Chapter 48 Chapter 48 Learning to Care
The next day, when Kang He woke up, he found that his whole body was almost unable to move, and he couldn't even touch his right hand.
I didn’t think the injury from yesterday was a big deal, but today it hurts so much.
He gasped and tried to stand up, but Fan Jing, who was putting on his clothes beside the bed, pushed him back.
Kang He lay in bed, looked at the people and said, "It's okay, flesh wounds are like this, the pain will be the worst the next day.
I checked it yesterday and there are no broken bones. Only my right arm is slightly injured. I will be fine after careful rest."
He knows a little bit about medicine after all, and he knows it well. He is not the kind of person who likes to complain about illness or pain, but he is not the kind of person who would just pretend to be sick.
"I know."
Fan Jing said, he had been hunting in the mountains for many years and often suffered minor injuries, so he knew about these injuries.
Even if he was injured in the past, he would not go out the next day and would recuperate in the wooden house.
Now there are two people here, and they should take care of the injured.
There was heavy dew in the mountains in the morning, and the wind was a little cool.
Fan Jing pulled a thin mattress and covered Kang He's body.
"You sleep, I'll make dinner."
Kang He felt that these words sounded familiar.
He didn't say anything, but the corners of his mouth were already curled up.
Well, today I am just a stinky old man who doesn’t even bother to save my temper.
He lay peacefully on the bed, but his eyes followed Fan Jing.
He watched as the man lit a fire, washed the rice, and poured it into the pot with a splash, splashing water high into the air.
He couldn't help but smile in his eyes.
This guy didn't even wear an apron while cooking, and his movements were clumsy. He didn't look like he knew how to cook at all.
He deliberately asked, "What are we eating?"
Fan Jing replied: "Drink porridge."
"Just porridge?"
"Add some vegetable leaves."
"That would be great."
Kang He lay in bed for about two quarters of an hour, then asked, "Can I get up now?"
"Um."
After getting permission, Kang He slowly lifted the mattress.
Fan Jingsheng filled two bowls of porridge and placed them on the table beside the stove. She hurried to the bedside and helped him up, as if she was taking care of her paralyzed husband.
Kang He woke up and rested for a while, and he felt much better.
Seeing Fan Jing holding his waist and taking such meticulous care of him, his hands and feet suddenly became weak again, as if he couldn't get up, and he leaned on someone, looking so weak.
He sat down at the table and looked at a large bowl of white porridge with vegetables that was cooked with foam. The vegetable leaves had been thrown away too early and had melted into a pool of vegetable paste.
He sniffed it and said, "It smells so good. Our Ah Jing has become virtuous."
Fan Jing knew that his cooking skills were poor, so he awkwardly handed a spoon to Kang He and said, "Eat it for now. I'll go down the mountain to the city to buy some food."
Kang He held the spoon in his left hand and stirred the bowl, thinking that he was finally willing to buy food.
He asked, "What should we do with the two wild boars in the yard?"
The larger wild boar died on the spot, and the smaller one also died at night. Logically, they should have been dealt with yesterday.
Only Kang He was injured and Fan Jing was in a bad mood, so he didn't clean up.
The temperature in the mountains is low in summer and it’s okay. If it were at the foot of the mountain, the pork would probably become smelly.
If we carry the whole thing down the mountain now, it might break down, and it’s too big to move.
Fan Jing said, "Boil some water and kill him soon."
"I'll go down the mountain and ask the restaurant if they'll take it. If not, I'll buy some salt and smoke it myself."
Kang He also thought so.
So after dinner, he boiled two large pots of hot water, scraped off the black and hard pig hair, revealing the gray-black meat.
There were not many knives in the mountains, and the handling was not as convenient as in the village. Fortunately, Fan Jing was skilled, and he was able to deconstruct the two wild boars.
The meat alone filled two large winnowing baskets. The mountain black pigs were lean and skinny, unlike the domestic ones that ate and slept all day long, rarely moving and growing fat.
Wild boars have little fat and are mostly bright red lean meat.
This kind of lean meat is even more popular among wealthy families. Meat is often seen on the plates of wealthy families for three meals a day, so they don't like fatty and greasy food.
Farmers would never eat meat unless it was a festival. In order to satisfy their cravings, they would usually choose fatty meat.
Although this wild boar meat is more chewy, it has not been fanned and has a strong taste. It is not cooked with special ingredients and is difficult to eat.
If we send them to the city and set up a stall, they may not sell better than domestic pigs, after all, there are only a few wealthy families.
Therefore, it is best to lower the price and ask restaurants to buy them all, which is the most cost-effective.
