As soon as Zi Qing and her family arrived at the market, the lively crowd quickly swept away everyone's unpleasantness. Zeng Rui Xiang held Zi Xi, whose drool always managed to land on his face, causing everyone to burst out laughing. Seeing everyone laugh, Zi Xi drooled even more happily.

  The Shens bought some dried mushrooms and dried bamboo shoots. Zi Qing saw a vendor selling lambs, thought about it, but didn't buy any. Firstly, it's not good to raise them in winter when there's no fresh grass to cut. Secondly, the family's mountain hasn't been purchased yet, so it's not suitable for grazing, and someone needs to be assigned to watch over them, which is really hard to arrange.

  Seeing more people selling meat, Zeng Ruixiang said to buy a piece of pork back home to make cured meat. Zi Qing thought that cured meat was not as delicious as ham and quickly said: "Dad, mom, I want to eat ham, ham smells fragrant."

  Shen's family listened and smiled, saying: "You're quite a foodie, ham is so much trouble, only your second uncle knows how to make it at home."

  "Mother, then buy more meat, make some bacon and ham. I had ham at my uncle's house before," said Zifeng.

  Shen sighed and finally bought a quarter of a pig, a whole piece of good five-flower pork, and a whole pig's hind leg, spending 800 coins. Shen looked at the two large baskets of pork and smiled: "It's like a dream come true. At this time last year, I was worried about my children not having enough to eat or wear warm clothes. Who would have thought that after a year of hard work, we would move into such a spacious new house? Now we can buy as much meat as we want and never let the children go hungry again."

  Ziying still hasn't found sweet potatoes, but instead found several peach trees and orange trees, all of which were bought back home. Shen Shi, on the other hand, found people from her hometown village in the market town and happened to send a message to her second brother to come over.

  But after a big shopping spree, everyone was happy and forgot about the unpleasantness they had just encountered in the old house. Especially Zi Shou, who followed behind Zeng Rui Xiang, looking at a basket of pork and shouting that there was meat to eat, which made Zi Qing and several others laugh non-stop.

  The weather was fine, and Zi Qing went to see if the green onions in the vegetable garden had grown scallions. Shen Shi saw her always running to the vegetable garden and asked her why. After listening, she stroked Zi Qing's head and smiled: "Silly child, green onions need to be old before they can grow scallions, now they have just sprouted, usually it takes a year for them to grow scallions."

  It seems that the garlic scapes won't sell, and Zi Qing asked when the rape shoots will be ready. Upon learning it'll take another half month, Zi Qing let out a sigh of relief, figuring there's still time to catch up.

  From then on, Ziqing was at peace every day, doing household chores, teaching students, keeping accounts, and learning to make pouches. When she got tired, she would call Zishou and go catch insects to feed the chicks. This year, Shen's family had a good harvest of raising chickens, and when the hen laid eggs, Shen would incubate them. She said that as long as she could hatch some, it was better than buying chicks. Zeng Ruixiang was busy writing couplets, and Shen laughed at him for being so diligent, like he was rushing to take an exam. He said that no matter what, he had to earn back the six taels of silver. The silver given to Xiaoyu was sent over the next day, and Shen said it was good to send it early to put Tian's family at ease.

  Starting from the 15th of the twelfth lunar month, Master Xu and Master Li stopped coming. Master Xu still had many things that he didn't have time to do, saying he would come again on the 16th of the first lunar month. Zeng Rui-xiang prepaid him one hundred taels of silver for materials, and also settled his labor costs. The account with Master Li was also cleared. After calculating the accounts, there were less than fifty taels of silver left at home, and they still owed Master Xu fifty taels of silver for materials.

  Zifou and Zilu, Ziqing started selling couplets from the 15th of the twelfth lunar month. Zifou suggested that they sell in the town on New Year's Day, and on other days go to the city. The three people went back and forth between the two places, while Zeng Ruixiang stayed at home writing continuously.

  Although selling couplets this year is no longer a monopoly, after all, it's mixed with familiar faces and there are many repeat customers. Moreover, the red paper used this time was purchased from the city, which reduced costs. With three people earning more copper coins, they went to exchange for red paper, having something to do, making their days pass quickly and fulfilling, and life is full of hope.

