Even a wildfire couldn’t completely destroy grass; it grew again when the spring breeze blew. Weeds had the most tenacious grip on life. Even though it was just the start of spring, in the front and back of the village and all over the mountain, there were wild weeds and herbs growing. The village kids were all able to cut a basket of them without much difficulty.

There weren’t enough people in the Yu Family but there were plenty of village children that had nothing to do! If they set the price at one copper coin for two baskets of fishwort, there would probably be many children who were willing to do a little bit of work to earn some snack money.

After Yu Xiaocao analyzed the situation, the rest of the Yu Family also thought that it wouldn’t be difficult to raise a hundred or so pigs. Her three maternal uncles continued to help with buying and catching piglets in the other villages. Before long, construction on the piggery had finished. It had tall and sturdy walls and spacious pig stalls neatly laid out in a row. They transferred water from a mountain spring using bamboo tubes and filled a pond in the piggery that was constructed out of stone...everything was just about ready.

The little piglets had been moved into their new home. Each pig stall had five fat and noisy little piglets. Out of the twenty pig stalls, there were still half that were empty! 

Xiaolian, Eldest Maternal Aunt and her daughter had all come...