As soon as An Jing heard Xiao Changyi’s response, she excitedly added, "Then let’s make the Stepping Dehusking Machine tomorrow morning. It’s very simple to make and doesn’t take much effort."
"Hmm," Xiao Changyi had no objections.
"Let’s first hull twenty catties of rice to eat, and leave the rest of the grain rice until we’ve made the grain rice and then hull it." They had harvested more than six loads of rice at home, and she and her husband had planned not to sell a single catty, keeping it all to eat at home.
"Hmm," Xiao Changyi still had no objections.
"Once we’ve hulled the twenty catties of rice, should we start making furniture first, or building the house?" These simple days, consulting with her husband on every little thing, were very mundane, but An Jing was very happy.
She felt happy every second.
This caused the smile on her face to hardly ever fade.
And Xiao Changyi, he truly enjoyed watching An Jing smile.
Naturally, he also enjoyed leading such a plain and happy life with An Jing.
As for whether to make furniture first or build the house, Xiao Changyi thought for a moment and then said, "Let’s make the furniture first. The furniture carpenter will need time to work on it, and during this period, we can clear more land by the mountainside to build the house." Building a house also requires land.
"Mhm mhm," An Jing nodded happily. "Let’s start with a simple farmer’s adobe house; it’s a lot sturdier than our current thatched hut. If we get richer in the future, we can tear it down and rebuild a brick and tile house." In this era, bricks and tiles were very expensive, and basically no farmer could afford a brick and tile house.
Xiao Changyi had no opinion and only asked, "How many rooms do you want to build?"
"At least six rooms, an inner chamber, a main hall, a kitchen, a firewood room, a bathhouse, and a privy..." An Jing counted off the rooms one by one before finally asking, "What do you think?"
"Then how much money would it take to build all this?"
A typical farmer’s house only has an inner chamber, a main hall, a kitchen, and a firewood room, with bathing done in the inner chamber and the privy being just a simple shed. If it were , it could probably be built for seven to eight taels, but now with the addition of a bathhouse and privy, An Jing really didn’t know how much more it might cost.
Perhaps habitually asking Xiao Changyi, without much thought, An Jing asked Xiao Changyi this question.
As always, Xiao Changyi took An Jing’s questions very seriously.
Thus, as An Jing asked now, like before, Xiao Changyi answered earnestly, "The bathhouse and privy don’t need to be very large; around ten taels should be enough to build them."
Upon hearing this, An Jing immediately started calculating, "You just said that making that furniture would cost about two taels of silver, and now about ten taels for building the house, that’s about eleven taels in total. We have almost twenty-one taels on hand right now, that’s enough!"
As scheduled, the next morning they set about making the Stepping Dehusking Machine to hull the rice. The following morning, An Jing and Xiao Changyi began making the Stepping Dehusking Machine.
Early in the morning, An Jing drew a schematic diagram of the Stepping Dehusking Machine for Xiao Changyi to see.
The structure of the Stepping Dehusking Machine was indeed very simple.
And so was the making of it.
After looking at the diagram of the Stepping Dehusking Machine drawn by An Jing, Xiao Changyi joined her, and in less than two hours, they had finished making the Stepping Dehusking Machine.
However, using the Stepping Dehusking Machine to hull the twenty catties of rice was somewhat time-consuming.
It took them a full three days.
During these three days, they did nothing but hull rice with the Stepping Dehusking Machine, nothing else.
Hulling twenty catties of rice, even with the Stepping Dehusking Machine, took so much time; hulling rice with a stone mill would have been pitifully slow.
Fortunately, hulling rice with the Stepping Dehusking Machine was indeed much easier than with a stone mill, so even after being busy for three full days, An Jing and Xiao Changyi were not too tired.
According to the plan, once the rice was hulled, it was time to find someone to make the furniture.
But who to find to make the furniture?