Peaceful Farm Life

Chapter 248: Chapter 248 You Pretend We Don’t Exist, We Also Pretend You Don’t Exist_1

Ten days later, Wang Youbao sent Yu Daming and Yu Erming to deliver a grain rice huller. Thereafter, An Jing and Xiao Changyi together gave the huller to Shi Xiaolan. Fearing that Shi Xiaolan would refuse it, An Jing did not mention how much the huller truly cost, simply saying it was made of bamboo and loess and wasn’t worth much money.

Shi Xiaolan’s family used a stone mortar to hull rice, which was truly time-consuming, laborious, and exhausting. Therefore, they accepted the huller given by An Jing. However, they could also tell that the huller was a rare item and definitely worth a good deal of money.

An Jing also asked An Fu to take a look at how her family’s Stepping Dehusking Machine was made and told him to make one for his own use. She said that the huller would produce brown rice, which still needed to be polished with the Stepping Dehusking Machine to become white rice. In fact, one could also use a stone mortar, but it was not as fast or as labor-saving as the Stepping Dehusking Machine.

Before that, Wang Youbao had sent someone to buy a large amount of tofu from An Fu, saying that it was An Jing and Xiao Changyi who referred him as a customer. As a result, An Fu and Shi Xiaolan were extremely grateful to An Jing and Xiao Changyi and did not know how to repay them.

Later, An Fu and his parents discussed it and decided to place the huller An Jing had given them in An Village for communal use under the name of An Jing and Xiao Changyi, claiming it was a gift from An Jing to their village. An Fu and his family did not have other intentions; they merely wanted to gain some good reputation for An Jing and Xiao Changyi as a way of repaying them.

In this era, reputation was highly valued, and An Jing and Xiao Changyi had virtually no reputation to speak of, which led them to come up with this idea.

When Shi Xiaolan talked to An Jing about this matter, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

She did not care about reputation at all; whether she had a good reputation mattered little to her. If it had, she would not have fallen out with the people of Jiuping Village in the first place.

However, she also knew that this was Shi Xiaolan and An Fu’s way of expressing their gratitude to her and her husband, not knowing how else to repay them. Moreover, since the huller had already been donated to An Village for communal use, it was not appropriate for her to discredit that gesture. She could only accept in front of others that the huller was indeed donated by her for the use of An Village.

Even though An Fu and his family had donated the huller to the village to gain some good reputation for An Jing and Xiao Changyi, they still felt that it was not enough to repay them. Hence, that day, An Fu and Shi Xiaolan also came to help An Jing and Xiao Changyi cultivate the land.

And they helped for five days.

An Jing, unable to decline their offer, tried to pay An Fu and Shi Xiaolan for their labor, but they adamantly refused to accept any money. An Jing could only gratefully accept their offer of help with cultivating the land for five days.

By now, it was the third day of September.

An Jing and Xiao Changyi had already cleared over four mu of wasteland, and together with the two mu they had already planted, that made more than six mu in total. When people passed by from the foot of the mountain and beheld the six mu of mountainous farmland cleared by An Jing on the hillside, they were filled with envy.

But they could only envy, as they did not have as much time as An Jing and Xiao Changyi to clear mountain land.

On this day, An Jing and Xiao Changyi continued cultivating their land, and Lin Daqiang happened to pass by carrying a bundle of firewood. Lin Daqiang did not look at them, and they did not look at him either.

Let’s pretend we don’t exist to each other; that way, we can all live in peace.

In truth, Lin Daqiang did notice An Jing and Xiao Changyi, but when he walked beside them, he immediately pretended as if he had not seen them and continued on his way.

Even though he envied and was jealous of the better life An Jing and Xiao Changyi had compared to his and the considerable amount of land they had opened up, he did not dare to provoke the couple again.