Chapter 13 Lean Meat Soup
Zhao Xuan woke up in the afternoon.
At that moment, Lu An had one arm around her shoulder, his chin resting on her head. He was still asleep, his eyelashes trembling slightly, and the corners of his mouth were slightly upturned; he was probably having a sweet dream.
He was too tired last night. The place where he set the animal traps was far from his home, and he carried the heavy objects back and forth twice.
Zhao Xuan quietly removed his arm and tiptoed off the bed.
460 was also sleeping in the big leather sofa. Hearing the noise, it opened one eye to look, saw that it was Zhao Xuan, then closed its eyes again, changed its position, made a "pfft" sound from its nose, and went back to sleep.
It got tired after following its owner back and forth twice.
She took some old grain and went next door to feed the chickens, picked up two eggs, and then went to check on the piglets.
The little brown piglet was also sleeping soundly in the haystack.
Zhao Xuan decided to go find some pig feed for the piglets first.
Raising pigs is hard work. It's manageable now that the piglets are small, but once they grow bigger, the daily feed alone will be huge, and shoveling pig manure also requires strength. She's made a plan. There are several ponds near the village, where water hyacinths are currently growing. Water hyacinths are excellent fodder; this plant doesn't need cultivation—you can harvest some today and they'll grow back tomorrow. After summer, when the piglets are bigger, the village will have an abundance of pumpkins and winter melons, which can also be used to feed the pigs. In autumn, after harvesting the beans, the leftover bean dregs can be used to fatten them up.
The only trouble is having to start a fire and make pig feed.
After boiling water and washing his face, Zhao Xuan grabbed a rake and a winnowing basket and went out.
The village below remained quiet, with old and new houses built haphazardly, some doorways open to reveal dark rooms inside. Whenever Zhao Xuan passed this point, she would deliberately look away; she was a little afraid.
Passing through the threshing ground and the well, the edge of the village lies with those few ponds. The ponds look like stagnant water, but if you get close, you can hear the sound of undercurrents. There are some small snails and shrimp living in them, but they are too small to be worth catching and eating.
The pond was covered with dense water hyacinths. This plant was beautiful, with purple petals that had patterns like peacock tail feathers. Its leaves were oval, and at the bottom was a sparsely packed, air-filled round stem, which allowed the whole plant to float on the water.
A pool of water hyacinths can cover the entire surface of the water. Although they appear densely packed, the whole patch is actually a single plant – each flower is connected by some very brittle tubes, and thousands of flowers form a net.
This plant is very common in rural areas of southern China, and a few years ago it was frequently in the news because it was an invasive alien species.
Zhao Xuan stood by the pond, and with a single swipe of his rake, he could pull down a large swath of water hyacinths. He weighed them down in a winnowing basket, then continued raking down a second batch.
She had never tasted water hyacinth, but chickens, ducks, and pigs all loved to eat it.
Having filled a whole basket, Zhao Xuan carried it back, his steps unsteady.
When he got home, Lu An was already awake and cooking. They had both gotten up too late to cook rice, so he thought he would make some filling and delicious dishes.
When Zhao Xuan returned, he had already chopped a large lump of minced meat, mostly lean and mostly fat. He sprinkled ginger and white wine into the minced meat to remove the fishy smell, then added some salt. He then divided the minced meat in half and put it into two stew pots. He smoothed the minced meat with his fingers, then poked a dent in each pot and cracked an egg into it. The yolk would slide steadily into the dent. Finally, he added water and put the pots on the stove to stew.
Zhao Xuan went to cook pig feed, and when she returned, the kitchen was filled with delicious aromas.
Lu An sat obediently in front of the stove, hugging his knees, carefully observing the heat. A bubbling sound came from the stove, indicating the stewed lean meat was almost ready.
This was the second time Zhao Xuan had eaten lean pork stew since the apocalypse, and it was also one of the few dishes that Lu An was good at making. He said that his mother taught him how to make it. After he started working, he often didn't have time to eat properly, so his mother bought him an electric slow cooker, and the first dish she taught him was this lean pork stew.
In Zhao Xuan's memory, Lu's mother was a beautiful and gentle woman. She had visited Lu's family several times as Lu An's girlfriend, and each time Lu's mother would prepare a large feast, which Zhao Xuan would enjoy immensely. Whenever she saw Zhao Xuan like this, Lu's mother would always smile and say that she would have Lu An learn a few dishes so that she could cook for him every day.
Lu An always readily agreed, but he was too busy with work to have time to learn it.
Then a serious illness broke out, and both Mr. and Mrs. Lu contracted the disease and soon passed away. At that time, the hospital was in chaos, and the deceased patients were sent to be cremated in batches.
Lu An only received a notification from the hospital. He didn't even get to see his parents one last time, and he didn't even know where they were buried.
The first time Lu An made lean meat soup for her was at the camp.
