After returning from my cultivation journey, I built a farm through fortune telling.

Chapter 85

But Bai Xiao didn't tell Bai these things. She only said, "Since the opportunity has come, you have to seize it! When you really become a big star who earns five, six, seven, or eight zeros a day, you have to remember your sister!"

"Tch! Stop talking about this!" Bai Xiao rolled her eyes. "There are only the two of us in this car, and you still pull this stunt. Others may not know, but I do. You've almost made ten million selling talismans!"

Bailu said, "You did quite well to get into elementary school by rounding up five times!"

Two million? You just rounded it in like that?

"Then tell me, do you have them or not!" Bai Xiao suddenly remembered, "Have you drawn and shipped all those talismans?"

Bai Lu looked up and sighed: "I've been too busy lately. I've only sent out most of them. I've already told them I'll have to wait a bit for the rest."

The main problem is that her spiritual power is insufficient, so she can't draw talismans anymore. In addition, there are many trivial matters at home. For example, the job of selling vegetables has fallen on her shoulders. How can she calm down to draw talismans?

"Just remember that." Bai Xiao suddenly grinned at Bai Lu and said, "Hey, I want to talk to you about something!"

Bai Lu slightly turned her head to look at her: "Hmm? What is it?"

"Since you're so rich now, just pay me back the 100,000 yuan I lent you!"

Bai Lu chuckled lightly: "What? When you borrowed the money, I said no, no, but you insisted. How long has it been, and you're already forcing me to pay it back?!"

"The one who owes you money is definitely the boss, huh? I'm not forcing you! It's just because you're a rich woman and don't need money! You have no idea how hard my life is! I have to get a discount with other people just to save a few dollars on a cup of coffee—tell me how generous I am, I'm struggling to make ends meet myself, and I still think about how hard it is for you to farm, so I'm helping you out! What's wrong with giving me some money back!"

"Just kidding, here you go!" Bai Lu took the phone and transferred 200,000 yuan to her: "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have been able to sell so many talismans. Consider the extra as a commission for you."

"Wow—" Bai Xiao exclaimed, holding her phone, "Your kickback is pretty good! If there's anything like this again, I'll definitely come to you! Let me tell you, there's a rumor that a lot of people in our circle are raising ghost children! I'll keep an eye out, and if anything happens, I'll contact you first!"

"Okay, okay!" Bai Xiao gestured with her chin. "We're at your house!"

"So fast?" Bai Xiao stretched and got out of the car, shouting at the top of her lungs, "Mom, I'm back!"

"I heard it! I heard it!"

Hearing the car, Bai Xiao's mother wiped her hands and came out of the kitchen. Seeing Bai Lu, she quickly told her to get out of the car: "Come on, come home for dinner! I made three-cup chicken tonight!"

Bai Lu shook her head and refused: "My mom has cooked dinner and is waiting for me."

When I got home, the food was indeed ready. To keep it warm, they covered it with a shallow stainless steel bowl. When I opened it, wow, it was another egg feast!
—This indirectly confirms that the aunts, sisters-in-law, and grandmothers in the village were not exaggerating. Her chickens have started laying eggs like crazy, at least one or two a day, and they are double-yolk eggs. The egrets are almost sick of eating eggs every day these days.

Bai Chen reminded Qin Xiu, "Mom, eating too many eggs can lead to high cholesterol! Especially for Dad, whose blood pressure is a bit high, eating too many eggs is bad for him!"

"Nonsense!" Qin Xiu refused to listen!

After all, in her mind since childhood, eggs have always been a good thing, and she had never heard of eating too many eggs making people sick!
A family with the same surname couldn't beat a family with a different surname, so they just ate it!
The key point is that although these eggs were laid by the hen after eating a "spiritual insect" containing a trace of spiritual energy, the spiritual energy in the eggs is negligible. The texture is not much different from ordinary eggs, and the taste is really just average. The egret really doesn't like to eat them!
The only dish I had was the pancake with toon leaves and wild scallions.

She originally wanted to sell the two large baskets of eggs, but she was afraid of ruining her reputation, so she gave up the idea and decided to wait until the chicks hatched before raising spirit birds to lay spirit eggs!
It's worth mentioning that after eating the spirit insects, the hens and roosters frantically "treaded water" every day, and Qin Xiu has already picked out more than two hundred fertilized eggs!

She was both happy and worried. She was happy because she would soon have many more chicks at home, but worried because she didn't have enough space to raise them!

The mountain hasn't been fenced off yet.

Qin Xiu had been struggling with this for a long time. She never imagined that she, who had always opposed Bai Lu returning home to farm, would one day urge her to quickly get the orchard up and running.

