Chapter 27: Bun Business
Zhao Xiping spent another day pulling and bundling the bean stalks in the field and brought them back by himself. On both sides of the gate, there was a pile of hay on one side and a pile of bean grass on the other. The winter dry food for the two camels was ready, and he felt at ease.
"Are the sorghum stalks being taken back home or to the grain field?" Sui Yu came down from the pile of bean stalks. She glared at the man standing there and said, "What are you staring at? Give me a hand. If I break something, you'll have to pay for my medical treatment."
Zhao Xiping sighed, "You're bossing me around now."
"I know you are a good person and won't do anything to me." Sui Yu laughed. She grabbed the hand he extended and used his strength to jump to the ground.
Zhao Xiping no longer finds praise for being a "good man" useful. It's like a yoke around his neck, a shackle for him.
"Come in and have dinner," Sui Yu called out, then asked, "What about the Gao Liang incident?"
"The sorghum is for the government. Anyone who wants the stalks can take them back. Do you want some?"
"Well, I want to make another bed of manuscripts. Once I get rid of the lice on my head, I won't need the manuscripts on the bed anymore." At this point, Sui Yu turned around and stared at his head, "You don't have lice on your head, do you?"
Zhao Xiping said nothing.
That’s it, Sui Yu was silent.
After dinner, the man went out to fetch water. When he came back, he had wet hair. He threw the two white-bellied fish into the bucket. Worried that the cat official would miss it, he covered the bucket with a straw mat and pressed it with stones.
When the cat official smelled the fishy smell, he came out of the kitchen excitedly.
"Go and watch for mice." Zhao Xiping pushed it aside, went into the kitchen and got two handfuls of hay soaked in water. He lit an oil lamp and sat in the yard, concentrating on mending the net.
"Is the grass net torn again?" Sui Yu came out with her hair loose, comb in hand, and said, "I'll catch lice for you."
"I don't."
"You do, you said everyone has one." Sui Yu grabbed his hair and said angrily, "I'm dying for someone to comb my hair, and you look so reluctant."
The man paused in mending the grass net, his hot and humid breath spraying on the back of his neck. His rough yet soft fingers occasionally brushed against his scalp, and his bony elbows hit his waist again and again. Zhao Xiping was tense and felt uncomfortable all over.
"Okay, put down the comb, I'll comb it myself later." He said impatiently.
Sui Yu was disappointed. She put down the comb and sat next to him. When she heard him sigh, she whispered, "Are you uncomfortable with me being close to you?"
"dislike."
"Do you really dislike it or are you uncomfortable?"
"Is there a difference?"
"Of course." Sui Yu nodded. "If you feel uncomfortable, it's probably because you haven't been with a woman for a long time..."
"Have I slept in the same bed with a man for the past two weeks?" Zhao Xiping looked up at her and said bluntly, "I just don't like it."
"You are so hurtful. I am almost falling in love with myself, but you are not moved by me." Sui Yu glanced at him with charming eyes.
“It’s so ugly.”
Sui Yu's expression changed instantly and he punched him.
Zhao Xiping smiled and continued mending the grass net.
"Why don't you like me?" Sui Yu was unconvinced.
Zhao Xiping suppressed his smile, looked up at her, and asked calmly, "Why do you have to make me like you?"
Their eyes met. Under the moonlight, the man's eyes became deep. Sui Yu felt that all her little thoughts were exposed in front of him, so she was the first to look away.
The man gave a short laugh and said, "This is why I don't like you, fake."
"You're too suspicious." Sui Yu cupped his face, their eyes meeting again. This man was like the Gobi Desert, hard, silent, sharp, and captivating. She jokingly said, "I'm not willing to accept this. What if I fall for you, but you don't like me? I'd look like a failure."
Zhao Xiping's heart tightened and the flesh on his face twitched. He didn't know what expression to make, so he had to keep his face tense and lower his eyes, and struggled to free his face from her hands.
"We're not on stage, stop talking about love like crazy." He spoke gently, which was unusual for him. "Go to sleep, and stop thinking about nonsense."
Sui Yu stopped pressing, she turned around and sat down, looking up at the sky and said, "If you ever feel like I'm in love with you, tell me."
Zhao Xiping ignored him. The order of weaving the net in his hands was messed up. He was a little annoyed and could only take it apart and weave it again.
"The soles of my shoes are a bit worn out too."
"Make it up yourself." He was impatient.
Sui Yu remained silent, just sitting there with him. When the cat official came out to drink water, she reached out and called him, but he ignored her and just walked away.
