At noon, when Tian Cai returned home for lunch, he mixed a bowl of flour, covered it with a small quilt and placed it on the kang, planning to steam buns in the evening.

The kang was warm enough, and there was a small quilt to keep it warm. When Tian Cai opened the quilt in the evening, the dough had risen into a full basin.

She placed the fermented noodles on the table in the main room. Now she felt that the kitchen was still lacking a set of tables and chairs. Otherwise, she would have to bring the meals to the main room to eat every time. It would be more convenient for her to eat in the kitchen by herself.

Tian Cai also brought the working board to the main room and kneaded the dough, let it rest, and then kneaded it again. He learned the skill of hand-steaming steamed buns from Grandma Tian. They were both from Hebei Province and were used to eating pasta. Influenced by them, Tian Cai also liked pasta more.

It is very inconvenient not to have a watch at home. You have to estimate the time when doing anything. Tian Cai wants to buy a watch, but now you need a watch ticket to buy a watch. He has not been doing well since he came here, and it seems that he is still a long way from being able to wear a watch.

For dinner, Tian Cai had big steamed buns made of two-grain flour and some pickled vegetables. He was a little tired of eating green leafy vegetables and pickled vegetables every day. He remembered that he had heard from the villagers today that after the Little New Year, the village would choose a day to slaughter the New Year pig and distribute the meat, so he could start eating meat then.

Like other villagers, Tian Cai was counting the days and looking forward to slaughtering the New Year pig. As the Spring Festival approached, everyone was busy preparing for the New Year, except for going to the brigade headquarters from time to time for ideological study. The atmosphere of the New Year was getting stronger and stronger everywhere in the mountain village.

Even though everyone is quite poor nowadays, people never take the New Year lightly. Even if they have no money, there must be fish left on the New Year’s Eve dinner table to bring good luck for the coming year.

This year's New Year pig was slaughtered in the threshing ground as usual, and Big Wang was already sharpening his knife.

The village’s task pigs had all been handed in long ago, and now the remaining two were to be divided among the villagers.

The distribution of New Year pigs is different from the distribution of wild boars in Tian Cai. New Year pigs are distributed based on the number of people.

Thinking of the meat buns sent by Dongzi's family, Tian Cai swallowed his saliva in frustration.

At that time, pigs were raised in rural areas. They had no feed and relied entirely on pig grass and grain to feed them. The meat was really delicious, unlike the pigs decades later which were fattened by feed and hormones.

Tian Cai had inquired about the price of pork before, and she could afford it at one yuan per pound, but she didn't have the most important meat ticket.

Just like the last time when wild boar meat was distributed, almost everyone in the village came to the threshing ground. This time, as usual, team leader Li Tiegang led the team to take charge.

Zhang Defa had already arranged the people who would kill pigs, catch pigs, boil water, remove pig hair, and other helpers. People who had nothing to do gathered around the threshing ground to watch the fun.

With the cries of the pigs, slaughtering the New Year pig officially began.

As soon as the shouting started, those who had not come yet also hurried over happily to watch. Some held baskets, some held basins, ready to divide the meat.

Tian Cai also stood with Luo Xiuyan to watch the fun. The pigs were plucked and after being gutted, the captain would arrange for someone to weigh them. The wild boars hunted by Tian Cai were distributed to everyone according to households, and each family had good and bad meat, but the New Year pigs could not be divided in that way.

These two pigs are not big. They cannot be compared with the pigs in later generations that weigh three or four hundred pounds. They are not even as big as the wild boars in the mountains.

After weighing them, it turned out that one weighed 128 kilograms and the other weighed 115 kilograms.

Then Tian Cai saw the parts of the pork that were different from those of the wild boar, because the meat on the pork is fat and lean, and there are pig heads and pig trotters, and everyone has different preferences for the meat from different parts of the body.

These are all earned through one's own work points, which is different from being given for free. Everyone will be very picky about it, and it will not work if the distribution is not satisfactory to everyone.

So each brigade had its own distribution method, and the Beishan Brigade used drawing lots.

After Lao Wang slaughtered the pig, he converted the pig's head, trotters and meat into a certain ratio, then cut the pig in half from the middle and cut it into strips. After weighing them, he calculated the amount each person wanted, and placed them on the table in order, taking them from the front to the back.

Then everyone comes forward one by one to draw lots. Whichever fish you draw is the one you get. You can't regret it. Even if the meat you draw is bad, you can only blame your bad luck.

The remaining pig offal was usually given to Lao Wang as a reward. She didn't know where the wild boar offal that Tian Cai had hunted before went, but the reward at that time was the pig's head and pig's trotters.

Everyone went home happily after receiving their own pork. Some families cooked some that night to fill their family's stomachs with some oil and water, while some who knew how to live made the pork into sausages so that it could be stored for a longer time.

Tian Cai heard from Luo Xiuyan that the pork her family received during the Chinese New Year could be eaten until the beginning of spring. It was said that Aunt Du would make it into sausages and put a few slices into the stew to enhance the flavor.

Tian Cai looked down at the less than one pound of pork in her hand. She couldn't imagine what it would feel like to eat this amount of pork for a whole winter. She definitely couldn't do it.

She initially overestimated the weight of the pig, thinking that it would be like a wild boar and that she could at least get three to five kilograms.

Moreover, since the meat was distributed based on the number of people, she, who was the only one in the family, would not get any advantage at all. The more people in the family there were, the more they would get.

The pork was distributed according to the number of people. The whole Ding family grinned from ear to ear, feeling quite proud. A group of people came back carrying the meat, and everyone held their heads high. Tian Cai simply calculated for them and found that the family got 17 or 18 kilograms of pork. If it were her, she would also be able to not recognize her relatives.

It was noon when the pork was distributed. When Tian Cai walked in the village in the afternoon, she could smell the fragrance everywhere. The hardworking and simple women had already begun to show their talents. How to make the limited pork be eaten for as long as possible is also a science.

Tian Cai felt a little melancholy as she looked at the snow pile in front of her house which showed no signs of thawing. She was confident that she could hunt a wild boar, but the mountain was covered with snow and her movement was restricted, which was also a problem.

Back home, the little panda, who had long since finished her confinement but still refused to leave, left her child behind and circled around Tian Cai's basket of meat. She gently kicked her aside and said, "Go away. I don't have enough for myself, so there's no share for you. Just chew on the cabbage leaves."

The red panda didn't care what she said. He just rolled over and lay on the ground, revealing his soft belly, as if to say, "Come and touch it. After you touch it, we'll share the meat!"

On the 27th day of the twelfth lunar month, the boys in the village had a new activity. There were fish in the river near Tian Cai's house. Because the village was located in a remote area, as long as the people here did not leak the news to others, no one would know whether they were digging into the corners of socialism.

So every winter fishing in the river depends on one's own ability, and Zhang Defa turns a blind eye. The fish are all from upstream, and whoever catches it owns it.

Tian Cai stood in his backyard and looked at the river. On the white ice surface, some young men had already chiseled the ice and set various nets in the holes.

Tian Cai took a look and saw that there were more than ten holes in the ice on the not-so-wide river. Everyone had a tacit understanding on this point. They would catch three or two fish, enough to eat during the New Year, and then close the net.

She looked at the river surface with many ice holes and a few half-grown children running around. It looked very dangerous, and she always had a bad feeling. After thinking about it, she decided to walk over.