There are five cows in the livestock pen, and they all look quite healthy, clearly having been carefully tended.

However, there are fewer than twenty sheep, and no flocks of chickens or ducks in sight.

Ethan Clark also specifically counted the servants working in the rear residential area—eighteen people in total, young and old.

He strolled through all the residential areas as if just wandering around, and after tallying up, there were a total of twenty-six servants.

When he first crossed over, he was puzzled—how could he be a noble and yet not have a single maid to warm his bed? Sleeping, getting up, washing, eating... no one served him in any of it, making him feel not noble at all.

But after learning a few things and observing again, the conclusion became very clear.

The cows used as labor were carefully looked after, but the horses were in poor shape.

The head of the family, a minor noble but still a noble, yet had no servants dedicated to waiting on him.

Everything pointed to the fact that this family had truly fallen into decline.

Additionally—

There were no labor contracts now; those called servants were, in fact, slaves.

The warriors had their own families and, except when on duty, usually lived at home.

They had their own slaves to do all sorts of tasks.

The state of Jin had already reformed and implemented the policy of combining military and agriculture, but except for spring planting and autumn harvest, the warriors still didn’t do farm work.

So, the main occupation of the warriors was still violence-related tasks.

After a targeted round of observation, Ethan Clark returned to his own room.

He had originally thought that since he was a noble, he could at least live like a pampered second-generation heir.

The result?

First, the family’s current situation didn’t allow it, and second, he needed to fulfill the responsibilities and obligations expected of a noble.

If he couldn’t take good care of his people, they would leave, and then there would be no production, and the family would have no means of support.

The warriors were the force that kept the family going, and also the basis for meeting the state’s conscription requirements.

If a family couldn’t even provide the required number of warriors, the inevitable outcome was having their fief taken back.

“I need to find a way to make money!” Ethan Clark had only started making pottery to improve his own life, and making money was just a bonus. Now that he’d learned some new things, he felt a sense of urgency and thought, “If I don’t fulfill my obligations and can’t bear my responsibilities, just being a noble now doesn’t mean I’ll always be one. And to accomplish all that, what I need most right now is money!”

In the Spring and Autumn period, money wasn’t everything.

But in every era, having no money is absolutely impossible.

So what then?

Blow glass?

Brew wine?

Or make perfume?

Or get into the food business?

Ethan Clark went through all the things other transmigrators had done, and, considering his own situation, thought them over one by one.

He listed out each project in his mind, then eliminated those that couldn’t be accomplished in the short term, leaving only the one he thought was most reliable.

“To run a restaurant in a big city, I’d need a shop…” Ethan Clark realized his family couldn’t afford to buy a shop, so he changed his mind: “Is it illegal to set up a street stall?”

Stir-frying only appeared in the Song dynasty, but there were no frying pans yet.

Ethan Clark already knew that iron-smelting technology existed in this era. It might not be good enough for making weapons, but to make iron pans… well, it’s not like he needed high-end kitchenware—making a few iron pans shouldn’t be too hard, right?

There weren’t many seasonings, so he’d have to focus on the cooking methods.

Even if it was just stir-frying some vegetables or various meats, wouldn’t that taste better than plain boiled or roasted meat?

“Soy milk and fried dough sticks, would that work?” Ethan Clark had checked the storeroom—there were all kinds of beans, and a lot of them. There was also some wheat, and it was easy to buy more. He had the idea, but his face was troubled as he thought, “There’s a stone mill now, so grinding beans and wheat isn’t a problem. The key is the damn oil!”

There were no peanuts yet, so forget about vegetable oil.

Rendering oil from fatty meat or fish was extremely costly.

In short, any kind of oil was ridiculously expensive!

Fortunately, there were plenty of beans at home—a whole lot.

And all kinds of beans were now collectively called “shu,” and were actually the staple food for most people.

Rice? It wasn’t cost-effective to grow in the north, so basically no one did. For fine grains, people grew wheat.

Barley and wheat were grown in the north, and there were wheat-based foods, but fermentation hadn’t been invented yet, so all the wheat foods were hard as rocks.

Ethan Clark started pulling his hair, muttering in pain, “To make fried dough sticks, I have to first refine soybean oil?!”

Of course, he’d also have to figure out how to ferment the dough.

And this was the Spring and Autumn period.

Chapter 3: First, Find a Big Backer to Rely On

Ethan Clark was simply fed up with this era, where anything you wanted to do had to start with making the tools.

When making pottery, the first thing he needed was a suitable sand-sifting basket, and to make that, he had to make new knives.

When making the potter’s wheel, he ended up making a bunch of other tools while building the frame.

So, invention really does come from daily life.

What Ethan Clark didn’t know was that his grandmother had issued a strict gag order to the servants, forbidding them from leaking anything.

And the old grandmother’s order was quite practical.

After Ethan Clark came back to life, some of his words and actions were different from before, and he was able to make all sorts of things.

The old grandmother was very unwilling to think that her grandson’s body had been taken over, and could only pray that it was knowledge bestowed from heaven.