Farm Girl's Manor
Chapter 86 Dust Settles (2)_1

Chapter 86: Chapter 86 Dust Settles (2)_1

Once the sesame seeds were fried to perfection, the maltose in the pot had also fully melted.

Mo Yan scooped out the fried salt, wrapped it in oiled paper, and set it aside for next time.

After cleaning and heating the pot until it was dry, Mo Yan poured the fried corn in with a third of the maltose and began to stir with chopsticks and a spatula. Only when the maltose and fried corn were evenly mixed did she begin to shape the candy figurines.

Shaping the candy was not difficult; just smaller than a fist would do. Xin Er found it fun and, after washing her hands with hot water, helped out. In the end, they used five jin of fried corn and ten jin of shade-dried millet with the maltose to make over twenty jin of candy figurines.

Looking at the big pile of golden corn candy figurines and the black-and-white shade-dried millet ones, Xin Er suddenly hugged Mo Yan and burst into tears.

"Sister, I’m so happy, really so happy. Our family has so many candy figurines, we won’t have to envy others anymore!"

Mo Yan’s heart ached as she listened. In the past, not to mention having so many candy figurines to eat, even during the kitchen god ritual, they only had two or three small pieces between them. After the ritual, the family could eat their share, but the sweet taste was hardly enjoyed before the candy figurines were gone.

"Don’t cry, don’t cry, our family is doing well now, and it will get even better. We’ll have more candy figurines than we can eat every year."

Xin Er lifted her head, nodding while tears flew from her eyes. She looked at her sister sincerely and said, "Sister, our home has become so good, all thanks to you. Sister, you are the best sister in the whole world."

"Silly girl, it’s because our family worked together that things have gotten this good. All I did was what I should do!"

Mo Yan patted her head and smiled openly. Since she had taken over their sister’s (daughter’s) body, she had to be good to them and give herself peace of mind.

Once the candy figurines were ready, Mo Yan got busy chopping filling and kneading dough for dumplings, another tradition for the Little New Year. Once a hundred or so white, plump, fragrant mushroom and lean meat dumplings were wrapped, it was time to start the kitchen god ritual.

With the custom of "women do not perform the kitchen god ritual," Mo Yan and the girls went back to their rooms when the ritual started, while Mo Yan stayed busy in the kitchen with Zhenzhen. The ritual wasn’t considered over until the sound of firecrackers died away.

Mo Yan boiled a pot of dumplings, and the family gathered around the table, underneath which a fire basin was burning, noisily finishing off the pot of dumplings.

In stark contrast, Old Man Mo’s family was mired in bleak despair.

Since returning from the Mo Family the day before, Old Man Mo’s face had been dark, and he had barely touched his food all day; Mo Hong’s family just sat on the doorstep, cursing Mo Yan and her family all day long, and Mo Niu’s family cried and wailed, not doing any work or even caring for the children. The younger ones, frightened, cried ceaselessly, disturbing the peace of the neighbors as well.

Mo Wu’s family didn’t know what to do and hadn’t even prepared the candy figurines for the kitchen god ritual. In the end, after much pleading and enduring scorn, they managed to borrow two figurines from another household, also from Mo Family Village, to hastily get through the ritual.

The next day, Old Man Mo took Mo Yongfu to the Government Office, and upon learning they couldn’t repay the Silver Coin and his son would face beheading, he was so frightened he almost collapsed, only staying upright with Mo Yongfu’s support.

When they got back home, they began to gather Silver. But when Mo Hong’s family took out all their Silver, counted several times, and found they were still over a hundred taels short, Old Man Mo’s throat became sweet, and he collapsed.

On the twenty-sixth of the twelfth lunar month, the day before the Government Office’s seal was to be applied, Jingzhao Yin tried Mo Yongshou and Mo Yonglu for defrauding people of their money, with many from Liu Yang Village coming just to watch the excitement.

Unexpectedly, at the court, Mo Yongshou loudly proclaimed his innocence before everyone, pushing all the blame onto Mo Yonglu. However, with the Shopkeeper’s testimonies and evidence, his scheme ultimately failed.

Mo Yonglu, having lost all hope in his brother who wanted to doom him, didn’t hesitate to reveal in meticulous detail all the schemes against the Mo Family.

In the end, after the Punishing Shopkeeper received the over nine thousand taels of Silver returned by Old Man Mo and agreed not to pursue the misused hundred-plus taels, Mo Yongshou, as the ringleader, was sentenced on the spot to thirty strokes of the large paddle and banishment to a remote desert three thousand miles away, to be carried out after the seal was lifted on the sixteenth of the first lunar month of the next year.

Mo Yonglu, as the accessory to the crime, was given thirty strokes as well and locked up in prison, waiting to be paraded in the streets for ten days after the festival before he could go home.

As the sentence came down, Old Man Mo spat out another mouthful of blood and fainted, unable to wake up. Mo Hong’s family didn’t even bother with him, instead sitting right on the steps of the Government Office, loudly condemning Mo Qingze for being unhelpful. When some curious villagers inquired, Mrs. Niu maliciously slandered the entire Mo Family.

People naturally tend to sympathize with the underdogs, and seeing the state of Old Man Mo’s family, the villagers of Liu Yang Village soon started to view the Mo Family with a subtle change of heart...

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