A fierce wife enters the house: She helps up a house full of spineless people.

On the third day after the family split up, Chen Shuyan returned from town wearing new clothes.

She wore a long, light gray cotton gown with a subtle patterned trim around the collar, a new cloth belt around her waist, and new cloth boots. Even the wooden hairpin in her hair had been replaced with a smooth, polished bamboo hairpin.

Standing in the courtyard, he looked like he had stepped out of a painting.

"Shuyan, how much did this dress cost?" Chen Xiufen asked softly.

"Not much, two outfits plus boots, totaling one tael and two mace." Chen Shuyan straightened his sleeves, then took out a small cloth bag from his pocket and handed it to Liu Yiyi, who came out of the house. "Yiyi, this is for you. Thank you for that day!"

On the day the yamen runner came to announce the good news, if it weren't for Yiyi, he would have been humiliated! Although he had already given Yiyi two taels of silver, he was now a scholar and should treat his wife better.

Liu Yiyi took it and opened it; it was a plain silver hairpin with a small plum blossom carved on the head. She was overjoyed.

Grandma Chen beamed from ear to ear, circling her grandson twice: "So handsome! My grandson truly has the air of a scholar! Yiyi looks good in it too!"

Only Chen Xiufen harbored resentment, thinking that he had forgotten his mother after getting married and didn't even know to bring her a cigarette.

Wang Jinzhu lit a fire in her kitchen, where bone broth was simmering in a pot. The old man had difficulty walking and still complained of feeling cold even in spring.

The sound of chopping wood came from the yard; it was Chen Tianfang gathering firewood.

"You mentioned building a wall before, and I measured it. It'll take about three hundred adobe bricks to build a wall in the middle of the yard." Chen Tianfang put down his machete and patted the dust off his hands.

"How long will it take to get it done?"

"I'll make the adobe bricks myself; it'll only take five or six days. Then I'll build them up in another two days."

"Okay, let's get it done quickly." Wang Jinzhu wiped her hands. "So we don't see what they're doing, and they don't see what we're doing. Once we've separated, let's separate cleanly, out of sight, out of mind."

Chen Tianfang nodded, then turned and went to the backyard to mix mud.

That afternoon, Chen Tian drove two wooden stakes into the middle of the yard and strung a rope to mark the temporary boundary. He squatted on the ground, used a mold to make adobe bricks, and stacked them one by one against the wall to dry.

Chen Shuyan glanced out the window but didn't say anything.

Old Mrs. Chen peeked out from the second house: "Why build a wall? Dividing a perfectly good courtyard in two, what will it look like if outsiders see it?"

Wang Jinzhu was serving bone broth to Old Man Chen when she heard this and raised her voice, "Grandma, you're now part of the second branch of the family. You don't need to worry about things in the first branch's courtyard anymore."

Old Mrs. Chen's face immediately fell. She opened her mouth, but the words "the second wife's people" stuck her tongue out.

She turned and went back into the house, slamming the door shut.

Old Chen sat in his chair, holding a bowl. He blew on the oil on the soup noodles, took a sip, and didn't say a word.

That night, in the second room.

Liu Yiyi sat facing the mirror, carefully examining the silver hairpin in her hair by the dim light of the oil lamp. The veins of the plum blossoms were clearly visible, reflecting the lamplight with a warm glow.

"What do you plan to do with those dozens of taels of silver?" she asked softly.

Chen Shuyan was reading by lamplight and didn't even look up when he heard this: "Keep most of it. I'm going on a study tour in the autumn, and the travel expenses, errands, and lodging will all be costs. The remaining little will help with household expenses."

Liu Yiyi nodded, feeling slightly relieved. It was good that her husband had a plan. She raised her hand and stroked the hairpin; the cool touch had been warmed by her body heat.

Inside the large house, the couple closed the door and settled their accounts.

Wang Jinzhu mentally reviewed everything she had stored in her space, counting on her fingers: "There are about four hundred catties of grain left, enough to last for a while. Half a piece of cured meat left, and some dried vegetables. Six taels and seven mace of silver."

She only counted the money Chen Tianfang earned from hunting, and the money her family gave her; she kept it all and didn't plan to use it to subsidize this family for the time being.

Six taels of silver is not a small amount in the village, but it is far from enough to build a house and send Tianrun to school.

