Chapter 15 Chapter 15 The surname Sun
As usual, Kang He strolled around the county town. Firstly, he wanted to get familiar with the streets; secondly, the county town was bustling, so he could get a better understanding of the people's lives there.
It never hurts to ask more and gain more knowledge.
He compared prices and bought a bag of preserved winter melon at the pastry shop and some fat pork at the meat market.
He bought it from Sister Wu, the same place where he bought the bones last time. She had a good memory and recognized him, so she gave him a piece of pig skin.
After leaving the meat market, I went to Ge's dry goods store in Maoerxiang to pick up some ingredients for cooking.
"The noodles are indeed white, but the price is a bit too high. I'm a regular customer, so please give me a few cents."
Kang He was about to check out when a woman at the counter was bargaining with the shopkeeper.
He waited patiently behind her, watching as the woman wanted to buy a bag of starch.
"Mrs. Ma is a regular customer of my shop, so I should give you a little leniency. But you have a good eye, and you spotted the good new merchandise. So I charged you a high price. I'm not making any money from you, but from renting the shop."
Then he picked up a grain of starch, crushed it into powder with his thumb, and showed it to the woman: "Look, it's pure white inside and out, like snow, without any of that rubbish sand."
The woman also thought the goods were good, but she refused to pay the price.
"Thirty cents for a bag of this weight, half a pound, is way too expensive."
"My dear sister, you have fern powder, which is not easy to come by. If you think it's too expensive, how about kudzu powder? It's twenty-two cents a bag, and I'll give you two cents."
The woman said, "It just so happened that the guy at home came back from outside with a jar of good vinegar, and kept saying he wanted to eat a bowl of sour fern powder. I thought he worked hard outside, otherwise I would never have been willing to buy such expensive fern powder."
The innkeeper said, "I'd say no one has ever been as lucky as Brother Liu, to have a wife as virtuous as Madam Ma. How about I give her half a bag of dried cabbage?"
The woman's face lit up with joy: "You always give me gifts when I come back. How kind of you to do that."
"Who told you to always look after my business here?"
After a while, the shopkeeper sent the woman away.
"Teach the little brother to wait."
"It's no problem."
Kang He listened for a while from behind, and instead of feeling impatient, he was very interested.
He asked, "Can you collect fern powder here?"
"Yes, we accept fern flour, arrowroot flour, and bean flour. But we don't accept inferior goods in our shop. Fern flour is fern flour, and arrowroot flour is arrowroot flour. If you use bean flour to fill in fern flour and pass it off as good quality, I will definitely not accept it when I inspect it, and I won't let you come to our shop again in the future."
The shopkeeper said, "The cleaner it is, the better the powder is. We will give you a fair price here."
Kang He listened carefully and asked, "I wonder what the store's purchase price is?"
The shopkeeper lowered his voice: "Fern powder is 45 coins per pound, and arrowroot powder is 25 coins."
Kang He was silent for a moment, then asked, "Do you have vermicelli here?"
"How could there not be?"
The shopkeeper was also patient. He turned around, took a ladder, placed it on top of the shelf, climbed up a few steps, and took a box down from the height.
After opening the box, there were probably more than ten pounds of dry vermicelli inside, all tied up very nicely. Some were tied with hemp ropes, and some with red ropes, as if to distinguish different types of vermicelli.
"It's top-notch stuff. Throw a finger into chicken broth and simmer it; it's smooth and chewy. Or, after cooking it, add a spoonful of vinegar and sprinkle with finely chopped green onions, garlic, and ginger; it's very refreshing. Mr. Xue's second young master loves it the most, and Mr. Wang's kitchen often buys three or five pounds of it."
Just by seeing how well the storekeeper prepared the vermicelli, Kang He guessed that it was a good product.
Hearing him bragging again, I thought that only wealthy families could afford to eat it.
"What's the price at the store?"
The shopkeeper raised his index finger and thumb, making the sign of eight. "This is the price for kudzu starch noodles, and fern starch will cost twenty more. Good stuff, so there's no fear of not being able to sell it."
"This thing is not easy to make, but it tastes great. It's good for eating yourself or giving it as a gift, and it can be stored for a long time."
Kang He nodded and said yes. This bundle of vermicelli weighed only half a pound, and it was sold at this price, which meant one or two hundred yuan per pound.
He didn't ask the price of the vermicelli. Since the selling price was so high, the selling price must not be low either.
After paying, he took one last look around the ironworks, but didn't buy anything before returning to the mountain...
Fan Jing, who was in the mountains, didn't go out in the morning.
He heated up two steamed buns for lunch. Kang He was worried that Fan Jing would have nothing to eat after he came down the mountain, so he steamed them last night.
After eating, he took a nap before getting up, hanging the arrow on his body, locking the door and going to check the trap.
It hasn't rained in the past few days, so the forest is clean and easy to walk in.
When he saw the soil that Kang He had dug on the road, he wondered if business was good today.
Fan Jing arrived near the first trap, but before he got close to it, he saw a ghostly figure.
He pointed at the place where he had wrapped it with linen and looked at it cautiously.
