Ch. 241..245: The Princess of Northern Land Chapter 241-245

Chapter 241: Chapter 241 Human Debt(7)_1

Si Jinhan is also in a difficult position as collecting grain and fodder is a troublesome task. The northern lands are freezing cold and many southern grains simply cannot survive here. Depending on the fodder stocked up during the summer, he doesn’t know how long it can last.

Lin Ziyin grinned with joy at the sight of the caged cows, both dairy and beef.

"Master, there are so many dairy cows, the milk they produce is so much that our family cannot finish it even if everyone drinks. The smell of the milk is also rather overpowering." Qiaoqiao fed some fodder to the cows and found that they were quite calm.

"We can process it into milk powder." Lin Ziyin answered with a faint smile. In the northern regions, there are an ample amount of beans, so bean powder is her main goal. Milk powder is just a byproduct.

However, how to solve the fuel problem once she goes back is what truly bothered her.

"Master, can we go back home tomorrow?" Jue Hui asked.

"We will return tomorrow." Lin Ziyin replied with a nod. They had been away for quite a while, and the journey back would take several more days. She hoped that the cultivation in the greenhouse wouldn’t be delayed once they return home.

During dinnertime, Chu Suifeng unusually sat opposite Lin Ziyin.

"Prince, Third Master, I intend to return home tomorrow because the greenhouse at home cannot wait." Lin Ziyin said directly.

"We will also set off tomorrow." Chu Suifeng replied calmly.

Lin Ziyin was surprised; she didn’t expect that they would also return with her. She assumed that Chu Suifeng and Si Jinhan would stay near the border city to take care of certain matters.

"It’s good to go back together." She answered insincerely.

"Don’t worry, our people will escort the cows back." Si Jinhan explained with a laugh.

"Thank you." Lin Ziyin thanked him politely.

"Don’t mention it. After we get back, I will recover at your place. I also look forward to seeing your thank-you gift soon." Si Jinhan added, showing his teeth.

Lin Ziyin sighed quietly. Indeed, debts of favor are the hardest to repay.

"I won’t let Third Master down." She replied, keeping her eyes low.

Both Chu Suifeng and Si Jinhan were born into prestigious families and were also trained in martial arts so they ate silently. This made Lin Ziyin’s dinner somewhat dreary.

She quickly finished her meal and excused herself to her room.

As expected, the next day, before dawn, Congyi came over to hurry them to have breakfast and embark on their journey.

They finished breakfast in a rush.

Since professionals were looking after the cattle, Lin Ziyin didn’t need to worry. Everyone rode on horseback to return to the city. They didn’t want to delay the journey, and within three days, she was back home.

"Finally, we’re home." Lin Zige’s eyes welled up with tears the moment she saw her. Guo Huiniang also held on to her to examine her from head to toe before releasing her.

"We didn’t go to war, how would I get hurt?" Lin Ziyin comforted her family with a laugh.

"Sister, is it fun in the border city?" Lin Changting blinked his big eyes and asked eagerly.

"Fun?" Lin Yanzhi sat in her lap, enjoying her exclusive love and asked along with Lin Changting.

"I was too busy worrying about things at home; I didn’t have time to play." Lin Ziyin responded, patting Yanzhi’s head. "But, I brought some snacks and trinkets for everyone."

"Got any tasty food?" Changting, still child-like in his heart, couldn’t sit still when he heard there was food.

"It is beef and mutton. Wait till tomorrow, I will prepare them for you all." Lin Ziyin replied with a smile.

"Is there any fear of the meat spoiling under the midday sun?" asked Zige.

"Third Master brought back ice, it should stay fresh." Lin Ziyin replied.

The mentioned Si Jinhan happily stood up, "She didn’t get hurt, it’s me who got hurt. So, I am planning to recover here for a few days."

Why would he recover from his injury in the Lin Family’s home if she didn’t get hurt? The Lin family didn’t welcome his arrival and dared not send him away. They reluctantly accomodated him with a smile.

