039, Mid-Autumn Festival
039, Mid-Autumn Festival
Although they lived at the foot of the emperor, only those who lived there knew the hardships of living there. Even if they didn't sell themselves into slavery, they had been working the land and doing manual labor for the landlords for generations, simply without a signed indenture. When the heavens were unfavorable and the harvest was poor, these tenant farmers could not pay the rent and grain taxes to the landlords, and they were forced to sell their children to survive.
But if they had money, their entire family could choose to go to the city to make a living, or migrate to a farther place and buy a few acres of good farmland to cultivate. In this way, their descendants would not have to live as hard as their ancestors of this generation and generations.
This time, their family used a small pot to grow bean sprouts in the house. There was a layer of sand and a layer of beans in the pot. After just a few days, the bean sprouts had already emerged from the mouth of the pot.
Dou, the wife of Village Chief Lu, peeled back the two layers of black cloth covering the jar's mouth, looked at the thing growing inside, and asked uncertainly, "Is this edible?"
"Beans can be eaten, so the sprouts from them must be edible." Chief Lu reached into the jar and pulled out a bean sprout. He shook off the sand on it and wanted to put it in his mouth to taste it. "I want to try it and see how it tastes."
But before he could put the bean sprouts into his mouth, his wife held his hand.
"Wait a minute, don't eat them yet." Dou took the bean sprouts from the head of the household and put them aside. Then she went out and caught a chicken and locked it in a cage. Then she picked a few bean sprouts and fed them to the chicken in the cage.
After seeing that the chicken was not poisoned after eating it, Dou was still not completely reassured. She said to her head of the household, "Let's wait a little longer. If the chicken is fine later, we will stir-fry a plate of bean sprouts for dinner. They have never seen this thing before, let alone eaten it, and they don't know how it tastes. If we want to do this business, we must make sure that it tastes good ourselves before we grow it and sell it."
"Okay, I'll do as you say." Patriarch Lu also knew that this method was the safest. Otherwise, if the whole family ate it and something really happened, he would be the sinner of the whole family.
The couple waited until the afternoon.
In the afternoon, after making sure that the chickens in the cage were still alive, Dou took the vegetable basket into the house, picked out a basket of bean sprouts, and asked her daughter-in-law to stir-fry them while cooking.
So on this day, there was a dish on the dinner table of Patriarch Lu’s house that no one recognized.
During the meal, Lu Bai, the eldest son of the Lu clan, saw a dish he didn't recognize and couldn't help but ask his wife, "What is this dish? Why haven't I seen it before?"
"These are the newly grown bean sprouts in our home. You can all try them and see how they taste." While Patriarch Lu was speaking, he had already stretched out his chopsticks and picked up a chopstick of bean sprouts and put it into his mouth.
The bean sprouts were crispy and sweet in the mouth. Chief Lu couldn't help but say "hmm".
"This is called... bean sprouts? They're grown from beans, right?" Lu Bai guessed it was a bean sprout. He reached out with his chopsticks, picked up a piece, and put it into his mouth. After chewing it twice, he nodded and said, "This bean sprout is delicious. It's crispy and sweet."
On this day, this dish called bean sprouts was unanimously recognized and liked by the whole family at the home of Patriarch Lu.
After dinner, Patriarch Lu called his eldest son and came into the house to discuss things.
The next morning, Chief Lu asked his eldest son to call several respected and close brothers from the clan to his home to discuss growing bean sprouts together.
Lu Mingfei, who was in the city with his parents at the time, didn't know what was happening in the village, and naturally didn't know that things had become uneasy at the Lu family's old house since they had moved away. However, the things happening at the Lu family's old house no longer had anything to do with them.
After their first day selling braised food, which was a huge success, they started to prepare more and more braised food every day. Whether it was braised meat or vegetables, they were very popular with customers, so they usually sold out before noon and went home.
In the afternoon, they had other things to do. They had just moved to the city and hadn't prepared their winter supplies yet. Now that they had started a food business, they had to prepare more firewood and sauerkraut than most families.
The firewood and vegetables and radishes that Liu Sanniang had ordered a few days ago have been delivered to their home one after another in the past few days.
Her husband was still in bed, unable to help them at all. With so much chores to do at home, the mother and son were overwhelmed, so Liu Sanniang followed her child's advice and hired two women to help with pickling the sauerkraut. She had made a lot of money in the past few days, and she was no longer so worried about her family's life and settling down in the city. With more money in her pocket, she was willing to spend money to hire people to do the work, saving energy so that she could devote herself to business and making money.
