Amidst the sound of firecrackers, another year has passed. Jinghan was now eleven years old, having been in this world for almost three years. In the blink of an eye, the ice and snow outside had melted, and life was reviving—an excellent time of year with the grass growing, orioles flying, and flowers blooming amidst the green willows.
There was, of course, plenty of work to be done in the ginseng fields, and Jinghan was busy too. She needed to take out the silk cocoons from the mountain silkworms that had been stored last year and use artificial heat to incubate these cocoons so that they could hatch and lay eggs. Naturally, the heating took place in those two houses. The mushroom trees had long been removed from inside the houses; now, the rooms were filled with fine hemp ropes strung with dense cocoons.
