Chapter 16 Pregnant?
That day, at eight o'clock, Meng Wanqiu woke up from her sleep in a daze. She didn't know if it was the sequelae of the previous practice that went wrong, but she always felt that she didn't get enough sleep. She went to bed early every day, but she got up later than her family. Even Zhuangzhuang had run out to play.
She got dressed and went out. Except for Grandma Meng, everyone else in the house went out.
Grandma Meng's room was to the right of the main house, with the main hall in the middle and the rooms of Meng's father and mother on the left. Across from Grandma Meng's room were the rooms of Meng Wanqiu and Pei Xingzhi, and across from them was the room of Meng Yanchun and his family of three.
Meng Wanqiu first went to Grandma Meng's room and took a look. Grandma Meng was sewing shoe soles. The family members worked outside all year round, and the shoes were worn out quickly. Even when it rained and they didn't go to work, Meng's mother and Dong Hanyun never took off their shoes.
Meng Wanqiu was still a little confused at this time. She went to Grandma Meng's room and lay down on the bed, lying on her stomach and watching the "swish" sound of Grandma Meng mending shoes.
Seeing Meng Wanqiu's face lying on the quilt like a sticky rice dumpling, Grandma Meng smiled and lowered her head to continue what she was doing. "You haven't slept enough yet. You're already a wife, but you're still so lazy."
Meng Wanqiu yawned, turned over and continued looking at the roof.
Suddenly, Grandma Meng paused in her shoe-making, and as if she had thought of something, she suddenly looked towards Meng Wanqiu, her eyes filled with three parts of speculation and two parts of surprise.
"Nannan, are you pregnant?"
Meng Wanqiu turned her head with a blank expression, "What are you pregnant with?"
Grandma Meng slapped her thigh and laughed angrily, "Silly girl, what are you pregnant with? Of course I'm pregnant."
Logically speaking, Nannan has been married for more than half a month, and seeing how sleepy she is, it is not impossible.
Meng Wanqiu was stunned, and the confusion on her face was instantly replaced by embarrassment.
What? Her grandma thought that she was pregnant because she loved to sleep. Meng Wanqiu looked very upset.
What's there to be pregnant about? She and Pei Xingzhi didn't do that at all.
"Grandma, I'm not pregnant." Meng Wanqiu held her forehead and explained to her grandmother.
But Grandma Meng didn't believe it, thinking that she was young and inexperienced. "How can it be impossible? You have been married for so long, you should be pregnant by now."
Seeing that Grandma Meng refused to listen, Meng Wanqiu had no choice but to tell her that she and Pei Xingzhi had not slept together yet. Afraid that Grandma Meng would misunderstand, she also specifically told her the explanation Pei Xingzhi had given her.
After listening to this, Grandma Meng was silent for a while. She had also received a modern education and knew a little about these things, but at that time many girls still got married at the age of sixteen or seventeen.
Grandma Meng felt that she had been somewhat remiss in not considering these things.
Patting Meng Wanqiu's head, Grandma Meng said in a somewhat depressed tone, "Xingzhi is right, Grandma should have told you this earlier."
Meng Wanqiu shook her head and shook Grandma Meng's wrinkled hand. "I know Grandma wants me to get married soon and be free sooner."
The Meng family dared not disobey the words of the white-bearded Taoist priest.
There are gains and losses, but fortunately, Meng Wanqiu married a good man in the end.
Grandma Meng smiled with relief. Her daughter had encountered so many difficulties since she was born, but now she has finally overcome all the hardships and will surely live a prosperous life in the future.
After the two chatted for a while, Meng Wanqiu's stomach started to growl with hunger, so he hurried to the kitchen to find something to eat.
Breakfast was made by Meng Mu, which is just simple corn porridge and roasted sweet potatoes. It doesn’t need to be heated up even though the temperature is high now.
