Chapter 11 Pumpkin Pie
Early in the morning on November 24, Chu Dan urged Chu Hong to get up early.
Anyway, when Chu Hong got up, it was still pitch dark outside. She looked at the alarm clock and it was not yet four o'clock.
The family worked for more than two hours and made more than a hundred pumpkin cakes using eight pumpkins, five pounds of glutinous rice flour, five pounds of flour and half a pound of sugar.
Fry on low heat until both sides are golden brown, separate them with rice dumplings leaves, put them in an enamel basin lined with a clean plastic cloth, and then put them in a backpack before leaving with numerous instructions from family members.
"Sister," Chu Dan, who was pedaling hard, asked happily, "How much do we sell them for?"
Chu Hong sat on the straw mat in the back seat, holding the backpack with both hands, yawned, and said lazily, "At least they should be sold for ten cents each."
Flour is 2.2 cents per pound, glutinous rice flour is 2.8 cents per pound, half a pound of sugar is 50 cents, and oil, pumpkin, and firewood all add up to about 70 or 80 cents.
That cost is almost six dollars.
This doesn't include labor costs?
Alas, it’s a pity that labor costs are so low nowadays.
Chu Dan heard that and her bicycle turned into a snake shape. Chu Hong was so scared that she patted her shoulder and said, "Be careful. If you dare to fall on me, I will show you how I will deal with you."
Chu Dan quickly came to his senses and was so scared that he broke out in a cold sweat: "Don't drop it. How much can those pumpkin pies sell for?"
He swallowed again and muttered worriedly, "Sister, meat buns are only 10 cents each, and vegetable buns are 7 cents each, aren't your prices a bit high?"
Meat buns are filled with meat. People like to eat meat nowadays.
And their pumpkin pie is made from only a pound of pumpkin?
Chu Hong argued: "There is also glutinous rice flour, flour, sugar, and finally fried in oil, which one is not a good thing?"
Chu Dan still felt that her second sister was asking for too much. She thought it would be good enough if she could sell them for six or seven cents each.
If they can be sold out, then we can make money.
When the two sisters passed by Lingzhong Village, Chu Dan muttered, "They are the only place with a school. I heard that some educated youth are vying to become teachers now."
Chu Hong said, "There are many educated youth in our village. If we can have extra income next year, we can also open a school ourselves."
Chu Dan thought she was a little fanciful: "Sister, there are only more than 30 children in our village who are in school, and they are in the second, third and fourth grades."
"It's not worthwhile to run a school for them, right?"
Chu Hong rolled her eyes, and then thought that she couldn't see because she was riding a bicycle, so she could only say: "You are stupid, a teacher in the lower grades, even you can be one."
"One teacher teaches grades one, two and three. Since there are fewer students, they can all sit in one classroom. Can't we just teach them separately?"
It’s not that she felt sorry for the children having to walk to other villages to go to school.
It’s because the villagers favor boys over girls. Boys are sent to school at the age of seven or eight, but many girls have not yet gone to school at the age of eight or nine.
Children in the country grow up early, especially girls, who can go to the fields to work at the age of six or seven, pulling weeds, catching insects, washing clothes, making fire and cooking, and looking after their younger siblings.
Many people think that it is enough for girls to study for a year or two when they are in their teens.
Some families even think that their daughters don't need to go to school, and that it is enough to let their sons who go to school teach them to recognize a few words.
If there were a school in the village, girls could learn a few more words and be instilled with more correct ideas.
Otherwise, your family will teach you to be a brother-supporting demon.
Chu Dan was very interested in this: "Sister, if you want to open a school, you have to let me be the teacher."
Chu Hong thought that she had not yet graduated from high school and was still a little in love. She was afraid that if she became a teacher, she would teach children bad things, so she didn't dare to say anything.
I quickly changed the subject: "When we come back, we can stop by to see my eldest sister."
Chu Dan naturally would not object. She was a carefree person who forgot what she said. She also gossiped about the educated youth site.
After a while, we arrived at the entrance of Lingshang Village.
As she rode by, she glanced at the nearby village, a little curious: "My elder sister said that besides Gu Zhiqing, there is another male Zhiqing who is also very handsome. Should we go and take a look at him when the time comes?"
Chu Hong suspected that she was out of her mind and said in great sorrow: "You are only seventeen years old, why are you so depressed? Look at how messy the life of my elder sister was after marriage, and how I met Chen Shimei after marriage. Do you still want to get married?"
Chu Dan said weakly: "But everyone gets married at the age of eighteen or nineteen, right?"
Chu Hong's heart sank. That's right, in this damn countryside, most people get married early.
Even if it is stipulated that men must be 20 years old and women must be 18 years old to get married.
But some people will still do it a year or two in advance.
Of course, there are men from poor families who cannot get married at the age of 27 or 28, and they secretly hope that there will be more young widows in the next village.
"But being an educated youth is really not suitable. If I could go back, I would easily get divorced."
Most of the people in their village have the same surname.
People with the same surname do not marry. Most people in Lingxia Village have the surname Wu, while most people in Lingshang Village have the surname Su. After getting married, they will not go too far back to their parents' home.
Chu Hong wanted to hit her when she heard her stupid words, so she said sarcastically, "It's okay. If you find a male educated youth, we can recruit sons-in-law together."
Haha, she is the one who was divorced.
Chu Dan was reluctant, so he pretended he didn't hear what was said and pedaled hard.
Fortunately, she usually works in the fields, so she didn't collapse after pedaling the bicycle for more than half an hour.
In fact, halfway through the journey, Chu Hong also said that she would take her on the bike.
But Chu Dan didn't trust his second sister's riding skills, as he had only seen her ride the family's new bicycle a few times.
Chu Dan, on the other hand, likes to show off by riding a bicycle around the village, or taking his children for a ride, and he has particularly skilled riding skills.
When they arrived in town, the two sisters went to the black market like thieves.
The black market here starts at two or three in the morning, and there are not many people around nine o'clock.
It’s only around seven o’clock now, so the black market is still quite busy.
Chu Hong took a look and found that the so-called black market was in an alley.
Chu Dan had come here to sell eggs with his second uncle before, and had also come here to buy sesame cakes with his classmates, so he knew the rules here.
At the entrance of the alley, he handed over a dime to the two sturdy men who were blocking his way, and whispered, "Good man, can I borrow your land in exchange for something?"
The man took the money and made way for them to enter.
Apart from anything else, there are alleys next to the alley. Even if someone comes to arrest someone, it is convenient to escape because of the many alleys that connect to each other.
Although the alley is only 20 to 30 meters long, there are a lot of people.
Most of them are loaded in baskets, which contain rice, flour, grain, oil, apples, oranges, biscuits, gray, black and blue cloth, chicken, duck, fish and meat.
Chu Hong saw a man carrying two baskets of apples for sale.
He sold apples by the piece, 20 cents each, and a lot of people came to buy them.
Chu Hong turned the backpack upside down next to him, placed the enamel basin on the backpack, uncovered the white cloth on it, and winked at Chu Dan.
The two sisters had agreed on the way here that Chu Dan would shout and attract customers, while Chu Hong would just collect the money.
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