16. Are you scared?
After Fan Changyu walked out of the door carrying the basket of dirty clothes, he sighed.
He must have seen the things, and since he had put them away, she might as well pretend nothing happened.
Seeing that it was still early, she went out again and bought two fat pigs and a chicken at the tile market.
The chicken had a more important purpose before it became a soup topper—she wanted to use it to catch the gyrfalcon.
Although her father was a butcher, he was also a good hunter. She had followed her father to the mountains to hunt wild boars and catch rabbits, and naturally she also knew how to set traps.
Fan Changyu wanted to set a trap in the yard, but was afraid that Changning might accidentally get hurt. After much thought, he went up to the attic and climbed onto the roof. He tied the old hen to the roof and placed the tools her father used to set the trap there. Only then did he feel satisfied and went downstairs.
Of the two pigs, one was kept to be slaughtered tomorrow, and the other was slaughtered today to make bacon.
As the name suggests, bacon is made in the frostbitten month. In winter, the meat can be stored for a longer time, but once the weather gets warmer, the meat will go bad, so once it is made into bacon, it can be kept until the next year.
The tuition fees received by the teachers in the academy consisted of silver money and bacon of its equivalent.
Many scholars would buy a piece of bacon to pay New Year's greetings to their teachers, and would buy a few more pieces as a gift in the early spring.
In the past, in order to pay the dowry to Song Yan, Song's mother would use the money she earned from embroidery and washing clothes to buy bacon from her father every year.
Fan Changyu is now skeptical as to whether there is any suspicion of deliberately exposing her misfortune in front of her parents.
At that time, Song's mother's hands were covered with frostbite as soon as winter came, and the patches on her clothes even outweighed the original fabrics. Because she often did embroidery work at night and was reluctant to light a lamp, she only picked out a shallow piece of wick from the lamp oil and burned it. The light was really a tiny bean. After enduring this for a long time, her eyesight deteriorated and she could hardly see anything at night.
The orphan and his widow were neighbors. Song's mother said that Song's father had failed the imperial examinations all his life, and Song Yan was smart since he was a child and was a good candidate. She wanted to help her husband fulfill his last wish. Her parents couldn't bear to see this, so they gave him some bacon as a gift.
Now when Fan Changyu thinks of the mother and son of the Song family, he just hopes that God will open his eyes and make sure Song Yan fails the exam!
While she was feeling resentful, she went to the backyard to boil water in preparation for killing the pig.
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As the shrill sound of pigs came into the south room, the goat-hair brush in Xie Zheng's hand drew a line of ink on the paper.
He crumpled the piece of paper in his hand into a ball and threw it into the charcoal brazier at his feet. He leaned back and raised his hand to pinch his brows.
Just when his ears were hurt by the noise, the door was suddenly pushed open. A little man was holding the door frame, revealing half of his head, and urged him: "Brother-in-law, do you want to watch the pig being slaughtered?"
Her black grape eyes sparkled: "Sister is really good at killing pigs!"
In the past, Fan Changyu would get up before dawn to kill pigs. His knee, which he had broken when he rolled down a cliff while fleeing, had not yet healed. He seldom went out on weekdays, so naturally he had never seen her kill pigs.
Today, the pigs' howling coming from the backyard lasted for quite a while, and there were two pigs howling at the same time. The sound was so loud that it could almost lift the roof off the house.
Xie Zheng thought for a moment and nodded, then stood up with the help of crutches. However, he did not go to watch the pig being slaughtered as Chang Ning had wanted. Instead, he thought that if the pig continued to howl, he would just kill it with a knife to get some peace and quiet.
Across the main hall is the kitchen, which has a small door leading to the backyard. At this moment, the door was open, and Xie Zheng saw at a glance that the woman was standing on the pig's back with one foot, holding a rope as thick as a thumb in her hand, and was tying the pig, whose limbs had been tied, to the stone bench, which looked quite heavy.
Little Changning looked up at him proudly and said, "My sister is amazing!"
Xie Zheng did not respond.
As we got closer, the pigs' howls became sharper and shriller, and the strength of their struggles seemed extremely ferocious.
Xie Zheng had seen the Huotouying killing pigs, but it took several men to subdue a fat pig. Although the woman in front of him did not look weak, she was just a girl after all. How could she compare with those big and strong men?
