Wenxi nodded. As long as he didn't feel tired, she didn't force him to do it.
When they got home at night, the water that had been left to sit in the sun during the day was still warm. Qin Mi helped Wen Xi carry the water to the bathroom. Wen Xi went back to her room to get her clothes, took a shower, and then went to Chen Jiaojiao's room to sleep.
In mid-June, the Fengshou Brigade began harvesting wheat. Captain Qian arranged for the other villagers to cook in the communal canteen, so Wenxi and her two friends didn't need to cook anymore, since they had more important things to do now, like tending to the watermelons.
Wenxi stopped cooking for everyone, so the food wasn't as good as before, because others weren't as generous as Wenxi, who even paid for the seasonings out of her own pocket.
No matter how much they missed Wenxi's cooking, there was nothing they could do. They could only eat the old kind of food that lacked oil and salt. Now that there was something easier to do, Wenxi didn't want to cook for everyone in the cafeteria anymore.
Every morning when it's cool, I can sit in the thatched hut in the watermelon field for a while before heading back.
That day, as Wenxi was sitting in her thatched hut enjoying the breeze and drinking tea, she suddenly heard the postman calling her. She quickly grabbed her teacup and came out of the watermelon patch to sign for her mail.
She had just turned to leave when she heard the postman call Lin Yiwan's name. Lin Yiwan went over, signed for the letter, and left without saying goodbye to Wen Xi.
Wenxi felt something was off, but didn't ask too many questions. When she returned to the thatched hut, she opened the letter Pei Jingzhou had written. Pei Jingzhou had written the letter two days after returning home. He was afraid that writing a letter would be too slow, so he sent a telegram to let her know he was safe.
After reading the letter, Wen Xi put it away and then called Shen Jiaojiao to go back together.
The watermelons are slowly ripening, and to ensure there are always people in the watermelon field, everyone takes turns coming. Sometimes Wenxi and her group are assigned to work during the hottest part of the day, but staying in the thatched hut means they don't have to be in the sun, and it's much easier than when everyone else is working.
The watermelons were harvested when they were ripe and delivered to the units that had ordered them. The number of ripe watermelons in the fields was decreasing, while the team's savings were increasing.
Captain Qian was in a good mood, so he often arranged for people to buy pork offal and bones that didn't require ration coupons to bring back for everyone's extra meals. Even though other people's cooking wasn't very good, it was still a kind of meat dish!
At noon, while everyone was resting outside the large canteen after lunch, some people were enjoying the breeze by the river bend. While washing her hands, Wenxi secretly threw a stone smeared with fish anesthetic into the river bend. After a while, everyone saw many fish, both large and small, floating on the surface of the water.
Someone saw it and quickly went to find Captain Qian. When Captain Qian came over and saw so many fish, he immediately told people who could swim to go into the water and catch them.
Someone asked worriedly, "Captain, is there something wrong with this fish? Is it safe to eat?"
Wen Xi walked over and said, "Are there any problems? First, catch the fish and put them in clean water to keep them alive. If they can come back to life, it means that these fish are just lacking oxygen, and they are definitely safe to eat."
"Yes, everyone, let's get the fish out of the water first," Captain Qian said.
After that, the young men in the team who could swim jumped into the river like dumplings being dropped into boiling water. They caught fish and threw them onto the shore, while the people on the shore picked them up together.
The fish anesthetic is effective for one hour, but Wenxi didn't throw the fish all at once; she threw them intermittently. So, the time it took for everyone to collect the fish lasted for more than an hour, and they collected several thousand kilograms of fish.
Because I wasn't sure if the fish were safe to eat, I put a few in clean water to keep them alive. Once the fish recovered and started jumping around, I was sure they were okay, and that meant they were safe to eat.
Most villagers supported distributing the fish so that everyone could decide how to eat it. So, Captain Qian organized everyone to sort the fish into large, medium, and small sizes, and then distributed the fish to each family. Each family received over a hundred kilograms of fish, in various sizes, which was very fair.
The villagers were all smiles after receiving so many fish, but they still had work to do in the fields, so each family left one person to handle the fish while the rest went to work in the fields.
Wenxi and the other two were also processing the fish by the river bend. There were just too many, and processing them at the well would require carrying a lot of water to clean them properly, and it would also make the whole yard smell fishy.
Wenxi used a knife to remove the fish scales, then gutted the fish. Shen Jiaojiao was in charge of removing the fish's internal organs, while Jiang Yue was in charge of cleaning the fish. They had eaten the chickens they raised last year, and this year they brought back a few more chickens to raise. So Wenxi cleaned up the fish scales and internal organs and took them back to feed the chickens.
"Xiaoxi, there are so many fish, how are you going to eat them?" Jiang Yue squatted down in front of Wenxi and asked curiously.
"It's too hot now, so we can only marinate and dry these fish. We'll make spicy fish chunks and braised fish chunks later to coax them to eat. But we can make boiled fish tonight," Wenxi said.
"Little Stream, can I take a few fish?" Jiang Yue asked tentatively.
Wenxi knew what she meant, so she nodded. Then Jiang Yue picked out a few lively fish from the pile of fish that had not yet been processed and put them into the bucket.
This can indeed allow the fish to live for a couple more days.
Wenxi also kept a few large fish, intending to eat them fresh, because she didn't want to eat salted fish every day.
It wasn't until evening that the group finished processing the fish and took them home. Wenxi threw the fish scales and innards into the chicken coop, then took out some salt and sat under the eaves to rub the fish with salt, covering them inside and out. She then arranged them one by one in a pickle jar.
Actually, it's fine not to take them out to dry, because some smaller fish will become a shell after drying and there won't be much meat left. Just keep them in the pickle jar, and when you want to eat them, take out a few while they're still damp so they don't become a shell.
It wasn't until Qin Mi arrived that Wen Xi finished marinating the fish. She stood up to stretch her sore neck and shoulders, and Qin Mi walked behind her and reached out to massage her shoulders.
After a massage, my shoulders felt much better.
Qin Mi helped carry the pickled vegetable jar to the kitchen and put it against the wall. Now that Qin Mi was staying in Wen Xi's room at night, Wen Xi had no way to use the room as cover to put the fish in the system warehouse so that no matter when she took the fish out, the fish would still be as fresh as ever.
Now that Qin Mi is living in her room, everything has to be done properly and obediently.
"There's some boiled fish I made in the pot, go and eat it." After Qin Mi put the marinated fish in the pot, Wen Xi reminded him to go eat.
Qin Mi lifted the pot lid and placed the dishes inside on the table: boiled fish fillets, braised eggplant, and scrambled eggs with tomatoes. Qin Mi was somewhat surprised, "So many?"
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