"He has bad morals, just like everyone else." She muttered.
Zhao Xiping pretended not to understand what she meant.
After repairing the grass net, he hung it on the wall, walked over, took the comb, and stood away from her.
"After harvesting the sorghum in the fields, is there any other farm work left?" Sui Yu changed the subject.
"Till the soil and apply fertilizer."
Sui Yu sighed, "There's still so much work?"
"These two things are my job, you can't interfere. Take advantage of the free time before the New Year and take good care of yourself." Zhao Xiping said seriously, "My mother moved here from Guannan. She suffered a lot along the way. Her health was damaged after she came here. She has only been better in recent years."
Sui Yu listened this time, but she still needed to eat and nourish herself to stay healthy, and it all came down to money. She went into the house and dug out the wooden box. She hadn't spent much of the four copper coins Zhao Xiping had given her, and she had only saved less than two hundred coins from selling fish.
"I blew out the lights." Zhao Xiping said as he entered the room.
"Okay." Sui Yu lay down. Sui Liang was already asleep. She covered herself with the linen sheet and closed her eyes. There was a weight on the outside of the bed, and the man lay down on top.
Zhao Xiping opened his eyes and stared at the dark roof. He waited for a long time but Sui Yu didn't ask any questions like before. He hesitated and asked, "Are you asleep?"
"Ah? Me?" Sui Yu opened his eyes. "You're still awake. What's wrong?"
Zhao Xiping breathed a sigh of relief when she didn't sound angry anymore. He turned over and said vaguely, "It's okay. I just wanted to ask if you know how to make dumplings. I'll buy half a pound of fat meat tomorrow."
"Oh, how do you make leavened dough?" Sui Yu was not sure what kind of leavened dough was used in this era.
Zhao Xiping knows how to make dough, and he said he would do it.
"Wow, then I can eat the buns made by Captain Zhao?" Sui Yu turned over and sat up.
"Go to sleep." Zhao Xiping thought to himself that he had always cooked before marrying her, so why should he be surprised? After a while, he explained, "I only know how to make dough and knead it, but I don't know how to mix stuffing or wrap it."
"I don't know either. Let's figure it out together." Sui Yu made the final decision.
Zhao Xiping sighed silently. He felt a little regretful. Eating buns was too troublesome.
But the next morning, he went to the market to buy distiller's grains. The wheat at home had not been ground into flour yet, so he weighed out five pounds of gray flour and came back. When he got home, he called Sui Yu to the kitchen and said, "Learn a little, I will teach you once."
Sui Yu rolled his eyes secretly, but nodded obediently.
Add warm water to the wine lees and two scoops of flour to mix well. After mixing well, half a basin of batter is made. Sui Yu hesitated and said, "This can only be used to make dumpling soup, right?"
Zhao Xiping ignored her words. He lifted the lid of the pot and covered the basin with it, and said, "Don't move. I'll come back at noon and do it myself."
Sui Yu was more than happy to do so. She picked up the cat official who was sleeping on the stove, went out, closed the door, packed up her things and went downstairs.
"The cat officer caught a big rat this morning," she said.
Zhao Xiping also saw it. The cat showed off for a while before eating the mouse.
"Captain Zhao, when will the work in the fields be finished?" asked a neighbor in the alley.
"It will be finished in two days."
"You're really fast this year."
Zhao Xiping looked at Sui Yu and her brother. Although they were slow, they did a lot of work day by day.
"When you finish your work in the fields, come and help me. Five kilograms of food a day, would you like to do it?" asked another passerby.
Zhao Xiping slowed down his pace. He worked hard for half a month and it was enough for Sui Yu to eat for a month. He ate five kilograms a day.
"No, farm work is too tiring." Sui Yu refused for him. "Xiping is exhausted working on 20 mu of land by himself. He should take a break after finishing his work."
The person asking the question was surprised, then laughed, "Captain Zhao, someone feels sorry for you."
Zhao Xiping clenched his hands and nodded with a stiff upper lip, not refuting Sui Yu's words. After leaving the military settlement, he said in a gruff voice, "Don't talk nonsense outside in the future. I'm a grown man, I don't have anything to worry about."
"I'm telling the truth. You're not just farming. If a war breaks out one day, you'll have to go to the battlefield. If your body breaks down, it will be fatal. I can go hungry, but I can't be a widow."
Zhao Xiping was silent.
Sui Yu ignored him. She carried the basket into the sorghum field and continued to step on the stalks. Sui Liang followed her to pick the ears of sorghum.
