Chapter 84 Chapter 84 Spring Bamboo Shoots and Ham.
"Have the village headman and the patrol officer had dinner?"
"Are you here to talk to Miss Xu?"
"What's so important? Why are you two here in person?"
Because an ox cart was parked outside the gate of the second courtyard, it was very conspicuous. Passing villagers saw the village headman and the patrol coming out of the courtyard and kept asking questions.
Hearing that the thief was arrested, the mood was high.
"Caught?"
"When did it happen?"
"So those little monkeys don't have to be tied up at home all day? They're going to break up the roofs and rebel, and it's impossible to keep them under control."
"The thief we caught was the one from four years ago. The kidnapping case in the county remains unsolved, so families should keep a close eye on their children."
The village headman said that he would post this matter at the village pavilion later to make it known to everyone.
Everyone sighed and asked again:
"Why did the village headman go to Ms. Xu's house to discuss this matter?"
The village headman glanced at Ji Xu who was seeing him off, as she had just advised him not to tell others about the reward he had received.
He also knew that, as the saying goes, you don't have to worry about thieves stealing, but you have to worry about thieves thinking about it. Moreover, Mr. Tian had given him the same instructions, so he made an excuse:
"Her family was the victim four years ago. I came to tell her about this important matter myself."
Everyone thought this made sense. "Four years ago, there was a notice offering a fifty-liang reward. The case was solved, but no one knows who received the reward."
"Can the notice issued four years ago still be valid? The government won't honor it."
The chatter gradually dispersed.
Later, Zhuang Gaiyi returned to the public land after finishing his social engagements at the county magistrate's mansion.
The thatched hut on the ridge of the field was his simple home. The seedlings around him had just been planted and were not yet mature, so there was no need for him to guard it day and night.
You Youjiao said, "It's not a good place to sleep. Brother Yi, come home with me."
He came to deliver the dragon tongue, and he found the person here.
The thatched cottage was so small that there was no space left for a bed, but it was tidy. There was a bamboo tube on the windowsill with a hairy wooden handle stuck upside down. It didn't look like a pen, and it didn't look like a whisk.
He took it and looked at it, "What is this?"
"A toothbrush."
Zhuang Gaiyi took it back and put it back into the bamboo tube. He was wearing a short shirt and black trousers. He had just come back from a bath in the river, and water droplets were still on his arms. Tender flesh had grown on his old wounds, making them look bright red and hideous.
"I'm used to living here. Have the things been delivered?"
You Youjiao knew that he couldn't persuade him, so he nodded and said:
"Brother Yi, rest assured that I have delivered everything. This was made by that woman Xu, who asked me to bring it to you. I ate it at her house before, and it was really delicious."
After saying this, he opened the package of green dragon tongue and saw Zhuang Gaiyi watching him, so he said:
"Brother Yi, don't you know it? Dragon tongue, we have the custom of eating it in spring to prevent disease."
Zhuang Gaiyi had only seen people from the Zhuang family eat this, but he had never tasted it himself.
He had thick bones and big hands, so the Dragon Tongue Sutra seemed smaller when he held it. He stuffed one into his mouth, nodded, and then ate two, then three. There were eight in the bag, and he finished them all.
Speaking of the second branch of the Ji family,
Ji Xu sent the two away and returned to the hall.
There was a wooden table with silver cakes on it. Feng, Zhu and Huamaozi were seeing such a huge fish for the first time. They knelt on each side like protectors, holding onto the edge of the table, staring intently and guarding it closely.
Seeing her come back, he asked her the reason in a chattering manner. Only then did he know that Ji Xu had met the thief a few days ago, and he couldn't help but feel frightened.
Ji Feng pulled her and was relieved to see that her arms and legs were fine. She prayed for God's blessing.
"Don't worry, Sister Feng, she's on the case now. Nothing will happen to my sister, and our family will get the money."
Ji Xu said, this is fifty taels, a tofu shop can't make that much money in a whole year.
"I have a lot of money, but where should I put it?"
Ji Feng was stunned at first, then overjoyed, unable to get enough of the silver cake. Finally, she became worried and searched everywhere in the house for it. She felt uneasy no matter where she put it. She was worried that it would be lost or stolen.
“Put it here!”
Finally, Ji Xu pointed to the corner of the west room and the double-collared pot with pickled vegetables.
