An Jing had seen her grandparents farm before and had done a considerable amount of farm work with them, yet she had never worried about it herself. Therefore, she didn’t really understand the intricacies involved. Seeing how Xiao Changyi explained it, she also understood.
"Harvesting rice?" An Jing thought carefully about Lin Anjing’s memories before saying, "It seems here they use a rice-harvesting tube."
Xiao Changyi responded lightly, "Mmm."
"No wonder it’s so slow. Where we’re from, they have rice threshing machines." As she spoke of rice threshing machines, An Jing’s eyes lit up. She grabbed Xiao Changyi’s arm, excitedly adding, "Husband, let’s also get a rice threshing machine. That way, when we harvest rice, it won’t be so tiring, and the speed will be much faster than using the rice-harvesting tube! It’s really so much faster, I estimate at least three times more!"
At least three times...
Xiao Changyi’s eyes flickered, if that were the case, it would certainly be good, but: "I don’t know how to make a rice threshing machine." He didn’t even know what a rice threshing machine looked like.
An Jing immediately said, "I don’t either, but I’ve seen the old-fashioned foot-operated rice threshing machine my grandfather used. I can draw the parts out and have the carpenter and blacksmith make them for us. Then we can assemble it ourselves—I think that should do it."
"We’ll need a blacksmith as well?"
"Yes, some parts need metal, like the threshing drum, the wheels... Never mind, you wouldn’t understand if I explain now. Just wait until I draw it all out for you to see. Then you’ll understand everything without me having to say a word."
An Jing suddenly remembered something, "Is iron expensive?" The wooden parts needed for the rice threshing machine would be cheap, but the iron...
Xiao Changyi: "It is a bit pricey."
"Do we have enough money?" This was a big problem—if they didn’t have enough money, they wouldn’t be able to build the rice threshing machine at all.
"I don’t know for now. Once you draw out which parts need iron, I can estimate how much iron we’ll need, and I’ll have a rough idea if we have enough money."
An Jing immediately said, "Okay, I’ll draw it when I get back."
This business with the rice threshing machine was urgent; they would need it next month. She had to get it done soon or else they would be exhausted harvesting with a rice tube.
Then, An Jing and Xiao Changyi went to the mountainside together to lead the ox back home.
From a distance, An Jing and Xiao Changyi saw An Hegui and Yun Dame standing at the entrance to their courtyard.
"Dame, Uncle, what brings you here?" An Jing was a bit surprised.
Yun Dame sighed heavily: "Xiao Lan is thoughtless. How could she take the money for your chicken? You have helped our family so much, and now you’re going to make three thousand jin of tofu, yet you didn’t even ask us for a discount... An Jing, we really can’t take these eighteen coins, otherwise, your uncle and I would feel compelled to kneel before you, which would ease our hearts a bit."
With that, the two of them indeed looked as though they were about to kneel.
An Jing wouldn’t let them kneel. As she hurried to stop them, she said, "Uncle and Dame, please don’t kneel. I’ll just take the money back, you really shouldn’t trouble us so."
Only after seeing An Jing truly take back the eighteen coins did Yun Dame and An Hegui breathe a sigh of relief and smile.
Seeing it was getting dark and not lingering to chat, Yun Dame and An Hegui left.
After dinner, with the oil lamp lit, in the kitchen, Xiao Changyi began tying the straw figures while An Jing took a piece of charcoal and sat at the table, drawing the various components of the old-fashioned foot-operated rice threshing machine on low-quality paper pasted to the window.