After a small dinner, Bai Lu and Bai Wei sat cross-legged in the living room, peeling gardenias.

Tomorrow is Qingming Festival. Here, when people pay respects to their ancestors during Qingming, they use yellow rice, which, as the name suggests, is yellow rice.

Cooking rice is the same as cooking regular rice, except you replace japonica rice with glutinous rice.

They use gardenia fruit to color the glutinous rice, and in some places they use turmeric powder, which makes the steamed glutinous rice golden.

Tonight, clean the outer skin of the gardenia fruit and soak it in water. Tomorrow, when steaming glutinous rice, pour the soaked gardenia water into the rice and cook it together. The steamed rice will then be yellow.

The quantity doesn't need to be too much; seven or eight grains are enough for a large pot of rice. But even with just these seven or eight tiny things, Baiwei and Bailu's fingernails and fingers turned yellow, and the stains couldn't be washed off for a while, which shows how strong the natural pigment is.

"Chenchen, go to sleep early. Your dad will go to the pigsty before he goes to bed. If the pig hasn't been born yet, set an alarm and go check again around 11 o'clock. If it still hasn't been born, come back. Remember not to go past midnight, because after midnight is Qingming Festival. Don't offend the ancestors!"

After soaking the gardenia fruit, Qin Xiu yawned, picked up her phone, and looked like she was about to go to bed. She then handed over the task of watching the sow give birth to Bai Chen, who had actually been doing so for several nights.

Every time I went to check, the sow was making nests, but she just wouldn't give birth. I didn't know what she was waiting for, she just wouldn't give birth!

And, Mom, you know tomorrow is Qingming Festival!

Ah, the days when our ancestors would come home in groups to visit!

He's even opened his third eye, what will he do when he sees the ancestor?!

Bai Chen watched his mother walk away nonchalantly, then immediately looked at Bai Lu. Bai Lu promptly crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it at him: "That's our ancestor! What are you afraid of? If you encounter any wandering ghosts, go ahead and fight them!"

Bai Chen rubbed his hands together: "I'd love to do it, but... I don't dare!"

Bai Lu: "..." She said helplessly, "If you really encounter one, just pretend you didn't see it. Walk past the ghost without looking at it, and whatever you do, don't make eye contact with it. Once it knows you can see it, it will follow you—you wait, I'll find you a mass grave someday and let you stay there for ten days or half a month. The main reason you're scared is because you haven't seen many ghosts..."

As soon as Bai Lu said this, Bai Wei quietly went back to her room and quietly closed the door. Bai Chen glanced at his second sister's very suspicious back.

He can run away, but he can't hide. If he's really thrown into a mass grave, Bai Wei will be the first one to get away. Even if his sister doesn't take her with him, he'll crawl back and bring his second sister back with him!

Despite Bai Lu's lengthy explanation, Bai Chen still managed to drag her out of bed at 11 o'clock.

As soon as Bai Chen left his house, he began to look around, wanting to see something, yet also afraid to see it.

Several streetlights were installed in the village, and the world under the streetlights was quite bright, but Bai Lu's pigsty was already close to Sanqing Mountain, and it was so dark that Bai Chen felt uneasy.

Fortunately, they arrived because the white-haired sow had already given birth to three piglets!

The third one must have just been born. The sow is licking the amniotic sac on the piglet. The other two piglets are lying on the sow's belly, one nursing, and the other lying nearby, seemingly not moving.

"Holy crap! I'm late? Or am I dead?!"

Bai Chen quickly jumped into the pigpen, picked up the piglet to check on it, and found that the sow had licked the amniotic sac all over the piglet, but had not cleaned the area around its mouth and nose. If Bai Chen and Bai Lu hadn't come, the piglet would have suffocated.

After cleaning the placenta, Bai Chen infused it with a wisp of spiritual energy. Slowly, the little pig finally recovered. Its pink and tender head nuzzled Bai Chen's hand affectionately, as if it were expressing its gratitude.

Bai Chen was overjoyed. He excitedly hugged it and showed it to the egret who was standing outside the pigpen and hadn't come in: "Look, look, I easily saved more than two hundred!"

With pork prices rebounding, piglet prices have risen accordingly.

Bai Lu stretched out her arms from a distance to stop Bai Chen from coming forward. She covered her nose and mumbled in disgust, "Big brother, this pig smells awful. Please move it further away!"

The egret couldn't stand the foul air in the pigsty; it smelled even worse than the chicken coop, and the stench of mammal production was even stronger. It made her want to vomit. So, only Bai Chen was working. The egret quietly acted as a courageous mascot, working until 3 a.m.

