Chapter 67: Raw Materials for Making Yeast
Tu Subo heard the whistle, raised his head and looked at her, his eyes seemed to ask: Don’t you trust me enough?
Gu Yuexuan couldn't help laughing at his look. She played with the wooden whistle with a hole in it and tied with a red string, and couldn't help but admire it. "I have to say, your craftsmanship as a carpenter is truly superb. This little gadget is so small and exquisite, and it is both beautiful and practical."
Tu Subo ignored her teasing and walked steadily closer. He gently straightened the red rope in his hand and hung it on her chest. He fixed his eyes on the swaying whistle and warned her seriously again, "Don't go too far."
Gu Yuexuan poked the wooden whistle lightly, and an inexplicable tenderness suddenly surged in her heart: "Okay, see you later." In order to make it more convenient for her to walk in the mountains, Tu Subo specially prepared a straight wooden stick for her to open the way.
She waved the sickle in her hand, weaving through the overgrown weeds, accurately searching for what she needed, and bending down from time to time to carefully cut off each one.
By the time she had finally gathered all the necessary herbs, it was getting late.
At this time in the past, Tu Subo was busy transporting bundles of firewood down the mountain, but today he did not leave the place, but just stood quietly beside the pile of seven or eight bundles of firewood.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the clay pot filled with syrup that had been taken away by Yu and the others. He asked Gu Yuexuan, "Did you find everything you need?"
Although Gu Yuexuan's face was covered in mud, her eyes sparkled with excitement: "We have everything, we have everything! When we get home, we'll pick some osmanthus leaves and dry them in the sun, and then we can start making the yeast."
Once the yeast is ready, making wine at home is no longer a problem. Tu Subo was infected by the enthusiasm in her eyes, and the corners of his mouth curled up slightly. He reached out to take her backpack filled with various green plants.
"Let's go down the mountain first."
Gu Yuexuan thought she could walk with the backpack on her back, but Tu Subo's hand did not retract after taking the backpack, but waited patiently.
After a moment of hesitation, she handed him the backpack, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, and pointed to the pile of firewood on the ground and said, "You have to make another trip. It's actually not that hard."
"Isn't the effort I put in a day enough?" Tu Subo muttered, then walked ahead. He cleverly blocked the dead branches and weeds that blocked his view, making the journey down the mountain very easy and pleasant.
When they reached the foot of the mountain, Tu Subo returned the ownership of the backpack to Gu Yuexuan, then bent down to pick up the firewood scattered on the ground that had not yet returned home, and carried it on his shoulders without hesitation.
He not only carried the firewood pile, but also escorted Gu Yuexuan all the way home. Gu Yuexuan had just put the items away and exchanged a few words with Xi Lanfang, then turned around and found that Tu Subo had turned around and left.
This person never even set foot inside the house.
Xi Lanfang hadn't noticed Tu Subo's brief lingering at the door. Facing the messy branches that Gu Yuexuan had brought home, she couldn't help but wonder, "Yuexuan, I'm afraid these branches won't be easy to refine into charcoal, right?"
After days of hard work, everyone has mastered every aspect of charcoal burning under a clear division of labor, and has honed their ability to identify high-quality charcoal.
However, these branches in the basket obviously do not meet the standards for charcoal burning, and it can even be said that they are far from it.
Gu Yuexuan slightly restrained the fluctuation in her eyes, and explained with a chuckle, "I plan to use these to brew fine wine. They are not suitable for burning charcoal."
At this moment, Tu Sumin walked out of the house to drink water. Hearing this, he put down the water bowl and asked curiously: "Are you really going to make wine?"
"Am I kidding?" Gu Yuexuan said calmly as she sorted out the fallen branches, "Let's try it first. Maybe we can make good wine."
As soon as she finished speaking, she stood up and prepared to look for the missing osmanthus leaves so that she could wash them together. However, just as she stood up, Tu Subo suddenly appeared at the door, having returned again.
He held a handful of long, delicate cassia twigs in his arms and asked, "Are these the leaves you're talking about?"
Gu Yuexuan was quite surprised: "Did you really go to chop cassia branches?"
I just mentioned it casually on the way, but I didn't expect him to bring back what I needed so quickly.
Tu Subo replied calmly, "Didn't you say these branches are useful?"
He had originally planned to just move a stool to pick the leaves, but he simply cut the entire branch back.
Gu Yuexuan couldn't help but raise her thumbs up and praised him, "He is indeed a real man as the eldest brother."
This swift and decisive action is simply amazing!
A barely perceptible smile quietly appeared in Tu Subo's eyes.
He gently put down the item in his hand and said casually, "As long as it's suitable, it's fine. You go ahead and do your thing. I'll go get some firewood."
With the large handful of osmanthus leaves collected by Tu Subo, the raw materials needed to make koji were finally complete.
Gu Yuexuan thought that while the sun was shining, she should quickly air-dry these things. After sorting them out, she began to wash them carefully.
She carefully selected and cleaned the hot pepper, wild tea leaves, black lotus, and osmanthus leaves one by one, then spread them evenly on a sieve and placed them in a place with the most sunlight to dry.
In order to speed up the removal of moisture from these materials, she dried them in the sun during the day. When the sun set, she moved the sieve to the charcoal pit in the backyard and baked them using the hot temperature of the charcoal fire.
A few days later, thanks to the charcoal pit's constant heating day and night, the material in the sieve had been roasted to the point where it crumbled with a light squeeze. Gu Yuexuan set up her machete in the yard.
The four ingredients were mixed together, and she chopped them into small pieces with a knife as best she could, then poured them into the stone mortar and began to pound them.
The crushing process requires a lot of physical strength.
Tu Suminfei took the initiative to come over and said gently: "Sister-in-law, you go to the back to monitor the charcoal pit, and let me take over this work."
He reached out to take the hammer, but Gu Yuexuan did not let go.
She calmly avoided Tu Suminfei's hand and said with a smile, "I can handle it here, you can go and do your thing."
Tu Suminfei's hand hung in the air, and he retracted his fingertips slightly embarrassedly, muttering to himself playfully: "My sister-in-law seems a little distant from me. Could it be because of something my brother said or did?"
Gu Yuexuan's heart suddenly trembled. Thinking back to Tu Subo mumbling about all the faults of Tu Su Minfei, she couldn't help but find it a little funny.
"Why do you think so?" she asked softly, with a barely perceptible hint of teasing at the corner of her mouth.
Then, Tu Su Minfei sighed and said, "You may not know yet, but my elder brother cares deeply about you. It's just that he is always taciturn and not good at expressing himself."
"Why, is there any rift between you and your eldest brother?"
There was a genuine curiosity in her eyes, as if she was hearing all this for the first time, leaving Tu Su Minfei speechless for a moment.
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