Chapter 20 Some people started gossiping.

"Besides, the new bride's scolding wasn't wrong, it was just a bit crude. It's true, it's her own money, she can buy whatever she wants. You're just a sales clerk, your job is to sell things, why do you care what others buy? They didn't even ask you to recommend anything and clearly said they were just looking, yet you insisted on pushing them to buy malted milk powder, which is so expensive..."

"Which of you families would be willing to buy it? When your daughters went to visit their husbands' families, I didn't see you buying malted milk powder. Why is it that when it comes to her, you have to buy malted milk powder, and if you don't, you're considered stingy and unwilling to spend money?"

The woman who spoke was tall with a slender waist and quite pretty, but her face was sallow. She snorted coldly, "To put it bluntly, if it were me, I would curse too."

Hua Gui was displeased and said with a sullen face, "My wife Ru Hua is also a kind-hearted person, and she meant well. Does she deserve to be scolded? And scolded with such nasty words."

The woman was cutting wheat, her movements quick and agile: "You know in your heart whether your daughter is kind-hearted or not. And she didn't just rush to recommend her; she also said some things that made everyone uncomfortable. Why don't you tell everyone what she said?"

People around her asked her what she had said.

Hua Gui was a little nervous: "What can my daughter say? She just feels sorry for the Ji family's children."

The woman didn't give her any face and directly told everyone what Chen E had told her at noon. She had asked Chen E to buy her some things, and it just so happened that she had visited Chen E's house at noon.

After saying that, the woman smiled and said, "Aunt Chen told me herself that someone with a temper like your daughter, or even worse, would probably have already started hitting her."

Hua Gui really wanted to jump up and yell at the woman, but as the women's director, she couldn't do that. She just snorted a few times and turned to leave. After walking a distance, she turned back and spat, "Pah! She hasn't even gotten a marriage certificate and she's already living in a man's house. She's shameless."

Tang Wan's words made everyone feel awkward, and since Hua Gui had also left, the topic was not continued. At most, someone whispered, "This new daughter-in-law of the Ji family is quite a formidable character."

Wang Yuqing, who was still focused on fishing, was unaware of the commotion upstairs. He had caught almost all the fish and originally wanted to catch some crucian carp, but the wild fish were very clever and stopped coming closer when they saw their companions taking the bait.

She didn't plan to go back. Instead, she took a net and started catching the small fish. The small fish were more clever and harder to catch. She spent more than an hour catching them.

After catching most of the fish, she simply killed and cleaned them all, big and small, on the riverbank before heading back with a full load of fish.

When Grandma Ji found out, she smiled and praised her for being very capable, but then said somewhat embarrassedly, "Fish is a good thing, and I want to eat it, but we don't have much oil at home."

Ji Meimei whispered, "So many fish, how much oil must that be?"

Wang Yuqing said, "It won't take much oil."

When she went to the kitchen at noon, she saw a large jar of chili sprouts in the cupboard. She asked Grandma Ji, "Grandma, I might need a lot of chili sprouts and salt."

Grandma Ji sat next to me and said with a smile, "If you want to use it, just use it. You don't need to tell me."

Then, she took out two silver carp and three crucian carp, sprinkled them with a suitable amount of farm salt, and put them in a basin to eat that evening.

Next, sprinkle the remaining whitebait and various other small fish that I don't know the names of with salt and chili peppers. Hang the large ones up with ropes and put the small ones in a large winnowing basket, and put them all out to dry at the door.

These can be air-dried and sun-dried for later consumption. There's no rush to use the oil, and there will be oil later anyway.

Grandma Ji was very satisfied, thinking that she was capable and competent, even more so than she had imagined. She had been smiling since noon.

Wang Yuqing said, "Grandma, I'll cook tonight."

Grandma Ji quickly refused: "No, wait for Lao Si or Da Ming to come home and let them cook. Why do you need to cook? You should rest. You've been busy all afternoon."

