Second Aunt Lian chatted with Miao for a while, sat for a while, and said goodbye with her daughter: "We still have pigs to feed at home. If we feed them a little later, the pigs won't be hungry. But my eldest sister-in-law is going to say weird things again."
Even Second Aunt Lian had a helpless look on her face. It's hard for a person to be perfect. Her family is harmonious with her husband and wife, she has three healthy children, and her mother-in-law is not the type to make things difficult for others. But there is a sister-in-law who always competes with her. She had to go home to finish her housework first, and then come over with the other women later to help Miao and Shen Qing clean up the house. If she did her housework late, her sister-in-law would say something unpleasant in a sarcastic tone. She was not afraid of her sister-in-law, but she found it annoying to listen to.
Miao Xing and Miao Wang can help with physical work, such as moving things and carrying things. But women and their husbands are more efficient in doing delicate work like tidying up the house. Miao had suffered a difficult childbirth that year and was injured, and has been very weak ever since. When she was in the Shen family before, Shen Qing did most of the heavy work for her. Even the ladies and husbands who were on good terms with her, like Second Aunt, felt sorry for her, and made an appointment to come together later to help - and they would each bring some home-cooked food, so that He Miao could escape from her misery and move into a new home.
On the way back, Second Aunt Lian sighed a few words to her daughter: "Qing'er is such a filial and good child. He is smart, capable, and has his own ideas. It's a pity that he is not so good-looking, and his marriage was delayed by the Shen family." In the village, saying that a girl or a boy is opinionated and has his own ideas is not actually a compliment, but rather a derogatory term - nowadays girls and boys are required to be gentle and obedient, and regard their husbands and fathers as their heaven. If you are too opinionated, it will be difficult to do this.
But Second Aunt Lian sincerely thought it was a good thing that Shen Qing had an idea: "With the situation in the old Shen family, if he doesn't have an idea, both mother and daughter will be eaten to the bone. I thought about bringing Qing'er and your eldest brother together, but unfortunately your grandmother hated Old Lady Shen so much that she didn't want to be in-laws, so that's it." Second Aunt Lian's eldest son is one year younger than Shen Qing. Now he has married a husband, who is the nephew of Village Chief Zhao. The couple is very happy. Second Aunt Lian didn't think much about it and just said to her daughter: "Don't play with Shen Xiaojuan in the future."
"I never play with Shen Xiaojuan." Lian Rong carried an empty basket and walked behind Aunt Lian. "Who said Qing Ge is not good-looking? I think it's the boys in the village who are jealous of Qing Ge and say bad things about him on purpose. If Qing Ge was a man, I would marry him! None of the boys in the village are as good-looking as Qing Ge."
Second Aunt Lian was amused by her daughter's childish talk and couldn't help laughing: "How old are you, and you're already thinking about getting married? You don't have any shame!" After thinking for a while, she said: "If Qing'er was a man, he would be very handsome and tall. It's a pity that he is a boy, and men don't like boys who look like that."
Lian Rong couldn't bear to hear that the person she liked was unpopular, so she pouted and muttered, "Why should I care what they like?"
Aunt Lian didn't hear what her daughter said clearly. Seeing that she had already reached the door of the house, she ordered, "Go and bring me a basket of pig grass, and soak the dirty clothes and soap beans in the basin."
Girls aged seven or eight can already help with housework. Second Aunt Lian loves children and is reluctant to let them do heavy work, so this bit of preparatory work can still be done.
In the east wing, since Second Aunt Lian entered the room, a woman had been peeking out through the cracks in the window. Seeing Lian Rong soaking her clothes in the basin and then running out to play, the woman withdrew her gaze, sneered, and vigorously tucked the insole in her hand: "How can you not even let a little girl work? How precious is she?"
***
The day after leaving the Shen family, Shen Qing began his life of chopping and selling firewood every day.
He could collect a load of firewood a day, and if he could walk fast and come back early, he could go back to the mountain to dig some wild vegetables. They collected firewood on the first day and carried it to the county town to sell it on the second day, and brought back some miscellaneous items: the broken home was worth a fortune, and after moving out of old Shen's house, the mother and daughter were really short of everything!