"Where are the cows we bought?" Wu Dayou asked in confusion when he returned from outside. He had always thought the cows they bought could return with Lin Ziyin.

"They’re on the way, we got back first." Lin Ziyin replied with a smile.

"All right, she must be very tired from the journey. Let’s clean up and eat, and then she can rest early. Any other matters can wait until tomorrow." the family head spoke.

"Yes, yes, let’s eat first." Guo Huiniang enthusiastically agreed. With her safe return, their hearts could rest easy.

The dinner was a feast, and the Lin family had lively meals. In a better mood, she ate a little more than usual.

After dinner, everyone pressured her to go back to her room to rest.

After Lin Ziyin had settled Si Jinhan and his guard in a quiet courtyard, she went back to her room to sleep.

Next morning, Lin Ziyin paid a visit to the greenhouse and found everything was ready. The soil had been deeply overturned, the rows aligned neatly, and some had been fertilized with chicken manure.

She allocated the tasks to everyone. Some were to plant lettuce, others coriander and radish - there was a plan for everything. Of course, the transplanting of the chili pepper plants was also distributed.

Looking at the time, thinking of the beef and mutton at home, she hurried into the kitchen.

Lunch, under her supervision, was much more extravagant. There were quite a few dishes made from beef and mutton alone.

Master Hui Zhen of Ding’an Temple indeed had a keen nose. As soon as she got back home, he appeared in the courtyard with several martial monks.

"The early bird doesn’t always catch the worm." Lin Ziyin had someone serve the guests.

"Spicy beef, beef stir-fried with onions, braised beef, rock candy mutton..." Every time a dish was served, Lin Ziyin would call out its name.

Seeing the sumptuous spread on the table, Hui Zhen was eager to sit down and eat, "Enough talk, let’s eat."

"Someone, go to the kitchen and choose a few beef and mutton dishes to send to the Prince." Si Jinhan took the initiative and without asking Lin Ziyin’s permission, ordered his subordinate to bring dishes and give them to someone.

Lin Ziyin was somewhat unhappy but her family members all thought it was quite normal. Since the family head and others believed that it was due to the Third Master and the Prince’s help that Lin Ziyin was able to return safely, a few dishes were a small price to pay for that help.

Chapter 242: Chapter 242 Post(1)_1

Everyone at home agreed, and Lin Ziyin would not be stingy with serving several dishes.

"Ziyin, after we have raised beef cattle, can we often have such delicious beef?" Zige really liked to eat meat, but previously the Lin Family was quite poor. Even if they could afford some meat, she would make sure the younger ones and grandfather got to eat first. Not to mention considering Lin Changshu and Guo Huiniang, who needed to replenish their strength due to their hard work, so it was quite rare for her to eat meat throughout the year.

As for the various beef dishes made by Lin Ziyin, she was simply stuffed.

"If we raise a lot, we can warm and replenish ourselves in winter. Sister can definitely enjoy it if she wants to eat." Lin Ziyin answered with a smile. The idea of raising beef cattle was just her initial thought. Whether it could be achieved would depend on the later breeding situation.

"If you like it, I’ll make beef noodles for you tonight." Seeing her family eat happily, she was also pleased.

"This monk is blessed." Hui Zhen also didn’t say anything about staying, but directly said, "You will follow me up the mountain to pick herbs this afternoon."

"Amitabha, we will respectfully follow Master’s teaching." Several martial monks were even more delighted.

Having indulged in a meal at noon, and still having a meal in the evening, they were in heaven.

"These past few days while you’ve been away, the house has purchased a large amount of fruit. It’s all over the storeroom. If we don’t find a way to deal with them, there will be no room soon." Lin Changshu reported the household situation anxiously.

"In the afternoon, I’ll go take a look. It’s a good opportunity to experiment." Last time when she left in a hurry, she didn’t have time to deal with all the various kinds of nuts. After coming back, naturally, she needed to arrange for people to do this work.

"By the way, gather the village people in the afternoon. Nut production needs manpower." Lin Ziyin added.

"Alright, I’ll get people over." Lin Changshu agreed, "Do we still want the nuts that were sent over?"

