With all the various household chores finished, Widow Xie and the siblings from the main branch officially returned to work.
During the days they had spent harvesting and drying sweet potatoes, Ji Huan had already finished drying all the necessary spices. She then sorted them by type and piled them in the two side rooms on the left of the rear courtyard.
In addition, she had hired someone to build three earthen stoves in the first of the side rooms on the right. They were outfitted with three large iron woks, along with ladles, spatulas, wooden basins, and tools like grinding troughs, stone pestles, and stone mortars.
The items might have seemed small and insignificant, but they had cost her nearly four taels.
