Chapter 78: Selling pancakes. Partiality is the most hurtful.
As Qiu Xuan walked out of the house, she saw Zong Xiao walking out with a rabbit in his hand.
She quickly called out to him and asked, "Where are you going so early in the morning?"
Zong Xiao lifted the rabbit and shook it, then said with a smile, "Someone in the nearby village wanted to trade tofu for a rabbit. I thought the price was about the same, so I went with it."
Their small restaurant also uses tofu in their daily cooking, so this substitution is suitable.
"Then I'll go with you. It's a good opportunity to take a look at the village." Ever since moving here, Qiu Xuan has always wanted to take a walk around the village.
One is to take a look at the surrounding environment and the other is to find out if there are any gangsters in this village.
They live in a remote area with no neighbors around. If they were targeted, the consequences would be disastrous.
Qiu Xuan needs to understand this and take precautions early.
"Okay, let's go now."
The two of them left the hospital together.
The village is not far away, just a few steps away.
From a distance, Zong Xiao saw the old man, but he was not alone. There was a child beside him. The child looked very small and should be only three or four years old.
"Grandpa, did you really catch a rabbit for me?" The child's eyes sparkled, as if he had been looking forward to this for a long time.
"Of course. When has grandpa ever lied to you?" The old man also saw Zong Xiao at this moment, and he raised his hand and waved.
One hand holds the rabbit and the other hand holds the tofu.
However, when he got there, Zong Xiao didn't even see a piece of tofu, let alone a plate of tofu.
"Cough." The old man coughed a little awkwardly. He didn't look the same as before. If you looked closely, you could see the embarrassment on his face.
"The tofu is at home... Come with me."
The old man led the way with the child in front. The child kept turning his head to look back, his eyes full of love for the rabbit.
The rabbit Zong Xiao chose was very fat and white, and was the best-looking in the litter.
Zong Xiao originally wanted to keep it and slaughter it later, and then save the rabbit skin to make a scarf for Qiu Xuan in the winter.
"I feel like something's wrong," Qiu Yu said in a voice only the two of them could hear. "Do you think they're asking us to take advantage of them?"
If you really want to change, you should move the tofu out. The more Qiu Xuan thought about it, the more she felt that this matter was not as simple as Zong Xiao said.
As expected, when they entered the yard, they were greeted by a couple with gloomy faces.
The woman cursed and pointed at the child, calling him a loser. The man was even more violent and started hitting him.
The old man hurriedly protected the child behind him and took a few slaps in the face.
"I gave him my tofu in exchange for a rabbit, and he thinks he deserves to eat rabbit meat?"
"You scoundrel, you're such a disaster! I'm lucky enough to have you living in my house, and you're still thinking about eating meat?"
It was the first time the old man had brought someone into his house to do something like this. He felt a little embarrassed and his voice trembled, "Boss, how can you talk like that? Song'er is your second brother's child. It's just a piece of meat. What's wrong with that?"
"I am the boss of my family. If I say no, it's no." The man grabbed the child's arm and threw him into the woodshed without mercy.
The old man couldn't stop it and could only watch.
"And you two, what are you watching? Get out." The man was not afraid at all and glared at Qiu Xuan and Zong Xiao fiercely.
It seemed that as long as they dared to meddle in his affairs, he would immediately beat them up.
"It's all my fault today. You guys can go back." The old man didn't have the face to look at them. He thought that at least in front of outsiders, the eldest couple would give him face.
But he thought too much and overestimated them.
Qiu Xuan touched Zong Xiao's hand, signaling him to be quiet.
At this time, they don't know anything about the situation, and helping anyone may be wrong. It is better to ask people around them.
The people here are from the same village and have lived here for so many years, so they should know something.
I actually found out something by asking around.
It turned out that the old man was called Qin Shan, and the child was called Qin Song, the only child of the second son. As for the arrogant couple today, they were the family of Qin Shan's eldest son.
The two sons had always had a bad relationship. After the second son's family ran into trouble in their business, the child had no choice but to follow the old man.
One year would be fine, but now three years have passed and the child is four years old.
The older the child gets, the more he eats, the more he uses, and the more money he spends.
The eldest child's family is even more reluctant to spend money. If the child does not do what they want, they will beat and scold him all day long.
Seeing they were unfamiliar, the villagers who were talking gave them a few more words of warning: "Don't get involved in their family affairs; they're a mess. As for the second son... well, there's no telling."
"Why do Uncle Qin's two sons not get along?"
"Why else? He's partial to the second son. He hurt the children. Uncle Qin has always favored the second son's family. I heard that he gave all his money to the second son so that he could go out and do business. He almost separated from the eldest son because of him. But no one expected that the second son's family would go bankrupt. Now Uncle Qin can only live with his children in his eldest son's house."
After saying this, the villager looked at the two of them again.
"You two aren't from our village, are you? Did you move here recently?"
Qiu Xuan: "Well, he just came to our village a few days ago. Today, Uncle Qin wanted to trade tofu for my rabbit... Who knew..."
The man suddenly realized, "No wonder. Everyone in the village knows about the Qin family's affairs, so naturally no one wants to help. Qin Shan must have thought you were unfamiliar, so he offered tofu in exchange for rabbits. You fell for his trick."
On the way home, Qiu Xuan kept thinking about those words.
She was just an outsider and had no way of judging the right and wrong. But if these were true, then both sides seemed to have their own sufferings, and the child was the only one who was really pitiful.
The previous generation's favoritism led to the current result, and Qiu Xuan couldn't help but think of the Zong family.
