Green Lotus Peasant Girl

59

At the time of the measurement, no Yang family members were present; it was just the village head.

Upon hearing that the Yang family had purchased the land, Li Qinghe was surprised. Neither she nor the Yang family were familiar with each other, and Yang Lanrou was the only one she knew at best.

"That piece of land isn’t as good as yours." The village chief lowered his voice. "But in this village, it’s considered a relatively good barren slope."

The land that the Yang family purchased was sloped land.

Li Qinghe owned flat land. It used to be a slope, and that large slope was covered with bamboo forests. Removing bamboo, including roots, was not an easy task. It could grow quite far from branches and vines. The piece of land where Li Qinghe raised chickens also had bamboo growing in various places.

"You will be neighbors in the future, get along." The village head left such a comment before leaving.

Li Qinghe didn't think about the problem of the two families getting along at all, to be honest. She was far from the Yang family's house, since there was more than an acre of barren land in the middle where chickens were being raised. There was only one pathway; if not for feeding the chickens, she wouldn't go there.

Now, it was time for spring plowing, and Li Qinghe was very busy on the farm, so she didn't think much about the Yang family. She and Zhou Chengkang went to town again to buy seeds. They still planted barley, the same as last year. It was worth mentioning that there were sweet potato slips in the shop this year.

Li Qinghe lit up at the sight of the long, black sweet potato slips in the shop and asked, "How do you plant these?"

The attendant took a look at it and said, "Just bury it in the ground. I heard it yields a lot. Would you like to purchase them?"

There was something off about his attitude. Li Qinghe looked at him suspiciously. In the village, most people did not buy seeds and obtained them only from their harvests. As she didn't have seeds and had more land this year, she could only go to purchase seeds from the store for the next few years.

Farmers generally didn’t buy seeds if there were no accidents. However, no matter whether it was the grain shop or the seed shop, the attendants were usually indifferent to the ordinary farmers. After all, the farmers were poor at first sight and couldn't buy anything.

His attitude was so enthusiastic now, so something must be wrong with the seeds.

Li Qinghe asked curiously, "What is there to say?"

The attendant glanced at the inner room and said in a low voice, "This new seed is part of a quota given by the county. Each shop has to sell 500 catties, but I heard that this thing was in the next county last year… if you buy it, I’ll give it to you at a cheaper price. Normally one catty costs five taels, but I'll give it to you for three taels. Tell me how much land you have and I'll help you calculate the number of seeds."

Li Qinghe tentatively said, "Two acres."

The attendant was a little surprised. "This stuff is very interesting. It won't be enough even if you take these five hundred catties with you.”

Li Qinghe thought for a while, and said, "I'll take thirty catties."

The attendant understood that she wanted to take some slips to try planting them. He helped them load the seed bags into the carriage. The two then went to buy meat before returning home.

Zhou Chengkang also gave a few villagers a ride back on the way and didn't charge them anything, just helping them as a favor. The sweet potato slips were kept at the bottom of the bag, so no one saw them.