My domineering ex-husband is living off his wife in ancient times.

Chapter 119 Fertilizer

"Ahem, could you please go to the kitchen and bring it to me? I'm so hungry I can't walk anymore, thank you..."

Cheng Ruoan was really about to suffer from hypoglycemia from hunger.

I should have just ordered some tea and snacks at the tea stall.

"Okay...okay, no...you're welcome."

Little Mian'er was startled by the word "thank you" and ran away like a rabbit.

Cheng Ruoan lay sprawled on the large round table with the rice bucket, her body too weak to move from hunger, but that didn't stop her mind from racing.

With eyes closed, consciousness drifted into the space.

Cheng Ruoan returned to the villa's living room and saw that there were a few more lines of writing on the note she had left for Si Shaoheng.

The price of grain in the county town has skyrocketed, so I'm observing and haven't made a purchase. I've studied the description of the space courtyard land; if used well, we won't need to spend money hoarding grain.

I only took six hundred taels to buy seeds; you can use the remaining one thousand taels to make more money.

Next to the note, a pile of silver ingots was neatly stacked.

Based on the size and specifications of the silver, Cheng Ruoan knew without using a scale that it was fifty taels per ingot. He counted them and there were exactly twenty.

"Could it be that we're really going to encounter some natural disaster or man-made calamity?" Cheng Ruoan wondered.

Bachuan Prefecture suffered a disaster; not a single grain of rice was harvested this autumn. Even if people risked the plague to harvest the rice, it couldn't reach the market.

But it's not to the point that any one prefecture is short of food; the price of grain has skyrocketed throughout the entire Great Xia Dynasty.

Note Si Shaoheng's choice of words: "skyrocketed".

That means the price of grain was higher than when they set off from Bachuan Prefecture two months ago.

Cheng Ruoan shivered inexplicably as she thought about it.

She took a piece of chocolate from the snack basket on the coffee table and ate it, then strolled into the yard to check on the soil, where she found that seeds had already been planted.

The term "courtyard land" is given by the e-housekeeper, but it is actually a 30-square-meter modern Chinese-style landscaped vegetable garden.

Each plot of land is one to two square meters. Some are flat land, while others are filled with soil in wooden or stone boxes. The plots are arranged in a staggered manner, designed to make vegetables look beautiful.

Farm tools were also available, all of which were carefully selected for their appearance and neatly arranged in a corner of the vegetable garden.

Cheng Ruoan saw that the soil in twenty plots of land, large and small, had been turned over, but then piled up into small mounds.

There were obvious signs of watering on the small mound, and the farm tools looked like they had been used, so she knew that Si Shaoheng had planted the seeds.

This shocked her greatly, "Si Shaoheng actually knows how to farm!"

She originally thought this was the only area where she was better than Si Shaoheng since she transmigrated to ancient times, but who knew...

Cheng Ruoan grew up in an orphanage, so of course she knew how to farm.

Not only her, but all the other children in the orphanage would.

After all, orphanages in small, third-tier cities can't compare to those in big cities.

Without sufficient government subsidies and with social donations rarely reaching the orphanage, it's incredibly difficult for the mothers to raise seven or eight children on their own.

Therefore, children need to know how to farm, raise chickens, ducks, geese, and pigs, as well as raise silkworms and make tea...

As she was thinking, Cheng Ruoan had unknowingly made a compost bin and a vegetable oil container as liquid fertilizer outside the kitchen of the villa.

The compost bin was a medium-sized blue trash can, with Cheng Ruoan drilling many holes in the bottom for drainage.

She noticed that the newly added farmland outside the villa had soil, so she dug some out and placed it at the bottom of the compost bin.

Then spread the kitchen waste from the villa, then another layer of soil, then another layer of kitchen waste... and so on, until the entire compost bin is filled.

Cheng Ruoan and Si Shaoheng had developed the habit of sorting garbage in modern times, so the kitchen in their villa was equipped with a food waste disposer. When the filter box of the disposer was opened, there was food waste that could not be flushed away.

These were leftovers from the food the two of them would occasionally cook in their own little space.

Cheng Ruoan used it to make compost.

Cheng Ruoan saw fresh orange peels in the living room trash can and guessed that Si Shaoheng had eaten them when he came in, so she ate one herself.

I peeled one for each of the two children.

Then I collected all the orange peels, put on gloves, and picked up the ones from the trash can, putting them into an empty rapeseed oil container to make a bucket of liquid fertilizer.

"If it's just for fertilizing the yard, this should be enough..."

Cheng Ruoan left the compost bin on the field embankment outside, intending to bring it into the villa courtyard after the compost was ready. She took the water-fertilizer bucket inside.

As soon as she entered the courtyard, she heard Xiao Mian'er's voice.

Cheng Ruoan quickly put her things away, adjusted the time flow of the courtyard land to the fastest speed, and then hurried out.

Unbeknownst to her, Si Shaoheng entered the space the moment she left.

"Second Miss, the food is here. Don't sleep, get up and eat."

Xiao Mian'er helped Cheng Ruo'an serve the food, which made Cheng Ruo'an feel quite uncomfortable. "Xiao Mian'er, didn't Madam tell you that we don't do these things in our family? You go and do your work, I can eat by myself."

"Yes, Second Miss." Xiao Mian'er curtsied and retreated in embarrassment and annoyance, making Cheng Ruo'an almost choke up.

This child is a bit hard to reason with.

Xiao Cui'er is adapting well, but she's always doing these superficial things.

After finishing her meal, Cheng Ruoan went to Dr. Hu's to check on the two little ones' class, leaving quietly.

After leaving, he went to the medicine storeroom in the backyard and quietly filled the medicine cabinet with the medicines from his own space.

The remaining medicinal herbs in the space were neither too many nor too few, but they were definitely enough for her and Doctor Hu to make medicinal cosmetics.

Cheng Ruoan planned to save money; she would refill the medicine warehouse whenever a little medicine was used.

Si Shaoheng happened to be in the storeroom of the villa, watching helplessly as Cheng Ruoan's bag of medicinal herbs opened by itself and then gradually reduced the amount of herbs.

Si Shaoheng: ...

No matter how many times I watch it, it still feels ridiculously fantastical.

He was in the north and south shops in the county town, preparing to buy gift boxes.

His intention was to come in looking for a glass to compare sizes.

Cheng Ruoan said he had bought several sets of glass cups from Pinduoduo and wanted to give two of them to Magistrate Fang.

Although Registrar Xu helped him obtain the necessary permits for the distillery, whether he could open it or not was another matter entirely.

It's still necessary to give some gifts.

After Cheng Ruoan secretly added the medicinal herbs outside, she bumped into Shao Yang, who was delivering pork fat to the cellar in the backyard.

Cheng Ruoan was astonished when she saw the overflowing white pork fat in the bamboo basket on his back: "Brother-in-law, did you buy all the pork fat in the whole town?"

Shao Yang nodded and then shook his head: "There are only two butchers in town. They only slaughter one pig every two days. I've already bought up all the pork fat, but I don't have that much."

"So, what's the purpose of this full basket of yours...?"

"I hunted two wild boars in the mountains, sold them to an inn, and brought back the pork fat with me."

Cheng Ruoan stood disheveled in the wind.

Their whole family is now clinging to the coattails of Zhao, the owner of a guesthouse, right?