The man was not very tall, perhaps as tall as him.
But he has thick bones and a much stronger body.
It was a dark face with a scar as long as a little finger under the left eye.
He had an axe on his waist and a longbow on his shoulder.
After recognizing who it was, Fan Jing said nothing and walked forward with light steps.
"Oh, that was the whisper, it was Dajing, you scared me!"
The man was concentrating on the trap. When he turned around, he was startled by a person suddenly appearing behind him.
Fan Jing looked at the person in front of him coldly: "What are you doing here?"
"Well, I just went up the mountain today and happened to pass by this side..." The man felt a little guilty when he saw Fan Jing's cold and murderous look, and wanted to argue.
A pair of slippery little eyes suddenly noticed that there was a circle of gauze wrapped around the person's arm, and the tense face immediately relaxed.
He stared at Fan Jing's arm and said with a grin, "Oh, you got hurt? Is your arm serious?"
Fan Jing knew that this person had no good intentions.
Except for the master and his apprentices and their own family, the hunters in the mountains set traps and hunted at the foot of the mountain.
Although the territory has not been clearly demarcated to determine which area belongs to whom, everyone has a rough idea of what belongs to whom, and those who follow the rules will not go to other people's territory.
It just so happened that Sun Dasheng from their village had poor skills and was only an amateur in using the bow and arrow. He loved to hang out in places where others had set traps.
Many hunters knew about his behavior, but they hadn't caught him in the act. And since his cousin was the village head, no one could say anything.
Seeing his malicious look, Fan Jing swung his arm and said, "You try it."
Seeing this, Sun Dasheng waved his hands.
He took two steps back, gave Fan Jing a bitter smile, and slipped away.
Fan Jing saw that the people had left, and then went towards the trap.
It’s no wonder that Sun Dasheng was wandering around. He was lucky today. The trap on the new surface had collapsed, and a pheasant was stuck inside.
Fan Jing brought up the injured pheasant. The pheasant had been flapping its wings for a long time and had no strength left. It didn't even struggle when Fan Jing caught it.
After restoring the trap, Fan Jing did not go to the next trap, but returned to the cabin first.
As Fan Jingcai walked away, Sun Dasheng, who had just escaped, emerged from behind a bush.
Seeing Fan Jing get the pheasant, he smacked his lips and regretted that he came a moment late. If he had come here earlier, he would have been able to eat the chicken tonight.
While feeling greedy, he stared at Fan Jingqing's thin back and felt that without that cold face, he was still a straight-figured man after all.
The more obscene thoughts in my mind became, the more I started to think about it.
But he had also flirted with Fan Jing before, and persuaded her that the mountain was lonely, and he couldn't find someone to marry, and it would be unbearable to be alone.
It would be better for the two of them to be a pair of wild mandarin ducks, which would be a happy thing.
But that guy didn't know what was good for him and actually shot him with an arrow, which was very fierce.
He knew how powerful Fan Jing was and didn't dare to seduce her again.
But when he thought about how he had just seen Fan Jing's arm, his eyes began to spin again.
Fan Jing returned to the wooden house and placed the first living thing he had caught since going up the mountain a few days ago in the yard, covering it with a backpack and sprinkling some rice bran on it to feed it.
He returned without even looking for the traps nearby, not only to get the pheasant back, but also to guard against Sun Dasheng.
That person was a cunning person. Seeing that his arm was injured, he lost his fear and might secretly follow him to see where other traps he had set.
Although his traps were marked, they could be found if one looked carefully.
But wouldn't it be faster to follow him than to search like a headless fly?
Even if he searches all over the mountain, he still won't get anything for free.
When it was getting dark, Kang He finally came back.
When he left the county, he thought he was keeping track of time. However, as autumn turned to winter, the days became shorter without him noticing.
When he was halfway up the mountain, he felt that it was getting dark quickly, so he quickened his pace and walked back. He didn't dare to rest for a moment on the way, which made him hot and sweaty.
He took off his coat and tucked it under his armpits, but his back was still soaked. If you didn't know better, you would think he was being chased by a ghost.
“The goods are arriving today?!”
As soon as he entered the yard, he saw the caged pheasants and was obviously happy.
Fan Jing nodded, opened the door for Kang He, and then returned to the stove.
The fire was already lit in the room, and there was some clean water in the boiler, which was getting hot.
He glanced at Kang He's backpack and saw that the mountain products he brought down the mountain were not given back, so he knew how the business was going and didn't ask any more questions.
As soon as Kang He entered the house, he drank a large bowl of cold boiled water, and he felt a little better.
He said to Fan Jing, "I begged you to go to the county with me, but you refused. You don't know what an unreasonable person I met today."
Hearing this, Fan Jing looked at Fan Jing.
"He was an old country boy who couldn't speak Mandarin. I couldn't get through to him. He cursed me for a long time in front of my stall, even spitting at me and saying I looked down on him."
Fan Jing frowned and put down the wooden fire tongs in his hand: "Can I see the official?"
Kang He said, "Why would I have to see an official? Fortunately, a kind young man came to my rescue. The old man knew he was in the wrong, so he stopped causing trouble."
