Chapter 128

At this moment, everyone at home is busy.

The potatoes for the pigs have been cooked, and Lin Duo'er is crushing them with a bamboo pole, mixing in the chopped pig feed, and preparing to let them cool before feeding them later.

Lin Chunhe and Meng Yun were steaming soybeans, while Aunt Guizhi was grinding the soybeans that had been dried yesterday.

In the backyard, there was a neat row of soy sauce jars and beans drying in the sun.

When they saw Lin Chuntao return, everyone greeted her warmly. Lin Chuntao went to check, and Lin Chunhe said, "Sister, it's almost finished steaming."

Lin Chuntao nodded, and Hu Shi next to her smiled and said, "Chuntao, this charcoal you burn burns quite well, and there's not much smoke or ash, which saves a lot of trouble."

Lin Chuntao was quite pleased to be praised. She smiled and said, "Right, Auntie? I feel that it's more useful to roast potatoes over a fire when the weather is cold." After she finished speaking, she paused and said with a smile, "I'm using a bit too much. After I fire two more kilns, I'll fire some for everyone."

Upon hearing this, Madam Sun said, "You're so busy with so many things, take a break when you have a spare moment. I'll ask your second uncle and the others to dig a cave dwelling. You can help keep an eye on it and let them build their own."

Lin Chuntao said, "Anything is fine. If Second Uncle and the others want to dig, they can tell me when they find a good spot, and I'll draw the lines for them."

Mrs. Hu thanked her with a smile, and Lin Chuntao said, "With our relationship, Auntie, you don't need to be so polite."

As they were talking, Lin Chuntao saw that there was nothing she could help with, so she picked up a small hoe and headed towards the charcoal kiln.

She touched the temperature outside the cave dwelling; it was still very hot, so she felt she would have to wait until at least tomorrow to open the cave.

After sealing the smoke vent last time, it took four days to open it. By then, the charcoal was already in good condition. I wanted to see if it could be opened in about three days, which would be more efficient.

They still use charcoal quite a lot now, for steaming beans and cooking noodle soup.

After looking around and finding no way to open it, Lin Chuntao looked at the small hoe and went back to the yard.

When Lin Chunhe saw her return, she asked, "Sister, can't we open it yet?"

"Hmm, let's see tomorrow. If it can be opened, we'll open it a day earlier."

She put the hoe away and looked at the recipe she had exchanged yesterday. She needed to make a jar of fermented black beans to keep for later use.

The steps for making this fermented black beans are similar to those for the previous sauce. They need to be soaked, steamed until soft, and fermented. After fermentation, minced ginger, salt, and white wine are mixed in, and then the mixture is put back into a jar for a second fermentation. This second fermentation takes longer than the first, about fifteen or sixteen days. After the second fermentation is complete, the fermented black beans are poured out and dried in the sun or oven until they are more than half-dry.

We have to wait for the fermented black beans to be made before we can proceed to the next step, which takes quite a long time.

Lin Chuntao weighed out fifty catties of beans, washed them separately, and soaked them in a basin.

She said to Lin Chunhe, "I'm going to use this to make another kind of sauce, don't mix it with this."

Lin Chunhe stared at her with wide eyes, somewhat surprised, "Sister, what kind of sauce are you making?"

Lin Chuntao smiled and said, "You'll know once you make it."

Lin Chunhe nodded, agreeing to her instructions.

Grandma and Aunt Guizhi were also somewhat shocked. After all, they all thought that Lin Chuntao had accidentally created a new flavor for this sauce, so it was a combination of skill and luck.

"Chuntao, do you have another new idea?" Grandma asked. Lin Chuntao replied, "I just have an idea, I have to try it out, I wonder if it will taste good?"

Aunt Guizhi said, "With your skills, there's definitely no problem."

Hu and Deng chimed in, and Lin Chuntao said, "The sauce we're making now is great for dipping potatoes, making soup, cooking, or even grilling meat. But it's a bit too strong for mixing with rice or steamed buns. It's tasty but the flavor doesn't last long. I've been thinking about making a sauce that can be mixed with rice or steamed buns."

Grandma said, "Just mix it into the rice, no other dishes needed?"

Lin Chuntao nodded. "Pretty much. If you're someone who travels a lot or works outside, carrying a jar of sauce and a few steamed buns will make them taste much better. They won't be just plain dry steamed buns anymore. I think some people would like that."

Aunt Guizhi and the others nodded. If there were such sauce, the people who carried and moved goods in the county town would definitely like it. It would save money, fill their stomachs, and most importantly, it would have some flavor.

Hearing this, Madam Hu smiled and said, "Just hearing Chun Tao describe it makes my mouth water. I want to know what it tastes like."

Lin Chuntao smiled and said, "I'll try it first. If it works, we'll eat first."

Lin Chuntao made this sauce before and served some to them. They still vividly remember the first time they tasted this sauce. They are already excited to be trying new flavors again.

After soaking the beans, Lin Chuntao went back to the front yard to start a fire and cook. Just as the rice was steamed, Lin Chunxing and Pei Ying returned.

At this moment, my uncle returned home with my younger cousins, carrying loads of firewood.

As soon as they entered the house, everyone involuntarily sniffed. Xu Sheng looked up at his father and saw that his father was also sniffing, so he asked, "Dad, can you smell mutton?"

Seeing Xu Sheng's expression, the eldest uncle regained his composure and said calmly, "I didn't smell anything."

