Yang Chunyan burst out laughing, "You little slick-mouthed fellow, tell me, what do you want to do?"
Zhou Jiakang smiled flatteringly, "I want to finish work and go back. Can you make some jelly for us? The sad jelly you made the other day was delicious!"
Yang Chunyan remembered that there was still some pea flour at home. "Okay! As long as you finish harvesting two rows of millet and come back from work at noon, I will make you some sad jelly."
Zhou Jialiang and others nearby also wanted to eat it after hearing it, "Aunt Yao, we want to eat it too. This time I want less Sichuan peppercorns and chili peppers. The last one was spicy and numbing. It was delicious, but it was not very convenient when going to the toilet."
Li Qiuyue smiled and said, "Our brother Ming is a grown man now, and he even speaks differently than before!"
"Jiaming has really become more sensible since he started junior high school." Zhao Huifang said with satisfaction, "Follow good people and learn good things. Mina is a good student who is sensible and hardworking. Jiaming goes to school and goes home with her every day, and his grades have improved."
Yang Chunyan also felt that Zhou Jiaming had really changed a lot in the past few months. She thought that Zhao Meina would have to take the high school entrance exam in more than a year, and Zhao Xiu Na, Zhou Xiao Qian, and Zhou Jiaming would also have to take the junior high school entrance exam next year.
"Jiaming, did Mina tell me which high school she wants to attend?"
"She said she was applying to Ning'an. I heard from her classmates that their teacher said that with her grades, she would have no problem getting into the best high school in Huashi. I think she wanted to study in Ning'an just to take care of her family."
"It should be." Yang Chunyan said to Zhou Xiaoqian: "Xiaoqian, which junior high school do you and Xiu Na want to apply to?"
Zhou Xiaoqian said: "The teacher said that as long as our grades don't drop, we will have no problem getting into Ning'an. I heard Xiu Na said that she wanted Sister Mina to study in the Flower Market. She is studying in Baima Junior High School, so it will be convenient for her to take care of Xiaochuan."
Zhou's mother sighed, "The siblings all care about each other. Mina went to Ning'an High School, and Xiu Na also went there to study in junior high school. If Xiaochuan could go to Ning'an to study in elementary school, the siblings could be together."
"Go to his house and ask them when you have time. If they are willing, ask Huai'an to help find some connections in the county."
Yang Chunyan thought that her siblings had leased the paddy fields to the Su family for farming. If they really wanted to go there, she would lease the mountain land to their family as well. When her siblings went to Ning'an, they would live in her house.
At this time, a car horn sounded at the entrance of the village. Zhou's mother looked at it and said to the children, "Hurry up and work. Once the wine is loaded onto the car, your old man and his family will move the mixing barrels to thresh the grain."
"We will finish harvesting this field soon. They won't be able to catch up with us." Zhou Jiakang said as he quickly grabbed a emerald green grasshopper and pulled out a barnyard grass ear to string it up.
Zhang Xiuxiang was so angry that she almost broke her back teeth. "Some people can't wait until the millet is harvested. They want to eat bamboo shoots fried with meat."
"I understand. Can't I just work hard?" Zhou Jiakang hung the oil grasshopper on his waist and prepared to work honestly. Suddenly, a yellow chicken flew out from the rice field in front of him.
"Brother, hurry up, the yellow chicken flew out of the field."
Yang Chunyan and others stood up after hearing this, and saw a chicken the size of a half-grown hen flying rapidly towards the rice field in front.
Zhou Jiaming and Zhou Jialiang stood up and threw the sickle out. The sickle brushed against the yellow chicken's tail and fell into the rice field. "Oh, if only my father was here."
"We can't hit him even if Dad is here, unless we bring a gun." The Zhou Jialiang brothers walked towards the edge of the field in frustration to pick up their sickles.
Zhao Huifang said, "The yellow hen runs away early every year when the grain is harvested. Now she hasn't run away. There may be a chicken coop ahead. Be careful later and see if you can pick up eggs."
Wan Xuejiao laughed and said, "When I was little, I loved going to the rice fields with my brother to look for yellow chicken eggs, which were white and about the same size as turtledove eggs.
One time, my brother and I went to the rice paddies to look for them. We were very lucky that time. We found a nest and picked up three eggs. We walked through several rice paddies and picked up 13 eggs in total. My mother crushed them and steamed a whole pot of them. I still remember the taste.
Yang Chunyan also recalled her childhood experience: "My younger sister and I also went to pick them up. My old man told us to stand on the edge of the field and look. As long as there is a bunch of green and lush rice seedlings growing well in the field, we will definitely find the nest of a yellow chicken.
The eggs that were picked up were basically good ones, but the ones that were in a clutch of five or six were most likely brooding eggs. When you picked them up and cracked them open, you would find that they were all bloody chicks.
Later, my younger sister and I learned to be smart. When we found the eggs, we would hold them up to the light and take the good ones, and put the ones that were brooding away back.”
Mother Zhou took over the conversation, "The yellow chicken and the Dong chicken both hate it. They like to build their nests in the rice seedling nests. The better the rice seedling nests are, the more they like the Feng Shui treasure land.
Wherever they build their nests, the nearby rice seedling nests will be crushed and trampled to death. When we find the chicken coop later, you will see that one chicken coop contains several rice seedling nests, which means at least several kilograms of millet will be lost."
The yellow jipo is a water bird in the rice fields that looks like a white crane. Because of the yellow color of its feathers, the villagers call it the yellow jipo.
People in the country don't like the yellow hen. First, the sound it makes is really unpleasant, a bit like the dying cry of a hen when it is slaughtered.