Meng Wanqiu ate the pickles made by Dong Hanyun, took a bite of vegetables and a bite of porridge, and added a palm-sized roasted sweet potato. After eating, her belly was full.
After eating, Meng Wanqiu was not idle either. Instead, she ran to Grandma Meng's room to make shoes together.
While digging a ditch a few days ago, Pei Xingzhi's pair of Liberation shoes, which he had worn for two years, finally wore out. The sole and the upper were completely separated. Meng Wanqiu wanted to repair them with him, but Pei Xingzhi refused.
Pei Xingzhi is twenty years old this year, almost twenty-one, and is still growing. The pair of Liberation shoes has become too tight for him, so he threw them away since they broke.
It was not thrown away and was kept by Meng's mother. After all, many people still wear straw sandals. As long as the soles of the Liberation shoes are not damaged, they are very popular and naturally cannot be thrown away.
It was patched up and left to Meng Fengdong.
Pei Xingzhi now only had one pair of shoes for work, so Meng Wanqiu thought about making him two pairs to wear alternately. After dinner, she started making shoes with Grandma Meng.
Meng Wanqiu was strong and quick, because the thousand-layer bottom had been prepared in advance. After one morning, Meng Wanqiu had finished most of it, which made Grandma Meng praise her for her dexterity.
Meng Wanqiu pursed her lips and smiled. This was Grandma Meng's polite remark. She was quick, but the shoes did not look good. They were not like those made by Grandma Meng, where every edge and corner were very neat.
However, shoes are meant to be worn. It doesn’t matter whether they look good or not, what matters is that they are practical and durable.
Because Meng's father and the others were about to get off work, Meng Wanqiu didn't continue, but went to the kitchen to start cooking.
Meng Wanqiu started a fire first. She didn't have a lighter, so she buried the unburned firewood from the previous day with ashes, leaving a vent hole so that the sparks would stay burning and it would be convenient for use the next day.
Then use pine needles picked up from the mountains to light the fire, chop the dried firewood into short thin strips and place them on the burning pine needles, then put in the thick firewood, and soon a big fire was lit, and then close the stove door.
Next, she boiled water, washed the rice, and once the water was boiling, she put the rice in the pot to cook. Then Meng Wanqiu began preparing the food. A few days ago, she and her eldest brother had a great catch of eels, and they couldn't finish them all in two days.
The eels were still kept in a wooden basin in the yard. Other girls were afraid of this thing, but Meng Wanqiu often slept outdoors in her previous life, and she even skinned and ate snakes. Compared with the snakes, this little eel was nothing.
Meng Wanqiu sat by the well with a kitchen knife and a chopping board, first fetched a bucket of water, and then began to process the eels.
There are some tricks to handling eels. You need to knock it unconscious first. After it stops moving, drain the blood quickly, discard the internal organs, and then rinse it with clean water.
For the first dish, Meng Wanqiu prepared stir-fried eel. In her previous life, she loved eating, drinking, and having fun, striving to give herself the best in food, clothing, housing, and transportation. Eating more often naturally led to better cooking.
The same goes for other things. She can make clothes, shoes, and even jewelry and hair accessories for herself.
But now, resources are scarce and she has no materials to cook even if she wants to, so she can only show off her cooking skills occasionally.
Stir-fried eel is a simple home-cooked dish. When Meng Wanqiu went to the south to carry out a mission, he stayed in an inn. Stir-fried eel was the specialty of that inn.
After eating it, Meng Wanqiu couldn't forget the stir-fried eel. She paid the innkeeper to learn how to make it, but how could the innkeeper teach her such a special skill so easily? Meng Wanqiu spent half a month digging eels with the innkeeper's son before the innkeeper agreed to teach her.
But the prerequisite is that after learning, Meng Wanqiu cannot open a restaurant using this dish.
It turns out that the reason why this stir-fried eel tastes so much better than others is because a secret sauce is added to it. The sauce was developed by the proprietress, and the raw material is actually the toon that is commonly found in the mountains.
