Chapter 56
Gu Ran hesitated for a moment, continued to imitate the meow, and tried to reach out and touch the orange cat's body.
Seeing that the orange cat didn't seem disgusted, he stroked the kitten's head a few times, soothed it for a while, and then hugged the cat.
Very good, and did not stretch out his little claws to drive away customers.
So Gu Ran carried the orange cat directly into the house.
The cat was dirty. Gu Ran suppressed the urge to give the orange cat a bath. He first cleaned the wound on the hind legs that was visible to the naked eye, and then took out the medicine he had used for emergency use when entering the mountains.
Even though I have raised a cat, I have never tried using human bruise ointment on a cat, and I don't know if it would work.
But there was no place to find a veterinarian at this time, and free-range animals had strong self-repair abilities. If the injury was not fatal, they could recover after licking and resting for a few days.
After applying the ointment to the orange cat, because it was injured, I couldn't just soak the cat in water to wash it clean. I could only soak a towel in it, wipe it clean one part at a time, and then check to see if there were any other injuries.
The cat was very obedient at this time, lying motionless and allowing Gu Ran to play with it.
After wiping three basins of dirty water, the orange cat's fur finally revealed its original color, but it had become thinner. The sides of its originally fleshy face were sunken, and it looked pointed and monkey-like, and its original cute beauty was reduced a bit.
Gu Ran couldn't help but feel pity for the cat. After scrubbing all four of its paws clean, he pinched the pink flesh between its paws and pointed at the orange cat, "Where have you been? How did you get yourself so dirty? Are you still a clean little kitty?"
As her fingers were shaking, the orange cat, which was in much better condition, meowed and started licking her fingers with its tongue.
The cat felt tingling and numb after being licked by the prickly little tongue. Gu Ran took it away for a while, poured out the dirty water, picked out some small shrimps and fish from the space No. 8, put them into the small bowl that was originally used to feed cats, and placed it in front of the orange cat.
As soon as the orange cat saw Gu Ran leave, it started to comb its hair and lick itself all over. It licked every part of its body that it could reach. When it saw fish and shrimp, it immediately stopped licking, moved over to the fish and started meowing while eating. After a while, it began to purr, and it was obvious that it was very happy to be served.
It is estimated that the orange cat will have to stay in the small house until its injury heals. When Gu Ran went to Donglin Township to buy Mid-Autumn fruits, he also went to the bamboo craftsman's stall to buy a food box and a bamboo basket for the orange cat to live in.
After returning to the cottage, he placed the bamboo basket in the corner of the yard, covered it with fine cotton cloth, and after making a soft indentation in it, he carried the orange cat with the injured leg into the basket.
The orange cat, who had just landed in a strange place, stood up immediately, with its injured leg still limping, and turned around impatiently, as if observing its new landing place. It tentatively scratched it with its claws, and when it felt good, it gently stepped on the milk with one claw at a time.
When Gu Ran heard the orange cat purring again, he knew that the cat's nest was very much loved by the big orange cat, so he went to continue doing what he was going to do: brewing osmanthus sake.
It just so happened that I picked some golden osmanthus yesterday, washed it, and dried it overnight. It is very fresh and perfect for making osmanthus wine.
Gu Ran took out the white porcelain jar that he had washed yesterday and turned upside down to drain the water inside. He took out some dried osmanthus flowers, sieved out the stems and leaves, and then put them at the bottom of the jar. Then he poured in the same amount of white sugar. However, if you like the wine sweeter, you can put more.
Finally, pour in the white wine.
If it is white wine, choose a light one so that the strong smell of wine will not cover the fragrance and taste of osmanthus during soaking.
As for the alcohol content, it was originally moderate, with 50 to 60 degrees being the best. However, the liquor produced in the Dasheng Dynasty did not have strict alcohol content restrictions, only strong liquor and light liquor, so Gu Ran chose light liquor.
Whether the osmanthus wine brewed in the future will be delicious or not, we will only know when the time comes.
After soaking osmanthus flowers in wine, seal the jar and place it in a cool place. It can be opened and consumed in about a month.
There were a lot of osmanthus flowers, so Gu Ran brewed two jars of them and planned to dry the rest, which could be used to make tea or sachets.
After the osmanthus wine was brewed, it was time for dinner. Coincidentally, she went to Donglin Township and bought a lot of large and small taro. Well, in Fujian, people have the habit of eating taro during the Mid-Autumn Festival. The reason is that a mother taro can grow many small taro. When the family reunites, so many taro offspring just represent a prosperous family.
