Wen Qian mainly followed Auntie Chen to learn, while also filming the planting process.
Feeling a little shy, Wen Qian sent her videos showing her face to Auntie Chen to watch herself, while only publishing the audio without showing her face online.
After planting well herself, Auntie Chen went to Wen Qian's home. The seeds were all bought by Wen Qian herself, plus the seeds from previous years that Auntie Chen had kept.
Wen Qian was planting while Auntie Chen instructed at her side, sometimes even getting her hands dirty herself.
Auntie Chen told her that the seedlings would emerge before long.
Radishes and cabbages were the main winter vegetables, great for hot pot or pickling.
Auntie Chen said vegetables grew quickly and abundantly. Wen Qian only needed to plant one field, she didn't even need to plant any if she just came to pick them from Auntie Chen's home.
Even planting just one field would be enough to eat, with some leftover. But unexpectedly Wen Qian had planted three fields.
Only Wen Qian herself knew clearly, with the ability to plant, she stored these in her dimension space to eat for a long time.
But there was only one short rain the entire September, meaning it had been dry for two months straight.
An Province had already issued a red drought warning in early September, and of course it still hadn't eased up, with the drought also worsening in other places.
The pond by Wen Qian's door only had a bit of water left, and that was without anyone drawing water here.
In places where people drew water, the ponds had long dried up, even the nearby streams had become small puddles.
From upstream to downstream they were all in a sorry state.
Because there was so little water in the river, many people went fishing. The most common wild fish in these rural streams were crucian carp, with the occasional bigger fish netted too.
Wen Qian followed Auntie Chen to gather many small fish, big ones as large as a palm, and small ones as large as a thumb.
The bigger ones had their innards removed and frozen in the fridge, to use later for braising.
As for the small fish, after washing them clean, they could be frozen and then pan-fried, and some could be dried to make dried fish snacks for New Year.
In short, it was a free gain, and Wen Qian gathered very happily, although she was covered in mud.
September was the season for rural harvests, and Wen Qian also prepared to purchase and store some staple grains, like rice, peanuts, and sweet potatoes.
Auntie Chen's family grew these themselves, but they needed to keep the rice for themselves, press oil from the peanuts, and keep some sweet potatoes to feed the pigs.
The amount Wen Qian wanted would make them wonder why one person needed to buy so much.
So she wouldn't purchase locally. She planned to buy from more remote villages where there was no interaction with her own village, not even the same market towns.
At the Chen's home Wen Qian bought two sacks of around 100 jin of dried peanuts, which were peanuts they had dried. They didn't sell too much more because they needed to eat and press oil themselves.
One day, Wen Qian borrowed Chen Lin's three-wheeled cart and went alone to other villages to purchase some dried peanuts, buying at the price paid by street vendors.
Everyone wondered why a young woman was buying peanuts. Wen Qian of course didn't say she came alone, just that her family was in another village and she came ahead to ask around.
Having purchased many things now, Wen Qian was adept at calculating prices and weighing amounts. She also wouldn't take bad quality goods from sellers.
Previously when following Uncle Chen into town to press oil, Wen Qian understood the local oil pressing market. She discovered the workshops there pressed the peanuts shells and all.
Wen Qian didn't really like this oil pressing method, so she planned to take her peanuts to a larger workshop to press oil.
Wen Qian found a slightly bigger oil workshop in a town further away. They could remove the peanut shells before pressing. The peanut cake left after pressing oil could be taken or sold to the workshop.
Wen Qian chose to pay a processing fee, then took away both the peanut oil and cake.
Pressing oil didn't take very long but the wait in line was lengthy. Everyone was bringing their freshly harvested peanuts, dried nice and dry, to add some healthy, unprocessed oil for their families.
Whether for eating themselves or giving to children and relatives, it was a great thing.
Similarly, this oil workshop also pressed rapeseed, sesame, and soybean oils, as long as you had the ingredients you could press any oil.
If you only wanted a little, you could also directly exchange ingredients for oil.
Many didn't trust the oils sold in markets, feeling there were too many additives, so many city folks with rural relatives would ask them to press and gather oils and eggs when visiting the countryside.
Because she was gathering more than just peanuts, Wen Qian couldn't take her bike or three-wheeled cart.
She told Chen Lin she wanted to rent their larger three-wheeled cart and went to even more remote villages, bigger villages.
She gathered a lot of sweet potatoes and corn. Sweet potato prices weren't high now. Although roasted sweet potatoes in the city weren't cheap, Wen Qian easily gathered a lot.
She was like a little hamster or squirrel continuously storing up food. Although eating too many sweet potatoes could cause flatulence, which was a bit unpleasant.
Luckily she had stored a variety, so she could alternate.
Of course, in this process some had tried to take advantage of her.
Wen Qian's usual response was to drive away. With interconnected villages everywhere, there would always be one or two households. Failing that she could just buy from grain vendors in the towns.
Luckily most were honest, weights were accurate, prices were agreed upon, and product quality was decent without adulterations or substandard goods.
Wen Qian went out early and returned late continuously for a week, spending most of her remaining money to buy a lot of things.
These were all primary agricultural goods. Seeing the mountains stacked up in her dimension space, she felt even more at ease.
October came and it was time to harvest the rice. Wen Qian went again to distant villages and gathered a lot of rice. She spent a whole week.
Rice prices were indeed slightly higher than last year, but only by a bit.
In a poor harvest, some wouldn't sell this year's new grain and sold old stockpiled grain from previous years instead. So Wen Qian also bought some, since it might be even harder to buy next year.
After a trip gathering things she had spent a lot of money, and also became familiar with the roads and families in this stretch of countryside.
Previously in An City she had bought maps and a compass, and constantly looked at satellite maps online, downloading offline maps too.
She plotted out several possible migration routes for herself, in case she had to leave here in the future, so she prepared in advance.
Knowing where there were small paths, where there were paved roads, which villages had more families, which had fewer, who kept dogs.
Which tracts of mountain might have wild boars, and she'd even heard there might be wolves deeper in the mountains, though she didn't know if that was true.
After running around everywhere for several months, Wen Qian felt her body had become more fit. She could walk for a long time now without easily getting winded going uphill.
The weather grew colder, and the mountain grasses and leaves started yellowing.
Previously she had gathered leafy branches, and now seeing the large oak forests on the mountains shedding leaves, Wen Qian wished she could gather them all.
Unfortunately her home was already stacked full, in the end she neatly lined one side of her porch wall with large firewood bundles, just the part Auntie Chen could see.
She had stored a lot more firewood in her dimension space.
Like shearing a sheep for wool and not just one, Wen Qian had only gathered firewood from part of her family's woods.
Then she went deeper where people rarely ventured, and chose some crooked unsound trees for firewood.
She had been obsessively stockpiling these things, already a habit.