"Pickled mustard greens?"
Jizhu thought for a moment that her sister was going to hide the money in the jar, and was wondering if it would be mixed with the pickles.
But Ji Xu slowly moved the heavy double-collar pot away, dug a one-foot-deep hole with a hoe, hid the silver cake wrapped in the cloth bag inside, covered it with soil, and then moved it back to the double-collar pot.
"That's great! No one would have thought there would be a silver cake under the humble pickled mustard greens. Xiaozhu, we're playing outside, so don't tell anyone else."
Ji Feng said.
Ji Zhu agreed obediently.
Ji Xu still put the change he earned at the tofu shop today into a purse and hid it under the quilt in the closet. It was enough for daily expenses.
As for the fifty taels that were buried, they could buy five ox carts, or fourteen donkeys, and eight hundred and thirty chickens.
If they bought rice, they could get a thousand bushels; if they bought beans, they could get 1,600 bushels. This amount of food would be enough to feed an average family of five in the village for seven years, and if it were enough for the three sisters, it would last for fifteen years. It was a huge fortune.
This is the confidence that the sisters will have in the future. They can dig it out to use in emergencies when encountering major problems. If they open a bigger store in the future, it can also be used as capital. Ji Xu feels much more at ease.
After cleaning up the place, they picked up the dragon tongue and ate it. It was soft, sweet, and had a slight bitter taste of wormwood.
"This packet will be shared among you fellows at the library tomorrow."
Ji Xu packed a portion for each of them. The two sisters were popular in the library and often brought back some meat jerky shared by their classmates. Ji Xu thought that he couldn't just eat other people's food, so he prepared some.
Feng and Zhu received the money and put it in their respective bookcases. This was something they had the final say over, just like the money they had saved, and they were very happy for a moment.
Ji Feng is usually good at managing the household, but she is not the type to take advantage of others. She is already thinking about who to give the money to.
"This dragon tongue is delicious. You don't buy anything like it anywhere else. Did your sister make it?"
"Your sister's cooking skills are really good. My chef can't make it."
The next day, the students in the library ate the food and praised its deliciousness.
After distributing the food around, the two sisters got a lot of meat jerky, including rabbit meat and venison. These were all available for them to eat when they were hungry.
My sister is busy with business and it is not convenient for her to eat, so chewing a piece of this is just right. Ji Feng picked up the broken pieces and put them into her mouth, and kept the big pieces with a towel.
I returned home in the second half of the day, and the ox cart slowly moved across the fields.
I met a group of children, carrying hoes on their shoulders, singing songs, and heading towards Niupi Mountain in groups.
When they saw the ox cart coming, they stopped by the roadside to give way, huddled together like little ducklings, squinting their eyes and smiling in the sun, looking particularly simple and unpretentious.
"Those are Erfeng, Xiaozhu and the others!" Cui Guangyao said.
"Should we call them?"
The two of them have been attending elementary school recently, and because they were afraid of revenge from the Wu Liang siblings, they haven't gone out for a while, and their skin has become much whiter.
She was sitting on an ox cart, wearing a pair of red hairbands, a short jacket made of fine cloth, with snot still on her cuffs, and holding a bookcase in her hands.
In their view, she was just like the girl kept by a rich family. They felt a little unfamiliar or timid for a moment and did not say hello.
It was Ji Feng who saw them and leaned over the edge of the car and asked, "Where are you going?"
"Go to Niupi Mountain to dig wild bamboo shoots!" Wang Li said.
"Sister, can my sister and I go?" Ji Feng asked.
Niupi Mountain was not far away, and there were villagers tending their vegetable gardens on the side of the road. These children were many and could keep each other company, so Ji Xu let them go.
Feng and Zhu went back and changed into patched old jackets. They didn't feel bad even though they got dirty. They carried hoes and caught up with them.
The children were waiting for them there. Seeing the two sisters like this, they felt they were friendly again and started talking. They asked them what they learned in elementary school, whether the teacher beat or scolded the students, and praised their beautiful clothes.
When they arrived near the bamboo grove, they all spread out to look for bamboo shoots.
Whenever the bamboo shoots in this area emerge, they are dug up and taken home by people who go into the mountains to collect firewood. Therefore, you cannot see the tips of the bamboo shoots on the ground; they are still hidden in the ground and you have to rely on your eyesight to find them.
