Zhao Hanzhang brought back an armful of edamame. After removing the leaves, she put the stalks directly into the pot, added just enough water to cover them, and set them to boil.

She wanted to add many things—star anise, Sichuan peppercorns, chili peppers and salt, ideally some soy sauce too. But… there was none of it.

Just plain boiled edamame. After cooking, she poured them out to cool. Zhao Hanzhang shelled them for Fu Zhi to eat.

Fu Zhi ate with relish. Princess Hongnong’s chicken soup was still simmering. He smiled and called to them all, “Consider it a snack.”

The family of five sat on small stools shelling edamame.

This was Princess Hongnong’s first time eating such food. She looked at Zhao Hanzhang and rather clumsily tried to imitate her by putting the whole edamame pod in her mouth, but couldn’t extract the intact shell. Instead, she bit off half with the shell still attached.

It tastes terrible!

Even worse than bean rice. Why were they eating unripe soybeans? Couldn’t they wait until they matured?

Fu Xuan, sitting beside her, saw this and took the edamame from her hand, shelling two beans for her. “If you can’t shell them with your mouth, can’t you use your hands?”

Princess Hongnong’s face flushed bright red as she turned to glare at him fiercely.

Fu Tinghan saw his parents about to quarrel again. He wanted to speak but stopped, looking up at Fu Zhi.

Fu Zhi pretended not to notice. He waved at Zhao Hanzhang and shelled his own to eat.

He had a good appetite, eating many with relish before smiling. “In the future, we dare not be so extravagant. Just this armful of edamame—if we waited for them to mature and shell them, they could feed a family of five for three days.”

But now, because of their appetites, they served only as a pre-meal snack for the family of five. What a waste.

Zhao Hanzhang smiled. “I think differently. In the future, every household should be able to afford eating edamame, and when cooking them, they can add salt and seasonings.”

Rice and flour might not be freely available for these two or three years, but surely edamame could?

Fu Zhi heard this and laughed heartily. “Then Great General must work hard. This isn’t something that can be accomplished in a day.”

Zhao Hanzhang smiled and agreed.

Princess Hongnong looked at Zhao Hanzhang, then at Fu Zhi, and silently lowered her eyes to eat her edamame.

In the afternoon, Fu Zhi ate the chicken soup noodles their family of three had collaborated to make. He was very satisfied.

He smiled at Zhao Hanzhang. “Hanzhang, you and Tinghan go play outside. The Princess and I have some things to discuss.”

Zhao Hanzhang agreed and pulled Fu Tinghan out, taking all the servants and guards with them.

The sun was still in the western half of the sky, quite bright. She wandered around with nothing to do and asked the Station Master, “I see only three people working at the station including yourself. Where are the others?”

The Station Master quickly replied, “They’ve all gone to the fields to pull weeds and catch insects.”

Without herbicides or pesticides, weeding and pest control relied on human labor. Hearing this, Zhao Hanzhang immediately rolled up her sleeves. “Let’s go. I’m bored anyway—we’ll go too.”

Zhao Hanzhang left enough people to guard the station and took everyone else to the fields.

Hoes were limited, so they had to pull by hand.

Fu Tinghan pulled three times and broke the roots twice. He silently stood for a while, then looked at Zhao Hanzhang. It was the same dry soil, but somehow when she pulled, she could always remove the weeds with roots intact.

Zhao Hanzhang saw him watching and stopped, looking at the weed in his hand with most of the root broken off. “When pulling, use skillful force. Shake it a bit before pulling upward, and you can remove it with roots intact.”

Fu Tinghan observed her movements and tried pulling once. This time was even worse—an even longer section broke off underground.

Zhao Hanzhang couldn’t help but laugh heartily.

Fu Tinghan dusted off his hands and stood up. “Where’s your knife? I’ll go whittle a tree branch.”

How could Zhao Hanzhang let him whittle a branch alone? She went with him.

Zhao Hanzhang brought a knife and followed him to a small grove by the field ridge, watching him tap and examine trees before choosing a branch as thick as a baby’s arm. “This one.”

Zhao Hanzhang cut it for him, then whittled it into a flat point.

“Wouldn’t a round point work? Why whittle it flat?”

Fu Tinghan took the branch to the field, positioned it some distance from a weed root, and pushed it straight down. He pushed and scraped back and forth like this, going quite deep, then used his hand to pull up the loosened weed. Shaking it to remove the soil, this section of the furrow was clean—not a thread of weed remained.

Even the weeds close to the bean roots were easy to remove. He inserted the branch, then pried it outward, and the weed pulled up easily.

This was much faster than her hard pulling. Zhao Hanzhang pondered thoughtfully. “I remember rural areas have a special weeding tool—I don’t know what it’s called. It’s like this, but with two points, and it’s also like a hoe, with different lengths and sizes for different uses.”

She’d only seen it as a child when visiting the countryside. The memory wasn’t deep—she only recalled it now seeing him do this.

For agricultural tools, both of them only remembered those from history and politics textbooks. They probably knew less than Shen Ruhui.

Fu Tinghan looked down at his branch, furrowing his brow slightly. “If we want to save more effort, we could indeed make it like a hoe. For weeding, we might as well make it claw-shaped.”

Weeding was done by hand, right?

So make it like claws. Hmm, or like using just two fingers—that way they could save materials.

If everything was iron, wouldn’t the cost be too high?

Besides iron, what else would be suitable?

Wood?

But ordinary wood would wear out quickly and probably wouldn’t last long. Or special wood?

Otherwise, design iron fingertips—like nails you can attach. Only the hoeing part would be iron; everything else could be wood. Then what should the length, width, and gap between the iron fingers be?

When Zhao Hanzhang returned from pulling weeds, Fu Tinghan still maintained that posture holding the branch, staring blankly. She looked back at the setting sun, estimating it would be completely dark in another two quarters of an hour, and crouched in front of him, waving her hand before his eyes.

Fu Tinghan came back to himself. “I’ll pull them now.”

“Don’t bother—it’s getting dark. Let’s go back.” Zhao Hanzhang pulled him up.

As Fu Tinghan stood, his knees down, especially the soles of his feet, hurt like needles pricking them, then went numb. Numb and painful at the same time.

Zhao Hanzhang rubbed his legs for him. Fu Tinghan also bent down, trying to push her hands away while grimacing and rubbing himself. “I’ll do it myself, I’ll do it myself.”

When your feet are numb, don’t let others help rub your legs—it really hurts.

After finally recovering, the two of them shouldered the branch and walked back hand in hand.

Most of the soldiers had already returned. Those remaining followed at a distance.

Fu Zhi sat at the station entrance with Princess Hongnong and Fu Xuan at his sides. Seeing Zhao Hanzhang and Fu Tinghan returning hand in hand from afar, their clothes stained with mud from working, sleeves rolled up past their elbows, shoes dirty, yet both calm and composed without appearing disheveled.

Fu Zhi couldn’t help but smile, saying softly, “Princess, do you see? She’s different from everyone else. With her here, the world will be at peace.”

Princess Hongnong stared at Zhao Hanzhang approaching them. A Great General of the nation, Great Jin’s effective regent, had actually rolled up her sleeves to pull weeds in the fields, letting dirt pile up under her fingernails.

Prince Donghai wouldn’t do such a thing. Neither would Gou Xi. Even she, a fallen princess, wouldn’t do it.