Chapter 7: Step by Step

After dinner, An Zhiqiu and Yang Jiong went to the village old carpenter to customize cupboards and boxes, while An Zhixia went back to the house to put on a quilt.

While no one was in the room, she took out a four-pound silk quilt from the supermarket without the cover and quilt lining, spread the silk evenly on the kang, filled it with two pounds of the purchased cotton evenly and thinly, and after slightly compacting it, sewed a blue fine cotton quilt lining.

This was not a delicate job. An Zhixia made two in one breath. Before she could make the quilt covers, she heard noises outside the yard.

An Zhiqiu and his partner shakily pushed the cart to the door, and everyone came forward to lend a hand. Two padlocked cupboards, one large and one small, were placed in the kitchen, along with four large wooden boxes, one for each person, and several bamboo baskets.

Just as we were done packing, a sturdy man in his forties pushed open the half-closed door and shouted in full force, "Are you all here? I came to take a look and tell you about tomorrow's winter hunt."

"This is our village chief, Comrade Fang Youwei," Zheng Lizhi stepped forward and introduced enthusiastically, "and these are Comrades An Zhiqiu, An Zhixia, Yang Jiong, and Qi Yunlan."

After greeting each other, everyone welcomed the village chief into the main hall.

"It was too late yesterday. I thought you were hungry and tired, so I didn't come. So, are the conditions in our village more difficult than you imagined?"

"The air here is good, the houses are much more spacious than those in our city, and there are kangs to sleep on at night. It's also a place where people can live for a long time." An Zhiqiu said with a smile. His words might sound hypocritical and polite to others, but they tasted sour and bitter to An Zhixia's ears.

My brother has been sleeping on a bench since he was ten years old. It's amazing that he can grow to be more than 1.8 meters tall even when curled up. The original owner depends on his brother, but the thin young man in front of him also lives by the original owner as a belief.

"Yes," Yang Jiong also hurriedly said something nice: "We live in the city and it looks respectable, but a whole family is crammed into a few dozen square meters of space, with no room to turn around. It's really not as comfortable as our country."

The village chief nodded with satisfaction and said, "Okay, as long as you get used to it. However, the hardship of going to the countryside is not just about food, clothing and shelter. The key is to work in the fields in the spring."

While they were talking, Qi Yunlan came over with a bowl of brown sugar water and said with a soft smile, "Village chief, please warm yourself up first. Thank you for coming here in person."

"It's okay. You come to Hetang Village. Even if you are from the village, I will always miss you if I don't go there." The village chief waved his hand and didn't pick up the drink. Instead, he said to the people in the room with a serious face: "When each batch of educated youth comes, I will first say something ugly. How much work you do will determine how much food you will get. Don't expect others to help you. Of course, if your family is well-off, that's another matter."

Naturally, several people nodded seriously to guarantee it.

"Well, our village is more than ten kilometers away from the town. We are not affected by the outside world. The villagers just focus on farming. You are children from the city. You have been to school and are smart people, but I don't allow you to bring in the outside world. Criticizing this today and fighting that tomorrow, you disrupt the peaceful life in the village."

"Don't worry, village chief. We are responding to the country's call to support rural construction and doing things sincerely and down-to-earth. Moreover, to be honest, we went to the countryside and couldn't stand those things, so we came here to hide away," Qi Yunlan was a brave person, and her words surprised everyone in the room.

The current situation is tense, and everyone wants to put a lock on their mouths, for fear that someone will overhear and report them if they say something. An Zhixia felt even more weird.

"I say this for the sake of the hundreds of villagers. They have lived here for generations, and they forget about the little fights they have on weekdays. There is no need to impose those great principles on them," the village chief frowned and explained patiently, then changed the subject and smiled and said, "I am here for another reason. Our village is surrounded by mountains and forests, and we organize villagers to go hunting for a few days in the middle of the twelfth lunar month every year.

The first is to let everyone have a good year, and the second is to prevent the fierce animals in the mountains from coming down and causing trouble after the spring.

Of course, people who go hunting will not only be calculated according to ten work points, but will also get double the amount of wild animals.

We are leaving tomorrow, I am here to finalize the list of personnel."

This matter was discussed at the dinner table yesterday. Men all like exciting things, so they will naturally respond positively. Although An Zhixia was also very tempted, he knew that he had to maintain his image, so he could only go to the mountain when he had free time to find a source for the endless supply of meat.

A group of people discussed the precautions, and the village chief strode away despite everyone's attempts to persuade him to stay.

The sun rose high and the ground began to get a little warm. Qi Yunlan handed the cooled brown sugar water on the table to Zheng Jiaming who was looking at her eagerly.

"What are we having for lunch?" She turned around and asked for everyone's opinions with a chuckle.

"How about some fried cakes?" Chen Sike thought of the golden and fragrant cakes in the kitchen that morning, and couldn't help but say, "It's just right to bake some more for them to go hunting in the mountains. They need three days."

No one had much money in their pockets, not to mention that Nie Yichang and his companions had plenty of money, so they all nodded in agreement.

"Okay," Qi Yunlan put away the bowl, went back to the house, got some ingredients and went to the kitchen.

Liu Yiyue continued to cook the thin rice soup and steam multi-grain buns on the grate, but the difference was that there was a small dish of very thinly sliced bacon.

Seeing that the kitchen was full, An Zhixia said to her brother, "Let's steam some rice later. I bought two taels of pork belly yesterday, which is perfect for stewing potatoes."

"Okay," An Zhiqiu nodded. "After dinner, Yang Jiong and I will go to the old carpenter's house to return the cart. He also has a newly made dressing table and desk. Originally, they were ordered by someone else as a dowry, but the marriage has changed, so it's a bargain for us."

An Zhixia nodded repeatedly, pulled her brother's clothes and said with a smile: "Put the dressing table in my room, and my brother can use the desk."

"Okay, it seems he has an exquisite kang table there, I'll carry it over for you too."

"It would be better if we could live on our own," An Zhixia couldn't help but sigh, her lips pursed.

Tapping her smooth head with his fingers, An Zhiqiu said with a smile: "Let's take it step by step. We can't become a big fat man in one bite."

After saying a few words, she hurried back to the room, thinking that the quilt had not been finished yet.

When Fei Zheng saw her coming in, she smiled, took out a cloth bag from the box, scooped a few spoonfuls of fried noodles, added a third of a spoonful of brown sugar, picked up the bamboo kettle at her feet and poured half a bowl of water. The fragrance of grain and the sweetness of brown sugar wafted out.

After stirring the fried noodles into a paste, she saw An Zhixia busy sewing the quilt cover. She said in a low voice embarrassedly, "I don't have a big appetite, and there is no physical work in winter, so I am used to drinking some fried noodles to cope with it. Little An Zhiqing, do you want to try it? It contains flour, bean flour, sesame powder, walnuts, and buckwheat. It is fragrant and nutritious."

(End of this chapter)