But the Zong family is actually different from them. Although the Zong mother is partial to her children, she loves both of them.
"Are you still worried about the Qin family's affairs?" Zong Xiao walked beside her and saw that she was silent all the way, so he gently squeezed her hand.
"No." Qiu Xuan looked up at him, her eyes fixed on the scar on the left side of his face.
"Why didn't you agree when your mother proposed to you?"
The two had been married for almost a year, and Zong Xiao really didn't expect Qiu Yun to suddenly ask this question.
He vaguely remembered saying this before, or seemed to have said it.
"Neither of them is suitable." Zong Xiao smiled, "The girls in the nearby villages are afraid of the scar on my face."
Qiu Xuan knew the reason, but that was not what she wanted to say.
It is a betrothal gift, a betrothal gift for getting married.
She remembered the villagers saying that it wasn't that no one was willing to marry Zong Xiao, but that the girl's family wanted a large betrothal gift, and neither Zong's mother nor Zong Xiao was willing.
But later... when Zong Anji got married, his mother readily gave him so much money.
Qiu Xuan was not blaming her grandmother, she just felt a little uncomfortable.
She felt sad that even though a mother loved her children very much, she would still favor one of them more in the end.
No wonder the grandmother didn't want to move in. As a mother, she knew everything.
She also knew that she was biased.
Never mind... Never mind...
"Why are you still crying?" Zong Xiao looked at her worriedly and wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes with his hands.
Qiu Xuan is just too kindhearted. She would be so sad that she would cry after hearing about other people's family affairs.
Qiu Xuan knew that he had misunderstood, but she didn't want to explain anything now.
She just said, "I'm fine. Let's go home. We still have to sell wontons today."
Business was so good yesterday that Qiu Xuan wanted to strike while the iron is hot and make more money.
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After a busy half month, it was the end of April in the blink of an eye.
The weather is getting warmer day by day, and fewer and fewer people come to the stall to eat wontons early in the morning.
It's almost summer, and people don't want to get up early to eat hot soup.
Qiu Xuan thought it was time to change the food, but she didn't know what to sell.
Noodle soup is not good, wonton is not good, and steamed buns are difficult to make...
What is easy, hassle-free and can make money?
After much deliberation, Qiu Xuan finally decided on pancakes and fried dough sticks.
Pancakes are simple to make, but fried dough sticks are a bit troublesome because they use too much oil.
But if there is no fried dough stick, Qiu Xuan feels that it is incomplete, after all, she likes to add a fried dough stick to her pancakes the most.
Qiu Xuan thought she might as well give it a try first, just in case it turns out delicious.
She had tried the fried fruit sold on the street, but she always felt that the taste was lacking. It wasn't that they were bad, but they just didn't feel crispy enough.
As soon as she closed her stall at noon that day, she hurried to buy ingredients.
Pancakes made with sorghum flour and corn flour taste the best, so she bought some. Seeing that there was also mung bean flour, she added some as well.
In addition, she bought two jars of old soybean paste, which she always kept on hand at home, and whenever she ran out, she would fry some.
We are about to start selling pancakes, and this sauce is the key to everything.
When she got home, she took Zong Xiao into the kitchen.
She prepared the batter and asked Zong Xiao to move the iron plate to the stove. She would spread the pancakes on it when the iron plate was hot.
Qiu Xuan took a little bit of each kind of noodles. She wanted to taste which flavor was better first.
She finally made six pancakes and concluded that none of them taste good without eggs!
"Try these two." Qiu Xuan stuffed a plain pancake into Zong Xiao's mouth, a plain pancake without eggs.
"Is it tasty?"
Zong Xiao spoke frankly, "It's just average, not as good as the one with eggs."
Qiu Xuan sighed. It would be best to add eggs to the dish, but an egg costs three cents nowadays, so not everyone is willing to add it.
But without eggs, pancakes felt like they lacked soul...
"In fact, it's also delicious if you don't add eggs, just spread some sauce on it and put some vegetable leaves on it." Zong Xiao used to eat dry steamed buns made with mixed flour, and this was the first time he had eaten this pancake.
If he were to choose, the pancake with sauce would definitely be better.
"Then let's give it a try tomorrow?" Qiu Yu was tempted and couldn't wait any longer. She wanted to test the results quickly.
The next morning, the couple drove a mule cart to the restaurant early.
They arrived too early, and the people living in the backyard had not woken up yet.
They knocked on the door and waited for a while before they saw anyone.
"Second sister-in-law, what are you going to sell again?" Zong Anji rubbed his eyes and moved closer to see clearly that the black thing was a big iron plate.
"Pancakes, I'll give you some to try later."
My family was generous with the ingredients when eating Qiuxi, and everyone had eggs and fried dough sticks in their meal.
These fried dough sticks are also freshly fried, golden and crispy when picked up with chopsticks.
"How is it?" She looked at everyone expectantly.
"Delicious." Yueyang felt that the pancake in front of him was particularly fragrant, especially the fried dough sticks inside, each bite was crispy and fragrant.
Even Yueyang thought it was delicious, so Qiu Xuan finally felt relieved.
She set up a stall and placed an iron pot in an open area with oil in it to fry dough sticks.
There are already people selling fried fruits on the street, so this business is not very attractive.
But it’s different with pancakes. People are seeing them for the first time, and those passing by can’t help but take a second look.
Especially the fragrance, which can be smelled from far away.
People took one after another and sold several in a short time.
Qiu Xuan smiled brightly, and she focused all her attention on eating.
She had no idea that someone was staring at her from the second floor not far away.
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