He frowned and was about to step forward to help, but saw the woman slap the pig on the head and shouted: "Be honest!"
The slap was so loud that the pig's howling instantly became quieter, and its struggle was obviously not as strong as before.
Xie Zheng's eyes, which had been somewhat distracted at first, at this moment showed obvious surprise.
Are you dizzy?
Dizzy???
How much strength does it take?
The impression this woman gave him was one that kept jumping back and forth between shedding tears for the Phoenix Man and slapping a pig unconscious, which made him frown.
Fan Changyu tied up the pig on the stone bench and turned around to find Xie Zheng and his sister who was secretly peeking out from the door.
She immediately said, "Ning Niang, I've told you so many times that children can't watch pigs being slaughtered."
Changning looked aggrieved and tucked his head back behind the door, leaving only two small tufts of hair on top of his head exposed.
Fan Changyu was a little surprised to see Xie Zheng. She was wearing a set of shorts specially used for killing pigs, and she had just fought with a pig. Her hair was now hanging in front of her forehead in a mess. She looked really frail, but also had a sense of competence and heroism.
She was busy at the moment and had no time to care about the previous awkwardness. After a brief surprise, she said to Xie Zheng: "If you are not in a hurry to go back to your room, please help me watch the fire on the stove first."
The water in the big pot will be used to boil pig hair later.
Xie Zheng glanced at the makeshift stove, then walked over obediently in a rare good temper.
After Fan Changyu found the wooden basin to collect the blood, she picked up the bloodletting knife and still killed the man with one stroke. When the blood gushed out, her body was inevitably stained with some blood foam. She looked at the bleeding hole with cold and sharp eyes, like a tiger or leopard staring at the prey it had torn into pieces.
After a while, the murderous aura in her body disappeared.
The moment she looked up, she saw the man behind the stove looking at her with a puzzled expression.
His eyes were usually cold, but at this moment they held a depth that was hard to fathom, like a deep ancient well with no bottom to be seen.
Fan Changyu put away his knife and at the same time suppressed his anger. He asked in confusion, "Did I scare you?"
Xie Zheng added a piece of firewood to the stove. His handsome face was reflected in the firelight, sometimes brighter and sometimes darker. He seemed to think that her words were really funny, and raised the corners of his lips lazily: "Not really."
Fan Changyu dragged the slaughtered pig over, glanced at him and said, "Go inside. The pig hair will smell bad if you pour boiling water on it."
Xie Zheng sat there without moving, and only said, "I have smelled worse than that."
The smell of decay among the dead.
Is this person a little strange today?
Fan Changyu simply ignored him and soaked the pig's hair with boiling water before starting to shave it.
Xie Zheng sat on the stool behind the stove and watched her busying around, with the corners of his eyes slightly raised.
Suddenly I think she looks better when she's killing pigs.
He asked, "Did your father teach you martial arts?"
Fan Changyu paused while shaving the pig hair, and continued shaving after a while: "Well, my father traveled all over the country as a bodyguard, and he had many masters, and he learned a lot of life-saving skills. I learned a few tricks from him."
Xie Zheng did not ask any more questions and continued to watch her shaving the pig. She looked a little tired, but her facial features were really pretty. Even sitting among the firewood pile, she was pleasing to the eye.
Fan Changyu divided the pork before dark, keeping a small piece for braising in the evening, and evenly rubbed the rest with coarse salt, and stacked them neatly, meat down and skin up, in a clean stone jar in the yard, and covered it with a dustpan.
To make bacon, you first have to apply salt and marinate it for seven or eight days, then smoke it with cypress branches.
Salt is a hot commodity outside these days, but Qingping County is rich in green salt, so the price of salt is not expensive locally. You can buy a pound for just over ten cents.
Salt merchants would buy salt with salt ropes and transport the salt to other places to sell it, and the price could be multiplied several times. I heard that in some places, salt merchants raised the price arbitrarily, and the price of salt could be as high as a hundred coins per catty. The people in those places were suffering terribly.
While the fire in the big pot of hot water was still on, and the pot was big enough, Fan Changyu put the washed pork, pork bones and offal directly into it to blanch them.
