This honest, hardworking woman, who had suffered a lifetime of hardship, was now burdened by her son's poor health after her husband's death. Now that someone was willing to help her son, she was not good with words and did not understand social etiquette, so she could only express her gratitude in this clumsy way.
Pei Yao felt a pang of sadness watching this scene. She knew that if she didn't accept the two eggs now, Liu's mother would be upset, so she accepted them and would find a way to return them later.
It was already past four in the afternoon when Pei Yao and Chen Fang returned home after saying goodbye to Liu Jia. This trip had taken up a lot of time.
When they opened the courtyard gate, they found that Yunniang and the others were not at home. There was a small piece of rough paper on the table in the courtyard, weighed down by a stone.
Above, written in delicate small regular script, was a line of words: We went to the river to pick fruit, and left some food in the pot in the kitchen.
The signature is Yunniang.
Chen Fang and Pei Yao had eaten wontons a little after 1 p.m., so they weren't hungry at the moment.
The two of them split up the money they had earned that day and calculated that the two buckets of ice jelly, without deducting the cost, totaled a little over four taels of silver.
Both of them were satisfied with the income, and Chen Fang carefully put the money away.
Pei Yao then went to busy herself making fermented rice wine. Fermentation takes a day or two, so she had to make some lychee fermented rice wine to prepare for the future.
The 50 jin of glutinous rice, plus the new glutinous rice Pei Yao bought today, totaling about 100 jin, were all mixed with lychees and fermented together according to the previous steps.
If we don't need that much fermented rice for the ice jelly, we can use it to ferment lychee wine, so it won't be wasted.
Yunniang and the others at home picked a lot of fresh lychees this morning, which is more than enough to ferment today's glutinous rice wine.
Even if it's not enough, we still have some dried lychees at home that we've been drying for the past couple of days, which we can use.
There aren't enough people at home right now, especially since the best time to pick lychees is June and July. So, the best time for Pei Yao to dry lychees is during these two months. If she waits any longer until August, she'll miss the harvest season and there won't be any left.
We have enough pitaya at home for now, so we can wait until later to harvest it. The main concern is lychees; if we don't harvest them this year, we'll have to wait until next year.
So when everyone came to deliver the snails, Pei Yao told them about the purchase of dried lychees.
The villagers used to dry lychees whole, but Pei Yao wouldn't buy those. She only bought the peeled and pitted ones, which made it easier for Pei Yao to use them later.
They also buy pitai fruit, but only the seeds inside, and only after they have been dried.
Both of these are common wild fruits in the mountains, and this is the peak season for them to bear fruit, so they are almost everywhere. Normally, no one would be willing to spend money to buy them.
Dried lychees cost one coin per pound, while fresh lychees cost one coin for five pounds. Dried lychee seeds also cost one coin per pound.
Although they got a bargain, those people were still incredulous and full of doubts.
Can you sell all the wild fruits on this mountain now?
They could easily pick dozens of kilograms of lychees and bring them back.
But the Pei family is no joke. They used to buy even unwanted snails, so it's normal for them to buy the lychees and thunderfruits that are plentiful in the mountains now.
So people went up the mountain to pick them that very day. Some people who had lychee trees in their yards picked them right there on the spot.
Then the whole family worked together to peel and pit the lychees and dry them in the sun.
These plants were originally planted in the yard simply for our own consumption when they bore fruit. Now that we can sell them for money, it's practically like picking up money off the ground.
After steaming the glutinous rice and lychee flesh, Pei Yao went to check on the fermenting glutinous rice wine.
It had been fermenting for two days. In the weather of Lingnan, two days should be enough. So Pei Yao removed the oilcloth that had been covering it, and a fragrant aroma of wine wafted out, along with a faint fragrance of rice and lychee in the air.
The fermented glutinous rice and lychee pulp all floated on the top layer. Pei Yao used a clean bamboo ladle to swirl the glutinous rice on the surface a couple of times, skimming off the top layer, and then gently scooped up a ladleful of wine from the bottom with the bamboo ladle.
Because it hasn't been filtered yet, the lychee wine is still a bit cloudy. Pei Yao put it to her nose and smelled it; there was a faint fragrance of lychee and wine.
"Yao girl, is this the wine you were talking about brewing?" Chen Fang also came over to look at the wine that Pei Yao had brewed.
"Yes, the lychee glutinous rice wine I brewed earlier just finished fermenting today." After saying that, Pei Yao took a small sip with a bamboo ladle. Lychee glutinous rice wine is not as strong as liquor and doesn't burn the heart. Lychee wine is more like a fruit wine, with a sweet taste and a light lychee fragrance. Compared to liquor, which is suitable for men to drink heartily, lychee wine is more suitable for women to sip.
Pei Yao was initially unsure whether women in this era drank alcohol, so she had inquired with Chen Fang and Yun Niang before brewing the wine. She learned that many women in this era did drink alcohol, and some could even drink more than men.
However, the drinking was limited to the wealthy and powerful families of Kyoto. Kyoto was extremely luxurious, and drinking was especially popular among the wives and daughters of officials.
Even men in ordinary farming families rarely drink alcohol, because many of them can't even afford to eat grain, let alone have spare money to buy alcohol.
After taking a sip of the wine, Chen Fang's eyes lit up: "Yao girl, this wine even has the aroma of lychee. That's quite rare. It's the first time I've ever tasted it."
Pei Yao smiled and asked, "Auntie, do you think it tastes good?"
Chen Fang nodded: "It's very good, much better than the wine sold in the taverns in Kyoto."
As she spoke, Chen Fang took another sip. She genuinely believed that if this wine were sold in Kyoto, it would definitely become a sensation throughout the city.
Pei Yao poured out the fermented wine from the large vat and filtered it through cheesecloth, instantly making the originally cloudy wine clear.
Fermented glutinous rice becomes hollow, with little weight and no taste, but Pei Yao didn't intend to waste it. She pressed the rice residue again and again until no more wine could be extracted, and then set the rice residue aside so she could feed it to the chickens later with rice bran.
Pei Yao bought very small wine jars, each jar could only hold one jin (500 grams) of wine. After filtering, the lychee wine she brewed this time yielded a total of twenty jars.
There was about half a jar left, not enough to fill a full jar, so we stopped filling it.
When Yunniang and the others returned, Pei Yao had already prepared dinner. The group poured all the fruits they had picked that day into the yard, covering most of it with lush green Pili fruits.
Pei Yichen collapsed to the ground as soon as he entered the courtyard, exhausted.
Pei Yao and Chen Fang quickly told them to rest for a while, and that they could eat soon.
"Cousin, how's business today?" Pei Yichen, who was sprawled on the ground, looked up at Pei Yao.
Pei Yao nodded: "It's not bad, of course."
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