Lu An helped someone slaughter a pig and got a small piece of meat, which seemed to be from the pig's rump and was very tough. So he chopped the meat into a paste and made a lean meat soup for her. There was no ginger, wine, or eggs in the camp, so the soup was a bit fishy, but this was the first time Zhao Xuan had eaten meat in months.
Zhao Xuan's longing for meat had long since suppressed her picky temper, and she ate happily, but Lu An's eyes reddened as she ate.
He misses his mother.
It wasn't until then that Zhao Xuan suddenly realized that even the strong Lu An had moments of vulnerability, and that Lu An, who had supported her all the way through life, also had moments of sadness and grief.
It turns out that she wasn't the only one in the world struggling with pain after losing both parents.
Before that, Zhao Xuan was not a likable person. She had an awkward temper and was mostly self-centered. She lived a listless life and felt that she was the most miserable person in the world.
She never even considered how Lu An gritted his teeth and supported her in the apocalypse—a useless person who only knew how to be sad and lay in bed all day.
If before that, Zhao Xuan became Lu An's lover because Lu An was good to her, then at that moment, she finally understood her feelings for Lu An, and for the sake of those feelings, she decided to do something.
So, in the dimly lit tent at the campsite, she put down the stew, reached out and pulled Lu An close, resting his head against her neck. She wiped his tears with her dirty hands and said, "Lu An, I've decided! Tomorrow I'll go outside the camp to pick wild vegetables. Sister Lu told me what many wild vegetables and herbs look like. If I'm lucky, I might find some herbs! Maybe we can have stew again soon..."
That was a full year since they entered the camp, the third year of the apocalypse, and seven months before they left the camp.
It was shameful that Zhao Xuan's soul only revived after so long. She placed her deceased parents deep in her heart and resolved to live well for Lu An, the person still alive and most important to her.
"Are you hungry?" Lu An asked Zhao Xuan, who was leaning against the door frame, pulling her back to her senses.
She nodded.
"It'll be ready soon." He said, lifting the lid of the stew pot. After steaming, the oil from the minced meat floated to the surface, and a layer of clear lard floated on the clear soup.
The meat paste solidified at the bottom of the jar, supporting an egg yolk, while the white egg white floated around it like a thin lace.
Lu An was worried that the pork would be fishy, so he added more white wine to remove the smell. The aroma was even stronger the moment he opened the lid.
He picked up the jar with a damp cloth and handed it to Zhao Xuan, cloth and jar together: "Try it and see if it's too bland."
Holding the stew pot in one hand and an iron spoon in the other, she eagerly took a sip and smacked her lips.
The alcohol content of baijiu is much higher than that of huangjiu, which is used as a seasoning. After the alcohol is evaporated at high temperature, it leaves a special sweetness. After being seasoned with baijiu, the soup has no fishy smell at all.
Scoop a spoonful of the meat paste that has settled in the center, along with the egg yolk. The pork is marbled with fat and lean meat, the lean parts are thick and the fat is soft and tender, and the egg yolk has a slightly gritty texture. The combination of the two creates an exceptionally rich flavor.
"Delicious!" Zhao Xuan exclaimed superficially.
Lu An smiled, his eyes narrowing.
After removing the fat and internal organs from a 300-pound wild boar, the remaining meat was enough for the two of them to eat until winter.
Lu An smiled as he looked at the delighted Zhao Xuan. Since moving into this deserted village, he had clearly felt her vitality growing stronger.
He grew up in the city; his grandfather's generation worked as laborers or teachers there, unlike Zhao Xuan who had a grandmother living in the countryside. He didn't understand many things about rural life, so he always listened to Zhao Xuan. He once thought that as a man, he had to protect this little rabbit. He took her on a journey through several camps, and for her, Lu An was willing to do a lot of work. Lu An felt he could build four iron nets to protect the vulnerable Zhao Xuan.
But what little rabbit likes being in a cage?
Zhao Xuan needs freedom, needs to absorb the essence of the four seasons. Only by venturing into the wilderness can Zhao Xuan regain his human form.
Zhao Xuan knows how to grow grains and raise livestock. She knows how to preserve food for a long time and how to adapt to the changing seasons. Living far from people inevitably brings many difficulties. The number of wild boars is increasing day by day, and there will be even more wild animals in the future. Today you can catch a wild boar, but tomorrow you may encounter a man-eating beast.
The seeds they plant will be disturbed and eaten by rodents, and the mature crops will be trampled by wild boars, potentially resulting in a complete crop failure for the year. However, in order to maintain energy balance, nature will inflict various hardships on them, which will also serve as food in a roundabout way.
With four piglets, if they are raised well, even if natural disasters cause a poor harvest in the next two years, they will not starve to death.
The two of them probably hadn't eaten pork in a long time; they ate a whole bowl of lean meat clean, even scraping the sides of the jar, which were still covered in bits of meat, until they were shiny.
