It's really hard to just farm peacefully.

Chapter 228

Until nightfall that day, Jiang Yan still felt a foul smell lingering around her. Even though she blew the cold wind to clear the snow on the roof for nearly two hours, it still could not completely dissipate.

The stench affected his appetite, so Jiang Yan quickly finished his dinner without much appetite. While there was still some light, he took out a small bottle of lamp oil from a small compartment at the bottom of the wooden shelf in the utility room with a slightly dejected look.

This is one of the most valuable items in the entire storage room.

Before Jiang Yan returned to Dongshan Village, the only places in the village that could afford lamp oil were the ancestral hall and Uncle Jiang Fu's house, and they only used it when there was something important to do.

For generations, people in Dongshan Village have gone up the mountain to collect pine resin and burned it for lighting, but the amount of pine resin is small and not every family can collect enough. Moreover, when it is burned, the smoke is heavy and the smell is pungent, making the house, which is not already white enough, pitch black.

Therefore, people are still used to going out in the dark on weekdays, burning a piece of rosin when necessary, and using torches soaked in rosin oil when going out.

But after Jiang Yan used the oil lamp at Fu Nulang's place for a while and felt the benefit of not being blinded by the thick smoke, he was no longer willing to embarrass himself in this regard.

In addition, she couldn't work in the dark, and she didn't want to waste the time between nightfall and bedtime, so when she was in Xiakou County, she spent a huge amount of money to buy herself three or two taels of oil.

Jiang Yan had never counted how many things she had complained about being too expensive, but lamp oil was really, really expensive. It was so expensive that when she bought the oil, she really hoped that the shopkeeper would say that he would not give her a discount, so that she could firmly put down her things and leave without looking back.

In the Northern Jin Dynasty, or in the areas of Heding Prefecture and Zhongyuan Prefecture, the main ingredient of lamp oil was sesame oil, which not only produced less smoke but also lasted longer.

The disadvantage is that the price is too high. Jiang Yan roughly estimates that it is six to eight times the price of salt.

The small bottle in her hand only contained... well... Jiang Yan thought for a long time before figuring out that it was roughly the amount of a small bag of milk, but it cost a full one hundred and fifty copper coins.

Even with this little bit of lamp oil burning all day and all night, it could only last for three days.

Yesterday, because he was thinking too much, he consumed about two hours' worth of medicine at once. Although it was useful in the past few days, Jiang Yan still couldn't help feeling distressed.

She looked carefully at the oil in the bottle against the fire in the stove, and it looked like it was half used up.

There was no need to count the remaining money in his purse again. Jiang Yan only needed to think of the skyrocketing grain prices in Rongcheng County to know how unaffordable the price of lamp oil would be again.

Jiang Yan was silent, and quickly took out a small can of walnut oil and a small can of nut oil from the cupboard.

Sesame oil can be used as lamp oil. Walnut oil and tung oil are also oils, and they may also be used to light lamps.

Which one to try?

Jiang Yan weighed it for a moment and decided on the cliff fruit oil.

It's not because the amount of walnut oil is large enough to withstand small failures and waste, but because the quality of walnut oil is guaranteed to be edible for future generations. Walnuts can also nourish her brain as a former head injury patient, so she needs to be cherished.

Cliff nut oil, however, is a product without any quality assurance. Although she had eaten some cliff nut kernels in the past few days and did not suffer from food poisoning, what if the intake was insufficient and no qualitative change occurred?

Jiang Yan fetched a saw and cut a thin, yellowed, dehydrated bamboo tube, making a rustling sound. There was nothing else readily available at home to make a lamp holder, so pouring the oil from the existing lamp mixed with the sesame oil hanging on the wall, which wasn't very good.

After a while, Jiang Yan placed the bamboo tube, which was only two finger joints high, flat on the stove. He first added a quarter of water, then half of the cliff fruit oil, and then inserted the wick and adjusted the exposed length of the wick.

After the wick was moistened, Jiang Yan couldn't wait to light the bamboo tube lamp. The flame stabilized after flickering several times, and the outer circle was a light yellow flame.

Jiang Yan stared at it for a long time, then smiled with joy.

As expected, she found another way to make money without any capital investment.