The pork belly will be used to make brine rice tonight, the pork bones will be used to make the soup base, and the offal and pork head will be sold at the butcher shop tomorrow morning.
After blanching, drain the meat with two sieves, replace with clean water, throw in various spices and seasonings, bring to a boil, add some of the old broth made previously, and put the meat and bones in to blanch together.
As the high fire brought the brine in the pot to a boil again, the rich aroma of meat seeped out from the cracks in the pot lid.
Fan Changyu had only eaten one pancake at noon and had done physical work all afternoon. When he smelled the food, his stomach growled twice.
Chang Ning sniffed and said pitifully: "Sister, I'm hungry..."
The only one who was not attracted by the fragrance was Xie Zheng, who was watching the fire behind the stove with an indifferent look on his face.
Fan Changyu covered her stomach, feeling embarrassed. She stood up and went into the house: "The meat is not ready yet, I'll go get two sweet potatoes to roast first."
What she didn't know was that after she entered the room, the person behind the stove, although still expressionless, slowly moved his Adam's apple.
Xie Zheng glanced at the steaming pot with an impatient look. Does this thing need to take so long to cook?
Little Changning covered his mouth and laughed secretly: "Brother-in-law, you are hungry too, right?"
Xie Zheng didn't want to pay attention to this annoying kid, so he closed his eyes and said, "No."
Fan Changyu took two sweet potatoes and buried them in the stove ashes. Xie Zheng sat on a stool behind the stove. Because of his difficulty walking, Fan Changyu did not let him stand up. He just squatted beside him and used a fire tongs to sprinkle carbon ash on the sweet potatoes.
The stove door was square and narrow, so Fan Changyu's vision was obstructed. He could only lean towards him to see if the sweet potatoes were buried properly.
They got a little too close, so Xie Zheng frowned and moved back, but the space was really small and Fan Changyu's hair almost brushed his chin lightly. She herself didn't notice it, but Xie Zheng's expression tensed up a little.
She had already changed out of her pig-killing clothes, and there was an indescribable, elegant fragrance on her clothes and in her hair, probably the fragrance her mother had made herself as she had mentioned before.
The places where her hair touched felt slightly cool and itchy, making people want to grab them.
Xie Zheng frowned and was about to speak, but Fan Changyu had already buried the sweet potatoes and retreated.
Seeing him move aside, Fan Changyu felt very embarrassed: "Did I squeeze you just now?"
My chin still itched where it had been rubbed by her hair.
Xie Zheng avoided her gaze and just said no.
Snow was falling from the sky again. Fan Changyu sat on a bench and played cat's tangle with her sister. The firelight was reflected on the two sisters' faces. Their smiles were very similar, as if they could melt the chill of the entire winter night.
Xie Zheng looked at her for a while, then turned to look at the falling snow.
When a sweet aroma wafted from the meat, Fan Changyu once again squeezed directly to Xie Zheng's side and dug out two sweet potatoes with a pair of tongs.
The skin of the sweet potato was baked to a burnt gray color, and it felt hot and soft when you pinched it lightly.
Fan Changyu gave one to Xie Zheng, and she and her sister shared one.
Fan Changyu was very fierce. He broke the sweet potato in two with one hand, revealing the orange-yellow sweet potato flesh. The tip was still steaming and it smelled sweet.
Fan Changyu gave half to his sister. They ate it while gasping for breath due to the hotness. It tasted even sweeter in their mouths, and they accidentally rubbed a little bit of the burnt sweet potato skin on their lips.
Xie Zheng peeled the sweet potato and took a bite. It was indeed much sweeter than the roasted sweet potatoes he had imagined.
The highlight of tonight is naturally the meat that has been blanched for more than an hour in the pot. The pork belly, which is already blanched and soaked with all the brine, is cut into cubes and mixed with diced mushrooms and stir-fried in the pot. After the aroma of the mushrooms is released, a spoonful of brine is added, scooped up and covered on the white rice, and finally a cut brine egg is placed on it.
Xie Zheng had the most satisfying meal since his misfortune, and he was in a pretty good mood before going to bed that night.
Of course, if the hoarse cry of the Saker Falcon had not suddenly come from the roof, his good mood would probably have lasted a little longer.
The author has something to say:
Costin: Save me, save me, who will save me? qaq
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