After eating, Lu An followed Zhao Xuan's instructions and cut the meat, which had been roughly salted the night before, into strips and hung them up with cotton rope. Bamboo poles had already been set up in the yard, and after the ropes were attached, they were hung up in a row, like a curtain.
The salt drew out the fat from the meat, and the pale yellow, semi-solidified lard clung to the bottom of the meat strips, only reluctantly dripping down after a long time.
460 stared intently at a pig's leg, his eyes unblinking.
Zhao Xuan left behind some bones and offal, as well as a pot of pork fat. The bones could be used to make soup, and the offal could be stir-fried; they could finish it in the next few days.
Next, she prepared to render lard.
She had never rendered lard herself, but she had watched her mother do it when she was little. Her mother would specially go to a familiar butcher to order pork back fat, twenty or thirty catties at a time, enough to fry a huge basin. Her grandmother had also said that when she was young, her family slaughtered pigs, and all the fat was used to render oil. The rendered oil would last for a year, stored in a rice jar. But even if it was stored very well, the lard would still develop an odor by the end of the year. However, when her grandmother was young, no one cared about this. It was like after the apocalypse, many people would catch rats to eat when they were hungry. Eating them was probably bad for their health, but if they didn't eat them, they would starve to death.
Fortunately, they had electricity, so the oil could be put in the refrigerator.
As Zhao Xuan lit the fire and put the diced lard into the large pot, a question lingered for a moment: Had he been lighting fires too frequently lately? What if a stranger saw him?
But after a moment she shook her head. In any case, pressing her lard was more important now.
Previously, her mother would blanch the diced lard in water before pressing it, and also add a bowl of water before pressing, supposedly to make the oil whiter. But for Zhao Xuan, the appearance of the lard was not important, so she abandoned all the tedious procedures. Once the pan was hot, she put in the diced lard, and after stir-frying it a few times, the diced lard began to sizzle and release oil.
Lard is more fragrant than other vegetable oils, making it perfect for stir-frying vegetables. While the lard was still being rendered, she pulled out a large earthenware jar—when she first came to the village, she collected all the jars and pots she liked, knowing she would be pickling a lot of food in the future, so various bottles and jars were essential.
The aesthetic sense of the village elders was quite different from Zhao Xuan's. The large earthenware jar was used by a family to store rice. When it was found, the rice had been eaten away by insects. Fortunately, the jar was not big and could be held in both hands. Zhao Xuan scalded the jar with hot water, wiped it clean, cut a few slices of ginger and put them at the bottom of the jar, and added a handful of soybeans.
These things are said to keep lard fresh, but she didn't know how.
The white oil cubes gradually turned into wrinkled golden yellow, floating to the surface one by one, with an enticing aroma.
Today, 460 was really craving meat. First, it stared longingly at the meat in the yard, then it went into the kitchen, its eyes fixed on the steaming pot, its eyelids practically disappearing.
Zhao Xuan used a large ladle to scoop oil into the jar while glancing sideways at the dog. He then scooped up a fairly plump piece of oil, blew on it, and tossed it into the air. 460 kicked off with its legs and nimbly caught it with its mouth.
The dog narrowed its eyes, revealing a satisfied expression.
She filled the jar to the brim with oil, and after it cooled, she sealed it with the plastic wrap she usually treasured, and then put the lid on. She removed the shelf from the refrigerator's crisper drawer, and there was just enough room to put the ceramic jar inside.
Unsurprisingly, the oil won't taste bad even by this winter.
As was her usual practice, she put the remaining small portion into the oil container she usually used and placed it on the stove.
All the fried pork cracklings were scooped into a small iron basin, sprinkled with a handful of salt, and shaken to coat each crackling with salt. I picked one up and tasted it; it was crispy and delicious.
She immediately grabbed a handful and took it to Lu An, who was drying meat in the yard.
She remembers her mother always mixing leftover pork cracklings with salt and eating them as snacks. The cracklings tasted delicious at first, but after a few pieces, they became greasy, so she usually didn't eat many. She also remembers her mother stir-frying the cracklings with green peppers or garlic leaves, which made the meal very appetizing.
Lu An opened his mouth to take the fried pork cracklings that Zhao Xuan offered, and while eating them, he moved closer to Zhao Xuan and said, "You smell so good."
Oily smells easily stain hair and clothes. After hearing this, Zhao Xuan raised her arm and smelled it. It did smell oily, but she didn't care at all: "I'm not going to shower tonight. This way, you'll be sleeping with a piece of oily residue in your arms. Isn't that nice?"
"It's good that there's no one else around, otherwise I would be worried that you would get eaten by those people."
Zhao Xuan smiled, his eyes crinkling: "We haven't seen any other living people for more than half a year."
"Hmm," the other person nodded, hanging up the last piece of meat, "Don't you find it too boring to be with me?"
Zhao Xuan shook his head: "How could that be!"
What if they encounter other humans?
Who knows if the next person they encounter will be a human, or a human transformed into a hyena?
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