Reborn and Divorced: I'm Raising My Kids and Lying Low to Get Rich

Opening her eyes, Chen Hong was reborn. She was reborn just before she was about to take her children back to her parents' home. Not wanting to live a life of looking at others' faces for a...

Chapter 19 Visiting the Village Chief's House

Zhen Hong moved the large, dried water vat to the room where her father-in-law used to live, wiped the inside of the vat thoroughly with strong liquor to disinfect it, and crushed all the grapes with a clean wooden pestle. Only after filling the vat did she realize that she didn't have enough sugar.

I bought some sugar at the village supermarket, and when I got home, I poured the grape juice from the bucket, skin and all, into a jar at a ratio of 100:15, leaving only the grape seeds at the bottom of the bucket to drain and put in a basin.

In the end, two large, half-full vats were filled, probably weighing 300 jin (150 catties), with more than 40 jin (20 kg) of white sugar alone.

After filling the container, tie a rope to the mouth of the wine jar with clean gauze and let it ferment on its own. You only need to press down the cap and stir the jar every day.

It takes about 7-10 days to filter and for secondary fermentation. After 1-3 days of secondary fermentation, it can be bottled, sealed, and stored. The delicious wine is now ready. Of course, for even better flavor, it can be aged for one or two years.

In her previous life, Chen Hong would go to other people's vineyards after the harvest to pick the grapes that had been missed and make wine. Every year she would pick 30 to 40 catties of grapes and make more than 10 catties of wine, which was enough to give as gifts and for her own family to drink.

The grapes picked from the mountains this time are very ripe, with high sugar content and good color, so the wine made from them will definitely be even better!

Chen Hong cleaned up the yard and put the dried tea leaves from the kitchen into bags and sealed them.

Seeing that about fifty catties of grape seeds had been harvested, Chen Hong lit a fire in his wood-fired stove, roasted the grape seeds over a high flame, let them cool, and then crushed them to use as fertilizer for the fruit trees. Rural people rarely have waste in their daily lives, and a lot of garbage can be composted.

Add salt and eggs to the basin and knead the dough. We're having hand-pulled noodles for lunch today, my son's favorite—they're chewy, smooth, and delicious. After the dough rested, Chen Hong went to the backyard and picked some cucumbers, tomatoes, scallions, and cilantro. She added food and water to the chickens and ducks and noticed some changes in the vegetable garden.

Usually, the vegetable leaves wilt a bit around noon, but they look very vibrant today. I hope it's because of the water in the space!

I made a cucumber salad with dried shrimp and a tomato and egg sauce. I was too busy this morning, so I ate something simple and took a nap.

After scooping the noodles out of the water and placing them on the table, Chen Hong stood outside the gate and called out, "Yu Yang, come home for dinner." She called twice, and faintly heard the reply, "Okay, I'll be right back."

Just as Chen Hong entered the house and set out the dishes, Yu Yang rushed in, shouting, "Mom, I'm home!"

"Hurry up and wash your hands and eat. I made your favorite hand-pulled noodles, or they'll clump together."

After lunch, the mother and son took a shower and went to bed for a nap. When Chen Hong woke up, Yu Yang had already gone out to play with his friends. She looked at the time and it was already 4 o'clock. She was still a little sleepy.

After getting up and washing my face, I took my small bucket to the dock. Just then, a fishing boat docked; it belonged to a villager surnamed Wang. "Brother Wang, how was your catch today?"

"Sigh! It's just so-so. After deducting the gas money, I'll have about a hundred or two hundred yuan left." "What do you have? I'll buy some to take back for the kids." Chen Hong looked at Wang Lixin's fish hold, which was full of small, limp-looking fish, with hardly any big fish.

"Give me a few yellowfin tuna for soup, and these three mudskippers for braised fish as they have fewer bones. Weigh these for me!" After weighing them, I paid 80 yuan and took the best fish I had picked out home.

I went to the backyard and added food and water for the chickens and ducks. I collected the eggs and found 14 chicken eggs and 4 duck eggs. It seems the water in the space is working.

Go up to the roof and collect the mushrooms, wood ear fungus, and daylilies. If the weather is good tomorrow, dry them for another day, then you can store them in sealed bags.

First, kill and marinate the fish, then cook rice in the rice cooker. Chen Hong took out all the tea leaves and weighed them. After deducting about 20 jin of fresh leaves to send to Grandpa Yu Yang, Chen Hong used about 100 jin of fresh tea leaves to make 23 jin of tea leaves.

Finding a sealed bag, Chen Hong weighed out 2 jin of tea leaves, then packed about 3 jin of oyster mushrooms and 1 jin of Solomon's seal. Chen Hong then strolled over to visit the village chief.

Aunt Guo was brushing shoes in the yard when she saw Chen Hong come in carrying a basket. She stood up and said, "What brings you here? What are you carrying?"

Chen Hong took the stool that Aunt Guo handed her and sat down in the yard. She handed the basket to Aunt Guo and said, "Auntie, this is what I picked yesterday when I went up the mountain. It didn't cost any money. You can keep it."

Aunt Guo looked at the things in the basket and said to Chen Hong, "These mushrooms are really good, so tender and big, they must taste delicious. You also picked some Solomon's seal, why did you bring some to my house again? This stuff is hard to find wild, you can keep it to stew with chicken. And this tea, did you pick that in the mountains too?"

“Just take it and stew it for my uncle. I found a lot of it this time, and I kept some at home. I also picked a lot of tea leaves. I was afraid they would spoil, so I stir-fried them overnight last night. I tasted them and they were pretty good. Take some to your house and brew some for your uncle. They’re just as good as what you buy in the supermarket.”

Chen Hong smiled and said to Aunt Guo, "You've gone deep into the mountains. I heard your uncle say that there are some good tea trees deep in our mountains. He went to pick tea twice when he was young and saw wolves there. Since then, no one in the village dares to go that deep. You're too brave, daring to venture into the deep mountains all by yourself. Don't go there again, it's too dangerous."

"Okay, Auntie, don't worry, I won't go alone anymore. This time I was just walking fast and unknowingly went a bit too far."

"Chen Hong, I heard your father-in-law moved back to the old house? What happened? Did you two have a fight?" Aunt Guo asked Chen Hong curiously.

“Auntie, this is exactly what I was going to tell you. If you hadn’t asked, I wouldn’t have known how to bring it up. Now that Yu Hai is back, we’ve gotten a divorce. From now on, we’re two separate families. The boat and the land are all mine. If there’s anything in the village, just have Uncle call my cell phone.”

"Why did you get divorced? Why? I didn't hear any arguing in your house. How did you get divorced so quietly? Yu Hai was helping you with chores when he came back this time. Who brought it up first?" Aunt Guo asked, her face full of confusion.

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