Chapter 32: Picking Mountain Goods (Part 2)

After Tang Yue entered the space, she went to the kitchen to prepare bath water. The smell of wild boar on her body stinked. After the water was boiled, she went to the bathroom to take a bath. After taking a bath, she washed her hair and hung her washed clothes in the yard.

Tang Yuetian was hungry and wanted to drink soup, but didn't want to make it too complicated, so she took some lean meat from the warehouse, cut it into shreds, cut a piece of ginger, and made a lean meat soup. After that, she sprinkled some green onions on the soup, took a piece of bread and mushroom sauce, and ate it like this.

After finishing the meal, I cleaned the table and thought about what else to do. I will peel the pine nuts and chestnuts when I get home. Or I can make bacon. I will marinate the meat first and smoke it when I get home. I will dig a hole in the backyard and use tree trunks to build a rack on top of the hole. I will then hang the meat on the rack to smoke it. I heard that meat smoked with fruit tree branches is more fragrant. Now that I am in the mountains, if I see any wild fruit trees, please prune them. Prune more fruit trees so that we can have fruit tree branches for smoking meat.

Take the pork from the warehouse, cut it into two-jin strips, wash it with warm water, and then use burning branches to burn off the hair that was not scraped off the pork.

Bring five 100-jin plastic barrels, then get a bag of coarse salt from the warehouse, stir-fry them in a pan, add star anise, bay leaves, cinnamon, peppercorns and other spices, put them in a large wooden basin after frying, bring it to the yard, rub salt on the meat, and then put them into the plastic barrels. Each layer can hold four or five pieces of meat, and a barrel can hold about 80 jin. There are five barrels in total, about 400 jin. Then pour wine on the meat on the barrels and let it slowly penetrate into it. Carry the barrels to the living room. As the living room is big enough, it will take at least five days to marinate. The time is faster in space, but two or three days is enough outside.

Tang Yue wanted to make some sausages next time. The sausages were also very delicious. She took a pine cone, peeled it open and took out the pine nuts inside. There were quite a few pine nuts on about 20 trees. She used her mind to plant these pine nuts by the river, with each pine nut three meters apart. When the space produced pine nuts by itself, she wouldn't have to run up the mountain to pick them. The chestnuts planted by the river last time grew very well and had grown a little bigger.

Tang Yue planned to leave 50 acres in front of the yard to plant flowers after the crops were harvested. Some of the seeds would be used as flowers, and some could be eaten or made into scented tea. When Tang Yue was preparing the stock, she collected a portion of all the seeds available on the market, including flower seeds.

Tang Yue returned to her bedroom and prepared to sleep, preparing to go down the mountain tomorrow. She had been on the mountain for a few days, and had prepared firewood and mountain products. It was getting colder outside, and she was afraid that it would snow in a few days.

The next morning, Tang Yue woke up at six o'clock, got up, brushed her teeth and washed her face, took two eggs and a bowl of rice soup for breakfast, ate breakfast, washed the bowl, silently chanted "go", and instantly went out from the space.

Tang Yue walked to the pine forest where she picked pine nuts and cut some pine branches for smoking bacon. She cut more and tied them with vines before putting them into space. She cut some branches from each of the many trees, which was almost enough. On the way back, she also cut some branches from wild fruit trees. She didn't come back empty-handed, so she picked up firewood as well, which felt a bit like plucking feathers from passing geese.

When Tang Yue returned home, it was already around five or six in the afternoon. It was getting dark, and it gets dark early in winter.

Turn over the dried vegetables hanging on the winnowing basket in the yard. The sun is not strong enough and they are half dried. Now it is time to put the peppers in the space to dry. Although there is no sun in the space, it is always sunny. Put the peppers into the space, walk into the bedroom and enter the space, take a piece of oil and spread it outside the yard, then put the peppers in to continue drying. When the peppers are dried, come out of the space.

Tang Yue came out of the space and came to the storage room. She rearranged the shelves. There were four shelves in total, two with three layers and two with four layers. She put the four-layer shelves facing the door. Tang Yue was going to put the jars and cans on them, and put the three-layer shelves inside. She was going to put the things in sacks, like dried red dates, dried wild vegetables and dried mushrooms in sacks here.

When I got to the door, I took out the pickled vegetables I had made in the past two days and put them on the bottom layer. One layer could hold five jars, and if there was not enough space, I put them on another shelf. Then I put the chopped peppers and beans in glass jars on the second layer, and took out a five-jin jar of raisins from the space and put it on the shelf, and put the two jars of salted duck eggs on the wall next to the shelf.

The opened mushroom sauce and beef sauce are placed on the shelf, while the unopened ones are stored in the space warehouse to prevent them from going bad if not finished in a short time. This makes the whole room tidier.

Arriving at the backyard, Tang Yue piled the collected firewood and pine needles in the firewood shed. That was almost enough firewood for the winter. Arriving at the bedroom, Tang Yue took 20 grapefruits from the space, peeled the grapefruit skins and put them aside. After peeling all the skins, she put the pulps into the space, took a dustpan and put the 20 grapefruit skins outside to dry. Throwing them in when smoking bacon would make the taste better.

Tang Yue walked into the kitchen to prepare dinner. She boiled water in the pot, took some bones from the space, washed them, and blanched them in the pot. She added onion, ginger, garlic, and cooking wine and boiled them for five minutes to cook out the dirt. She rinsed them with cold water, washed the pot again, added water, put the bones in, and added ginger and salt. She took some dried mushrooms from the storage room, washed them, put them in, covered them with a lid, and let them simmer slowly.

