Chapter 016 Chapter 16 Oil Press

The fat aunt saw that Lin Yue was a person who could cooperate with her for a long time. She had seen through all of Lin Yue's little tricks. But she was not angry. She bought a lot of things and was considered a big customer. The fat aunt even offered to deliver the things to her home, guaranteeing that they would be delivered secretly at night so that no one would notice.

Lin Yue refused, made an appointment with her to meet here in the afternoon, and was about to leave.

The fat aunt stopped him. She was so attentive for a reason. When she heard Lin Yue say that her husband's family grew a lot of peanuts, she became interested. The Chinese New Year was coming soon, and every household couldn't do without the four traditional things: melon seeds, peanuts, candy, and tea.

Lin Yue had set a trap at the beginning, thinking about whether the fat aunt had any way to get peanut oil.

She has been wanting peanut oil for a long time. As a modern person, cooking without oil is simply a torture.

Every year the village organizes a unified oil pressing process for the villagers. Lin Yue has seen the tools used to press the oil. First, the peanuts need to be crushed with a stone mill, steamed in a pot, and wrapped with straw into round cakes. The cakes are then placed in a cylindrical container called a press and the oil is squeezed out by human impact.

This set of tools was large and bulky. Lin Yue could put them away in the space, but when she put them back after use, it would be very easy to leave traces of moving, so she could only watch and did not dare to have any bad ideas.

Now when she heard Auntie Fatty mention peanuts, she said with embarrassment: "We do have quite a few peanuts, but the New Year is coming soon and we are running out of oil. My mother is looking for somewhere to get oil. The big oil presses in the village are too big, so the peanuts we have are not worth using."

The fat aunt's eyes lit up when she heard this, and she asked hurriedly, "How much do you have at home? If you can give me 200 kilograms, I will recommend you a good place to press oil."

Lin Yue was in a dilemma. She had revealed a lot today, and she thought this fat lady was okay, and she thought they could have a long-term cooperation in the future. But she didn't want to interact with her too often, for fear of being discovered or being tricked.

Now is not the time of the later years yet, and there are still many people doing transactions secretly like this. Generally, they have some connections, and the security team will not arrest them. But when the transaction is completed, buyers like Lin Yue who have no background may be arrested.

Don't show off your wealth. A big tree attracts the wind. Lin Yue is afraid of being slaughtered like a fat sheep.

She said in embarrassment: "Our village is far from here. It's not worth going so far just for a little oil. Let's just forget it."

The fat aunt grabbed Lin Yue's arm and said anxiously, "Hey, sister, don't be in a hurry to leave. Listen to me and I will tell you slowly. I have a relative whose family used to run a small oil workshop. He has a set of old tools used for oil pressing in the past. Because they are worthless, but he is reluctant to throw them away, he has kept them at home. If you want them, his house is not far from here. I will take you to have a look."

Lin Yue was moved and agreed, but still pretended to be embarrassed and said: "I can only give you 150 kilograms of peanuts, and they have to be in the shells. If you think it's okay, let's go over in the afternoon and take a look. I will bring the peanuts back then. Anyway, I have to take them home anyway."

The fat lady wanted peanuts in their shells, so she responded with an eager “Come on!”

After saying goodbye to the fat aunt, Lin Yue carefully turned to the alley she had entered before, holding the two pieces of cloth. Fortunately, she didn't meet anyone. She breathed a sigh of relief, went back to the space to change her clothes, came out empty-handed, and went to the same state-owned store and bought half a pound of sugar and half a pound of sorghum candy.

She did not look for a hotel to eat. At that time, whether it was a state-owned hotel or other collective hotels, you needed food coupons to eat. She had no food coupons, so she had to ride the 28-inch bicycle again on an empty stomach and ride to Xiaokubo Village.

Passing by the post office, Lin Yue saw a familiar figure. She followed him secretly and saw that person went into the post office and was negotiating with the staff. The person seemed to be dissatisfied with the result of the negotiation and his voice suddenly became louder: "Why not? I come here to collect it every month. I remember clearly that it arrived today! Please find it for me quickly. My family is waiting for money urgently."