Forget it, I buried the blood and pig hair, and sprinkled some stove ash on it to cover up the odor, so that the fishy smell would not attract wild animals.
"Just stay in the house and don't go out."
Fan Jing tied up the arrows and told Kang He about it.
When he reached the door, he explained everything again.
He is a man of few words. If he says something once, it means he is serious. If he gives instructions twice, it means he is very serious.
Fan Jing actually wanted Kang He to go down the mountain to see a doctor. After all, there was already a doctor in the village, so it wouldn't be too inconvenient. However, Fan Jing repeatedly assured him that nothing was wrong before he gave up.
If he hadn't had to go down the mountain today, he wouldn't have wanted to let Kang He get out of his sight.
Kang He leaned against the door frame, thinking that this person also knew how to worry about him. When he was injured before, he wanted to go down the mountain to the city and told him not to go out. Did he listen to him?
He looked at the person, but didn't answer him. He raised his chin and said, "If you want to kiss me, I will agree."
Fan Jingmei's heart moved, but he said nothing. He pushed Kang He inside, closed the door, and took out the padlock from his body.
“Hey, hey!”
Seeing this, Kang He quickly locked the door.
He didn't know when this man put the lock on his body. He was probably thinking that if he didn't listen to him, he would lock the door.
"If you lock me up in the house and there's a fire, I won't have an extra piece of bacon."
"I'll listen to you and not go out to make you worry."
"When you go out, I'll bolt the door and take a long nap in the house until you come back. Is that all right?"
Seeing his assurance, Fan Jing withdrew his hand and handed the lock to him.
Kang He watched the man disappear into the woods, then bolted the door and went into the house as he was told.
He did sleep for a while, but he couldn't sleep that long, so he got up after an hour or so.
I rummaged through the wooden house and found some collected materials, cinnamon bark, cinnamon leaves, pepper seeds, cardamom, star anise, and galangal... I picked them here and there and kept them, but I was reluctant to use them. Now I wrapped them up in gauze and threw them into the pot to boil.
He took a pig's head and rinsed it clean with the dry water from the yard. He also prepared a basket of pig intestines and rubbed them repeatedly with wood ash.
He prepared a pot of braised pork head, which was just right for Fan Jing's family to enjoy when they arrived.
However, his right hand was not very flexible, so he just left it alone and used his left hand to wash his intestines.
He clumsily took out half the pig's head and large intestine, marinated them heavily with ginger and wine to remove the fishy smell, and then put them into the pot.
When it was stewed at first, the flavor of the ingredients had not yet been cooked out, and the pig head and intestines could smell fishy. After it was stewed for a long time, the flavor of the ingredients became stronger and suppressed the pig smell.
As the stewing time gets longer, the aroma of the meat becomes richer and more flavorful.
Kang He lowered the fire and let a piece of wood burn in the stove, slowly simmering the food until it absorbed the flavor.
He poured the sauce heavily, and it seeped into the meat and became more and more fragrant.
When Fan Jing hurried back to the mountain, it was already dark. He could smell the aroma of braised meat in the night wind from a distance.
When I could see my own wooden house, the rich aroma and the smoke rising from the roof made me more certain that it was Kanghe who cooked.
"Why do you carry so many things?"
Kang He heard the knock on the door and ran to open it. As it was getting darker, he opened the door several times and looked outside.
I always see familiar faces coming here, just like children looking forward to their parents coming back from the market.
Seeing the backpack that was empty when he went out, the straps were now tightly tied around his shoulders. Kang He hurried to take it, but Fan Jing dodged him, bolted the door, and went back into the house carrying the backpack.
"Did you cook?"
Fan Jing put down the backpack and saw that the boiler was covered, but the fragrance could not be hidden and kept coming out.
Seeing this, Kang He opened the lid of the pot, revealing a pot of meat with a rich aroma.
On the pot, there is a large ceramic bowl, which contains two balls of steamed pig brains, which are white and tender.
Kang He had put out the fire early and had been stewing the pig's head for more than an hour. The pig's skin was soft and elastic, and the marinade was full of oil.
He had previously cut off a small piece to taste it. The braised meat had a rich and delicious aroma, and the pig's head was really chewy and fragrant.
"It's so troublesome to prepare this braised meat. I haven't been out for the whole afternoon."
Kang He brought out the steamed fried rice noodles from the pot and was about to take out the pork to cut it. Fan Jing grabbed his hand and came over to help him take out the pig's head.
Fan Jing believed that he had not gone out, so he just stayed in the house and did not rest well, but he did not lose his temper after all.
He talked to Kanghe about going down the mountain.