"As long as the quality is guaranteed, we want them. By the way, make it clear to those who bring the fruits that they must be careful to protect the trees when they go up the mountain. Don’t harm the trees for the sake of the fruits. Tell them our nuts business in the Lin Family will continue." Lin Ziyin thought for a moment and instructed again.

"Alright, it’s not a problem for the people in the village as they already know. If anyone from another village brings nuts, we will respond in the same way." Lin Changshu agreed.

After putting down their bowls, Master Hui Zhen took the martial monks up the mountain to pick herbs.

Lin Ziyin could not delay either. When she arrived at the workshop and saw the amount of nuts, she was shocked. The storeroom was full of them, some were even piled up in other small yards.

She squatted down, picked up a walnut to weigh, and found it quite solid.

"Help crack it open to take a look." Si Jinhan had followed her over out of curiosity, so she immediately put him to work.

"You want me to do this? Didn’t you see that my arm is injured?" Si Jinhan looked at her grumpily and grumbled.

Lin Ziyin stared at him without saying a word.

"Alright, I surrender to you." Si Jinhan felt a bit disconcerted by her gaze, so he took the walnut impatiently, applied some force, and the walnut split open.

Lin Ziyin peeled off the shell and finally saw the walnut inside.

It was pretty good, although not as good as modern cultivated varieties, the walnut kernel inside was not small.

Si Jinhan had martial arts skills, making it easy for him to crack walnuts, but the villagers they brought in from home didn’t have this ability. Lin Ziyin thought they would definitely need to make some small tools to help peel the shells.

As soon as the idea came to her, she put it into action quickly. In no time, several design sketches were ready, "Hand these to the manager, please ask him to make the tools as soon as possible."

"What is this thing for?" Si Jinhan was quite interested and craned his neck to look.

Chapter 243: Chapter 243 Post(2)_1

"A small tool used to crack open walnuts," Lin Ziyin replied frankly. After all, they’re just tools. There’s no use hiding it from him.

"You are not focusing on what’s important," Si Jinhan remarked disdainfully. "If you have time for such trivial matters, why not put more thought into inventing useful weaponry for the Prince? That way, you’d justify his and grandfather’s protection of you."

"I’m just a village girl, creating weapons is beyond my expertise. You must have confused me with someone else," Lin Ziyin responded dismissively.

Should she introduce firearms? No, of course not.

The destructive potential of firearms – as a modern woman, she was well aware of it. She didn’t want to introduce such devastating methods of death to these innocent villagers due to her involvement.

Therefore, she remained reticent. Whenever Si Jinhan dropped hints, she played dumb and used feigned ignorance to dodge his questions.

"Ziyin, here we are!" A loud voice broke off the heated exchange between the two of them.

"Shouldn’t you be calling her ’Madam Lin’? Know your manners." Another voice nagged the speaker.

"Yes, of course," the man admitted his mistake.

"Third aunty, Granny Wu, Sixth Sister-in-law," Lin Ziyin greeted warmly when she noticed the arrivals. They’re all villagers, and she couldn’t afford to be indifferent to them.

"Madam Lin, what can we help with?" the loudmouth asked.

Lin Ziyin looked up – the loudmouth was Wu’s daughter-in-law, a hearty, upright woman who loved to meddle but was popular in the village. She had lent a helping hand when tragedy struck the Lins.

While her relationship with her family wasn’t as close as it was with the Bai family, Lin Ziyin did not forget her kindness.

"Third aunty, be patient please," Lin Ziyin, smiling, said as she stood up. "I invited you all here today with the goal of choosing a few from among you to work at the workshop."

"Doing what?" Wu’s daughter-in-law was instantly aroused. Being able to work at the workshop was definitely a notch above farming.

"Patience, let Madam Lin finish," Granny Wu scolded, agitated. Despite being younger than Wu’s daughter-in-law, the generational hierarchy meant that the younger woman was quite afraid of her.

