Peaceful Farm Life

Chapter 241: Chapter 241 Gone with the Past, Such Is Life_1

Once the tub was full of water, An Jing blocked the bamboo pipe with a wooden piece to prevent the water from flowing out.

”Husband, go get the vegetables we picked this morning and wash them.”

”Mm.”

By the time Xiao Changyi brought out the vegetables, before the two of them began to wash them, Yu Daming arrived.

Yu Daming came to deliver the news of death, Landlord Wang had passed away, this morning during the Yin hour.

Yu Daming said solemnly, ”After you left yesterday, the master had been sleeping continuously. The young master stayed by the bed the entire time. Yesterday, at lunch and dinner, the young master called out to the master but there was no response; he remained asleep. If it were not for his breathing, we would have thought the master passed away at that moment. Today, during the Yin hour, because the young master had been holding the master’s hand, he noticed the master’s body temperature was dropping. Feeling something amiss, he checked the master’s breath, and only then did we realize the master had passed away.”

Sighing in her heart, An Jing thought: It seems that Landlord Wang’s sudden moment of clarity yesterday was indeed a sign of the end.

The next day, carrying a heavy heart, An Jing and Xiao Changyi bought incense, candles, firecrackers, and paper money as offerings to mourn at the Wang family home.

After all, they were friends with Wang Youbao; they couldn’t avoid paying this visit.

Since there were many people mourning, and Wang Youbao was in deep sorrow over his father’s death, An Jing didn’t say much to him. She only offered a few words of comfort, telling Wang Youbao to restrain his grief and accept the change.

After returning from the mourning visit, An Jing and Xiao Changyi started to ponder over the grain rice dehusking. The deceased had passed; the living should carry on as such.

In fact, An Jing had been thinking about the grain rice dehusking for a while, and she had already drawn up a draft. However, initially, because she couldn’t clearly remember the structure of the dehusker, many sketches were scrapped. It wasn’t until the night before last that she drew a sketch that seemed right and decided not to make any more drawings.

There was not much rice left at home, and they still had some only because they had not eaten any rice during this time. But they had rice porridge to drink with every meal, the slightly thicker kind of porridge. Compared with the early days when the two first lived together, An Jing genuinely felt that things were much better now.

To be honest, living together with Xiao Changyi, An Jing enjoyed every day. Even if the food wasn’t the best, she was very happy, nearly bursting with joy from her bones, sweetness filling her heart.

The grain rice dehusker was very similar to a stone mill, primarily made of bamboo, wood, and loam.

The entire process of making the dehusker involved roughly seven steps: preparing the clay, crafting the husking tray, weaving the husking ring, tamping the clay, toasting the husking nails, affixing the ba gua, and finishing the design.

Xiao Changyi had woven all the bamboo baskets, hampers, and containers at home. He could make simple things, and weaving the husking ring didn’t require advanced skills—if one could weave a basket, one could weave it, so An Jing didn’t look for a professional weaver and let Xiao Changyi start working according to the blueprint.

But since making the grain rice dehusker was quite troublesome, it took An Jing and Xiao Changyi a full eight days to complete it.

Once the grain rice dehusker was finished, An Jing and Xiao Changyi used it to husk rice.

The rice husked by the grain rice dehusker was brown rice, not as white as the modern machine-ground rice. This brown rice still needed to be polished with a Stepping Dehusking Machine to become white.

However, even though the Stepping Dehusking Machine was still needed, it was much faster than continuously using it to husk rice before.

An Jing and Xiao Changyi took only one day to produce fifty pounds of rice.

As An Jing watched Xiao Changyi pour the rice into the nearly empty rice tub, she smiled and asked, ”Husband, the government should be coming soon to collect taxes, right?”