Chapter 31 Eating Rice and Buying a Blanket
"This is the royalties for the gold-patterned bowl."
Pi Kangxiu pushed the neatly arranged silver dollars to Yao Xiaoyu, and then counted out Ding Xianchuan's manuscript fee.
Did you give me too much?
Yao Xiaoyu looked at Pi Kangxiu with some surprise. In this era, there were manuscript fees of several yuan per thousand words, but that was a privilege reserved for literary giants. In the eyes of people in this era, novels were considered lowbrow entertainment. Before inflation, one yuan per thousand words was already a privilege that only good authors could receive.
Although the price for short stories is higher because the whole article can be read directly without the risk of being left unfinished or abandoned, Yao Xiaoyu estimated that she would be lucky to get 1.5 yuan per thousand words, but the newspaper actually gave her 2 yuan per thousand words.
"No, this article is exceptionally well-written; this was an application made under special circumstances."
Pi Kangxiu shook his head, and Yao Xiaoyu was relieved. She quickly put away the silver dollars and started planning where to spend the money—she would save the manuscript fee of 50 cents per thousand words separately, and once she found a suitable place, she would combine it with the money she had earned before and put it into gold bars that were easy to store.
Of the ten silver dollars in royalties I receive tomorrow, I need to give two dollars and fifty cents home first. We had agreed that she would give ten dollars home every month, but Yao Xiaoyu only receives her royalties once a week, five dollars each time.
Yao Xiaoyu didn't want to have no income for the first two weeks of each month, and Zhou Chunhua didn't want to see Yao Xiaoyu spending five silver dollars on big purchases in the second half of the month. After discussing it, they decided that the household expenses would be paid in four installments each month instead of all at once.
Yao Xiaoyu has disposable income every time she receives royalties, and Zhou Chunhua doesn't have to watch Yao Xiaoyu spend money recklessly. Both of them have a bright future.
Two dollars and fifty cents were taken out of the ten dollars, leaving seven dollars and fifty cents. After paying off the cost of copying the short story on credit and deducting the money for meat and treats as usual, it would be difficult to buy two quilts with the remaining silver dollars, but Zhou Chunhua had money on hand.
Whether to pay for a thicker quilt or watch Yao Xiaoyu squander her money and end up buying a quilt outright when she can't stand the cold anymore, Yao Xiaoyu believes Zhou Chunhua can figure it out.
Saying goodbye to Pi Kangxiu, who kept brainwashing her, "If you come across any more articles like this in the future, be sure to show them to our newspaper first...", Yao Xiaoyu happily went downstairs with the silver dollars divided into two portions. When she saw Zhou Chunhua, she gave her a big smile.
She had already secretly saved more than twenty silver dollars, and with the eighteen she could save on hand, Yao Xiaoyu's savings had now exceeded forty silver dollars, and she finally had the confidence to ask about the surgery fee.
"Grandma, let's go eat rice and vegetables."
Yao Xiaoyu said with great enthusiasm, Zhou Chunhua was already used to her always having a treat whenever she went out. Touching the three round, hard objects wrapped in newspaper that had just been handed to her, she followed her granddaughter into the Pro Restaurant, which had a sign with the word "Rice" on it.
"Two rice and vegetable dishes. Grandma, would you like to change the spare ribs in one of the dishes to chicken wings? I'll go order another stir-fry dish."
Vegetable rice is another set meal at Pro Restaurant, costing two cents per serving. The standard set includes two pieces of pork ribs, a bowl of rice, and a soup. The rice is vegetable rice, which is made by chopping vegetables, stir-frying them in oil, steaming them with rice, and then mixing them well. When someone wants to eat, a bowl is scooped out and packed tightly.
Every family has its own secrets to cooking rice. Some use peanut oil to stir-fry the dishes, while others add other ingredients. This family, for example, adds diced salted pork, which tastes good and is very generous in portion. The bowl of rice served is pressed down so much that even dockworkers can eat nine-tenths full after one bowl.
If you don't want to eat ribs, you can substitute other meat dishes without extra charge. The portion size will be adjusted based on the price of the substitute dish.
"Do you have any fresh vegetables?"
Yao Xiaoyu looked at the seasonal vegetables in front of her. She couldn't say what was wrong with them, but she just had no appetite. She had eaten here a few times before. The waiter who accompanied her knew that she had money, so he lifted the white cloth in the corner, revealing a small basket of mushrooms.
“It rained yesterday, which brought out the heat from the fields. My relatives in the countryside picked some and sent them over. They were fresh and arrived just an hour ago.”
When the waiter saw Yao Xiaoyu's eyes light up, he enthusiastically introduced the dish. Yao Xiaoyu was tempted and asked about the price. To make sure she wasn't being ripped off, she ordered a plate of stir-fried meat.
"The pork needs to be rendered to extract its fat, but it shouldn't be so tough that it's hard to chew."
Yao Xiaoyu frowned and instructed that she had eaten stir-fried dishes in other places, but she had never found pork belly that she liked. Either the fat was too greasy when she bit into it, or it was as tough and dry as wood. Later, she simply asked people to stir-fry the dishes with lean meat. The taste was not as good, but at least she could eat with peace of mind.
But mushrooms taste best when paired with pork belly.
At home, we slice mushrooms thinly and pair them with slices of pork belly that have been briefly fried in oil until they resemble lanterns, a spoonful of soy sauce, and a spoonful of salt. After frying out the mushrooms' natural moisture, we simmer them over low heat. The taste is...
Yao Xiaoyu shook off her sudden melancholy and ordered another serving of spare ribs as a treat. She then found a seat and waited for the food. A little while later, Zhou Chunhua also sat down.
"Grandma, what dish did you choose?"