There were not enough beddings, so they could only spread thick straw on the kang to keep warm; there was no shoulder pole for carrying water, and they only had an earthenware jar for cooking porridge and fetching water, so they had to run to the village well several times a day; the kitchen was also empty, with no pots, pans, or utensils, so Shen Qing cut down a tree stump on the mountain to use as a chopping board; they also had to buy needles, thread, oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar... They had to buy some things every day, so after selling firewood for more than a month, they should have made a lot of money, but they still didn't have any spare money.
However, no matter how tight or hard life was, the spirits of mother and son were getting better day by day.
Miao got up very early. As soon as a faint light appeared in the sky, she walked into the kitchen in semi-darkness. She was reluctant to light the oil lamp, but after living in this courtyard for more than a month, she was very familiar with the kitchen. She started to prepare breakfast and the dry food that Shen Qing was going to bring up the mountain without lighting a lamp.
She opened a vegetable plot behind the house, and even her second aunt sent some vegetable seeds to help her plant them. They haven't grown yet, they are just seedlings, and most of the vegetables we eat at home are wild vegetables dug from the mountains. Women and husbands who have a good relationship with the Miao family would also send some - every household has a vegetable garden, and if they grow too much, they can't eat it all, and it would be a pity if they grow old.
A month ago, when the autumn harvest was over, the brothers Miao Xing and Miao Wang brought over half a bag of sweet potatoes and half a bag of potatoes, which together weighed more than 100 kilograms. I also helped carry peanuts to the county town to sell. It was not changed into mixed noodles, but into copper coins. You can just buy them when you need them. Otherwise, there are only Shen Qing and his mother at home to eat, and the food is consumed slowly. If there is too much food piled up at home, it may get infested with insects and moisture.
Excluding peanuts, there were still over 200 kilograms of food left from the Shen family. Together with the potatoes and sweet potatoes sent by Miao Xing and Miao Wang, they could last nearly a year if they were eaten frugally. However, Shen Qing did not intend to save on food. He had a hard life in the past and had not been able to eat well, so he had an obsession with food. Miao has always been in poor health and needs to be taken good care of. Apart from anything else, shouldn't she eat better?
Shen Qing silently calculated in his mind that when the winter wheat was harvested next spring, he could buy grain directly from the villagers - it would be cheaper than the grain stores in the county town, and the villagers wouldn't have to go to the county town, saving the effort, so many families would be willing to do so.
Then the remaining food in their home would only need to last through the next half year, which would be enough for them to have enough to eat.
Miao Xing also said: "I have planted cabbage, autumn radish and pumpkin at home. I will send you some after the harvest. This year we have planted a lot of cabbage. Your sister-in-law said that you are good at making sauerkraut. This year I would like to trouble you to help me make some sauerkraut."
When Shen Qing thought of the taste of sauerkraut, he couldn't help but drool. He really loved eating sauerkraut. When he was at Old Shen's house, he and his mother never had a share of the good meals. Sauerkraut was one of the few tasty things he could eat. Unfortunately, sauerkraut was very oily, so the more he ate, the hungrier he felt.
But now if we want to store sauerkraut, there isn’t even a jar at home to do so. Shen Qing sighed secretly in his heart. They were still too poor and had difficulty in doing anything. We have to work hard before winter, so we have to buy a few important things.
Miao Shiji was good at making sauerkraut and was famous in Shiqu Village before she got married. In previous years, the Miao family would not ask her to go back to her parents' home just to save some sauerkraut, but now that she has divorced and left the Shen family, it is convenient.
Speaking of the Shen family. Shortly after the autumn harvest, Shen Zhigao married Widow Li, which caused a heated discussion in the village. At that time, Widow Li was already a little pregnant. During this period, people in the village, including several neighboring villages, gossiped about them behind their backs. However, Widow Li did not take it seriously. Instead, she felt that she was capable of marrying into the Shen family, and she held her belly like a hero.
Nowadays, Shen Qing and Miao are no longer interested in the Shen family's affairs. As the weather gets colder, the villagers begin to prepare for winter. The price of firewood in the city is showing a slight upward trend, and Shen Qing is planning to make a good profit! When the weather is good, cut more firewood and store it in the yard. When it gets too cold to go up the mountain, borrow an ox cart to take it to the city. You don't have to spend a whole day carrying firewood to the city, and you can cut a few more loads of firewood. This saves time and effort, and firewood can be sold at a good price near the end of the year.