The staff ignored the man, and he made a fuss and then turned and left.

Seeing someone was about to come out, Lin Yue quickly hid far away and secretly looked over there. When the man came out on the street, she finally saw his face clearly. It was indeed her father-in-law Zhang Zhiwei.

But she really didn't know that her honest father-in-law had such a side. He probably thought that she used to come to collect the allowance every month, and he wanted to come and show off his face. Now, he was turned away.

Lin Yue was secretly happy, but he just watched it and didn't take it seriously.

Kokubo Village is very close to the town, and it only takes about ten minutes to get there by bike. Lin Yue parked his bike in the space at the entrance of the village, and walked towards the carpenter's house while asking for directions.

She had no trouble getting what she wanted, as most of the items were already in stock at the carpenter's place. The only thing that was out of stock was the long table. The old carpenter had already prepared everything she ordered in the past few days, and she also borrowed a cart from the old man.

There was a lot of furniture, and the old man helped to carry it four times to the entrance of the village, and promised to return the cart before the evening. She paid the remaining 15 yuan with the man and said goodbye to the old man.

Lin Yue was afraid that the old man would come back, so he stood in the cold wind for 20 minutes. Seeing that no one came here, he dared to enter the space with his things.

Lin Yue was extremely hungry at this time, so he picked some vegetables from the vegetable garden and made a simple loofah and mushroom soup. He ate a big bowl of noodles with the soup, and finally felt relieved.

Lin Yue had just gone for a meat dumpling a few days ago, and she still felt a little unsatisfied. She looked at the chickens and rabbits playing happily on the grass, and her eyes were shining green.

After a short rest, she came to a flat piece of land, which she had compacted using a stone roller she had secretly "borrowed" from the threshing ground.

She cleaned up two places, one large and one small. She used the large one to dry food, and she wanted to build a house on the small one. Unfortunately, she had no experience in building a house, and after working for several days, she couldn't even build a thatched house.

Lin Yue was now standing in the smaller area. She rolled the ground several times with a stone roller before moving the furniture over bit by bit.

She could actually move things in space and even change the topography of space with her mind. She had tried it before and it was successful, but the space was also closed and she herself felt listless and without energy.

Fortunately, it was daytime and the sheep were not in the room, otherwise the two little guys would have starved.

Later, she tried a few more times and found that as long as she did something in the space with her mind, even if it was just picking up a small stone from the air, she would be bounced out of the space. However, sometimes the time was long, sometimes short, and the shortest time was a few minutes before the space was opened again.

She needed the space today, so she couldn't be lazy and had to move the furniture herself.

In fact, there is another way, which is to put the things where you want them when you put them in, but who made her forget this?

After moving the furniture, Lin Yue found another sack and filled it with two sacks of peanuts. This kind of sack usually weighs 70 to 80 kilograms. The 150 kilograms that the fat aunt mentioned refers to these two sacks, and there is no need to weigh them.

The peanuts collected in Lin Yue's space are basically all here. Peeling peanuts is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and she really doesn't want to do this job. This time she can take the opportunity to sell them all. Anyway, it's only about ten days away from the next harvest, so she is not afraid of running out of peanuts.

After resting for a while, Lin Yue left the space and went to reunite with the fat aunt.

The place where the fat aunt's relatives lived was called Youfangtaizi Street. There used to be many small oil-pressing workshops here, and a few of them are still doing it secretly, but it is difficult to get food now, so those few families are just struggling to survive.

Lin Yue pushed the cart and turned into the street, and saw the little boy from the fat aunt's family throwing stones at the corner. When the boy saw Lin Yue coming, he jumped up and ran into a small alley next to him, not afraid of being lost.

She turned in and found it was a dead end, with a side door on one wall. She parked the cart at the door and looked inside. She found the fat lady and a dark and thin young man standing in the yard. They also noticed her and came out to help her carry two bags of peanuts in.

This is a very run-down courtyard, and it is obvious that no one has lived here for a long time. There are four adobe houses in total, and the roof of the outermost one has collapsed. There are a lot of withered weeds in the yard, and there is also a small locust tree, which must have been cut down once, but it grew back on its own, and many small locust tree seedlings have sprouted from the exposed roots.