Yao Xiaoyu asked curiously, "The ribs here are all miscellaneous cuts, with the meat hidden in the nooks and crannies. Zhou Chunhua usually doesn't eat them unless she has other options."
"I replaced the ribs with boneless meat."
Deboned meat is exactly what it sounds like; it's usually meat removed from the pork leg bones. It looks like less than spare ribs, but the advantage is that it can be eaten directly.
While the grandmother and granddaughter were talking, the set meal was delivered. Zhou Chunhua also had an extra dish of soy sauce, so if they thought the boneless meat was too bland, they could dip it in.
The rice and vegetables were served in a bowl about the size of a head. The broth was very clear, and there were only a few pieces of tofu the size of a fingernail in it, sprinkled with a few chopped green onions.
Perhaps because we ordered stir-fry, the ribs that were served didn't look bad. Although there wasn't much meat, it was much easier to eat them clean.
The stir-fried mushrooms with pork arrived quickly. Inside each half-finger-long mushroom was a slice of pork belly about the same thickness. Only a little salt was added to thicken the sauce before serving. The flavor was just as good because the mushrooms were fresh. The mushrooms absorbed all the oil from the stir-fried pork belly, making a crunchy sound when you bite into them. The pork belly slices had a slight chewiness, but they weren't tough, unpalatable old bark.
Later, she bought some pork belly and asked the vendor to cut it up so she could try cooking it at home, since she had almost run out of lard at home.
Zhou Chunhua didn't comment on the stir-fried mushrooms and pork, but the chopsticks she occasionally reached for the plate showed her satisfaction.
"I can't eat anymore..."
Yao Xiaoyu said breathlessly that the restaurant did not serve any dishes to anyone. The dishes and rice served to Yao Xiaoyu and Zhou Chunhua were exactly the same compressed package. Yao Xiaoyu originally thought that her appetite was already quite big, but she still surrendered to the dishes and rice that she could not finish no matter what.
"I'm almost there too."
Zhou Chunhua put down her chopsticks, patting her round belly with a dilemma—leaving the unfinished food here was more painful than a knife cutting her heart, but if she didn't leave it, she wouldn't have a bowl to put it back in.
The waiter was quick-witted. Seeing that the two had stopped eating, he offered to pack their food to go. The grandmother and granddaughter nodded, and then watched as the waiter magically produced several lotus leaves and wrapped their food tightly.
"You make your money from selling lotus leaves, don't you?"
After paying for the packaging, Yao Xiaoyu belatedly realized that this practice still exists in modern times—outsourcing factories offer very low prices for rough processing, or even free processing, and their livelihood depends on the iron filings from lathe processing.
The business of wrapping food in lotus leaves may seem insignificant, but it adds up quickly and earns the business a reputation for generosity.
"Someone else is here."
Having figured out their profit-making methods, the waiter simply smiled at Yao Xiaoyu and hurried off to attend to the newly arrived female guest.
"They actually hire women as waitresses here!"
Even after Zhou Chunhua left, she still found it somewhat unbelievable, while Yao Xiaoyu remained quite calm.
"She must be the young owner of the restaurant."
Yao Xiaoyu heard the shopkeeper call the shopkeeper "Dad".
"The world has truly changed; women can now run businesses too..."
Yao Xiaoyu skillfully ignored Zhou Chunhua's murmurs and quickly walked towards the meat stall when no one was around. The meat stall owner's face lit up with a smile when he saw his little money god arrive. Fortunately, he remembered that Yao Xiaoyu didn't want to be recognized as a customer, so although he was eager to promote the meat, he kept his voice down.
"Would you like some beef? It was just slaughtered this morning, it's very fresh."
When Yao Xiaoyu heard the word "beef," her eyes lit up instantly. She'd been out so many times, but this was the first time she'd ever encountered beef, yet she still needed to be cautious:
"Where did this cow come from?"
Oxen can plow the fields in spring and pull carts in the other three seasons, making them a valuable asset to the family. The saying that "humans are not as good as oxen" was a realistic depiction of this era. There was even a hellish joke circulating in the government: if you tell the police that your child is missing, they may not care, but if you say that your ox is lost, they will immediately come to the rescue.
“Yesterday, a calf slipped and broke its leg. The doctor said it was beyond saving. The family held the calf and cried for half the night. In the end, they asked me to come over and help the calf.”
The vendor spoke in detail, and his eyes were clear and honest. Yao Xiaoyu believed him and took out a silver coin, placing it on the edge of the meat stall.
"Give me a dollar's worth of beef."
If Zhou Chunhua hadn't been watching her so closely, Yao Xiaoyu could have taken out all her silver dollars to buy all the beef—her whole family was malnourished, and beef was a good thing for replenishing qi and blood!
"Okay!"
The vendor happily agreed, picked out a piece of pork leg for Yao Xiaoyu, and even thoughtfully cut it into thumb-sized pieces so she could cook it directly when she got home.
After buying the beef, Yao Xiaoyu didn't rush home. Instead, she took Zhou Chunhua's hand and headed straight for the pawnshop.
"Grandma, this is all the money I have..."
Yao Xiaoyu stuffed five silver dollars, along with the remaining silver coins, into Zhou Chunhua's hand. This time, Zhou Chunhua didn't hesitate.
"I'll make up the rest of the money."
Zhou Chunhua had thought it through very clearly: one thick quilt could only fit two people, and even if the Yao family was very frugal, they would still have to buy two more quilts to get through the winter. At worst, they could just pawn the quilts after winter. If they got sick from the cold, not only would they have to drink bitter medicine, but the money spent on doctor's visits could buy so many quilts!
-----------------------
Author's Note: This post will be available for purchase on Wednesday, but will be a reverse purchase. 10,000 words will be updated on the same day.
————
————
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