Second, they damage crops. Whenever the seedlings in the rice fields grow to more than one foot high, they like to go into the fields and build nests in the seedlings that are growing well. One nest will trample several seedlings to death, thus affecting the yield.
As they were talking, Zhou Jialiang shouted from the front: "Grandma, I found the chicken coop, there are five eggs! Grandma, come and see if they are incubating?"
"What are you shouting for? I'll take it!" Zhou Jiaming carefully picked up the chicken coop and brought it to Yang Chunyan, the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, "If there are chicks, take them back to the hen house to help them brood."
Mother Zhou picked up one and held it in her palm, then held it up to the sun. After shining a light on several of them, she shook her head and said, "No, they are all broody eggs. There are no broody hens at home. Take them back and cook them for Wangcai and Laifu."
Zhou Jiakang looked at her worriedly, "Grandma, will the dog become stupid after eating it?"
"You'll become stupid if you have nothing to eat!" Zhou's mother glared at him, "If you keep working, I'll tell your aunt not to make jelly for you."
"Oh!" Zhou Jiakang continued to work with a sickle in his hand, thinking that his father and aunt were right. He should study hard so that he wouldn't have to go to the fields to plant rice, harvest millet and break corn every year in the future!
Two hours later, everyone had harvested the millet from three fields, and then Zhou Huaishan and Zhou Huaijun came, each carrying a mixing bucket on their backs.
Zhou Huaian came down carrying a basket and helped to lift the bundles of grain high. Then he said to Zhou Jiakang and the others, "You guys come and help pass the bundles of grain while grandma and aunt go back to dry the grain."
"oh oh!"
The children felt that the back-breaking job of cutting grain was a good job compared to the boring job of delivering grain that they had been bored with before.
Zhou's mother said to Wan Xuejiao, "We have already cut three plots of land. Let Huifang and Xiuxiang cut the land here. You go back and take care of the children."
"It's okay. I was full when I came." Wan Xue smiled and said, "Let Sister Chunyan go back. I want to eat that sad jelly too."
Li Qiuyue also said, "Chunyan, you and mom go back and mix the jelly and let it cool in cold water. It will be just right for us to eat when we get home from work."
"Okay, I'll go back and be lazy first." Yang Chunyan went home with Zhou's mother, holding the sickle. Xiao Jiuer ran up to her holding a toy train, "Mom, big train!"
Zhou Xiaolin quickly helped translate, "Aunt, two large carts came and took away all our wine jars. The old man said he would sell them for money and buy some meat to eat."
"Okay, let's cut the meat!" Yang Chunyan said with a smile, "Have you taken the big car?"
Zhou Xiaolin nodded, "We sat down. The uncle took us to sit down."
Yang Chunyan touched her rosy face and said, "You just help the old man take care of your brother. I'll go make some jelly for you guys."
"Yeah!" Zhou Xiaolin looked at her with sparkling eyes, "I like sweet food, there are brown sugar peanuts and sesame." Then she looked at the old man, "Grandpa, do you like it?"
The old man nodded happily, "The ancestor likes it!"
Yang Chunyan looked at the old man who had lost a lot of energy after just one night's work, and took Xiao Jiuer to him, "Listen to the radio here with the ancestor!"
"Aunt Jiuer likes to listen to the trumpet, but there is no trumpet at the moment!" Zhou Xiaolin said, leaning against the old man.
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "Then you can go to the vegetable garden with the old man and help pick a winter melon. We will stew winter melon and pork ribs for lunch."
The old man knew that she was worried that he would sit there and think too much, so he deliberately found something for him to do. He smiled and said, "Pick some cowpeas and come back to make cowpea rice for me."
"Okay, I'll get out a piece of bacon, and we'll have cowpea rice." Yang Chunyan went to the kitchen, put a few yellow hen's eggs in the stove, buried them with ashes, and cooked them before giving them to the dog.
Zhou's mother took out a cloth bag from the rice jar and said, "There are still four or five pounds of flour. Is three pounds enough?"
Yang Chunyan thought for a moment and said, "Two kilograms is enough. Last time, I mixed two kilograms of powder and filled two porcelain basins."
"Then I'll go fry the peanuts and boil the sugar water, and you can mix the jelly."
"Okay!" Yang Chunyan scooped some water to scrub the pot outside, scooped four scoops of about eight pounds of water into it, and stirred the pea flour into a paste according to the ratio of one pound of pea flour to two pounds of water.
After the water in the pot boils, turn to low heat, pour the pea powder that has been stirred into a paste into the pot and stir evenly. After it is cooked, scoop it out and put it in a porcelain basin, and put it in the sink outside to cool.
After the jelly is formed, slice it or cut it into pieces, add seasoning and you can eat it.
After frying the peanuts, Zhou's mother took out a piece of brown sugar, cut it into pieces, diluted it with water and brought it to a boil, then served it and let it cool. If you like sweet food, add brown sugar water and sprinkle some sesame seeds and crushed peanuts. It is fragrant, sweet, refreshing and thirst-quenching.
If you like to eat the spicy and numb sad jelly that makes you cry, you can add cooked chili peppers with crushed peanuts and sesame seeds, pepper oil, ginger and garlic juice, and the unique sweet and sour taste here. It tastes amazing.
Just as the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law finished making the jelly and seasonings, Zhou Huairong and Zhou Huaishan came back carrying grain. Yang Chunyan asked Zhou's mother to cook while she went out to dry the grain. The old man also started to get busy with a grass rake and a nail rake.
When the workers came back for lunch, the children tried both sweet and spicy dishes. After two bowls of jelly, they could no longer eat the fragrant cowpea rice and sweet pork ribs and winter melon soup. (End of this chapter)
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