Xu Sheng: "Can't you smell it?" He said, looking at his younger sister beside him, "Huanhuan, can you smell it?"

Xu Huan: "I can smell it, it smells nice."

Xu Sheng laughed and said, "Father clearly smelled it, why won't you say anything?"

My uncle sighed, "You guys are craving mutton already? Didn't we just have it on June 6th?"

Xu Sheng said, "On June 6th, we each ate three slices and drank two bowls of soup."

There are many people in the family, so on June 6th they only bought two jin (1 kg) of meat as a token. Each person got two or three slices of meat, and there was a lot of soup. Everyone drank several bowls of mutton soup and felt happy.

We ate, but we weren't satisfied and definitely wanted more.

My second uncle chuckled from the side, "I wonder whose family has something good to do, that they'd buy mutton to eat."

Third Uncle looked at the children in front of him and said, "After we pay the taxes in a while, let's see if there's any grain we can sell, and then we can have some to eat."

First, draw a small cake, which makes a group of children's faces beam with joy.

His uncle glanced at him and shook his head helplessly.

They came in through the back gate and neatly piled all the firewood into the woodshed, which was already almost full.

The eldest uncle said, "We'll stop cutting corn tomorrow, and then we'll take it to your sister Chuntao to pick corn the day after tomorrow."

Xu Sheng and the others nodded and smiled, "Shall we go together?"

Upon hearing this, my second uncle laughed and said, "What, you don't want to go? You can pick corn from the corn at home, why can't you pick corn from your sister's?"

"Second Uncle, how could I not go? I'm just afraid my father will make us stay home to watch the house again."

Xu Sheng was talking about the last time Lin Chuntao was digging for clay to build a house. They wanted to go, but their uncle thought that the yellow clay was hard to dig and that they, as teenagers, would just want to play and delay Lin Chuntao's work, so he insisted on keeping them at home.

While they were chopping firewood, my uncle wandered around until he was not far from the cornfield behind Lin Chuntao's house. He even went to check on Lin Chuntao's cornfield; the two sandy patches behind the house were ready to be harvested.

Hearing Xu Sheng say this, the eldest uncle then said, "Last time we dug up the clay, even the adults had a hard time. You guys couldn't keep up after a while, which delayed your sister's business. You can go pick corn instead."

Xu Sheng smiled and said, "That would be wonderful."

As they talked, they gathered firewood, put away their baskets and sickles, washed their hands with water, and then headed towards the front yard.

But when they got to the front, they found that the smell of mutton was even stronger. Even the eldest uncle frowned. With such a strong smell, which of the two families next door bought mutton to eat?

Today there was mutton, and my eldest aunt specially steamed some rice. My second and third aunts were busy with their own tasks, one picking vegetables and the other peeling potatoes.

"Dad, why does this taste like it's from our house?" Xu Sheng said. Xu Huan laughed and said, "Brother, you're just being greedy. Mom and the others didn't go to the county town, so where did they get the mutton?"

The word "county town" instantly triggered Xu Sheng's brain. He quickly ran into the house and saw two earthenware pots on the table, one containing mutton and the other mutton soup. The mutton filled most of the pots, and he couldn't immediately estimate how many kilograms it weighed.

His eyes widened. "Mom, where did this mutton come from? Did Sister Chuntao buy it?"

His exclamation caused a group of children to swarm around the table.

Wow! So much mutton!

"It smells so good!"

"This should be enough to eat a lot of slices."

"..."

The eldest aunt looked at the group of children without saying a word for a long time. The eldest uncle looked at her and asked, "What is this mutton?"

Aunt: "What Chun Tao just brought over wasn't just mutton; she also bought several bolts of cloth and a few pounds of cotton, saying she wanted to make winter clothes for us."

Hearing this, the eldest uncle's expression froze slightly. "Forget about the meat, but where can we keep the cloth?"

The eldest aunt said, "I told her to take it to Chunhe and the others to make clothes. She said theirs are already done. You know Chuntao's personality."

Seeing the children happy, the aunt and uncle also smiled. The eldest uncle was also happy; Chun Tao and the others had earned money and were living a better life.

He only occasionally thinks about how incompetent he is as an uncle, how the Lin family was so cruel after his sister's death, and how they didn't even know how much suffering Lin Chuntao and the others endured. He feels guilty about this.

Seeing her uncle's expression, the eldest aunt smiled and said, "By the way, Chun Tao told us something this morning. Xiao Pei's parents have also come to Yizhou. That's great. Now that Chun Tao and the others are doing well, that's something to be happy about. Don't overthink it."

The three uncles were taken aback upon hearing this, thinking to themselves, "Didn't Pei Ying say she had no parents? How come she's like this now..."

There was a group of children present, but they didn't ask any further questions.

The eldest aunt laughed and said, "Let's tidy up, light the stove, boil some food, and eat while it's cooking."

As soon as she finished speaking, her second uncle laughed and said, "I'll go light the stove."

As he left, the eldest uncle then said to his aunt and the others, "I went to Chun Tao's cornfield behind the mountain to chop firewood. The corn there is ready to be picked. We'll chop firewood again tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow we'll go help them pick some corn."

The eldest aunt nodded. "Can we pick them now? I just asked Chuntao, and she said there are still quite a few green ones left."

The eldest uncle said, "The sandy area is almost all yellow. The green part is probably at the entrance of their village. She must have been busy these past few days and hasn't gone to the back mountain to check."