"Darn my big mouth!" Seeing Lin Ziyin standing there with a smirk on her face, the bigmouth recoiled. She feared that such behavior would lead to her exclusion from workshop employment. She instantly adopted a more subdued stance and refrained from speaking further.

"I need those who are quick, detail-oriented, and clean. If you meet these criteria, you can stay," Lin Ziyin stated flatly.

Upon hearing these requirements, Granny Wu and the others released a sigh of relief. These were not significantly difficult criteria to meet; they were country women who were used to toiling – slowness was an unlikely trait among them.

"Please sit and select the best seeds," Lin Ziyin directed while pointing towards the long table.

Seeing that the table was already laden with numerous small sieves, winnowing baskets, long sticks, and a heap of seeds, the villagers rushed to secure a spot at the table.

The serious seed-picking process began.

Extracting the small seeds proved challenging and before long, everyone had grown frustrated. They lamented the laborious process, fearing that regardless of their industriousness, they wouldn’t have much to show at day’s end.

"It’s so tedious, Madam," a young woman queried, "Can’t we use the winnowing baskets?"

Lin Ziyin nodded, "You’re free to use any tool."

With her approval, everyone set to work with renewed energy.

Chapter 244: Chapter 244 Post(3)_1

Lin Ziyin quietly observed for a while before picking out ten individuals, and those selected were all filled with joy.

With a faint smile, Lin Ziyin personally sat down and began demonstrating silently.

She first sieved out some impurities, then separated the underdeveloped seeds with a winnowing fan, after which sorting was done with long strips. Her hand movements were incredibly quick, and in a short while, a small sack of seeds had been accumulated in the bag hanging under the long table.

"So fast." someone exclaimed in surprise.

Lin Ziyin then started instructing everyone on how to score chestnuts and peel peanuts. The tools were very useful, and these people quickly grasped how to use them.

Only a dozen people were left in the shop for sorting work, and then a group of men were brought in.

Lin Ziyin had a few men stoke the firewood, and the roasting machine started running.

She asked Cui Minghui and Li Chunmei to enter the feed room and work on preparing ingredients with her.

The first batch in the roasting machine was peanuts. Si Jinhan had been observing her from behind the whole time; of course, he couldn’t enter the feed room. He was just surprised that Lin Ziyin could concoct so many flavors with just peanuts.

In just one afternoon, from peeling shells, to preparing ingredients, to roasting, not much was actually produced. Besides, this was only the experimental stage; Lin Ziyin only made salt and pepper, ginger sugar, fish skin peanuts, and numbing spicy flavors.

"These are great appetizers." Master Hui Zhen praised her non-stop when he came back that night.

"I really have no idea how your brain works?" Si Jinhan fixed his gaze on her.

"I’m just a little obsessed with food." Feeling his persistent gaze, Lin Ziyin casually responded, "By the way, Third Prince, there is something else I need your help with."

"What is it? Let me hear it." Si Jinhan was rather curious about her matters recently.

"I need various colors of parchment paper. I don’t know if you could help me find some, Third Prince. Of course, if you happen to own a parchment paper factory, I can give you some insider information that would ensure your future prosperity." Lin Ziyin said with a tempting smile.

Finding oil paper and parchment paper was certainly hard. It would not be good if she had to rely on Si Jinhan every time. Since Lin Family would be using numerous sheets of oil paper and parchment paper in the future.

"As it turns out, the prince does have such a shop." Si Jinhan smiled and replied, "You’re awfully lucky."

"I need packaging, can I design some simple machines and have you sort it out in your shop?" Lin Ziyin suggested after some thought.

"You are too cunning, again you’re calculating around His Highness and me?" Si Jinhan saw through her, "You even want to save on some labor?"

"No." Lin Ziyin immediately denied, in fact, that’s exactly what she was thinking.

"You’ve yet to respond about the roast duck situation. You can’t leave me hanging." Si Jinhan before all else was concerned about his own interests.

"Don’t worry, we don’t have a store yet, right?" Lin Ziyin said with a beaming smile.

"Are you planning to let me open another shop for you?" Si Jinhan asked coldly mocking.

