Everyone was very satisfied with lunch. Uncle and Uncle Erhu both praised it, saying, "I love Chen Hong's braised pork. It's so fragrant and delicious. Your aunt's is too bland! Honey, you should learn to cook from Chen Hong."

"Uncle, are you kidding? I'm only good at cooking meat dishes. My hometown is inland, so I'm better at braised dishes, stewed dishes, and braised dishes. After I married into this village, I learned how to cook seafood and such from my aunt from scratch."

“When I was at my parents’ home, I had almost no contact with seafood. The only fish I ate were the Yellow River ribbonfish, Yellow River carp, and small whitebait and crucian carp from the small river next to our village. When I first married into this family, I didn’t recognize any of the fish from the sea.”

"For a long time, I couldn't even tell the difference between shellfish. My aunts taught me step by step how to prepare different kinds of fish and how to cook them to make them taste good. Even now, when it comes to cooking seafood, my aunts are still the best. The food I cook is just barely edible, far from delicious!"

The two aunts laughed heartily, saying that when Chen Hong first married into the family, she didn't even know how to handle crabs, but now she's a pro at beachcombing and cooks better dishes than they do.

“My Chen Hong is a very inquisitive person. When she’s not busy, she’ll pick up a book and start reading. She reads all sorts of books, from planting and animal husbandry to cooking. Don’t let her young age fool you, she’s very studious! We old folks are just out of touch. We just follow what the older generation eats and learn to cook whatever we’ve ever done in our lives. We never know how to come up with a new method or something innovative.”

"You men can't keep your mouths shut even when you're eating! If you want something new, why don't you figure out how to make it yourselves? You don't lift a finger, you just offer us food and then complain about how good it is. We want to eat something nice, but nobody's cooking for us!"

The young people watched the elderly couple bickering with amusement.

“My aunt and uncle don’t have time. Don’t be fooled by the fact that they don’t do heavy work. They’re busy all day long, working in the fields and at home. Besides, they’re getting old and they’re afraid of wasting food. Uncle, you don’t know, when I first started learning to cook, I made all sorts of random stews and wasted a lot of ingredients. It took me a long time to learn how to properly combine different ingredients, and that’s how I made the food taste better and wasted very little.”

Chen Hong quickly spoke up for her aunts and the others.

The men laughed and said, "Now that life is better, we don't care if you waste food. You should also work on improving the quality of our meals. We're getting old, our tastes have become stronger, and we don't like the food anymore."

After a lively lunch, everyone agreed to go back to work at 2 PM. Uncle and the others went home for a nap. Chen Hong quickly washed up, cleaned the house, and took her son for a short nap.

In the afternoon, my uncle drove the car directly to the field, and everyone loaded the truck and crates. My uncle and Yu Hai made two trips to finish transporting the goods.

Finally, Chen Hong left four baskets of pears, and Uncle Erhu and Xiaofeng helped push them home. When they got home, it was only four o'clock. Uncle Erhu's family drank a bowl of tea and then went home.

Chen Hong invited them to stay for dinner, but Uncle Erhu said that his family had to go to the fields to weed in the afternoon, so they wouldn't be able to come for dinner. Chen Hong quickly brought them a basket of pears, and then sent another basket of pears to her cousin's family. Her cousin's wife had also gone home first, as she still had to feed the chickens and ducks at home.

Half an hour later, my uncle and Yu Hai returned. They had sold two truckloads of goods, totaling more than 7,700 jin (3,800 kg) that day.

Uncle was very happy. "Chen Hong, you sold so many pears today. Adding the 5,500 you sold yesterday, your pear income for this year has exceeded 20,000 yuan. That's great! Your pear trees are in their peak fruiting period. Next year, you'll get even more fruit. You should be able to sell at least 30,000 yuan worth!"

"I never expected such a large harvest this year. When the fruit was hanging on the tree, it looked sparse, and I thought I could only pick about seven or eight thousand catties. I didn't expect to find so much after loading it onto the truck and weighing it. Uncle, do you think it's because we thinned the fruit well that the yield increased?"

"That's for sure. Look at us old folks, we're not as good at farming as you young people. The other day, the pears my family picked looked like the tree was dripping with fruit, but actually, there were many of them, but the fruit was small, so they didn't weigh much. This big tree didn't even produce as much fruit as your small tree!"

“When it’s time to prune and thin the pear trees in my yard, could you go and give us some pointers? Your aunt and I are reluctant to prune the branches, and we’re reluctant to thin the flowers and fruits. Everything looks fine, but we just can’t bear to remove them.”

Chen Hong nodded: "Okay, Uncle, just call me when it's time to work. When it comes to managing fruit trees, whether it's pruning or thinning flowers and fruits, you have to be ruthless. Otherwise, if you leave too much and the nutrients won't be enough, the fruit will grow in large quantities, but it will be small and not tasty, and it won't fetch a good price."

“Those big, flat-topped fruits can be considered top grade one, but your little fruit can’t even get you a fourth or fifth grade. Each grade is several cents more expensive. The fruit is too small, so the price difference is huge.”

Yu Hai sat on the sofa, drank a cup of tea, and then handed the money to Chen Hong: "This is the money from selling pears today, a total of yuan. You can keep it."

Chen Hong borrowed the money, took out 200 yuan and handed it to the village chief, saying, "Uncle, this is today's delivery fee, please keep it."

"No need, didn't I give you 200 yesterday? That's enough for today."

"Yesterday is yesterday, today is today, why are you being so polite? Many people in our village use your tricycle to haul goods. If you don't accept my tricycle, how can you accept others'? You're so old, how can I let you waste your effort and fuel?"

Seeing that Chen Hong insisted on giving it to him, his uncle had no choice but to accept it. "Then you guys rest, I'll go home first. I need to go to the peanut field to weed in a bit. It rained a few days ago, and the weeds have grown really tall."

This chapter is not finished, please click the next page to continue reading!