After hearing this, Fan Jing seemed to have something else to say, but he stopped talking.
His face had that indifferent look again, and he turned to put firewood into the stove.
Kang He took the opportunity to say, "I can't think of it, you still have to teach me how to speak dialect."
"There are many kind-hearted people in the county. Why don't you teach them to teach you?"
Kang He paused for a moment after hearing this, thinking that Fan Jing could actually curse people in a sarcastic way.
He rummaged through his pockets and approached Fan Jing.
"Winter melon candied fruit, try it and see how it tastes."
Fan Jing didn't answer and didn't say much to him.
Kang He opened the oil-paper package, picked up a piece of candied fruit coated with icing sugar, and stuffed it into Fan Jing's mouth.
Fan Jing opened his eyes slightly, and his lips briefly touched Kang He's fingers.
The frosting melted in his mouth, and the sweet taste blocked his mouth as he tried to open it.
Seeing that Fan Jing didn't say anything, Kang He smiled and took a piece and put it in his mouth.
He only knew that the fruit was sweet, but he didn't expect it to be so sweet.
It's soaked in sugar, and the sweetness is so refreshing inside and out.
He thought that he was a rough man after all, and even in this poor place, he still didn't like such sweet and sticky food.
Fan Jing didn't say anything and ate the food in silence.
Kang He felt that Fan Jing was a person who would never waste anything he ate, no matter how good the food was. He would not even spit out the unshelled rice grains in the brown rice.
So I gave him the whole bag of candied fruit, thinking that even if he didn't like it, I would save it for the two little girls when I went down the mountain.
"How about I cook konjac and tofu tonight?"
When he heard Fan Jing say that he had never eaten kudzu tofu, he kept some for himself at home and planned to buy some meat to cook it.
Although konjac and tofu fill the stomach, they are not nourishing food. If they are not cooked with oil, water and other ingredients, their taste will be bland.
"It's up to you."
Fan Jing said.
After Kang He got the answer, he took out the piece of fat meat he had bought, cut it into pieces and boiled it to extract oil.
Even though nothing is added to the lard, the whole house is still filled with fragrance.
While the oil was boiling, he crushed the garlic and ginger and cut a handful of flat vegetables, which are leeks.
This flat vegetable is a bit old and has sprouted. The older it is, the more flavorful it is. Just by cutting it raw, the flat vegetable tastes very fragrant.
He bought them from an old farmer selling vegetables, a handful for a copper coin.
It’s enough for two meals.
The lard was boiled down to make oil, and one piece of fat meat produced a basin of oil, which was quite rich.
When you cook from now on, be frugal and it will be enough to last you for a month or so.
Kanghe left some oil in the pot, and put the chopped garlic and ginger into the pot. The aroma of the oil was stimulated.
Cut thinly sliced konjac tofu and flat vegetables into stir-fry together, and simmer for a while to allow the oil and water to absorb the flavor.
The konjac and tofu went very well with the meal, so Kang He and Fan Jing ordered a big bowl of brown rice.
The konjac tofu is soft but not mushy and smells fragrant.
Fan Jing took a bite and found it tender, smooth and tasty, completely different from tofu in taste.
It’s no wonder that Chen kept complaining about it. The konjac tofu cooked with oil really tastes like meat.
"How is it? Is it still palatable?"
Kang He watched Fan Jing eat and saw that his expression was relaxed, which clearly showed that the food was to his liking. While putting food into his bowl, he kept asking how it tasted.
To be honest, a life of delicious food and drink like this is no different from hiring a cook to cook for you.
He was certainly good, but he couldn't feel at ease and only cared about himself: "Half of the money you earned today went into your mouth again."
Upon hearing this, Kang He thought that it was indeed not bad. He spent fifteen cents on the meat, five cents on the candied fruit, and ten cents on the ingredients, which made a total of thirty cents.
But he didn't feel sorry, and said, "Are you worried that I won't be able to pay you back in a short time? I can pay you back some first."
Fan Jing frowned: "That's not the case."
"If you're not worried about money, then you're worried about people."
Kang He looked at Fan Jing: "Why are you worried about me?"
Fan Jing was speechless for a moment and silently put a mouthful of rice into his mouth.
He thought to himself that this person was really ungrateful and always used such words to shut him up. He would no longer bother with anything.
Seeing this, Kang He put some more food into his bowl and told him to eat more.
After dinner, Kang He felt sticky all over and couldn't bear it any longer, so he fetched some water and prepared to take a shower.
He carried a bucket of hot water out of the house. Thinking that he was going to wash outside anyway, he simply carried it outside the yard to avoid water accumulation on the already wet muddy ground.
The wind in the woods at night was quite cold, but fortunately the mosquitoes became less frequent due to the cold weather.
If it were a forest in summer, I wouldn't know how many blood bags would be bitten if my clothes were stripped off.
He quickly poured water over his shirtless body to rinse.
I was thinking that Fan Jing had injured his arm, so it would be inconvenient for him to take a shower...
Just as I was lost in thought, I suddenly seemed to hear a rustling sound.
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