The Eldest Daughter of a Rural Family
Chapter 340: Just a Concubine (5)_1

Chapter 340: Chapter 340: Just a Concubine (5)_1

Sun Quanliang and his father, along with their grandchild, didn’t stay at home to sleep either. They hired two more people to keep an eye on the sweet potato shoots. Someone else was stealthily pinching off sweet potato shoots, too.

Previously, those who had planted vegetables in the garden had come to ask if they could pinch some to plant, all relieved, for it meant they could buy fewer sweet potato slips.

Seeing that some families had prepared their fields, Pei Qin immediately instructed Sun Quanliang’s family to prune and divide the plants according to each family’s field situation. They couldn’t plant too much, otherwise, there wouldn’t be enough to go around.

People from ten miles around swarmed in, as Old Scholar Fang came over to preside, supervising the activity alongside Sun Lizheng.

Soon enough, the sweet potato shoots in the fields had become sparse from all the pruning and dividing. Continuing to cut would lead to a significant decrease in production, so Pei Qin ordered them to stop.

Some who arrived late didn’t manage to buy any potato slips, and there were complaints and dissatisfaction.

Pei Qin told Sun Quanliang and the others to keep an eye on the sweet potato fields. They couldn’t kill the goose that laid the golden eggs if they pruned her sweet potatoes to baldness, as then she would harvest nothing.

After several days of busy work, Pei Yuan felt somewhat afraid. When they were promoting the crop, they didn’t want to plant it, and some even thought the sweet potatoes were too abnormal, blaming the Pei family for using them to harm Pei Qin and her brother. Now, seeing that everybody wanted to buy and plant them, it was practically a mad scramble. The sweet potatoes in their own fields were nearly pruned to baldness, yet people still asked for more.

Pei Qian cursed for several days, for in their small Tian Zhuang, they hadn’t managed to plant any, securing only two mu of land. It probably wouldn’t be enough for planting autumn sweet potatoes!

Pei Qin had Tian Zhuang reserve some land and instructed them to dig up the spring sweet potatoes. In a few days, they would go to Tian Zhuang to cultivate slips for autumn planting.

Sun Quanliang’s family, along with the two people they hired, watched over the sweet potato field intently.

The people from Zhang Dacheng’s family at the foot of Taiping Mountain also kept a close watch to prevent anyone from stealing the sweet potato shoots to use as slips.

At night, they indeed caught people trying to steal, but the thieves managed to escape.

Several people anxiously made it through until late June.

Finally came the word from Pei Qin that the sweet potatoes could be dug up.

In one day, the spring sweet potatoes in the fields and on the slopes of Taiping Mountain were all unearthed. The sloping land wasn’t very good, and too many shoots had been cut, so one mu yielded less than a thousand jin.

"To have seven to eight hundred jin is already very good! It’s more than what we’d get from grains!" Grandma Fang comforted the siblings.

"The sweet potatoes in these fields can actually yield quite a lot!" Lady Yu added.

After weighing the harvested sweet potatoes, the average yield per mu was also about seventeen to eighteen hundred jin, so the impact was not significant.

"If we cultivate all of these into slips, we should have just enough for planting the autumn sweet potatoes!" Pei Qin wasn’t too concerned, for promoting sweet potatoes at such speed was already fast. And they hadn’t really lost anything; on the contrary, pruning the sweet potato shoots had earned them a few taels of silver.

Pei Yuan and Pei Qian both felt that they originally had a high yield from the spring sweet potatoes, and their elder sister had even suggested that they try to harvest three thousand jin. Instead of increasing, the yield decreased, which certainly had a significant impact. Next time, they couldn’t prune so heavily.

The sweet potatoes planted by the other families seemed to be quite vigorous, with their shoots growing noticeably longer.

The days were getting hotter, as if capable of baking a person alive.

The cicadas on the elm trees called incessantly, causing restlessness in people’s hearts. Like dumplings being dropped into a pot, plenty of young boys immersed themselves in Bear River to swim.

On this particular day coinciding with Mu Xiu, Pei Wendong and Chang Yonglin sat in the hall working on exercises.

Cool breezes wafted through the room.

Pei Qin sat ungracefully on a recliner, a small table beside her holding mung bean soup and mung bean jelly. She was completely engrossed in a book about ghosts and spirits.

Pei Yuan and Pei Qian were also sewing nearby.

The front door was knocked again, and Pei Qian ran to open it. It was a few of Pei Wendong’s classmates, coming to call him out for a swim.

Many families had started planting sweet potatoes by now, and some had guessed that Shen Songming might have an extraordinary identity. Not only were Pei Qin and her brothers on the road to wealth, but Pei Wendong’s scholarship was also very good, promising a bright future. With the generous Chang Yonglin by their side, many from the school wished to befriend them and join in their activities.

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