After saying that, she added with a touch of cute pride, "In our Ji family, it's all the men who cook. Your grandfather's cooking is much better than the fourth son's, it's a pity..."

She missed Grandpa Ji very much and felt sorry for him. If he had lived another year, he could have seen Ji Lao Si bring the girl home with his own eyes, and he could have seen her hard work and ability.

Grandma Ji felt it was inappropriate to bring up sad things at this time, so she quickly said, "Anyway, don't do it."

Wang Yuqing insisted on doing it. First, she liked cooking; second, she had her own ideas about how to cook the fish; and third, after all, she had eaten their white rice, so she wanted to repay them by cooking a few fish.

Grandma Ji couldn't refuse Wang Yuqing, so she followed her to the kitchen. Although she couldn't see, she could tell Wang Yuqing where the things in the kitchen were.

She still remembers that at lunchtime, Ji Meimei mentioned that there was sauerkraut at home. She asked Grandma Ji where the sauerkraut was, and then took out cabbage, mustard greens, and turnips from a large vat behind the door of the main room.

Wang Yuqing was very excited. These were the pickled vegetables she ate when she was a child. They were especially delicious, but unfortunately, with the changes of the times, she rarely ate them in the city.

Because she had helped her grandmother with this when she was little, she recognized it.

She used these pickled cabbages and silver carp to make pickled cabbage fish, and then used another crucian carp to make crucian carp soup. Because it's not deep-fried or pan-fried, it doesn't need much oil, so you can add less.

Making these two dishes takes a lot of time and effort, no wonder people don't want to cook them these days. Everyone is busy all day and just wants to eat dinner, do some housework, and then rest early.

She prepared scallions, garlic, and ginger, all grown in the Ji family's private plot. With these, plus the seasonings she bought herself, she could not only remove the fishy smell but also make fragrant pickled fish and crucian carp soup.

A little less oil isn't a big problem.

Although she wasn't very used to using the earthen stove, it didn't affect her superb cooking skills; in fact, the food cooked on the earthen stove was even more fragrant.

In just one hour, the pickled fish and crucian carp soup were ready.

The Ji family's staple food is corn. They drink cornmeal in the morning and eat cornmeal rice or cornmeal porridge in the evening. They can also eat cornmeal from time to time. When they get tired of corn, they switch to sweet potatoes. They rarely eat corn for lunch, and when they do, it is cornmeal porridge with some wild vegetables.

Grandma Ji said she would eat cornmeal tonight and also took out two eggs. She had exchanged them this afternoon when Wang Yuqing took Ji Meimei fishing in the ditch. She carried a woven basket and a winnowing basket, and with her cane, she went to Li Shuqin's house to exchange them.

Li Shuqin lived two houses down from the Ji family; the two families were brothers.

Grandma Ji asked Wang Yuqing to boil the eggs for herself, but Wang Yuqing cracked the eggs and mixed them into cornmeal, then sprinkled some chopped green onions on top and made corn pancakes.

The entire kitchen was filled with aromas, and some of the fragrances even wafted out, reaching not only the two neighboring houses but also the villagers on their way home from work.

Everyone assumed it was the Zhou family, because the Zhou family's second son was also visiting his wife's family today. Although the Zhou family is known for its sharp tongue, since the daughter-in-law is visiting, they should at least prepare a good meal.

Yuan Fang saw Ji Xuening coming from another road, so she quickly went up to him and deliberately said loudly to the people next to her, "Old Ji's neighbor's wife is really generous. Today, her new daughter-in-law came to visit and she brought out all the good things in the house. Look, it smells so good, my mouth is watering."

After saying that, she deliberately glanced at Ji Xuening and sighed, "They're both new brides visiting for the first time, why is there such a big difference?"

Ji Xuening pretended not to hear, and shifted the tassel on her shoulder to her left shoulder, almost hitting Yuan Fang. Startled, Yuan Fang's face turned fierce, and she quickly moved away.