Zhao Xiping stood at the edge of the field, watching silently for a moment. He pounded his chest, rolled up his sleeves, and went to the field to bundle the sorghum stalks. As he bundled them, he carefully kept the thick, straight stalks, intending to take them back and use them to make manuscripts later.
The three of them took a break from their busy schedule and returned home at noon. Zhao Xiping was still thinking about his noodles. After half a day, they had already risen, but they were still watery. He mixed some flour and kneaded them into a smooth dough. He called Sui Yu and said, "You will be home this afternoon. Once the dough has risen, you can knead it, fry the filling, and make dumplings."
Sui Yu nodded. With such a big bowl of noodles, he didn’t know how many buns he could make.
After lunch, she went back to her room to sleep for a while. When she woke up, she started preparing the filling. She went to the market to buy a fist-sized piece of pork, washed six radishes and cut half a basin of diced radishes. After the diced radishes were done, she called Sui Liang to light the fire while she cut the meat slices, washed the pot and refined the oil.
"Meow——" The cat official smelled the aroma of meat and rushed into the kitchen.
"It's not for you to eat. You've eaten meat today, so let's have some meat too." The meat slices were fried until they turned yellow. Sui Yu brought an oil can to fill it with lard, and left half a spoonful at the end to pour in the diced radish and stir-fry it in the pan.
Sui Liang stood up and took a deep breath.
"Radishes fried with animal oil are more fragrant than those fried with soybean oil," said Sui Yu.
Sui Liang nodded.
Add salt and stir-fry the radish until it is half-cooked, then pick up the wok, brush the wok, pour in oil and fry three eggs, mash the eggs and pour into half a pot of radish, which immediately disappears like millet falling into a pile of sand.
The filling was mixed and the dough had risen. Sui Yu rolled up his sleeves and started kneading the dough. After kneading for a whole incense stick, the dough was still lumpy and not as good as the one kneaded by Zhao Xiping.
"Next time we make dumplings, let him knead the dough. He's so tired." Sui Yu kneaded the dough for another cup of tea until it was barely smooth. She shook her arms, wiped the kitchen knife and cut the dough.
The sun hadn't set when they made the dumplings, and by the time the first batch was finished steaming, the sunset had already begun. Sui Yu and Sui Liang each ate two. When they were full, she put four more on a plate and asked Sui Liang to take them to the fields.
She continued to wrap the second pot.
Sui Liang came back and put the second pot of buns into the steamer.
When Zhao Xiping came back at night, Sui Yu hadn't finished making dumplings yet. She saw him as if he were her savior, "Hurry up and wash your hands. I'll teach you how to make dumplings. My fingers are almost broken from exhaustion."
Zhao Xiping walked into the kitchen and saw that the food cabinet was half filled with vegetable buns. "So many?"
"You've fermented too much dough. You can save on filling when making dumplings." Sui Yu stumbled over to make room and asked, "Are the dumplings delicious?"
"It's delicious, better than the radish buns sold on the street." Zhao Xiping is always honest when it comes to food.
He washed his hands and came in, took a hot bun and bit off half of it, put the bun down and picked up the dough again, imitating Sui Yu's movements to knead the bread filling and then seal it.
"Hey, what do you say about me selling vegetable buns at the market?" Sui Yu was delighted. "I'd like to try it after the sorghum is harvested."
Zhao Xiping took another bite of the vegetable bun, nodded slowly, swallowed the bun and said, "It's okay if we can't sell all of it, I can eat it myself."
Sui Yu elbowed him in the backhand and said, "You really know how to talk." Her business hadn't even opened yet, and he was already discouraging her.
The moon was at its zenith when the last batch of buns came out of the pot. Zhao Xiping ate one while it was still hot.
Sui Yu brought him a bowl of hot water, sat down and asked, "Have you never eaten enough before?"
"I'm full." Zhao Xiping was surprised. "Why do you ask?"
"How many buns did you eat tonight?"
Zhao Xiping counted and found that including the four he sent to the field, he ate nine.
"Baozi is not good for hunger," he said.
That's pure bullshit. Sui Yu laughed. If steamed buns don't satisfy your hunger, then porridge will?
"If you find something that suits your taste, you'll eat it with your belly full. If you don't like it very much, you won't eat it unless you're hungry." Sui Yu looked at him with her hands on her face and said, "Now you admit that marrying me is your blessing, right?"
Zhao Xiping neither refuted nor admitted, he just kept silent.
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