Chapter 22: Crush the Aunt
The sweet potato tips are the tenderest ones, which are only as long as a palm and do not need to be picked. Pour them into boiling water to rinse them, scoop them out and put them in a colander to drain the water, then pour them into a ceramic basin.
Pull down two red-skinned garlics from the garlic braid hanging on the wall, peel them apart and rub them a few times, then smash them on the chopping board and chop them into small pieces.
Cut the chili into short sections and chop them all into a ceramic bowl. Add coriander and chopped green onion, pour a spoonful of soy sauce from the jar, add salt, Sichuan pepper powder, and chili powder and mix well.
There were more people and they ate more. There were more than a dozen of them and they all had a big bowl of sweet potato tips.
After Li Qiuyue washed the potatoes and put them in the pot to cook, Yang Chunyan scooped two ladles of cold water into the pot. The two of them stood in front of the stove, peeled all the potatoes, put them in a ceramic bowl, and pressed them into potato paste with a spatula.
Yang Chunyan scooped a small spoonful of lard from the oil can and put it into the pot. After the oil was heated, she added salt and poured in the potato paste. She stir-fried it for a few times and poured all the rice soup in the large ceramic bowl into the pot. After it boiled, she poured a bowl of chopped green onions into the potato paste and scooped it into the ceramic bowl with a few scoops.
If there is not enough oil and water, use rice soup.
Potato paste cooked with water has no fragrance, but it is different if cooked with rice soup. The potato paste is thick and fragrant, with a faint rice aroma.
At this time, the multi-grain rice stewed in the pot outside began to crackle and emit bursts of rice fragrance, indicating that the multi-grain rice was ready.
"Third sister-in-law, the fire in the stove can be turned off now."
Li Qiuyue nodded, took out the firewood and stuffed it into the broken jar in the corner, then looked up at the pot of sweet potato tips on the stove, "Chunyan, stir-fry some more salted vegetables!"
"Okay." Yang Chunyan grabbed two handfuls of salted vegetables from the salted vegetable jar, chopped them into small pieces, added two handfuls of green peppers cut into short sections, poured a little rapeseed oil into the pan, stir-fried them for a few times and removed from the pan.
At the gate of the courtyard, the Zhou family, father and son, walked in from outside carrying hoes, and looked at Zhou Huaian sitting under the eaves in surprise.
Zhou Huaijun looked at him with a smile, "Youngest, the sun hasn't even risen yet, why are you up?"
Zhou Huaian looked at him with some pride, "Today I am going to go up the mountain with my Chunyan to dig herbs and sell them for money!"
"Oh my!" Zhou Huaishan looked at the sky exaggeratedly, "The sun is still rising from the east!"
Zhou Huaian turned his head, "..."
Zhou's father didn't say anything. He just glanced at him, put the hoe behind the gate and walked towards the main room.
Yang Chunyan said, "Old man, it's time to eat."
Father Zhou nodded and said, "Go to the vegetable garden at the back and call your mother and sister-in-law. They are out cutting taro stalks."
"Oh!" After Yang Chunyan agreed, she turned to the backyard and saw that the small door was open. When she went out, she smelled a strong mint scent. After walking a few steps, she saw Aunt Zhou standing in the vegetable field picking vines, so she walked straight over.
Most families in the village grow this kind of small-leaved vine with bamboo-like leaves and green stems. This variety of vine has a crisp and tender taste and a unique fragrance.
"Chunyan," Aunt Zhou called her and walked to the edge of the field with vegetables in her hand. "Chunyan, did your husband really pay Xiong Dahai's family 450 yuan in compensation?"
Yang Chunyan said "hmm" and left. She didn't like her because she was not only talkative but also snobbish...
Li Yinfu looked at her from behind and curled his lips, "Tsk tsk! It's true that when you are poor you have many problems. What's the point of having more children? You will suffer all your life and never be able to turn over a new leaf!"
The person she was most dissatisfied with in her life was Zhou's mother. Both sisters-in-law gave birth to five children. Since she gave birth to the eldest, she gave birth to younger sisters one after another.
Zhou's mother gave birth to three sons in a row before she gave birth to a daughter.