I went to the restaurant first and looked at the meat. They said that if it was not alive, it would not cost more than 100 or 200 kilograms, so they would only charge 50 kilograms.
Fan Jing agreed and, as Kang He had instructed, gave the wild boar meat he brought down to a friend who often dealt with them. The friend also privately introduced a place to Fan Jing.
There was a good restaurant on East Street that also served wild delicacies. The waiter took him there, and the chef asked for another thirty kilograms.
In this way, they reduced the number by 80 kilograms, and the wild boar meat they had on hand was about 150 kilograms. Although they did not sell all of it, it was better than losing it all.
"Before leaving the city, I met my mother. She said she would ask her old customers if anyone wanted to buy wild boar meat. Maybe she could sell some more."
Fan Jing said, "Tomorrow she will ask Dad to come up the mountain to help deliver the wild boar meat to the city."
After saying that, he and Kang He looked at the things they bought from the city.
There were several large bags of coarse salt, some cabbages and radishes. Chen said that these were the vegetables she wanted to sell on her way to the city to sell noodles. Thinking that the two of them had been in the mountains for a long time and must have run out of vegetables to eat, she asked him to bring them up.
"That's easy to say, but what about this?"
Kang He held a bag of red dried wolfberries and looked at Fan Jing.
"It's said to be good for the body."
Kang He laughed dryly. It would take a whole night for a young man full of vigor and vitality to recover his energy.
Then they dug out a bag of kelp and two gray-haired pigeons.
Kang He saw blood stains on the pigeon's feathers.
He asked, "Did you encounter and beat him on the way back?"
Fan Jing nodded, but didn't say that he was going to find him specifically to fight.
Kang He said, "Let's take it to the county tomorrow and sell it together with the wild boar meat."
Upon hearing this, Fan Jing took the pigeon aside. He carried Kang He on his back and said, "It's unworthy to sell it. Pigeons are nutritious and good for healing."
The things he bought were all obtained from others, so that Kanghe could eat them to recover from his injuries.
Kang He was slightly stunned when he heard this, thinking that this person was thoughtful, but he felt sweet in his heart.
He went over and rubbed against the person: "You feel bad for me."
Fan Jingwei felt a little awkward. He could hunt and slaughter pigs, but he didn't know much about taking care of people, so he could only follow others' lead.
"Let's eat."
Kanghe poured some soy sauce into the steamed brain flower. The soy sauce and the rich and flavorful brain flower were very delicious.
Crush it and mix it into rice for a better taste.
The two of them ate a lot of braised meat and their stomachs were very full.
It was the first time for Fan Jing to eat the braised pork made by Kang He. It was good, and he said that he didn't have to sell the remaining pig heads.
Kanghe agreed, saying that the marinade could be reused and would become more fragrant the longer it was marinated.
After the two of them finished eating, they felt full, so they simply washed the remaining half of the pig's head and put it into the pot to braise. Although there was some left before they ate the braised pig's head, they planned to wait for Father Fan to come up the mountain tomorrow and take it home with him so that their family could try it.
But Fan Jing said that he wanted to keep all the pig heads. They certainly couldn't finish so many, so they braised more and asked Fan's father to take them back and eat their fill.
By the time I was done, the moon had already climbed up to the treetops.
Both of them were sweating a lot and the yard was dark. They took a shower together and got a lot of bites before they went to bed.
"You smell so good, come closer to me."
Kang He reached out and pulled Fan Jing's hand. His arm was aching and he could no longer be as relaxed as before. After taking a shower and getting into bed, he wrapped himself around Fan Jing like a snake.
Upon hearing this, Fan Jing did not pretend to be deaf. He moved his body and actually moved closer.
Kang He thought, isn't this much more obedient than before?
The two of them were so close that Fan Jing looked at the wound on Kang He's cheekbone and his face turned red.
He knew what kind of injuries were and roughly how painful they were. This injury might not be a big deal to him, but when it was on Kang He's body, every time he looked at it, he felt more worried than if it were on his own body.
In fact, he was also very confused in his heart, wondering how people could come up with such thoughts.
"Does it hurt?"
Kang He's eyes moved slightly. He looked at Fan Jing's eyes and fell on the wound on his face. He said, "A little bit."
As he finished speaking, he felt the wound was slightly cool and soft to the touch.
In fact, when the wound is touched, it always hurts, but this evening, he only felt his heart fluttering.
Apart from Fan Jing's lips, there is probably nothing else in the world that feels like this.
Kang He couldn't believe it and widened his eyes slightly.
This was the first time that Fan Jing had done something like this. Before, Kang He had always taken the initiative to do it.
He felt that he had not done well, but... Kang He seemed very happy.
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