So I planned to make taro rice directly, and then make some taro dishes and pastries tomorrow to prepare them in advance for the Mid-Autumn Night.
Taro rice is a versatile rice dish made by chopping taro into small pieces, stir-frying it with other ingredients, and then adding washed rice to cook it. Gu Ran cut the taro into pieces according to his own taste, and then cut some scallops into small pieces, washed the dried shrimps, picked a handful of green onions from the backyard, washed them and cut them, and then sliced fresh bamboo fungus.
Finally, take out the day-old pork belly, cut it into thin slices, put it into the pot and slowly boil the oil. After the oil is boiled out and the pork belly slices are golden brown, add scallops, dried shrimps and bamboo fungus and stir-fry. Finally, add the taro. After it is fried, pour the washed rice in, add pesto, salt and fish sauce, stir-fry evenly, then put it into the cooking pot, add appropriate amount of water, and it can be cooked on the stove.
When the rice is cooked, sprinkle in chopped green onions and stir well to make a perfect taro rice.
When Gu Ran started cooking, the orange cat that had been sleeping comfortably in the basket for a while woke up. It bent its front and back legs and stretched its body, then walked gracefully to Gu Ran with cat steps, meowing flatteringly.
Gu Ran naturally would not leave out a portion of food for Daju, so he put a blanched fish into the small bowl of cat food, and the man and the cat each enjoyed their own delicious food.
The same is true on the day of Mid-Autumn.
Gu Ran cleaned the house early in the morning, and then took out the lanterns he bought. Lanterns were hung outside the yard and on all four sides of the patio.
The largest lantern was hung outside the main house.
When the wick was lit, the whole house immediately became bright and looked extremely beautiful.
Well, even if you are celebrating the festival alone, the festive atmosphere is still essential.
Then he brought a table and chairs, placed an altar in the middle of the courtyard, and offered sacrifices to Yue Niang.
Some were bought, and some were made by herself. Moon cakes, taro, lotus root, and water chestnuts were bought, while osmanthus cakes, fried lotus root, fried taro cakes, and scented tea were made by her.
She placed the food on the altar to worship the Moon Goddess, and then she placed a small table beside her and sat down cross-legged on the spot. In front of her was a basin full of crabs, two dipping sauces, and a pot of white wine. She peeled the crabs and ate them while appreciating the moon. It was a great pleasure in life.
Gu Ran ate with gusto, and from time to time he fed crab meat to the big orange cat that was squatting at his feet and also eating cat food with gusto.
Daju ate from the bowl, thinking about what Gu Ran fed him, and from time to time he looked at the fish-shaped pancakes on the altar with his round eyes.
One type of moon cake in Fujian is called carp cake, which generally comes in two shapes.
One is round like the traditional moon cake, but with a carp pattern printed on the surface, and the other is made into the shape of two carps put together.
This kind of carp cake can be strung with a red string in the middle and given by elders to younger generations, implying that it is easy to jump over the dragon gate and become successful.
The carp cakes she bought were shaped like two carps.
It looks good and tastes good too.
No wonder Daju foolishly thought that this was the fish she usually ate, and she would covet a few of them from time to time.
But Gu Ran would not feed Daju.
Today's portion of carp cakes will all belong to her.
At worst, I can start drying some small fish for Daju tomorrow, and then string them together with a rope and put a scarf on it so that it can eat them anytime.
As autumn deepened, by the time Daju's injuries had fully recovered and he no longer limped when walking, it was already early September.
The weather is still hot, but there is a noticeable chill in the wind.
Even though Fujian is located in a hot zone, the temperature will inevitably drop as autumn comes to an end.
It's just that in other places, such as the capital in the original owner's memory, people should have changed into thick autumn clothes and thin furs, but most people in Fujian are still wearing summer clothes, or those who are not cold-resistant wear thin autumn clothes.
Affected by the climate, Gu Ran's business selling grass jelly began to decline.
After all, it is a cold drink that mainly relieves heat and quenches thirst. It is remarkable that it has been able to maintain its popularity until now.
In fact, besides being sold frozen, grass jelly can also be sold hot.
It's just inconvenient.
