Chapter 123 Spring Ploughing Begins
Xia Juanjuan was stunned for a moment and looked at Yang Qiushi subconsciously.
Yang Qiushi seemed a little embarrassed and coughed twice.
Shen Wanxue smiled and said:
"I heard from Old Yang that he saw you asking Doctor Liu from the commune several times how to prepare the herbs collected from the mountains and what their basic medicinal effects were. I thought that you might want to learn more, so I shamelessly mentioned it to Old Yang. Old Yang seemed to like you very much and readily agreed. So if you are willing, you can always come and ask Uncle Yang if you have anything you want to ask or learn in the future..."
When Xia Juanjuan heard this, she was naturally overjoyed!
Having an old Chinese doctor like this to answer her questions is certainly better than reading a medical book written half in classical Chinese and half in vernacular Chinese on her own.
"Really? Uncle Yang, no, I should call you Master. Master, if you are willing to teach me, it is my blessing. How can I not be willing?"
Xia Juanjuan quickly responded sincerely.
Yang Qiushi was a serious and reserved person, and felt a little embarrassed when he heard Shen Wanxue directly say that she liked the little girl Xia Juanjuan.
"Ahem! I...I just agreed to take her in because I thought she had some talent but had no one to teach her. If she slacks off and doesn't study hard in the future, I will immediately sever the master-disciple relationship with her!"
Xia Juanjuan thought this was a promise and said with a smile, "Master! Don't worry! With a great master like you, how could I be lazy?"
Although Yang Qiushi came from a medical family and studied Chinese medicine since childhood, he actually studied Western medicine systematically abroad when he was young. He graduated from a regular medical school and returned to China after completing his studies.
He still had the unrestrained mindset of the progressive young man back then, and didn't care about red tape, so he let Xia Juanjuan call him "Master". He responded and gave her a few serious instructions, and that established the master-disciple relationship.
The three of them gathered together and discussed it briefly.
Considering the possibility of being seen and reported by some interested parties, Xia Juanjuan could not come here every day. When they met, she would do the same as now, without saying hello and pretending that they had nothing to do with each other.
Every six or seven days, Xia Juanjuan would come over at night and pick out the content that she didn't understand in the medical books and ask Yang Qiushi to explain it to her.
Yang Qiushi also selected some contents from various medical books and asked Xia Juanjuan to read them carefully, and even asked her to memorize some of the contents.
In addition, there are various methods and practices for preparing medicinal materials, and the methods and key points of observation, auscultation, questioning and palpation.
Because she had to memorize and understand a lot of things, Xia Juanjuan's days were busier and more fulfilling than before.
She still goes up the mountain every now and then to pick some wild mushrooms - mainly to pick medicinal herbs. Occasionally, she also brings the three little kids into the mountains. Under her influence, even the three little kids can distinguish several kinds of medicinal herbs!
In the afternoon, I usually teach the kids to write a few new characters.
After the three kids went out to play, she took out the freshly picked herbs from the space and tried to prepare them herself according to Uncle Yang's instructions and the records in the medical books.
In the private plot, the spinach seeds that Li Zhan and I planted have also sprouted and grown.
Although she has all the spinach in her space, Xia Juanjuan still feels quite accomplished. She picks a basket of spinach with a bamboo basket, washes the soil off the red roots, and then puts the spinach roots directly into the pot and stir-fries them with lard. This is a very common dish on their winter dinner table.
Or you can just eat it in hot pot.
Every time she went to the cowshed, she would take some white flour, bacon, bacon, eggs, freshly picked spinach from her own plot, homemade kimchi and pickled radishes, etc., and send them to Shen Wanxue and Yang Qiushi.
In addition to food and ingredients, sometimes chicken soup with ginseng, angelica and other tonic herbs would also be sent over.
She carefully picked out the herbs every time, but every time Yang Qiushi tasted it, he could still accurately list out all the herbs she had put in, which was simply amazing.
Also, I would ride my bike to town every two or three days to buy some meat, eggs and daily necessities from the supply and marketing cooperative.
In the county, she followed Director Zheng to help with purchasing goods a few times, but most of the time she still went through the space.
She bought a small courtyard in the county. In late winter and early spring, she took out an osmanthus tree and a crabapple tree from the space and planted them in the courtyard.
In addition, she had space, so there was no need to keep the original vegetable garden in the yard, so she planted some roses and peonies on that piece of land.
As for the black market supply sales, the canteen purchasing department of another large factory in the county, a wood processing factory, probably heard the news from someone else. I don't know how he convinced purchasing manager Liu to set up the connection, and they also buy supplies from Xia Juanjuan once every half a month.
As a result, the revenue from selling supplies doubled, and we now have a revenue of one thousand yuan every half a month.
Therefore, Xia Juanjuan no longer risked selling supplies in the black market, and only kept the regular trading of these two supplies.
After each transaction, he would leave immediately without delay, sometimes even turning a corner and immediately entering a space to prevent others from following him.
