Poor but talented scholar

Chapter 32 Plan

That night, the strongest aroma of meat wafted from the Lu family courtyard in years.

The pork belly is cut into thick slices and stir-fried with fresh wild vegetables until it glistens with oil.

Xiaoman held her rice bowl, her little face flushed from eating. Her mouth was stuffed full, and she muttered, "Brother, this meat is so sweet...it's even more delicious than during the New Year."

Lu Shouye sat to the side and, for the first time ever, poured himself a small cup of cheap liquor.

Looking at his son, who was drinking soup with his head down under the oil lamp, the resentment he felt for being humbled by poverty for half his life dissipated.

Lu Chuan ate his meal silently, listening to the cheerful laughter around him.

Lu's mother sat to the side, barely touching her chopsticks.

She kept putting meat into Lu Chuan and Xiao Man's bowls, her eyes showing a hint of daze.

She would occasionally glance up at the courtyard gate, then at the bag of hidden money, her voice barely audible: "Shouye, are we really not going to dig tomorrow? That whole hillside is full of money."

Lu Shouye put down his wine glass, the smell of alcohol on his face dissipating considerably after the question.

He looked at Lu Chuan.

"Things are valued for their scarcity." Lu Chuan put down his chopsticks. "Father, Mother, if we send this Pinellia ternata to Ji'an Hall every day, Manager Lin will soon try to lower the price."

"Moreover, not all the villagers are blind. If our family goes out with the cart every day, the land behind the mountain will be turned upside down in less than three days."

He raised his head, his gaze deep. "For the next few days, not only will we not go to the back mountain, Dad, you also have to take a hoe and turn over that plot of land to make it look like we're going to plant crops."

"We'll have to wait for the rest of the Pinellia ternata. We'll wait until the other pharmacies in town run out of stock, and until Manager Lin asks someone to inquire about it. That's when we can talk about a high price."

Lu Shouye was terrified. He felt as if his son was a sentient accountant.

As Lu Chuan had predicted, the days that followed were indeed not peaceful in Liutang Village.

The aroma of meat wafting from the Lu family's house that night could not escape the noses of the gossipy women next door.

"Hey, wife who's keeping her livelihood, what delicious food did you have at home yesterday? The aroma was so enticing, it could make your mouth water even through two walls," an auntie at the village entrance asked casually while washing clothes by the river.

Following Lu Chuan's instructions, Chen smiled awkwardly and wiped the sweat from her forehead: "There's nothing good here. Chuan'er was copying books in town, and the teacher rewarded him with a few coins. That filial son insisted on buying two big bones to nourish Xiaoman. It's just a little bit of oil, I'm sorry to have made you laugh."

"Copying books can earn that much?" Aunt Zhang pursed her lips, her eyes full of suspicion. "I've noticed Shouye hasn't been idle these past few days, always heading to the back mountain. Could he have found some treasure?"

"No way, Chuan'er said the soil there is moist and he wants to try planting some shade-tolerant beans. Shouye is helping to turn the soil."

Mrs. Chen answered fluently, but in her heart she was filled with admiration for her son's foresight.

Because Lu Shouye did indeed plant some worthless soybeans in that place that was originally full of herbs, even if someone passed by and took a look, they would only think that the Lu couple were crazy for money and wanted to harvest even from that kind of wasteland.

Lu Chuan, meanwhile, stayed inside, single-mindedly spreading out the two reams of oiled paper. He couldn't bear to use the paper awarded by the Master.

Instead of rushing to review the scriptures, he drew an extremely complex coordinate graph on paper.

He clearly marked the terrain behind Liutang Village, showing where it was damp, where it was perpetually dark, and where it was easy for passersby to spot.

He is working on a larger project called "Artificial Cultivation Program for Pinellia ternata".

There are limits to how much wild picking can be done, and it's easy to imitate.

However, if they could master the cultivation techniques and turn those crops into crops that could be mass-produced at home, then the Lu family would have a continuous source of income.

On the last day of the Qingming Festival holiday, Lu Chuan took Lu Shouye into the town again.

This time, there were no medicinal herbs on the carriage, only the book box that Lu Chuan was going to carry to the academy.

Lu Chuan led his father into the town's largest bookstore once again.

The bookstore owner was a snob. He didn't intend to pay any attention to Lu Chuan because he was wearing old clothes, but when he saw the young man heading straight for the expensive books "Qimin Yaoshu" and "Nongzheng Quanshu", the owner's eyes changed.

"Young man, this book is an official edition, one tael of silver per set, no credit allowed." The shopkeeper said with a forced smile.

Lu Chuan ignored him, his slender fingers gliding over the yellowed papers, finally stopping on a tattered herbal medicine book.

"This book, fifty coins." Lu Chuan slammed the money on the counter.

The shopkeeper was taken aback; the tattered book had been sitting there for three years without anyone wanting it. He quickly took the money.

Lu Chuan opened the tattered book and found what he was looking for on one of the pages: a vague record of how to treat the stems of medicinal herbs with wood ash and lime water.

With this, plus the modern logic in his mind, it seemed feasible.

After leaving the bookstore, Lu Chuan did not stop; he took Lu Shouye to the blacksmith shop in town.

"Boss, I need three of these hooks." Lu Chuan handed over a blueprint, which showed a combination of modern tweezers and a herb-gathering hook.

Lu Shouye was completely bewildered, but nowadays, he did whatever his son said.

When everything was ready, Lu Chuan stood in front of the school gate, turned around and bowed to Lu Shouye.

"Dad, after we return to the village, no one except you and Mom is allowed to approach that piece of land behind the mountain. Please take good care of Xiaoman." Lu Chuan's eyes were cold. "I'll come back from my vacation in half a month, and then we'll start planting."

Lu Shouye nodded heavily, a sense of unprecedented pride rising in his heart.

When Lu Chuan stepped into Master Zhao's school, he happened to run into several wealthy young men who usually ostracized him.

"Hey, isn't this so-and-so? Went back to pay respects to your ancestors for Qingming Festival, didn't bring back a couple of pounds of soil to use as ink?"

Lu Chuan merely glanced at him indifferently.

"If Brother Zhou is interested in soil, I can bring two baskets to your residence next time. I suppose the Zhou family's ancestral hall is in need of such substantial items to cover up its restless spirit."

Lu Chuan spoke calmly, yet every word was piercing.

Zhou Fang's face instantly turned a deep liver color.

"You! You country bumpkin, how dare you..."

"Brother Zhou, it's time for the Master's morning reading." Lu Chuan didn't wait for him to finish speaking and walked straight past him to his seat.

He sat down and opened the tattered medical manual he had just bought.

His mind raced with calculations:

The first batch of Pinellia ternata cost 30 coins, which was just for seeds. If the scale of artificial cultivation in the second batch could be increased fivefold, the annual income could reach 30 taels of silver.

During the Qianlong reign, thirty taels of silver was enough to buy a small courtyard house with a storefront in the county town.

Then he won't have to worry about money anymore; he'll buy a house in town that belongs to his family.