"Why not? If the rent is reasonable, I’m willing to rent." Lin Ziyin replied smilingly, "The earlier the store opens, the sooner you start receiving profits, right, Third Prince?"

Si Jinhan was astonished, for this business transaction, was he too impatient and thus was trapped by this clever girl?

"Okay, I won’t chat with you anymore. I do have a shop in Feng City. When the time comes, if it suits you, you can rent it. Don’t worry, I don’t care about that bit of silver. I won’t ask for high rent." Si Jinhan declared grumpily.

Chapter 245: Chapter 245 Post(4)_1

"Thank you, Third Young Master." Lin Ziyin replied with a grin, yet in her mind, she was thinking about her past and the idea of constructing a roasting duck oven to really kickstart her business.

The response from Tianji Building was swift. The small tools Lin Ziyin requested were quickly delivered by Hei Yi.

With the huller at hand, the roasting preparation for pine nuts, hazelnuts, and walnuts began, along with the oil paper and parchment paper delivered by Chu Suifeng. Lin Ziyin was tremendously busy, rushing back and forth from the greenhouse to the roasting room.

"Miss, the corn in the field is ripe. When should we harvest?" Cui Da came over to ask.

"Let me go take a look." As corn hadn’t been cultivated on a large scale yet, the corn growing in the few acres of the backyard seemed very precious to Lin Ziyin. Normally, she would not let anyone else see it, only her own family were allowed.

Upon reaching the cornfield and checking the ears of corn, she found the current batch was growing quite well. The grains were firm, and each stalk bore numerous ears of corn, marking a high yield.

"Cut them down tomorrow, remove the husks for drying, then use the sheller to remove the grains," said Lin Ziyin.

For the convenience of shelling corn in the future, Lin Ziyin had made a rudimentary machine in advance. So, shelling was not a difficult task for her.

Cui Da joyously agreed.

Although the Mid-Autumn Festival had passed for a while, the mooncakes made by the Lin family were still popular. Lin Ziyin took the initiative to include extra pastries for delivery. Even though low-gluten flour was not available, pastries made from natural wheat still tasted quite good.

Especially after several cows started to produce milk, the cooks of the family found great delight in making pastries.

Sesame cakes, twisted doughnuts, pumpkin sesame balls and other delicacies were prepared. The pastry shop reported that daily sales were good, and several customers in town, who required large quantities, would place custom orders directly at Lin’s.

The more items were sold, the higher wages the workers earned. The workers’ children were all enrolled in private schools and the schools took care of the children’s lunch. Therefore, Bai and the other sisters devoted their full attention to making pastries enthusiastically.

However, the workers in the roasting room seemed slightly anxious. Seeing the roasted goods they’d made by themselves, from their initial surprise to joy, and then seeing the packaged goods piled up in the warehouse, each of them felt quite uneasy.

What use were good products, if no one appreciated them?

Lin Ziyin did not worry, she was looking for an opportunity to promote her products.

And a good opportunity soon presented itself.

"Miss, my mistress invites you to our residence to enjoy the flowers the day after tomorrow." The second day after Si Jinhan left, the Si family sent over an invitation.

Being invited by a wealthy family was rather mundane, especially for her, a country girl. Lin Ziyin could imagine how boring the banquet would be. However, this invitation from the Si family was a good opportunity for her.

"Thank you, I’ll be there on time the day after tomorrow." Lin Ziyin, who had a plan, immediately accepted.

In the blink of an eye, it was the day of the banquet. Early in the morning, Lin Ziyin packed a sizable amount of roasted goods from the roasting room and took off with Qiaoqiao in a mule cart.

The mule was a recent purchase, though not as good as a horse, it was much faster than an ox cart.

"Miss, we have arrived," Yu Shaohui pulled the mule to a stop and respectfully reported to the person across from him.

"Alright." Lin Ziyin hopped off the carriage.

The ladies and young misses who came for the banquet looked sideways at her bold demeanor. Lin Ziyin, however, didn’t mind in the slightest.