Ji Feng had sharp eyes. He first found a piece of ground that was slightly cracked. He dug a hole with his hoe and found some brown and green bamboo shoots.
"You found it so quickly?"
"Your hands are still the fastest when it comes to picking fruits and digging wild vegetables."
Seeing this, Ji Zhi scanned the ground even more. She didn't believe it. It was not as good as Ji Feng reading the sage books in the library. If she found one, it was just smaller, but some of them were empty-handed.
Ji Xu had cows and donkeys at home. These cows and donkeys were usually fed with bean dregs, occasionally mixed with some purchased grass. Their fur was smooth, which showed that they were well-fed.
He went to the chicken coop again and picked up four chicken eggs. Since he didn't sell them to make noodles with pickled vegetables and pork jerky, he had some eggs left over, so he put them in a clay pot. He counted them and found there were twenty of them.
She went to the vegetable garden, cut a bunch of spring chives, and used them to fry eggs. She then went to the corner of the west room and picked some taro to make taro soup.
I bought this taro last year. I bought half a sack and stored it on a shelf for ventilation. It is still edible now.
When it was done, the sun had already set and the afterglow burned the mountaintops red. Ji Xu went to Niupi Mountain to call his sister home for dinner.
Along the way, many people shouted at the gate of the courtyard for their children to come home for dinner.
"You've been out all day, your heart has become wild, and you'll be kidnapped by thieves one day!"
The adults were muttering to the children who had run back home frantically, and you could still hear them even after closing the gate.
Ji Xu was a calm, or rather indifferent person, but he loved this kind of scene the most. It was bustling and lively, and life felt real at this time. People were constantly greeting each other on the road.
"Xu Nu, where are you going?"
"Have you had dinner yet?"
She agreed to all of them. When they reached Niupi Mountain, some children had already come down with bamboo shoots in their arms, and they kept answering the adults' calls.
“Here it comes!”
"Sister Xu, Erfeng is still digging. She is lucky and found a big one right away. It hasn't been dug out yet." Wang Li ran down and said, holding a small one in his hand.
Ji Zhi saw her, turned away without saying a word, and walked away.
Ji Yuan was calling her from a distance. The date of her wedding had been set, in April, after the Cold Food Festival. She had hardly gone out recently and had been doing needlework at home.
When Ji Xu heard about it, he went to Mao Zhu and his eyes widened.
Ji Feng dug a big hole to dig bamboo shoots. She sat in the hole and only her head could be seen from a distance. Ji Zhu was poking with a wooden stick beside her, working very hard.
"Sister, come and look! This bamboo shoot is almost as tall as a small bead. Wang Li and the others said I dug up the ancestor of bamboo shoots!"
It was the first time that Ji Xu had seen such a large one. As she was sitting in the pit, she was amused and said:
"Let my sister come and dig it up so we can go back and eat."
After saying that, he took over the hoe and dug for a while. Finally, he saw the root hairs. This was the end. He pried it off with the hoe. A complete big bamboo shoot was carried to the edge of the pit. It was as thick as a thigh and as long as an arm.
Three smaller ones were dug out in the big pit. These had not yet emerged and were impossible to find with the naked eye. This was because the pit had to be dug large enough to find them.
Finally, we returned with a full load of bamboo shoots, one big and three small.
These bamboo shoots are best eaten fresh, so she didn't mind the trouble and peeled them, cut them into small pieces, and used them to stir-fry ham.
This ham was made from the two hind legs of the pig when Mr. Tian was hunting. It has been there for a long time. When it is sliced, the meat is red and shiny, and looks like snowflakes.
When stir-frying bamboo shoots, don’t add too much seasoning to avoid overpowering the flavor. Just enjoy the freshness.
"This spring bamboo shoot ham is delicious, fresh and goes well with rice."
Ji Feng put the dishes on the rice, ate two bowls, and burped unexpectedly.
"Xiaozhu is eating ham for the first time! It's delicious!"
Ji Zhu's eyes lit up as she ate it. Only then did she realize what ham tasted like, salty and delicious.
There were enough fresh bamboo shoots for them to have two meals tomorrow. The leftovers were sliced and dried into bamboo shoot jerky for storage.
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