Zhou's mother glanced at him and said unhappily, "I'm not carrying you on my back, so why can't you do it?"
"Can you guys eat what I made?" Zhou Huaian took the basket from her hand with a smile, "Wow~ You picked up so many good things!"
Seeing that Zhou's mother didn't respond to him, Yang Chunyan smiled and continued, "Go earlier next time, there should be more."
"I'll go and take a look sometime." Zhou Huaian walked towards the wine cellar carrying mushrooms.
"Hmm!" Yang Chunyan remembered the offal of the gray storks and turtledoves that were brought back last night. Zhou's father had cleaned them up, pickled them with light salt and put them in the wine cellar. She hurriedly asked Zhou Huaian to bring them out.
"Mom, do you want porridge or rice for lunch?"
"Porridge!" Zhou's mother said as she strode towards the backyard. "I soaked some sorghum rice and told your husband to cook porridge. He should have finished cooking it. You can help me make two dishes, and I will fry corn cakes when I come back from the third brother's house."
Li Qiuyue hadn't finished her confinement yet, so she had to rush over to prepare confinement meals for her.
Yang Chunyan arrived at the backyard and saw Xiao Jiuer sleeping soundly in the cradle. The porridge was cooked and scooped out and left to dry, and there were cooked salted duck eggs in the bowl.
On the low table were eggplants, cucumbers, green peppers, potatoes and large winter melons that Zhao Huifang and Zhang Xiuxiang had brought early in the morning.
The two were very diligent. Every day before going out, they would pick out the vegetables from home and send them here. The cowpeas, white lentils, eggplants, cucumbers and other vegetables in their own fields would become old before they could be eaten.
Zhou Huaian came out with a bowl of tripe and saw her picking vegetables. "Yan'er, what delicious food do you want to make for lunch?"
"Stir-fried tripe with pickled cabbage, cold-mixed eggplant, shredded green pepper and potato, and stir-fried cucumber and egg." Yang Chunyan said, turning her head, "Go to the vegetable garden and pick some green onions."
"Okay!" Zhou Huaian put down his food and left.
Yang Chunyan picked the eggplant stems, peeled a dozen potatoes, peeled the cucumber stems, picked a handful of green peppers and took them to the sink to wash them.
The water in the pot is boiling, put a steaming grate in the pot, cut the eggplant in half and put it on the steaming grate, cover the lid, and then cut the potato shreds.
Zhou Huaian came out of the vegetable garden holding a bunch of green onions and saw Luo Haili coming on a bicycle. When she got closer, she saw that Luo Haili looked unhappy and had dark circles under her eyes. "Cousin, what happened in the shop?"
Luo Haili got off her bicycle next to him and said to him, "I came to you just to tell you about the things in the shop."
Zhou Huaian's face darkened, "Did the He family go to the shop to cause trouble for you again and bully you?"
"I haven't caused any trouble, but that bastard He Jianjun went crazy a while ago and came to our shop to harass Yumei. He said he wanted to reconcile with her, and that he would treat her and Xiaoxi well in the future. He also said that they would remarry so that people would not say that Xiaoxi was a child without an old man. Yumei scolded him and beat him out with a stick."
"What?" Zhou Huaian frowned and looked at her, "Why didn't you mention this when you came back from seeing off Third Sister-in-law a few days ago?"
"Yumei said that the people had been chased away. There was no need to tell you and make you angry."
"So you came here today, is that bastard bothering my sister again?"
"No, it's just that some wicked bastard has been urinating outside our shop every now and then. It stinks so bad. We've been flushing it with water for a long time but there's still a smell. As a result, fewer customers come to eat here."
Zhou Huaian recalled the last time Zhou Yumei said that He Pozi was throwing dirty water, "It must be that son of a bitch He Jianjun, didn't you get up and catch him?"
"We got up in the middle of the night and tried to catch him several times, but we didn't catch him. So we thought we'd come to your house today and bring a dog back. When we catch that dog, we'll beat the shit out of him." Luo Haili said fiercely.
"I'm going to get some food this afternoon, and I'll bring the dog with me." Zhou Huaian said as he saw someone carrying corns coming over. "Go in and talk!"
"Okay!" Luo Haili pushed her bicycle and followed him inside and parked it in the shade. "Aunt and uncle are at the old house?"
"They are all here. The old man and grandpa are picking corn, and mom is at the third brother's place." Zhou Huaian took her to the backyard, "Chunyan, your cousin is here."
Yang Chunyan, who was cutting potato shreds, turned around and saw Luo Haili, and said with a smile: "Cousin, please sit down!"
"Okay!" Luo Haili sat next to the cradle and looked at Xiao Jiuer. "It's still cooler in the mountains. It's been so hot in town these days."
"It's much cooler in the mountains. We still have to cover ourselves with thin quilts at night." Yang Chunyan rolled the potato shreds into a porcelain basin and went to the sink to rinse them.
Luo Haili: "It's hot in town during the day, but it starts to cool down after midnight, so it's still good to take a nap."
Zhou Huaian poured a glass of water and handed it to her. "I just thought about it. If it was really the He family who did it, I would take the dog over during the day. They would not do such a wicked thing after seeing it. It's better to wait until dark and I will send the dog over to you."