A few days after the Lantern Festival, it was the "Rain Water" in the twenty-four solar terms. It drizzled for several days, and the weather became warmer day by day.
Another half month passed, and it was the beginning of February in the lunar calendar, which was the "spring festival". The winter idleness was over, and the busy spring ploughing was about to begin.
Secretary Zhao used a loudspeaker to gather the entire commune and held a mobilization meeting for spring ploughing.
"We have all been staying at home for the whole winter. Today is the day when the ground is thawed and it is time for us to get moving! This year we must ensure the yield of summer wheat, and we must not fall behind in the spring planting of sweet potatoes, millet, soybeans, sorghum, mung beans and cotton! If we all fall behind, we will not be able to pay the public grain in the fall, and we will not get enough food after working hard for a year, and we will go hungry!
This year, we will still draw lots to decide which household will do what farm work. You can swap privately, but if you don’t do your job well after the swap, I will only find the person who drew the lot first. Don’t cry and complain when the time comes! Another thing is that during the busiest days of spring ploughing, everyone has to work. Each household must complete a certain amount of farm work. Unless there are special circumstances, no leave is allowed..."
Xia Juanjuan understood what Secretary Zhao meant. Even though she had a huge allowance and could live without earning work points, she still had to do farm work during the spring plowing and autumn harvest seasons.
However, she didn't have much resistance.
Now that I have traveled to this era, there are some things that I must do personally.
As soon as the mobilization meeting was over, Liu Lan asked Zhou Qiuhe to call Xia Juanjuan as well, saying that she wanted to hold a family meeting.
Xia Juanjuan simply ignored it.
If she has that much time, she might as well make more tofu!
It’s actually quite easy to make tofu at home. All you need is soybeans and vinegar.
The soybeans had been soaked the day before, and they looked so cute when they were plump. After washing them with clean water, they were ground into soy milk.
Xia Juanjuan was lazy at this step and just used the soy milk machine in the space to grind it.
After grinding, find a piece of clean gauze, pour the dregs into it, squeeze out the soy milk inside, and then filter the soy milk with the gauze.
Bring the soy milk to a boil over high heat, let it cool for a while, pick out the solidified bean skin, dilute the white vinegar with water, pour it in while stirring until tofu pudding appears.
After leaving it alone for a while, use a square wooden mold, put some gauze on it, pour the tofu pudding in, cover it with gauze, and then squeeze it with a wooden board of the same wood and put some heavy objects on it until all the water is squeezed out.
Tender tofu needs to be pressed for a shorter time, while old tofu needs to be pressed for a longer time.
Xia Juanjuan quickly made a large piece of tofu and planned to make fried tofu, a tofu and fish soup, and a cold tofu with green onions in the evening.
Hmm... I'll send a piece to Aunt Shen and the master in the cowshed in the evening...
Not long after the tofu was made, Zhou Qiuhe came over. As soon as she entered the room, she held her stomach and laughed, "Ouch! You missed the show because you didn't go to the meeting! I almost suffocated to death by trying to hold back my laughter..."
It turned out that Liu Lan held this meeting to discuss the distribution of farm work for spring plowing.
In the past, the Li family did not split up, and the whole family was considered one household. Farm work was done by several sons and daughters-in-law - mainly the eldest sister-in-law who had remarried and Zhou Qiuhe, Liu Lan, Li Qiaoqiao, and Wang Guixiang, who almost just stood by and took charge of the business.
Now that the eldest son of the Li family has died, his daughter-in-law has remarried, and the third and fourth sons have all moved out, all the farm work of Liu Lan and Li Qiaoqiao has fallen on the second son's family.
Liu Lan still favored her second son, so she planned to let the third and fourth sons' families - since the fourth son was not at home, of course it would be Xia Juanjuan, but if it was converted into money, she would not object - each family would share some, and she and her young lady Li Qiaoqiao would continue to be the hands-off managers.
It’s a pity that the good plan didn’t work this year.
Xia Juanjuan simply refused to participate and didn't give any face at all.
Although Li Jie and Zhou Qiuhe went, Li Jie interrupted Liu Lan when she was about to say something and said coldly that there was still a lot of farm work to do for their family of five and they couldn't do Liu Lan and Li Qiaoqiao's share. Then he took Zhou Qiuhe and was about to leave.
Liu Lan was so angry that her nose almost became crooked. She had no choice but to look at the second brother Li Qiang and Wang Guixiang.
Ever since Liu Lan scolded Wang Guixiang during the Chinese New Year and made Wang Guixiang angry, Wang Guixiang has never been nice to Liu Lan again.
Liu Lan just wanted the second brother and his wife to take over her and Li Qiaoqiao's work - at least on top of her own share of the farm work.
As a result, before she could open her mouth, Wang Guixiang kicked Li Qiang hard, signaling him to speak.
Li Qiang was a bit henpecked, so he said, "Mom, I've discussed it with my wife, and we're planning to separate and live on our own."
Liu Lan was stunned, and then she was furious. Even her most biased son was going to rebel? This was all because of marrying that little vixen Xia Juanjuan!