"If you rely solely on hunting, you can earn at most a little over one tael a month. After deducting food and drink, you can save less than one tael."

Chen Tianfang did not refute it; it was the truth.

"We need to think of another way." Wang Jinzhu sat cross-legged on the kang (a heated brick bed), her chin resting on her knees.

Although she wasn't a big boss in her previous life, she was at least a quality inspector at a food factory, and she knew everything about food processing. In the months since she transmigrated, she's been thinking about what products could fetch a good price in this era.

Cold drinks? She understood the principle of cooling by adding water to saltpeter, but it was only the beginning of spring; who would buy iced drinks? They'd have to wait until summer.

what about now?

Wang Jinzhu suddenly sat up straight.

"Tianfang, were those badgers you brought back from the mountain last time very oily?"

Chen Tianfang thought for a moment: "Badgers have plenty of oil. There are several dens on the mountain, and they'll be fattest in the spring. What's wrong?"

"How does my dad usually handle the leftover lard and fat from slaughtering pigs every day?"

"Yes, we sell it, but lard is cheap, only seven or eight coins a pound, and it's hard to sell. Sometimes we just throw away the leftovers."

Wang Jinzhu's eyes lit up.

Lard. Wood ash. Soapberry.

What can you do with these three things together?

Make a pancreas.

People in this era used soapberry for washing clothes and bath beans for washing their faces, but those were all crude products. The really effective soap was made by mixing pig pancreas with wood ash and bean flour and kneading it into a dough, which was very laborious and had low yield.

But she knew an even simpler and more direct method—cold process soap making.

When lard and alkaline water are mixed thoroughly and then poured into a mold to solidify, it becomes a solid bar of soap.

Where does the alkali come from? Soaking wood ash in water and filtering it creates a natural alkali solution. Adding soapberry juice to enhance its cleaning power and dried flower petals for fragrance transforms it into something far more than ordinary soap.

That's called fragrant soap.

Wang Jinzhu had specifically looked at the scented soap sold at the town's general store last time—a small piece cost fifteen coins. It was about the size of a palm and would be gone in a few days.

What she wants to do is keep the cost below three cents.

"Tianfang." Wang Jinzhu turned her head, and the light in her eyes made Chen Tian sit up straight unconsciously.

"Tomorrow, go up the mountain and bring back plenty of badger oil. Then go to my father's place and tell him I need pork fat. Give him as much as you can, just buy it at eight coins a pound."

"What's it for?"

"Let's make something." Wang Jinzhu didn't keep them in suspense, "Make soap. It'll be better and cheaper than the ones sold in town."

Chen Tianfang didn't reply immediately. He didn't understand these things very well, but he did understand one thing—if his wife said something was okay, then it wasn't impossible.

"Okay. I'll go tomorrow."

Wang Jinzhu thought for a moment and said, "Oh, right, don't throw away the ashes in the stove. Save them. Have Mother and Tianwei save them too, the more the better."

"This thing...can make money?" Chen Tianfang couldn't help but ask.

Wang Jinzhu cracked open a sunflower seed and spat out the shell.

"Just trust me."

Three days later, a strange smell wafted from Wang Jinzhu's kitchen.

It doesn't smell bad, but it's not exactly fragrant either. It has that heavy smell of oil being released by hot alkaline water, with a hint of astringency from wood ash.

Chen Tianwei squatted down by the door, covering her nose: "Sister-in-law, what exactly are you cooking?"

Wang Jinzhu took a wooden stick and stirred the thick, white paste in the earthenware basin at a constant speed in one direction.

"Don't ask, just bring me that basin of flower petal water."

Chen Tianwei obediently went to get it. It was a wild camellia that she and Wang Jinzhu had picked at the foot of the mountain a few days ago, dried, and then steeped in hot water.

Wang Jinzhu slowly poured the petal water into the basin and continued stirring.

Half an hour later, she poured the paste into a square mold that Chen Tianfang had carved from wood, pressed it down, and smoothed it out.

"Alright." She straightened up, patted her back, and said, "Put it in a shady place and wait twenty days."

"Twenty days?" Chen Tian's eyes widened slightly. "Waiting for what?"

Wang Jinzhu wiped her hands, looked at the row of neat wooden molds, and slowly a smile appeared on her lips.

"Wait until it turns into silver."