Firstly, if she wanted to sell the roasted grass jelly well, she would have to prepare an extra stove and a lot of charcoal. She could put the stove and charcoal in the workshop and take them to the county town, but it would be too much to carry with her. There were so many people at the dock and the spies were mixed. If someone found out, it would be difficult for her to explain.
Secondly, the distance from Xiaxi Village to the county town is already long. If the weather gets cold, Gu Ran is not willing to go to the county town in the severe cold to sell roasted grass jelly.
So I guess I have to find another way to make a living.
When Gu Ran was thinking about this in her mind, she saw a porridge stall nearby whose business was the opposite of hers and was becoming increasingly popular.
Many people drink porridge in the summer. When the weather gets cooler, traveling merchants prefer to drink a bowl of hot porridge. Warm tea is not easy to carry, and porridge is cheap, especially vegetarian porridge, which costs only two cents a bowl, so you can just buy it and drink it as hot water. A bowl of thin porridge will warm you up. It can be predicted that the colder the weather, the more people will drink porridge.
No wonder Uncle He and his wife, who run the porridge stall, have been able to do business at the dock for so many years.
Seeing that the porridge stall was doing so well, Gu Ran was envious, and then he thought of Aunt He who had asked him several times about the collection amount on roasted grass jelly day.
Especially every time she went into the mountains or closed her stall, after reopening it, Aunt He would always tell her with regret that if the grass jelly could be sold for a whole day, how much more money could she earn?
But at that time, Gu Ran didn't care much about it.
First of all, she didn't want to be at the stall all day and make herself exhausted. Secondly, selling grass jelly cold required a lot of ice.
In Fujian, ice is a rare and expensive commodity, more so than anywhere else. She gets the ice for her grass jelly from the No. 10 grid every day, with no cost or expense. But no one else knows. If she sells it like this every day, and someone asks where the ice comes from, how will she explain it?
At that time, although Aunt He was envious of the fact that she could make more money from selling grass jelly than from selling porridge, and had a vague idea of forming a partnership with Gu Ran, she gave up after thinking about the price of ice.
But the hot-selling grass jelly is worth considering.
So after closing the stall that day, Gu Ran did not leave in a hurry. Instead, he rested at the porridge stall for a while and ordered a bowl of hot porridge.
"Oh, is Gu Er Niang here to support our business?" Aunt He was surprised.
"That's right. Seeing so many people come to eat your porridge, Aunt He, I know your porridge is delicious. I will definitely support you."
Gu Ran ordered a bowl of seafood porridge.
Uncle He brought it to her quickly.
The porridge was indeed well cooked, and it was thick and smooth. Although the seafood in it was just small shrimps and fish that cost a penny a handful at the dock, it was very sweet and full of flavor.
It seems that the He couple is really good at making porridge. After drinking the porridge, Gu Ran did not hesitate and directly asked Aunt He whether they want to cooperate in selling roasted grass jelly?
“…”
Aunt He had a look of confusion on her face.
In fact, she had long been interested in the business of roasting grass jelly, but she had too many concerns to dare to mention it. Now that Gu Er Niang took the initiative to talk about it, it was surprising and exciting. But then she thought that the weather was getting colder and the business of roasting grass jelly might not be as prosperous as in the summer, so Aunt He hesitated again.
"Now that the weather is getting colder, this grass jelly is going to be hard to sell, right?"
"Why is it so difficult to sell? My grass jelly can be used to make not only cold drinks but also hot drinks." Gu Ran explained, "But to make hot drinks, you know, you need a stove and firewood. I'm not from the county town, so it's not convenient for me to make hot drinks, so I came to ask Aunt He."
If making a hot drink, Gu Ran plans to add some taro balls to the grass jelly and change the name to Taro Ball Grass Jelly.
This was inspired by my mid-autumn shopping trip where I discovered that Fujian was rich in taro.
Now is the season for taro harvest, and there is plenty of it and it is cheap. The cost of selling it together with grass jelly will not be too high. Just boil the taro balls and grass jelly, and add hot sugar water.
There are naturally two types of taro ball grass jelly, one with fried soybeans and the other with steamed red beans.
It is very simple to stir-fry soybeans and steam red beans. As for the taro balls, just cut the taro into pieces the size of grass jelly. Aunt He can do it herself. As for the grass jelly, which is the main ingredient, Gu Ran can send it to them every once in a while.
In this way, Gu Ran gave the recipe for taro balls and grass jelly to Aunt He, and provided the main ingredients while keeping the method secret. The Zhu couple was responsible for other condiments and sales.