Together they carried the two bags of peanuts into a room in the middle, which should be the stove room. A woman was sitting in front of the stove. The light in the room was too dim to see her face clearly.

The woman opened the bag, grabbed a handful of peanuts, looked at them, and without saying a word, turned around and went into the inner room to get a cloth bag. She poured everything in it into the pot, squatted in front of the stove and started to light the fire.

Seeing this, the dark and thin man quickly called Lin Yue: "Sister, let's go to the yard and sit for a while. There's no one in the house." There was a sense of joy in his voice.

The fat aunt also smiled, took her hand and said enthusiastically: "Yes, yes, you want something to press oil, right? Gangzi, take us to see your wooden press."

The three of them left the house, and the dark-skinned man named Gangzi led the way. When they reached the south wall of the yard, he lifted a cover board, revealing a long wooden stake underneath. A rectangular hole was dug out on one side of the stake, and many wooden blocks were neatly inserted inside. There were also a few wooden hammers, straw circles, and two stone mills, one large and one small, scattered around.

These things must have not been used for a long time. There is a thick layer of dirt on them, and the handle of the mallet is almost broken.

Gangzi introduced: "This is a small wooden press. Go home and take out the wooden wedges inside. Wash these and you can use them." As he spoke, he took out all the wood blocks and showed them to Lin Yue. Although they were covered with mud, they were not damaged.

She knew all the steps of oil pressing, so she didn't need any introduction. She just pointed at the wooden hammers and pressing rings and asked, "Can you prepare all these for me? I won't have to work any harder."

Without saying a word, Gangzi picked up a stone and knocked a few times on the place where the wooden handle and the hammer were connected. The wooden handle fell off. Then he went into the house and got a knife. He found a piece of wood of similar length, carved out a wedge with a few strokes, and knocked the stone into the hammer. Then he repeated the same process and replaced the remaining wooden hammers.

He then explained to Lin Yue: "I only have a little of this grass now. I'll give you some. You can use whatever you want later. Just make a loop to trap the peanut residue."

Lin Yue knew this and didn't dwell on it any more.

After a while, the aroma of fried peanuts began to waft through the yard.

The fat aunt invited the two of them into the kitchen and grabbed a handful of peanuts for each of them to taste.

The peanuts were still hot when he received them. Lin Yue peeled off the crispy shell and ate one. It turned out to be spiced, which is very rare in the market nowadays.

After tasting it, the fat aunt praised the woman's craftsmanship and paid Lin Yue 92 yuan on the spot, two yuan more than agreed before, and also filled a cloth bag with a big handful of peanuts for her.

Lin Yue took advantage of their good time and asked about the price of the wooden press. In the end, he bought a set of wooden press and the small stone mill for 11 yuan, and asked Gangzi to help him carry them onto the cart.

She carried the ten kilograms of cotton she had bought earlier onto the cart, said goodbye to the fat aunt and the others, and pushed the cart away.

It started to snow lightly, and my face felt wet and slippery. When Lin Yue got home by bike, it was already mid-afternoon.

She cleaned the car carefully, returned it to Aunt Su's house, gave each of the children two pieces of sorghum candy, and went into the house to see the two little guys.

The two children hadn't seen their mother for a day. The younger sister stretched out her arms anxiously for a hug as soon as she saw someone. The older brother smiled cutely when he saw Lin Yue, and then in less than three seconds, he burst into tears, looking like he had been wronged.

Lin Yue felt so distressed that he picked up the two little ones, one in each hand, and coaxed them gently.

Aunt Su saw the two children like this and said with a smile, "These two kids know how to read people's faces. They know you're not around, so they're very well behaved. They sleep when they're full and laugh when you tease them. They're not naughty at all. Now that they see their mother is here, they start to cry. You can tell they're smart."

Aunt Su wanted to keep her here for dinner, but Lin Yue declined. She left three big apples as a thank you gift for borrowing the bicycle, and said goodbye to Aunt Su.

The snow was falling heavier and heavier. Lin Yue, holding the two little ones and leading three sheep, walked home step by step in the north wind and heavy snow.