"That's the best!" Luo Haili took a few sips of water. "There's one more thing. When we got up this morning and just opened the shop, we saw the He family had people come to tear down the courtyard wall. They also pulled a lot of yellow bricks and tiles. It looked like they were going to build a house and open a shop. Yumei and I suspect that they were the ones who threw urine. They wanted to bring us down."
Yang Chunyan came over with a porcelain basin and said, "Don't doubt it, they did it. Seeing that your business is good, they also want to open a shop to sell the things you sell."
In his previous life, He Jianjun followed his brother-in-law to learn how to sell for a while, and then he went home and built a house in the yard to open a shop. This time he started a shop a few years earlier, just to learn from Yumei and the others.
This person has a bad character, but he is good at doing business, otherwise he would not have been able to open a small shop into a big shop and build a multi-story building in his previous life.
"Yan'er is right, it was those beasts who did it." Zhou Huaian felt that He Jianjun, that bastard, went to harass Yumei with the intention of taking over her shop.
Seeing that Yumei refused to fall for it and was kicked out by her, and that he couldn't get the shop or gain any advantage, he became evil-minded and tried to ruin their business by urinating on them.
Luo Haili nodded, "Yes, they are just jealous of our good business. Since the weather got hot, our fried potatoes, jelly, cold noodles, and ice jelly have been selling very well. We are so busy every day that we can't handle it. Yumei even asked the aunt across the street to help take care of Xiaoxi."
Yang Chunyan: "Even if the He family wants to learn from you, as long as they don't do anything bad, they do theirs and you do yours, each doing your own business. Don't cut corners and make the food taste good. Make money based on your own abilities and don't be afraid of them."
Luo Haili: "Yes, the small shops in the town saw that our ice jelly was selling well, so they also tried to make and sell it. We still had business. But some people with bad intentions chose to do some crooked things, thinking that they could drive us away."
Zhou Huaian: "We will send the dog over after dark. We will stay in the town tonight and wait for the man to lick the land clean. A kind man will be bullied and a kind horse will be ridden. We were too polite to the He family last time. We should smash all their things."
Luo Haili: "The He family's old woman is the most disgusting. Every time she passes by us, she spits and makes small gestures. I think the urine-throwing incident must have been the old woman's idea."
Zhou Huaian: "No matter which one of his family did it, if we catch them, we will give them an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."
After Luo Haili told the two of them, she looked much more relaxed. She finished the water in her cup, stood up and said, "I have to go back. Yumei is alone there and she won't be able to handle it if someone comes."
Zhou Huaian hurriedly said: "The meal is ready, Yan'er has started cooking, you can eat here before leaving."
"I'm not hungry. I ate a bowl of fried potatoes when I came here." Luo Haili said and walked out.
Yang Chunyan stepped forward and held her back. "Cousin, the salted duck eggs are cooked, and the porridge is also drying. I'll mix the eggplants, and you can have a bowl of porridge before you leave."
Seeing that she was holding on to him, Luo Haili could only nod and said, "Then I'll have a bowl of porridge before I leave."
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "That's about right."
"Let me help you cut the salted duck eggs!" Luo Haili walked to the sink to wash her hands. "Your water tastes better. The water from our pressurized well is not as good as this."
Zhou Huaian said proudly: "Our family has mountain spring water, and the town has groundwater. They are definitely different."
Yang Chunyan glanced at him and said, "Huaian, go call grandpa and the old man back for dinner, and push the corn back at the same time."
"Oh!" Zhou Huaian picked up the straw hat hanging on the bamboo rack and walked towards the backyard.
Yang Chunyan went back and smashed the garlic cloves, cut some chili peppers into small pieces, put them into the eggplants that had been torn into long strips, scooped a few spoonfuls of cooked chili oil and Sichuan pepper oil, added vinegar, soy sauce, and cooked sesame seeds, mixed them, took a plate and rolled them out and put them on the table.
Luo Haili helped cut the salted duck eggs and put them on a plate. "Last time, Yumei gave a few of the salted duck eggs that my aunt sent to me to the aunt across the street. She said that the salted duck eggs pickled by my aunt are much more delicious than those pickled by her family."
The salted duck eggs pickled by Zhou's mother are oily when cooked and cut open, and the egg yolk is loose and sandy. They are not very salty and are very delicious when eaten with porridge.
"Mom is an expert at cooking. We can't catch up with her." Yang Chunyan put the porridge on the table. "You eat first. I'll go cook."
"Hmm!" Luo Haili picked up the chopsticks, "There are fewer people selling mushrooms in the town these days than before, how is your business of collecting red mushrooms?
"Yesterday was pretty good, we harvested several thousand kilograms. I don't know what happened today, even my uncle and his family didn't come to deliver the goods." Yang Chunyan washed the offal, blanched it in a pot, rinsed it before starting to cut the intestines and fungus liver.
Luo Haili ate a bowl of porridge and wiped her mouth. "Huai'an was here just now, so I didn't tell him. Actually, He Jianjun, that beast who is worse than pigs and dogs, blocked Yumei in the alley several times and even made advances on her. Yumei slapped him in the face several times. That day, he ran to the shop and tried to take Xiaoxi away. Fortunately, someone helped him and he failed."
"Huaian has a bad temper. It's right not to talk to him. We'll deal with him properly after we catch him." Yang Chunyan remembered Zhou Yiding saying that the provincial capital was tightening up. If it can be delayed until next year, the bastard will be in big trouble for molesting women. (End of this chapter)
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