There is someone in the village who owns a bullock cart. If you lend it for half a day, you pay ten coins, which is quite a good deal.
These days Shen Qing stayed in the mountains all day long, so Miao prepared dry food for him in advance and asked him to take it to the mountains to eat. She is quite good at cooking. Although the pancakes she made were made from mixed grains and wild vegetables, they tasted quite good, and she was also generous with the ingredients: Qing Ge'er, chopping wood is really hard work!
Mix bean flour, sorghum flour and old yeast together, let it rise for an hour, and then roll it into a large sheet as thin as paper. Mix a small spoonful of white flour with a small spoonful of salt, one-third of a spoonful of pepper powder, and a pinch of chopped green onion, drizzle with a little hot oil and mix well, and it becomes a fried dough cake. Spread it evenly on the dough, then cover it with a thin layer of wild vegetables, cut a few vertical lines on the edge of the dough, fold them together in the middle, and fold them into a round cake about one foot square. Then you can steam it.
The steamed pancake is three or four fingers thick, and when cut in the middle, it looks like it has a thousand layers. Although the texture is still a bit rough, it is salty, fresh, soft, and delicious with the fragrance of wild vegetables.
Miao felt a little regretful, as she was a good pancake maker, but unfortunately after leaving the Shen family, she could not even afford an iron pan - iron was expensive, and it cost three or four cents of silver to buy an iron pan, which was a relatively valuable property in every household. There was a saying that went "selling all the pots and pans to get what they wanted". They are short of money everywhere now and are reluctant to spend so much money to buy an iron pot. At this moment, they can only make do with ceramic pots, earthenware jars and steamers and cannot make pancakes.
After steaming the cakes, Miao grabbed a handful of rice, half a handful of beans, peeled a sweet potato and cut it into small pieces, then put them all in a clay pot to cook porridge. Wait until the pancakes and porridge are almost cooked before calling Shen Qing to get up.
Shen Qing is stronger than he was two months ago. At first glance, he seemed to have lost weight, but the muscles under his clothes were more solid, and his face lost some of its childishness and became more angular. Miao had also gained weight. She no longer looked like she would fall over if the wind blew, and her face had become much rounder. Shen Qing quickly put on his clothes, holding a willow stick in his mouth to clean his teeth, and looked into the kitchen. He said vaguely: "Let's have eggs tonight? I haven't had eggs for a long time."
"Didn't I eat it the day before yesterday?" Miao was a little helpless. Not long after she moved in, she bought some chicks and raised them in the yard. However, they were not yet ready to lay eggs, so if she wanted to eat eggs, she had to buy them from other families. She paid one dollar for two eggs, and Miao was reluctant to do that.
Qing Ge'er spends money too lavishly and is too generous when it comes to eating. The mother and daughter had no land, and Miao's heart had never been at peace. It had been more than a month since she left Old Shen's family, and she sometimes felt like she was dreaming. Life was too good to be true, and she felt even more uneasy after spending too much money: "Your aunt Xiaoyan's radish seedlings were thinned out yesterday, and she gave me a basket of radish tops. I'll have them mixed with radish tops tonight."
As she spoke, Miao had already cut the steamed cake into six pieces, each about half the size of a palm. He picked up two pieces and put them in a small straw basket, and put the rest into a cloth bag. This was Shen Qing’s lunch when he went up the mountain.
Miao didn't have a big appetite, so she only had half a bowl of porridge and broke off a small piece of cake. Shen Qing drank most of the porridge with the bread, calculating in his mind how much he could sell the firewood he had saved these days for. There are big jars for storing sauerkraut and jars for pickling pickles. Winter is coming soon, and there is a shortage of thick bedding and thick clothes. It would be great if I could squeeze out some more money to buy an iron pan so I can stir-fry the radish tops.
I was full of confidence when I moved out, but when I really started to live my life, although I was not starving, I was worried about money everywhere. However, Shen Qing was not discouraged. He felt that as long as he gritted his teeth and worked harder, there would be no difficulties that he could not overcome.
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