Later she gave birth to another child, but he turned out to be a debt collector. What a retribution!
It’s not that she can’t give birth to a son. When her mother-in-law was alive, she always favored Chen Guilan, who had more sons.
Who would have known that the second branch, which was blessed with many children, had been separated from the family for decades and had already had three generations, but was still living in the old house that their parents had built for them when the family was separated.
The eldest wife, who had only one son, had already moved into the big tiled house.
More children means more blessings, more farts!
"A field ridge is rotten in three sections, and the family will be poor and rich three times a day until old age. How does the eldest sister-in-law know that the second wife will never be able to make a comeback in this lifetime?" Zhou's mother was standing on the field ridge behind her, holding a bundle of taro stalks.
"Guilan, I didn't say anything about your family, you heard it wrong!" The old lady denied it flatly, picked up the vines on the edge of the field and left.
"Bah~" Zhou's mother looked at her from behind with disdain and spat, "Li Yinfu, you are a vegetarian and want to cultivate your next life. What the hell are you cultivating!"
Yang Chunyan and Zhao Huifang smiled secretly as they watched the old lady running faster than a rabbit.
Mother Zhou glanced at her two daughters-in-law and said with a smile, "Your aunt is a bitch. She will feel uncomfortable if you don't sneer at her."
Zhao Huifang smiled and said, "I think she is most afraid of you."
Mother Zhou smiled and shook her head: "She is not afraid of me, she is afraid of quarreling with us. We will not help Huaixing in the future."
In the countryside, people value having sons to carry on the family line, and families with many sons speak louder in the village. Zhou Huaixing is the only son of the first wife, so she will not easily offend the second wife who has many sons.
The mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law went into the backyard, closed the door, went to the front yard, put the taro stalks on the stone slab, washed their hands and went to the main room to eat.
Zhao Huifang looked around and saw that Zhou Jiaming and his brother had not gotten up yet, so she went to the room with a bamboo stick and said, "You little brats, you are going to be late for school, and you haven't gotten up yet. You have never gotten up voluntarily to study.
You have to wait for me to send you a note before you leave. You have to wait until it’s dark and you’ve had enough fun before you finish your homework. I spend five dollars a semester so that you can study, not be a cowherd…”
Zhou Jiaming and his brother begged for mercy from the room, "Mom, stop hitting me. I won't do it next time. We'll get up before you call us..."
After a while, the two brothers ran out of the room, and Zhou Huaian looked at them with a sly smile.
Father Zhou rolled his eyes at him and said to Yang Chunyan, "Do you really want to take the youngest child to dig herbs?"
Yang Chunyan nodded: "We want to go up the mountain and dig some herbs to exchange for some pocket money in the county town."
Father Zhou looked at Zhou Huaian again and said, "If you promised to dig herbs, do it well. Don't give up after a few days of hard work!"
"Oh!" Zhou Huaian responded without raising his head.
Zhou's father couldn't stand his lazy look. His hands started itching when he saw him and he wanted to hit him with his pipe. But when he saw Yang Chunyan looking at him, he forced himself to hold back.
After breakfast, Yang Chunyan put away the dishes and chopsticks in the kitchen. Zhou's mother came in and said with a smile: "Yan'er, I'll clean up. You take the youngest to dig herbs."
She was worried that Zhou Huaian's laziness would flare up again after dinner.
"Thank you, Mom!" Yang Chunyan was not polite. She took the sweet potatoes and potatoes cooked in the morning and two bamboo tubes filled with boiling water and went back to the house. She changed into long-sleeved clothes and put on plastic boots.
As the weather gets warmer, there are more snakes and insects in the mountains. Tuck your trouser legs into your shoes to prevent snake and insect bites.
This pair of boots was the one she wore when she was at her mother's house. There was a hole on her big toe, so she took them to the town to find a shoemaker to repair the scar.
The heels and soles of Zhou Huaian's boots had also been repaired.
This is how it is in the countryside these days: three years new, three years old, and then three years of patching up.
The older one is worn first, then the younger one. When it can no longer be worn, the cloth shell is taken apart to make shoes or insoles. As long as it can still be used, there will be no waste.
(End of this chapter)
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