ATPnovel Chapter 10 Earthworm Chicken Farming
Chapter 10 Earthworm Chicken Farming
When Chang Le returned to the palace, it was already dusk.
Her thoughts, however, remained in that farmhouse courtyard in the afternoon, on those four lines of poetry that seemed to carry a thousand pounds of weight, and on her handsome husband, who was as elegant as a jade tree in the wind.
She gave her parents a general account of what happened at the farm that day—the tenants' rent, the rules for seeing a doctor, and that jar of tomato sauce.
But she hesitated for a moment about the poem and ultimately didn't mention it.
It's not that I want to hide it, but I feel that such verses shouldn't be glossed over in such an ordinary narrative.
It needs a more solemn occasion and a calmer atmosphere.
Li Shimin had just finished reviewing a stack of memorials when he leaned back on the couch and listened to them. He then held the jar of tomato sauce in his hand and examined it for a moment.
"The rent is 20% lower, and the tenants get free medical care." He put the jar down. "This guy is either really stupid or really smart."
Chang Le raised her eyes, her voice soft yet clear: "Your subject doesn't think he's stupid."
Li Shimin chuckled but said nothing more.
There were still more than thirty memorials on the table that had not been approved, and the Western Turks were causing trouble again. The Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Revenue had been arguing for half a month over the money for repairing the irrigation canal without reaching a conclusion.
One only needs to keep a record of a farmer's affairs in one's mind.
Empress Zhangsun leaned against the couch, and Sizi was almost asleep with his head on her knees, still clutching the bamboo stick of the bamboo dragonfly in his hand.
Empress Zhangsun wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth with her sleeve and said, "Go if you want, but don't keep causing trouble for others."
Si Zi mumbled an "Mmm" in a daze, it was unclear whether she had actually heard him.
Li Shimin had already picked up the next memorial. His children were happy; the man was out of danger, and life could continue as usual.
But Chang Le lay on the couch at night, unable to fall asleep.
"If only I could have a thousand mansions..." she murmured silently in the darkness, the image of Wang Zhihuan's expression when he said those words appearing before her eyes—calm, composed, as if he were saying something perfectly natural.
That calmness was more startling to her than any impassioned speech.
The next day, early in the morning, Chang Le took Si Zi to the farm again.
I arrived earlier than usual this time.
It was barely dawn, and only an hour after the city gates of Chang'an had been open, the carriage arrived at the farm entrance. Si Zi jumped down and ran inside.
The courtyard gate was not closed.
Chang Le followed her inside; there was no one in the courtyard.
On the stone table was a bowl with half a bowl of water left, and next to it was a steamed bun with two bites in it.
The bamboo dragonfly under the jujube tree is still resting on the windowsill, its bamboo leaves glistening with dew.
"Brother! Brother! Handsome brother!" Si Zi called out.
No one answered.
"My handsome boyfriend isn't home." Sisi's voice immediately trembled with tears, her little mouth pouting. "Does my handsome boyfriend not want Sisi anymore—?"
"No, he wouldn't." Chang Le took her hand, her voice steady. "If he didn't want you, he wouldn't have steamed buns and left them on the table so early in the morning. Look, the buns are still warm."
Sizi ran over and touched the steamed bun to check its temperature, then called out again, "Pretty buddy! Where are you! Sizi's here!"
A muffled voice came from the backyard: "Here."
Chang Le led Si Zi towards the backyard. She hadn't been to the backyard before; she had only sat in the front yard and the main hall.
Turning the corner, the first thing you smell is a fishy smell mixed with soil and grass roots—not unpleasant, the kind of smell that comes out of the ground after it rains, with a slightly bitter sweetness.
Then she saw Wang Zhihuan.
He squatted by the fence, his back to them, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his hands covered in mud.
In front of them were three rectangular shallow pits, lined with straw, and covered with a layer of dark brown soil.
He was reaching his hand into the soil and fiddling with something, his movements very light, as if he were feeling for the pulse of something.
"Young Master Wang." Chang Le stopped outside the fence and bowed slightly.
Wang Zhi turned around, his face covered in mud, and stood up to greet them as they entered.
"Madam Li, you've arrived so early? The city gates haven't been open for long, have they?"
"Sizi started making a fuss about coming before dawn, and the wet nurse couldn't stop him."
"Pretty guy!" Si Zi had already crawled under his arm, glanced into the pit, and then let out a shriek, "There are bugs!"
"That's an earthworm."
What is an earthworm?
"It's... an earthworm. There's a book called Erya in Aye's study that mentions it."
Li Zhi patted Sizi's head and spoke softly.
Sizi clearly didn't care about the Erya. She squatted by the pit, her hands supporting her knees, her head craning forward, completely absorbed in reading it.
An earthworm crawled out from under the straw, its body arching forward. She was both scared and wanted to catch it, stretching out her fingers and then pulling them back, several times.
Chang Le took a few steps closer, stood at the edge of the pit, and looked down.
The three shallow pits were about the same size, with straw laid out neatly. The soil was much darker than the fields outside, almost black, and it should feel very loose in your hand.
She had never seen anyone dig a hole specifically to raise earthworms.
The man before her had just recited the lines "Providing shelter for all the poor scholars of the world" yesterday, yet now he was squatting here, his hands covered in mud, tending to insects. The contrast made her feel somewhat dazed.
"May I ask, young master Wang, were these earthworms raised on purpose?"
"Yes." Wang Zhi picked an earthworm out of the soil and threw it into the earthenware jar next to him. "I've been raising it for almost two months now."
"I have seen earthworms in the palace. They would occasionally crawl out from the cracks in the stone slabs of the Imperial Garden after the rain, and the palace servants would sweep them away when they saw them."
I've never seen anyone specifically keep it as a pet. I wonder what use Mr. Wang has for it?
Wang Zhi patted the mud off his hands and stood up.
"Feed the chickens first after raising them."
Chang Le paused slightly, her gaze involuntarily drifting towards the bamboo fence beside her.
Inside, there were about a dozen chickens, yellow-feathered, of medium size, huddled together by the fence, peeking out and chirping.
"Isn't it grain that you feed chickens? When I was in the palace, I saw the people in the Ministry of Agriculture keeping accounts, and the expenses for raising chickens were all recorded as millet and chaff."
"You can feed them grains. But if you feed them grains, the chickens won't lay eggs until they're over four months old, and the meat will be loose."
If you feed them earthworms, they'll start laying eggs in a little over two months. Their meat is firm, and when stewed into soup, there's less oil and the broth is clear.
He grabbed a few earthworms from the earthenware jar and threw them into the chicken coop. "And earthworms don't cost any money."
Rotten vegetable leaves, straw, wheat bran—if you pile these things together, earthworms will come on their own.
To put it bluntly, it's about exchanging farm waste for meat and eggs. No matter how you look at it, it's a good deal.
The chickens in the enclosure erupted in chaos.
Two chickens were fighting over the same earthworm, each grabbing one end and pulling it backward, almost tearing the earthworm in two.
A yellow-feathered chicken that didn't manage to grab one circled around anxiously, squawking so loudly it sounded like a crack.
Sizi, perched on the fence, stared wide-eyed, repeatedly shouting, "Chickens fighting!"
"And what about this soil?" Chang Le pointed to the layer of dark brown soil in the pit. "I noticed that the color of this soil is different from the outside. Has it been fertilized?"