At the end of January, the weather, which had been gloomy for a long time, cleared up for more than a week. Every household in the village who raised task pigs took advantage of the good weather to drive the pigs to the town to prepare to hand in the task pigs. Now according to regulations, the pigs must weigh more than 180 kilograms to meet the purchase standards. The state purchases the task pigs from the villagers at 40 cents per kilogram of gross weight. The families who raise task pigs can sell back 20 kilograms of meat, but they have to buy it at the normal selling price of 70 cents per kilogram, and no meat tickets are required.
Most villagers would not want that much, because the production team would still slaughter pigs, and each household would receive another share based on work points and population. In the end, one task pig could fetch fifty or sixty yuan, which was a large sum of money that rural people could hardly earn throughout the year.
After the task pigs are handed over, the village will start to slaughter the New Year pigs. The pigs from the production team and the villagers' homes will all be rushed to the threshing ground and slaughtered together by the butcher. This is also the last time to distribute meat before the New Year. The next time will be next year, so many villagers will slaughter the task pigs at home, sell some of them, and keep some to make bacon or pickle them into salted meat, and rely on the stock next year.
Shen Anning took Shen Anyu to the threshing ground this time because she wanted to buy meat, otherwise her family would have no reputation for eating too much meat during the Chinese New Year.
First, the meat was distributed from household to household. There were four people in Shen Anning's household, so they got two pounds. There would be no leftover New Year pigs in the village, so if you wanted to buy meat, you could only buy it from the pig-killing families in the village. There were many pig-killing families this year because after New Year's Eve, before the beginning of spring in March, many children would get married.
Shen Anning ordered half a rack of ribs and ten pounds of hind leg meat. The hind leg meat was 60 cents per pound, and the ribs were 50 cents, for a total of 16 yuan. The villagers all sold meat on a tacit basis, so they didn't need meat tickets, and the price was cheaper than what was sold at the supply and marketing cooperative.
February 1st was Shen Zixi's hundredth day. Since she was brought back, the little girl had not formally met the people in the village, so Shen Anning planned to hold a simple hundred-day banquet for her.
Grandma Li sent over 160 red eggs the night before. Shen Anning invited the village heads and party secretaries of two villages, three families nearby, the family of Aunt Dashuan, with whom she got along well, the family of Uncle Carpenter, male and female educated youth, a total of more than 30 people, who filled the east wing. The women sat on the kang in the room, and the men sat at the table outside. Shen Zixi was carried out and shown to everyone one by one. The little girl didn't understand anything, but she just smiled, which was very pleasing.
Each table has six dishes and one soup, including stewed pork ribs with potatoes and dried eggplant, braised pork, stir-fried liver tips, stir-fried cabbage with oil residue, scrambled eggs with dried cucumber, stewed cabbage and vermicelli with tofu, plus a large bone soup, served with two-grain flour steamed buns.
Shen Anning was willing to use more oil and ingredients, and the dishes were delicious. Everyone was very satisfied with the meal. Looking at the red envelopes that everyone stuffed into Shen Zixi's arms, almost all of them were worth one yuan. The educated youth gave less than 80 cents, so before leaving, Shen Anning's family gave six red eggs and a handful of fruit candies, not stingy at all.
This trip was considered to be the official introduction of Shen Zixi to meet everyone. From now on, Shen Zixi will officially become a member of Wangtu Village.
On February 2nd, Shen Anning put Shen Zixi into the space, and went to the farm with an empty backpack. He first went to the farm clinic to find Liu Jiaman and gave her ten red eggs and half a pound of fruit candy.
He put the things on the table and looked at Liu Jiaman with some doubts, "My niece turned 100 days old yesterday, and I came here specially to give you red eggs."
Liu Jiaman has never been to Shen Anning's place, but she can't leave her post on the farm casually, otherwise those who don't get along with her father will find fault with her.
"An Ning, you should have told me earlier. I'm not the only doctor, so I could have taken some time off to come over. Thank you for all the hard work. I can't leave here, and you've been coming to see me for the past six months."
"Hey, what's our relationship? Don't worry about these things. It's just a few miles. I can get here by bicycle. Besides, I didn't take advantage of you on the farm this year?" Shen Anning waved his hand, not caring at all.
Liu Jiaman smiled, opened the drawer, and took out a piece of pure cotton light green fabric. "This is what I prepared for my niece. You can't refuse. I'm not good at making clothes, so I can only trouble you."
Shen An Ning was not polite, "Okay, I thank you on behalf of the little girl. She is still young now, and it is not convenient to bring her out. When she grows up a little, I will bring her over to show you."
After chatting with Liu Jiaman for a while, Shen Anning said goodbye and walked to the adobe house. The brother and sister-in-law's room was open, so she went in and closed the door.
Liu Manxue was preparing to cook when she heard the sound of the door closing. She turned around and saw Shen Anning.
"An Ning, why are you here today?" Liu Manxue moved the stool over and asked Shen An Ning to sit down.
Shen Anning smiled, put the backpack on the kang, and took out a delicate little girl from it, "Sister-in-law, look quickly, who is this?"
"Xixi."
Shen Anning put the little guy, who was still in a daze, into Liu Manxue's arms, walked to the stove and started cooking.
Liu Manxue looked at her daughter crying and laughing. Fortunately, the little one remembered her as her mother and was very well behaved in her arms.
Shen Anning looked at the sweet potatoes in the pot, added a handful of millet, filled it with water, lit the fire, and took out a few buns from the backpack and put them on the pot to heat.
I took out a bag of sticky rice dumplings and placed it next to the kang, and also took out two pounds of pork and two strips of bacon. This time I came, and the next time would be after the New Year.
She didn't rush to leave. Shen An Ning thought that this time she had to let her parents and eldest brother see the little girl, otherwise they would definitely be worried. After all, she was just a sixteen-year-old girl.
Sure enough, at noon, when Mr. and Mrs. Shen saw the little guy, they loved him so much that they held him in their arms and refused to let go. Shen Anyan even looked at the little guy without blinking.
They waited in the house until three in the afternoon before Shen An Ning prepared to go back with the little guy. After spending the whole afternoon together, Shen Zixi became very dependent on his eldest brother and sister-in-law, and even whimpered several times when he was taken away.
He put the reluctant little girl into the backpack and said, "Mom, Dad, Big Brother and Sister-in-law, I'm leaving. I'll see if there's a chance after the Lantern Festival after the New Year to bring her back. Don't save too much here, we have everything good over there."
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