The Chinese toon sprouts are blanched in water to remove the pungent smell, then chopped into pieces and placed in a ceramic jar. They are then fermented with soy sauce and can be used after a full year.
After being taken out, the Chinese toon has lost its original flavor, but has turned into another special and mellow flavor, which is perfectly blended with the freshness of the eel, becoming an excellent delicacy.
Because Chinese toon is not a precious ingredient, Meng Wanqiu only has the opportunity to make it in this life. This sauce is not only delicious when stir-fried with any dish, but the two are the best partners when stir-frying eels.
Onions, ginger and garlic are grown in the vegetable garden in the backyard. You can just pick them when you need them. It is convenient and fresh.
Heat the oil, add onion segments, ginger slices, garlic cloves, and chili peppers and stir-fry until fragrant; pour in the chopped eel segments and stir-fry until they change color; then add the secret dipping sauce and salt to taste and continue to stir-fry; then pour boiling water to cover the eel segments, cover with a lid, and simmer over medium heat until the eel is soft and tasty; after the sauce is reduced, add chopped green onions and serve.
A dish of stir-fried eel is ready.
One dish was not enough for a family to eat, so Meng Wanqiu made a tomato and potato soup, which was sour and appetizing. A spoonful of it could make you finish a bowl of rice.
In the middle, Meng Wanqiu also took the time to scoop up some rice soup. Grandma Meng loved to drink this. It was thick and not inferior to rice porridge, but the rice aroma was even stronger.
After preparing dinner for the family, Meng Wanqiu's face turned red from the heat and her back was covered in sweat. She decided to go to the room to take a shower.
On the other side, Pei Xingzhi followed Meng's father into the house. After entering July, the temperature became higher and higher, which was a torture for those who worked in the fields.
But no one complained. People of this era were born with the attributes of hard work and perseverance. The country was moving forward through trial and error, and the people at the bottom were also working hard to produce.
It is no exaggeration to say that women are treated like animals and men are treated like machines.
He fetched a bucket of cool water from the well, buried his head in the basin, and then scooped a ladle of water to pour over his body, which temporarily dispelled the deadly heat.
Of course, the one who did this was Meng's father, who had been a soldier. Pei Xingzhi had the bad habits of an intellectual and never wanted to expose his arms and belly in public. No matter how hot it was, he would just wet a handkerchief to wipe his face and neck, and would only go into the house to wipe his body.
Look, he was holding a basin of water and pushed open the door.
"Bang——"
The wooden basin overturned, and water splashed all over the floor, wetting Pei Xingzhi's trouser legs.
There was another "bang" sound.
The door was slammed shut again.
Pei Xingzhi turned around woodenly, his movements as stiff as a rusty machine, and the scene just now kept replaying in his mind.
The fair and plump body, the exquisite curves, the wet black hair draped over the back like seaweed, a drop of water sliding down the shoulder to the snow-capped peak, and the ignorant gaze looking at him, deeply pierced Pei Xingzhi's eyes red.
And the scenery below...
"Hey, Xingzhi, why don't you wash your face when it's so hot? Look how red your face is, just like you have a fever."
Pei Xingzhi: "...It's okay, Mom. I'm not hot. I just want to sit for a while."
Meng Wanqiu in the room: ...
I was a little shocked and a little overwhelmed after being seen naked.
Forget it, just watch it. You have to watch it sooner or later anyway.
No, I still suffered a loss. I will find a chance to look back next time.
At the dinner table, Pei Xingzhi still sat next to Meng Wanqiu, but the two of them didn't say a word to each other throughout the whole process, and their eyes never met.
Dong Hanyun noticed something was wrong with the two of them and glanced at Pei Xingzhi suspiciously.
Pei Xingzhi ignored her. They had a brief exchange last time, and both knew each other's true nature. Currently, they kept to themselves, but only if Pei Xingzhi didn't upset Meng Wanqiu.
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