  Zhou Zhanggui came on the 20th of the twelfth lunar month to collect the capons and green onions. According to Zhou Zhanggui, they would be rushed to Beijing by fast horse, and the price was reasonable: five cents per catty for green onions and four cents per catty for celery. The Shen family kept some for themselves to eat, and let Zhou Zhanggui take away the rest. The capons were quite large, mostly around five catties each, at eighteen cents per catty.

  Shen's family kept five of them, originally planning to keep ten, but considering their household situation, five were enough to eat.

  After settling the account, the capon was sold for four taels of silver, and the vegetables were less than six taels of silver. Shen's wife made up the difference with eggs, making a total of ten taels of silver. Shen's wife still gave Zhou Zhuang and his family fifty eggs as a token of appreciation, and also sent back several bundles of extremely tender rape shoots for them to taste the freshness.

  After Zhou Zhuangui left, Zi Qing saw that the rape in the field could be picked out, and after discussing with Zi Fu, they sold rape shoots along with couplets. Although it only lasted for five days before they couldn't pick any more, it was still quite popular. People in the city were tired of eating rich food and were willing to eat something fresh. Generally, farm families' rape was left to bloom and produce seeds for oil extraction, so they wouldn't waste it by picking the shoots. Zi Qing saw a business opportunity from this and estimated that selling rape shoots after the New Year might be even more popular.

  This year's New Year's Eve is on the 29th, and on the 28th, the whole family went into town. Zifuk took Zilu and Ziqing to sell the last batch of couplets. Zeng Rui Xiang said he would take Shen Shi for a stroll. Shen Shi first sold two embroidered screens and got eight taels of silver. Zeng Rui Xiang forbade her from rushing to work, saying it was too tiring for her eyes, and told her to embroider the screens at home instead, slowly.

  Ziying wanted to go out and take a good stroll to see if there was anything worth buying, but unfortunately the family's finances were still quite tight at the moment. Moreover, she was still too young, and Zifu didn't feel at ease with her acting alone either.

  The Shen family's annual gift was brought over by Shen Jian Shui when he came to make ham last time, leaving only the Zeng family side. Mrs. Shen had already bought two pieces of fabric and various snacks to send over. So this time, Mrs. Shen just bought some melon seeds, candies, and dried fruit snacks that they would serve to guests during the New Year's celebration at home. After Zi Qing and the others finished selling the couplets, the whole family headed back home because there were too many people in town, and Zeng Rui Xiang said that with so many young children at home, she was afraid they might get lost.

  As it was the first time spending Chinese New Year in their new home, Zeng Ruixiang directly went to invite the people from their old house to come over for dinner on New Year's Eve, a local custom known as "warming up the house".

  Zi Qing and Zi Fu rushed home without even putting away the goods, eager to start counting the silver. After counting, they had exactly ten taels of silver. The copper coins were more troublesome, having to be counted and strung together at the same time. This year's income was higher than last year's. Deducting the initial investment of 800 wen for buying paper, the net income was 13 taels and a little more. Zi Qing's oilseed cakes had also sold for 800-900 wen, but they were all spent on goods for the new year. Now the family's savings were almost up to 70 taels. Shen Shi let out a sigh of relief when she heard this, probably because she too was under pressure from the 50 taels of silver for the fabric cost.

  Zi Qing felt regretful that the three mu of rape field did not reach the expected income. They hadn't even harvested much, and they couldn't sell it even if they wanted to, so they could only hope for next year.

  In the evening, after dinner, Mrs. Shen prepared a basin of flour and a basin of glutinous rice flour, saying that she wanted to make some pastries herself. Zeng Rui-xiang helped out, with the flour being used to make sesame seed balls, the glutinous rice flour for fried lantern roots and fried doughnuts, Zi-fu tending the fire, while Mrs. Shen brought out a large basket of roasted peanuts, which Zi-lu and Zi-qing were in charge of peeling, to be made into peanut sugar and sesame sugar. Meanwhile, Zi-shou took Zi-xi to play, creating a lively and harmonious atmosphere in this rural household.