"As for the profits, how about a 50-50 split?" Gu Ran said generously, "What do you think?"
"Okay, okay."
The popularity of roasted grass jelly has been noticed by the Zhu couple in the past few months.
After hearing Gu Ran talk about the new recipe of roasted grass jelly dessert, he immediately agreed.
Gu Erniang has been selling roasted grass jelly for so many days that it has become famous and has accumulated many regular customers. Their porridge shop continues to sell roasted grass jelly and has no worries about not having customers.
So after both parties discussed the terms of cooperation, Gu Ran went back and drafted a cooperation agreement based on their opinions, and quickly finalized the matter.
The weather is cold now, so you don’t have to worry about the grass jelly going bad even if you store it for a long time.
When Gu Ran supplied the goods, he gave them seven days' worth of roasted grass jelly at a time according to the estimated quantity, and the Zhu couple could take it back home and store it.
Soon, there was one less stall selling grass jelly at the dock, but at the Zhu's porridge shop, there was a sign selling taro balls and grass jelly, as well as two beautiful taro balls and grass jelly samples in porcelain bowls, one for ten cents and the other for twelve cents.
Aunt He's guess was correct. The diners who had eaten the grass jelly were surprised to see that Gu Er Niang's stall was gone. Then they saw the sign of the porridge stall and came over. Without asking anything, they saw the taro balls and grass jelly on display.
"Hey, you guys also sell this grass jelly? Is it real?"
"Yes, Lao Zhu, does your family also make grass jelly?"
"If they won't do it, I will."
Gu Ran was originally teaching Aunt He how to match food well in the back. When he heard the doubts from the front, he came over and explained with a smile, "I won't be selling food at the stall from today, but I will sell this taro ball and grass jelly at Aunt He's porridge stall. If you like grass jelly, come and buy some and try it."
"Hey, are you cooperating with the He family on a business?"
"That's right, everyone, please come and support us!"
During the first seven days of the porridge shop selling taro balls and roasted grass jelly, Gu Ran helped out in the shop in order to attract regular customers. After seven days, people coming and going from the dock became familiar with the porridge shop and started selling Gu Er Niang's roasted grass jelly. After word of mouth spread and sales stabilized, Gu Ran reduced the number of times he went to the county town. In the end, he almost never showed up, but just delivered the roasted grass jelly made at home to the porridge shop on time, and went to the county town every ten days to divide the accounts and collect the money.
According to the sales situation, one can get at least one tael of silver per ten days.
Of course, this is a sequel.
At present, after transferring the business of roasted grass jelly to the porridge shop, Gu Ran focused on two things.
First, the weather was getting colder and the price of leather was higher, so she had to hurry up and tan more leather to sell. Second, the deadline for the windmill she had ordered from Master Huang was approaching, so she had to build the high tower to support the windmill before then.
So Gu Ran went to the woods to check traps and catch bamboo rats every two days, and spent the rest of the time thinking about the structure of the windmill tower.
I don't know if the craftsmen of the Great Sheng Dynasty had any experience in building houses that were dozens of feet high, but according to the original owner's memory and what Gu Ran learned, the buildings at that time were mainly one or two stories high, at most three stories high. The taller ones were usually the high towers in the temples. So when Gu Ran mentioned it to Village Chief Wu, he said that he wanted to build a tower outside the cottage.
It was unknown whether the wood used to support the tower in the Great Sheng Dynasty was available or sturdy. The tall house she built only needed to bear the weight of the windmill, and there was no need to consider excessive load-bearing capacity. However, it was estimated that the cost of wood and the wages of craftsmen would not be low.
Gu Ran now has only more than 30 taels of silver on hand. After deducting the final 10 taels of silver that he has to hand over to Master Huang, there are more than 20 taels left. Building this windmill with a high tower will cost at least 10 taels of silver, so there are only 10 taels of silver left from the money he has saved.
But there is no rush. August and September are still the seasons with frequent typhoons. We can only hire craftsmen to start work after the weather gradually stabilizes in October and it is no longer windy and rainy.
Now is the harvest season, and there are many seasonal foods that she wants to buy and store.
For example, there are freshly-caught okra, wheat, spinach, etc., and there are also some sauces that are just being brewed at this time, such as red fermented rice.
Red yeast rice is a derivative produced when brewing red yeast rice wine.
