her tofu workshop always pays for the beans on time and there has never been a default.”

“We do trust him, but it’s hard to believe that money could come this easily…” The man who questioned earlier scratched the back of his head, feeling a bit embarrassed: “Usually, we are always working hard on the field from dawn to dusk. Only by the end of the year can we scrape together a bit of money. This is unbelievable.”

It was like handing steamed white buns to those who are used to eating steamed combread all the time. They dare not take it.

“What’s there to doubt? Just give it a try and see if it’s true. After all, we’re free once we finish our work. If we can earn a little more money, no matter how small, that’s better than nothing.”

“Sounds reasonable. Let’s just give it a try.”

“If we are going to try, then we have to hurry up. Didn’t you hear the village chief? If we want to catch the first shipment, we need to act quickly.”

“Alright, I’ll go home and sharpen my sickle!”

Small groups of people chatted as they walked towards their homes.

Those who hadn’t finished their autumn planting rushed to plant peanuts and soybeans. Those who finished planting already started sharpening their sickles and setting out to search for mugwort leaves.

After harvesting and returning, they spread everything out in the courtyard to dry using baskets, winnowing fans, bamboo strips, and straw mats.

In a short time, everyone in the village was rather busy.

[Ding, heartwarming reminder, this year the villagers’ planting area of the new soybean seeds has exceeded last year’s soybean planting area. Congratulations to the host for completing the first task of the new agricultural planting series: promoting the new soybean seed planting task.]

[The host has obtained the task reward, the recipe for making lactone tofu, and the recipe for marinating pork head meat. You have also unlocked a series of tasks, which will be issued irregularly based on actual conditions.]

[Because the host was very successful in completing this task, exceeding the planned area substantially, and encouraging the villagers to plant large quantities of new varieties of beans, the system will reward the host with an additional reward: the recipe for marinated chicken feet.]

Not bad, not bad at all. Now she had two new recipes and a formula for making lactone tofu.

Although she is currently promoting the production of tofu skin, so that tofu skin can be conveniently marketed to the county town, the capital, and even further places, ensuring a year-round operation of the workshop, she doesn’t have much time and energy to have her tofu workshop produce lactone tofu on a large scale.

But having this formula at her disposal offers her a way to satisfy her own cravings or to use it to please Uncle Zhang in the future.

Zhuang Qingning, grinning ear to ear, accepted and bound everything she received, and unlocked what needed to be unlocked.

[Host, you did a very, very good job completing the task. I hope next time you can also exceed the task requirements and receive even more additional rewards.]

With such an enthusiastic tone, an image of a frantically excited robot suddenly appeared in Zhuang Qingning’s mind.

It’s too much!

However, the system being excited is justified. After all, when tasks are exceeded, the automatic allocation of task rewards by the system is greater. With more task rewards, she, as the host, can unlock more recipes, and achieve prosperity more quickly.

However, this time around, the credit didn’t really belong to her, it should be

given to Zhuang Ruman.

He truly helped her a lot.

Zhuang Qingning’s smile was as cunning as a fox.

The main contributor to this achievement, Zhuang Ruman, was sitting dejectedly in his courtyard at home, sighing seven or eight dozen times over a pot of tea.

Just sighing wasn’t enough; he was also incessantly scratching his head until his hair looked like a bird’s nest.

What went wrong? How did it turn out like this?

He had spent so much breath, said so many things, and explained everything clearly. Those people reluctantly agreed, but why did they all ignore his words and ran to Zhuang Jingye to get new bean seeds?

Did these people get hypnotized by Zhuang Jingye’s words?

Now thinking about it, maybe he thought things too simple at that time. He knew that after he went to those people to talk, wouldn’t Zhuang Jingye also do the same?

Why didn’t he think about going to speak with them again? Maybe if he had made an extra effort to visit each household again they might have realized his point of view was right.

Alas, what a pity! Too careless!

And Zhuang Jingye, who is always pining around that girl every day, do not know what the village chief is thinking. It’s really annoying!

This time, it’s that sly girl Zhuang Qingning who got all the benefits!

“My husband.” Mrs. Song seeing Zhuang Ruman sighing, poured him a cup of tea: “We have three acres of land left to plant. What should we plant?

If it were like previous years, they should plant beans. Whether for selling or turning it into tofu before the new year, both are very convenient.

But this year, thinking that the whole village’s beans were bought up by Zhuang Qingning’s tofu workshop, and later on they might have to sell their beans to her as well, made Mrs. Song annoyed.

“What else can we plant? Just plant some beans.” Zhuang Ruman answered in a dispirited tone.

“Plant beans?” Mrs. Song jumped up like a cat that had its tail stepped on: My husband, are you planning to sell beans to that deceiving girl?

“Not selling. We need it for making tofu at the end of the year. And also, planting some beans may come in handy later.”

Zhuang Ruman seemed annoyed, “stop asking so many questions, you don’t understand anything. Instead of chattering, you should hurry up and arrange Qinghe’s marriage.”

At this point, Mrs. Song’s face turned red.

She had been to many places recently, looking for many matchmakers. However, the people she found were not to Zhuang Ruman’s liking. When he said their backgrounds weren’t good, Mrs. Song looked for wealthier ones. Yet, these matchmakers were all snobbish, seeing her being picky and choosy, they were never able to settle on a match. Now, no one wants to deal with her, and in these few days, no one has come to propose a match.

Over these issues, Zhuang Ruman had complained about her numerous times, saying she can’t get anything done.

Mrs. Song was also feeling very upset.

Seeing Mrs. Song’s reaction, Zhuang Ruman was even more annoyed, and his mouth quirked displeased.

“Okay, just go and prepare dinner. I’m going out for a while.

“Husband, where are you going?” Mrs. Song asked.

Zhuang Ruman didn’t bother to answer her, he just headed straight for the door and walked west.