"Let's eat first. Here, Mom will get you another bowl to put the meat in. We killed a rabbit today, and we chopped half of it to stew with mushrooms at noon. We've saved the other half for you." The villagers who come to work are also provided with a meal at noon because they need to finish building the house within a month, so the schedule is quite tight.
We eat lunch at their house, and after lunch we can rest for a quarter of an hour and then immediately get back to work. If we let the villagers go home for lunch, they will definitely take a nap after lunch. They will take a half-hour nap and then linger after getting up, which wastes a lot of time in the day.
Zhao Guihua cooks dried meat every day and uses a lot of oil when stir-frying vegetables. The villagers like oily dishes and are happy to have lunch at her house, and they work harder.
That night, Xingxing ate a big bowl of rabbit meat and two bowls of rice. Her little belly was so full that she collapsed on the bamboo chair under the eaves, not wanting to move.
"Mother, come here quickly, we have something to tell you, something very important." Zhou Sanfu was in a hurry, wanting to start brewing bayberry wine and making plum wine chicken immediately according to the method on the bamboo slip.
"I'm busy, what are you yelling for? Can't you see we're busy?" Zhao Guihua didn't want to pay any attention to her son. She was busy preparing hot water for Xingxing's bath, and she had to soak her feet before the bath.
She had just checked, and the little girl's rosy feet really did have several blisters. It broke her and Zhou Laoda's hearts to see that. They had to quickly soak their daughter's feet and then apply some medicinal powder to the soles of her feet, otherwise her feet would hurt tomorrow.
After washing her feet, Xingxing was so sleepy she could barely keep her eyes open. She rubbed her eyes with her little hands and her little head kept nodding. Zhao Guihua carried her to the room to take a bath, and the little girl fell asleep halfway through the bath.
Zhao Guihua quickly helped Xingxing take a bath, picked her up, dried her off, dressed her, carried her to the kang (a heated brick bed), and covered her with a quilt. Zhao Guihua didn't leave immediately; sitting on the kang, looking at Xingxing's peaceful and delicate sleeping face, she felt particularly soft and content.
"Mother, Mother, are you done yet? Come out quickly!" Zhou Sanfu, oblivious to her feelings, leaned over the door frame, ruining her good mood.
Zhao Guihua turned around and glared at Sanfu, then tiptoed out of the room, gently closing the door behind her. She muttered under her breath, "You've been calling out all night, trying to summon my soul. What important thing has to happen at night?"
After being scolded by his mother, Zhou Sanfu felt a bit of a heart attack, but now was not the time to dwell on it. The important thing was to get down to business. Who was he doing this for? Wasn't it all for this family? He was really worried sick, and he didn't even get a kind word in return.
He led his mother to the main room, pointed to the seven baskets of bayberries, and asked, "Mother, do you know why we picked so many bayberries today?"
Zhao Guihua rolled her eyes at him and said impatiently, "Speak quickly if you have something to say, I don't have time to chat with you."
Zhou Sanfu suffered another heart attack. This was his own mother, his biological daughter, and he endured it.
So he patiently said, "Last time, my elder brother and I brought back bamboo slips. The bamboo slips contained recipes and methods for brewing wine, one of which was to brew wine with bayberries."
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