After the red yeast rice wine is fermented, the remaining product is filtered and is called red yeast rice.
In Fujian, it is generally customary to brew rice wine after the Double Ninth Festival. It takes a year to make a batch of red yeast rice. It is made on the Double Ninth Festival last year, sealed in the jars, and stored for a winter, a spring, and a summer with high temperatures. It is considered brewed in the second autumn.
The red yeast rice that has been baptized by time has a rich aroma and is naturally healthy.
People in Fujian like to use red fermented rice in daily cooking: red fermented rice braised pork, red fermented rice sesame chicken, red fermented rice yellow croaker, red fermented rice squid; stir-fried rice, fried rice, pulled rice, and drunken rice.
From meat to seafood, from stewing to grilling, one spoonful will capture your soul.
The abundant sweetness brought by the red yeast rice not only fully permeates every crevice of the food, but also allows the mellowness brought by time to settle on the taste buds and tongues of diners.
How can you resist buying this exciting red fermented rice when it is on the market?
As more seasonal delicacies come on the market, the shopping spree will probably continue for quite some time. Gu Ran can foresee that his money will become less and less, so he has to save money faster to add to his space grid No. 8.
At the moment, she knows that apart from selling grass jelly, there is no other way to make money faster than selling leather.
So Gu Ran went in and out of Dayu Forest more and more frequently.
But every time, the focus was on the traps she dug, and then catching bamboo rats in the bamboo forest.
Recently, the traps have caught more prey than before, including rabbits and pheasants. As for the trap in the deep mountains, it has caught a mountain deer and a wild boar.
The two big beasts caused the area where Gu Ran stored meat to overflow, so he set up an additional area for storage.
As for the tanned leather, Gu Ran also planned to keep some to sew winter clothes for himself.
She still remembered the precious experience of almost freezing to death in prison when she first arrived in the Great Sheng Dynasty. Although the winter in Xiaxi Village was not cold, it was still cold. She had asked Mrs. Lin Er and she knew it would snow.
But the snow is not as heavy as in the north, and there will be no accumulation of snow. It is just sleet, a thin layer falling on the ground, which will melt as soon as the sun comes out.
This is definitely good news for people who are afraid of cold.
It happened to be the time when ordinary people were preparing winter clothes at home, so Gu Ran found Lin Ersao and paid her to help him continue sewing fur coats.
Lin Ersao had just made four sets of fine cotton-padded clothes for Gu Ran. When she heard that Gu Erniang also wanted her to make winter clothes and the pay was good, she naturally agreed.
Before, Gu Ran always went to the county town to buy cloth for Lin Ersao, but this time he invited Lin Ersao to his own house to sew the cloth, and then brought in the leather he had dried himself.
According to Gu Ran's plan, bamboo rat skin would be used to make a fur coat, deerskin would be used to make a fur coat and boots, and rabbit fur would be used to make boots, socks and handcuffs.
Two fur coats and two pairs of boots should be enough to get through the winter.
Mrs. Lin Er was stunned when she saw the pile of skins.
"Gu Er, did you hunt all these in the mountains?"
"Some are, and some are bought in the county town with the money I earned from the stall!" Gu Ran explained with a chuckle.
Mrs. Lin glanced at Gu Ran but didn't pursue the matter. Gu Ran breathed a sigh of relief.
She was also worried that if she took all the skins to the village chief's house, other people in the Lin family would know that she had so many skins on hand, and she was afraid of being talked about again. As for Lin Ersao, after getting to know her over the past few days, Gu Ran felt that she was just like Village Chief Wu, upright and trustworthy. Even if she saw something in the small house, she would not talk about it outside. That's why she asked her to come to the small house to work directly.
Mrs. Lin Er was naturally skeptical about what Gu Ran said.
Firstly, she didn't quite believe that Gu Ran was really capable of hunting so many bamboo rats, especially mountain deer. Secondly, she had seen Gu Ran drying the skins in the courtyard with her own eyes.
So maybe this skin was really as she said, a small part of it was hunted by herself, and most of it was bought from the fur shop in the county town.
But the leather used to make fur coats is not cheap. A whole piece of high-quality leather will cost you at least five or six taels.
Mrs. Lin Er knew about Gu Ran's livelihood. He was selling roasted grass jelly in the county town. The price here was three pieces of leather, which was about fifteen taels. Was this how he made money selling roasted grass jelly?
Mrs. Lin Er was filled with suspicion.
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