With two more people helping, the pickling process went much faster. Soon, the small storage room was piled high with jars of vegetables. These were the vegetables they would eat throughout the winter, as well as those they would use for their business. Otherwise, when the winter vegetables were scarce, they would have nothing left to use.
After the firewood delivered later filled up a corner of the kitchen, the extra firewood filled up the area under the eaves. There was still some left, so they could only pile it on one side of the main room.
Lu Mingfei even suggested that his mother buy two more carts of firewood and stack some in his room, as his room was currently mostly empty, which would be perfect for storing firewood for the winter. However, his mother disagreed, saying that if the firewood was stacked in his room, it would just become a woodshed.
However, they still bought two carts of firewood and filled half the main room with it. His mother then took the remaining wood and moved it to the bedroom where his father and mother lived. His mother said that since they were making braised food at home, they could burn firewood quickly. They could burn the wood in their room first and it would be gone in a few days. This reasoning was really hard for him to refute.
Their fireplace had been completed a few days ago, and a few days ago, after the bricks and soil had dried thoroughly, they tried burning the stove. Once the stove was lit, the temperature in their entire main room and the bedrooms on both sides rose.
With this fireplace, the three of them no longer had to worry about the cold in winter. For the first time, he wasn't so worried about winter anymore. Furthermore, they had left the Lu family's old house and could eat three meals a day. They no longer had to rely on water to fill their stomachs. In winter, they no longer had to lie in the house under a thin blanket, shivering, cold, hungry, and worried about their lives.
Now their family runs a braised food business, and the things they have the most are broth and meat. They eat three meals a day at home, and his mother always gives him a small piece of meat and a little bit of the marinade to add to the rice, and then gives him a bowl of bone broth to drink, so that he is always full after every meal.
The two adults in their family can also have their fill.
Once a person has a full stomach, he will no longer feel weak and powerless all day long, and he will have the energy to work, do business, and make more money.
Every day when his mother was busy, Lu Mingfei would go over to help. In the morning, he would go to the stall with his mother, and in the afternoon, he would go home to help pickle sauerkraut for the family and help take care of his father. His father's health was getting better and better. He could already sit up from the bed, but he couldn't walk yet.
***
The mother and son were so busy that it was the Mid-Autumn Festival.
When Lu Mingfei saw many stalls selling lanterns on the street, he remembered that the Mid-Autumn Festival was coming this year.
Liu Sanniang, who was so busy that she had forgotten about the festival, didn't even remember it until the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival. She said to her children with some guilt, "Mom almost forgot it's the festival today. After I finish selling things, I'll go out and see if there are any chickens for sale. I'll buy one and kill it at home to eat with you and your father."
"Mom, why don't we ask Uncle Lu and Auntie if they want to come to our house for dinner tonight?" Lu Mingfei remembered that the last time their family of three stayed at Boss Lu's house for several days, they were eating and sleeping in someone else's house. At that time, he also saw that his mother gave money to Xu Yue Niang, but Xu Yue Niang refused to accept the copper coins given by his mother.
Their stall was now next to the pancake shop, and the tables, chairs, pots, and pans were all borrowed from someone else's yard. Taking advantage of the holiday, it seemed only right to treat them to a meal. If you constantly take things from others while never giving anything yourself, over time, others will start to resent you.
Reciprocity is the best way for people to interact with each other.
"Okay, then wait until we have sold out the things at our stall, then we shall go and ask together? Or should you go and ask first?" Liu Sanniang thought this idea was good. They closed the stall early, so after they closed the stall, they could go back to buy vegetables, cook at home, and then invite Boss Lu and Xu Yueniang to their home for dinner. This would save Xu Yueniang from having to buy vegetables and cook at home by herself.
Their things were almost sold out at this moment, so Lu Mingfei said they would go and ask together later.
Today is a festival and there are many people coming and going in the city, so the business here at their stall is also good. Before noon, their items were sold out, and customers who came later to ask about their goods had nothing to sell.
Liu Sanniang said to the customer who came to eat later with a slightly apologetic tone: "I'm sorry, today's food is sold out. Please come earlier tomorrow."
"I was thinking about buying a can of meat from you guys to take home for the holiday today. It seems I'm a little late." The customer who came to buy something said with a hint of regret. Author's words: Thank you Bole 9492239 (9492239) for your support. Kisses! For more exciting content, please leave me a message on Liancheng Reading.
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