Tang Yue prepared another pot to boil water for a bath. She was covered in hair after a day in the mountains. After the water was boiled, she returned to the bedroom to get her clothes, fetched water to the bathroom, and washed her hair while taking a bath. She took a bath towel from the space and wiped her hair half dry, then drained the water from the wooden barrel, took her clothes and went to the sink outside to draw water directly from the well. The water was too cold, so she would use hot water to wash clothes next time.

After washing the clothes, hang them on the clothesline outside. It is difficult to dry the clothes now. Tang Yue plans to go to the commune tomorrow and bring the stove back when she comes back. Then she will light a stove in the room and put a kettle on the stove to boil water, which will make the room warmer. From today on, she will take out the iron sheet next to the wall of the kitchen stove and start sleeping on the kang.

I went back to the kitchen, opened the lid of the pot and saw that the soup was almost done, so I took a stainless steel bucket from the space, used a rice bowl to keep a bowl of soup, and put the rest of the food into the bucket and put it into the space. I brought the soup back to the bedroom, where there was a kang table on the kang, so I put the soup on the table, took another bowl of rice, braised meat and vegetables from the space, and sat on the kang to start eating.

After dinner, Tang Yue cleaned the table, washed her face, took out skin care products from the space, and gave herself a full body care. The weather was too dry, and she felt her face would be wrinkled if she didn't apply some skin care products.

He took a large mirror from the space and slowly wiped it on his face. Looking at the beautiful face of the original owner in the mirror, he didn't want it to be ruined beyond recognition when it happened to him.

Thinking of applying facial wipes, she suddenly remembered that the villagers had asked Tang Yue to help with facial wipes. She quickly applied the wipes, locked the doors of the yard and the room, took the beauty book and herbal medicine collection, and entered the space from the bedroom.

After entering the space, Tang Yue took out a spoon and picked out a face cream with a whitening effect. The required materials happened to be in the space, so she used a machine to grind all the required herbs into powder, took out the stove, burned coal balls, put a small ceramic pot on it, poured the herbs into the small ceramic pot according to the proportions, added water and stirred slowly.

In order to achieve better results, Tang Yue put a drop of spiritual water in the pot. Adding a drop of spiritual water to a pottery jar of medicine powder should not be too much. After stirring it almost enough, she took the pottery jar off the stove and placed it in the yard to let it dry slowly.

Suddenly I thought of waiting for it to dry, but I didn't know what to use to package it, so I went back to the living room, got a pen and paper from the warehouse, and drew a pattern of a round box with a lid. I carved a small moon on the lid as a trademark. It should be the size of a child's palm and can hold about 20 grams of facial cream. I will take it to Uncle Li's house tomorrow to see if it can be made.

When Uncle Li's family gets the boxes, we'll take a few to the commune to let Brother Hu try out the results. There will surely be a steady stream of orders. Fortunately, all the family members of Uncle Li are carpenters. Although the sons' skills are not as good as his, they should be able to do something as simple as making boxes.

Seeing that it was getting late, Tang Yue left the room and returned to the bedroom to sleep.

The next morning, Tang Yue got up at around six o'clock and went to the sink to brush her teeth and wash her face. The weather outside was getting colder. After finishing breakfast, she locked the door and took the blueprint to Uncle Li's house.

"Uncle Li, are you home? I'm coming in," Tang Yue shouted as she walked towards the backyard. People in the countryside get up early, and usually open the door when they get up. The door will not be closed unless there is someone at home.

"Come in, we're in the backyard," Uncle Li's voice came from the backyard. Tang Yue guessed that he knew where he was.

"Uncle Li, can you help me look at this drawing? How many pieces are needed to make a box like this? I need more," Tang Yue showed the drawing to Uncle Li.

Uncle Li took the drawing and looked at it. "It's very simple. It can be done in ten minutes alone. If you need more, I can call my son and grandson to work together. By dividing the work and cooperating, everyone can do a lot quickly."

When Tang Yue heard this, she thought Uncle Li was smart, "Uncle Li, I want a lot, how much is it for each one? Can you give me a discount, but I will always want them in the future."

Uncle Li squatted on the side and counted. If you keep asking for more, "One cent each, you need at least one hundred."

When Tang Yue heard this, she found it was cheaper than she expected. She originally thought it would cost at least 20 cents, so she quickly agreed, "Okay, Uncle Li, make me 1,000 first, but have someone send me 100 first. I'm waiting to use them. And don't forget the little moon on the lid."

"Okay, this is done very quickly, I'll send you 100 around evening", when Uncle Li heard that he wanted 1,000 pieces, he was very happy. After all, there weren't many people making furniture in the countryside, so it was fun to have something to do.

Tang Yue thought about the wooden box and thought the color seemed a bit ugly, so she asked Uncle Li quickly, "Uncle Li, why don't you dye the box but not paint it, because the things in it will be applied to my face, and I'm afraid I will be allergic to the paint."

When Uncle Li heard this, he said: "That's not difficult. You can just pick some grass from the mountain and dye them into different colors by mixing them together. It depends on what color you want."

When Tang Yue heard that Uncle Li had this ability, she exclaimed, "Uncle Li, it's amazing that you have this ability. Red, yellow, blue, green, cyan, purple, pink, a little bit of every color." The box is so beautiful with so many colors, there will definitely be people who will buy a box of each color like collecting stamps.

"Okay, no problem. I'll call you guys over to make the box together later."