"Going to town?" Shen Yaoqing asked after closing the rabbit hutch.
Shen Xuanqing, who was bending over to look at the pregnant rabbit, let go of his hands that were resting on his legs, straightened up and said, "Well, I'll sell the rest."
He was really tall, and when he straightened up, his shadow covered Lu Gu next to him.
Shen Yaoqing asked again: "Do you want to raise the sheep?"
"Keep it for now, I'll see if I can catch an ewe." Shen Xuanqing took the bamboo basket from Lu Gu's hand.
"Okay, then you two go first, we will go to look at the land in the afternoon. "Shen Yaoqing said and picked up the shovel to continue working.
The black-hoofed sheep tied in the corner seemed to have accepted its fate. It had been tied up on the mountain for more than half a month. Now it had gotten used to being fed grass, so it lowered its head, ate and gained weight at the same time.
There were not many prey for sale today, seven pheasants and eleven rabbits. It would be quite heavy to carry them in a bamboo basket, so Shen Xuanqing put them in the cart. The road to the town was smooth, whether pushing or pulling a cart wasn't too strenuous, it gave his shoulders a break.
He was cleaning up in the yard while Lu Gu was counting his own chicken and duck eggs in the kitchen. He had eight hens, all the eggs laid before going up the mountain were taken away by them. Exactly one month had passed, now he had 178 eggs.
Raising autumn chicks was like this, when it was time for them to grow up, it was winter and there were not many insects and earthworms to eat. They were smaller in size and couldn't lay as many eggs as Wei Lanxiang's big hen. Otherwise, eight well-raised and strong hens might lay more than two hundred eggs in a month.
However, after saving so many eggs, this was something that Lu Gu had never seen before. There were 178 eggs.
It was the season for laying eggs, and the seven ducks also laid a lot of eggs, 153 eggs.
Shen Xuanqing quickly packed up the cart, came over and heard him counting in a low voice. He smiled and stood beside him without disturbing him.
"How to deal with it?" After counting, he asked Lu Gu without interfering.
"Hmm." Lu Gu thought for a moment and said, "I'm going to sell 100 chicken eggs and 100 duck eggs. There will be 78 chicken eggs left. This time we can bring more when we go up the mountain. We can leave the rest for my sister-in-law. There are 53 duck eggs left, so I will ask my mother to help pickle them into salted eggs. "
"That's great. You can sell them for money and eat them to nourish your body." Shen Xuanqing praised him generously. As he spoke, he went outside to get a bamboo basket. This was the one Wei Lanxiang used to sell eggs, and it was padded with thick straw.
Eggs were easy to break, so they had to be careful when placing them in bamboo basket. One layer wasn't enough to hold all the eggs, so they put another layer of thick straw on top.
Wei Lanxiang heard the noise and came over to help. She hadn't seen her second son and his fulang for a long time, so she couldn't help but talk more and sounded a bit nagging. She said that luckily she had raised a lot of chickens and ducks last year, more than a dozen each, and could lay ten eggs every day, which was something unthinkable in the past. Then she said that all chickens at home could lay eggs, however the price of egg was too low.
"When I was at Shen Yan's age, raising five hens at home was a big deal. We could only eat eggs a few times a year. Only the rich could afford them." She helped spread the straw in the bamboo basket and reminded Shen Xuanqing: "Remember to walk slowly and steadily."
"I know." Shen Xuanqing agreed, put the bamboo baskets on the cart, and went out with Lu Gu.
They walked steadily all the way. They came out late today and the morning market was almost over, but Shen Xuanqing was not in a hurry at all. The wheels of the cart rolled slowly across the street. Lu Gu walked along the street while shouting: "Eggs, eggs for sale."
His voice was neither too loud nor too soft, it sounded gentle and soft, making people not feel it was noisy or ear piercing. Moreover, he was dressed neatly and good-looking, so people passing by on the street couldn't help but pay more attention to him. He actually got a few deals, selling ten or eight of them at a time.
There were more poor people than rich people. In order to make money, women and fulangs had to show their faces. The world was not peaceful. People with good looks were easily targeted by bad guys, but with a tall man like Shen Xuanqing by Lu Gu's side, the ruffians who looked around dared not have any bad thoughts at all.
There were clouds today, covering the sun from time to time, so it wasn't so hot. They walked to the market while selling. There were many chicken eggs and duck eggs. They wanted to stay in the town for a while today to see if they could sell them all.
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