425 A Little Ugly?
Jinshan was able to come because he had many brothers and sisters. With his family’s small amount of land, it would not matter if he and his mother did not come.
The other 12 men also had many brothers and sisters in their families. When the time came for the crops to be harvested, it wouldn’t matter if they weren’t present.
Xue Erfu had only found young and strong men who could make time from their family’s work. They had agreed that it would be 15 coins a day, and when the second half of the year came, these men would start harvesting rice for their family.
There were people from their own village and people from other villages, but they were all people who kept their promises, were decent people, and were familiar with Xue Erfu. They would definitely not stand him up.
Moreover, everyone in the surrounding villages wanted to have work to do and earn money every day, but how many people could have work every day? At the end of the year, most people could only do so much to earn money. There were also many people who tended to the crops every day but didn’t have much harvest. Even if it wasn’t Xue Erfu, these people would immediately agree to doing work no matter who it was. They definitely wouldn’t say no to more money.
However, they were still grateful that Xue Erfu thought of them first.
In fact, Xue Erfu had gone to look for the village chief’s son, Lu Zhuangniu. Lu Zhuangniu was also an expert in doing manual labor. He wanted Lu Zhuangniu to help deliver the ice, but because the village chief’s family had rented three acres of land for farming, Lu Zhuangniu had to help care for the crops at home. Therefore, he did not agree. Xue Erfu felt that it was a pity, but there was nothing he could do.
As soon as Xue Erfu returned, he told his family who he had found, and Xue Dafu and the others had no objections.
The sky was getting dark so Xue Dafu turned around and asked, “Mother, is the meal ready?”
Liu Guixia immediately replied, “The rice is ready, but I also put corn in the big pot, so it’ll take a while.”
“You’re making corn again?” Xue Wufu immediately jumped over happily.
Liu Guixia smiled. “Yes, we plucked them from the field today. The corn in the field can be eaten too. It’s just that some of them are unsightly.”
Jiang Yue and Xue Yan looked at each other.
Did she pick the white, black, and purple corn as well?
When she planted the strong seedlings in the corn field, she had also planted a few white, black, and purple corn.
“Why is it ugly?” Xue Sifu also walked under the cooking shed.
“Isn’t corn supposed to be yellow? When we picked the corn today, we found that the corn on a few corn stalks were white, purple, and black. We were afraid that they weren’t edible, so after picking them, she peeled a few corn kernels and gave them to the chicken to eat. The chickens didn’t seem to mind, so we steamed a few anyway.”
“That’s right, that does sound a little odd.” Xue Sifu laughed. “But that’s not necessarily the case. Well, you’ve already steamed it, so we should give it a try. If it’s better than yellow corn, then leave some of these seeds and plant them next year. We can try to grow corn of these colors.”
Jiang Yue and Xue Yan looked at each other again. That was what she had thought from the start.
“I think so too,” Liu Guixia said with a smile.
“But how can yellow corn grow into corn of other colors?” Xue Dafu was a little confused.
Liu Guixia laughed. “I’ve given birth to several sons, and they’re all my children. None of them look the same. Look at your sons, do any of them look similar to each other? What’s so strange about different colored corn to this?”
“That’s true, that’s true.” Xue Dafu immediately laughed.