The next morning, around six o'clock, the whole family got up.

There's more and more work to do at home. We definitely have to feed over a hundred pigs and several hundred chickens. It's only in the last couple of days that there's been a light drizzle, otherwise we'd have to go water the vegetables.

Even with a large family, it's not enough.

Today we must first offer sacrifices to the gods and then worship our ancestors, so Bai Chen and Bai Wei helped kill the chicken, and Bai Chen helped cook.

After the rice was cooked in the rice cooker, Qin Xiu scooped out some and fried it in oil until both sides were golden brown. At Bai Lu's insistence, she added more oil and fried a crispy layer of rice crust on top.

The golden-yellow rice crust, a whole piece that had been removed from the pot, was placed in a tray by Qin Xiu.

Undeterred by the heat, the egret broke off a palm-sized piece, sprinkled some sugar on it, and took a bite. It squinted its eyes in enjoyment, wondering how long it had been since it had eaten firewood-cooked rice with sugar crust.

"Sweet things don't taste as good as salty ones!"

Bai Chen put the whole chicken into the pot, along with the gizzards, intestines, liver, and other parts. After washing his hands, he broke off a piece from the hot rice crust, sprinkled a pinch of salt on it, and roared, "Mmm! This is the taste!"

After eating breakfast of yellow rice, Bai Jiang took out a small basket, put the chicken in a large stainless steel basin, bent the chicken neck to the back of the chicken, and then put the cooked chicken blood between the back and the neck. The chicken gizzard, intestines, liver and blood were also put into the basin and placed in the small basket. There was also a bottle of rice wine, and he took out a small red plastic wine cup used for offering to the gods and put red plastic chopsticks into the basket as well.

They set off all sorts of things, like paper money, incense, candles, and firecrackers, filling the place to the brim.

Finally, I took out three smaller ceramic bowls used for offering to the gods, filled them with yellow rice, and put them into the basket.

Finally, the main event began. Bai Jiang selected two healthy suckling pigs weighing around 30 pounds each and took them to a friend who specializes in "golden pig" services, asking him to help roast the two pigs—one for Bai He's family and one for his. They were delivered yesterday.

Its color was glossy and shiny.

These were the offerings Bai Jiang had to prepare every year. The small basket couldn't hold them all, so he changed to a larger basket. Finally, Bai Jiang took down the altar board that had always hung on the wall and hung it on the other end of the carrying pole. He weighed the basket in his hand and went into the house.

The filial Bai Chen went over and picked up the basket, as he was going to help his father carry the load to the place where the gods were worshipped.

But the basket was too heavy, and the altar board was immediately tilted up. The heavy basket pressed down, almost pulling Bai Chen down. He tried to move the carrying pole at the other end of the basket closer to his shoulder, but it didn't help. Just then, Bai Jiang came out of the house with a basket, sorted the contents, and started to tsk at him: "The basket is so heavy, and the altar board is so light, how are you going to carry it?! You've read so many books, and you don't even understand this simple principle!"

Bai Chen: "..."

How come he doesn't understand the principle of a seesaw?

It's not that I didn't react in time; didn't you see he moved the point of force?
It rains during the Qingming Festival. It rains every year during Qingming. Even if the two days before Qingming are sunny and clear, it will still rain on the day of Qingming. Moreover, it has been drizzling for the past few days.

There are many mountains here, and each person is buried in a separate grave on a mountain. The practice of burial is the same now, except that in the past, bones were buried and now ashes are buried. Therefore, the resting places of each ancestor are quite scattered, at the foot of the mountain, on the mountainside, or at the top of the mountain, in various locations!
Crossing this mountain and that mountain, every time we sweep the tombs, we encounter villagers who return empty-handed because they can't find their ancestors' graves.

This year, the Bailu family couldn't find Grandpa Baijiang's grave.

"I clearly remember that after reaching the reservoir, I walked to the right for about ten minutes, and then there was a small path leading uphill! Where is the path?!"

Baijiang, Baihe, and Baishan, Baishui, and Baifeng from my second grandfather's family—these five families went to sweep the tombs together today. They brought Bailu, Baiwei, Baichen, and Baiqing, along with my second grandfather's six grandchildren. Baijiang is the eldest among all his brothers and sisters, and Bailu is also the eldest among his grandchildren. My second grandfather's youngest granddaughter is only ten years old.

Because the ancestors were buried in different places, they first went to pay respects to Bai Jiang's grandparents, and then went with Bai Jiang's half-brothers who were twenty years younger than him to pay respects to Bai Jiang's great-grandparents and great-great-grandmother. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to finish sweeping all seven graves in one day.

(End of this chapter)