Chapter 14: What's the point of talking about something?
When the two men arrived at Wen's house, Wen had already finished her meal and lit the lamps.
"You came so late, I thought you two couldn't make better tofu and ran away." Mrs. Wen said with a curl of her lips.
"Thinking that it would take a long time to soak the beans, I came a little late." Zhuang Qingning said with a smile, "Aunt, you should go to bed early. We will go to work first. We will try to be quiet at night so as not to disturb your sleep."
"The fact that you two know this shows that you are not stupid."
Mrs. Wen said calmly, "I am old now and I sleep lightly. If you keep making so much noise, I will not be able to sleep. Please be careful and don't disturb my sleep."
After saying that, Wen went back to the house.
Zhuang Qingning went into the tofu shop, took a strainer and scooped some beans out of the water tank, picked up a few beans at random, and checked the condition of the beans.
The beans absorb water and swell, their volume becomes completely larger, and the hard core inside is completely gone. This is a sign that the beans are fully soaked.
After calling Zhuang Qingsui to bring a strainer and a basket to scoop out the beans, Zhuang Qingning began the first step of grinding tofu - grinding the slurry.
Add the beans through the holes on the millstone and push the millstone. The white sticky soy milk will gradually flow out from the gaps in the millstone and fall onto the stone plate at the bottom of the millstone. Then it will gather together and flow into the wooden barrel underneath through the holes on the edge.
Grinding soy milk is the most time-consuming and laborious task. In the past, when the Wen family still ran a tofu shop, they raised a donkey, which was used to pull the mill, so there was no need for human effort.
There were no animals to help, so Zhuang Qingning and Zhuang Qingsui had to grind the soaked beans into pulp. ——Over here, Zhuang Ruman's family was having dinner.
It is considered late to have dinner at this time. Not only is the light from the oil lamp dim, but it also consumes a lot of oil.
This is why most ordinary farmers eat before dark and go to bed early after dinner, so as to go to bed early and get up early the next day, and also save some money on lamp oil and candles.
The Song family originally didn't want to waste the lamp oil, but there was nothing they could do about it.
There are more than ten acres of land at home that need to be tended. However, it takes several days to weed out the weeds. Now I have to apply chicken manure and water the land. It is really an incredible amount of work.
As for the vegetable garden, now is the time to plant cucumbers, beans and other vegetables, but there is no time to do it. If it is delayed a little longer, it will be too late and there will be no vegetables to eat in the summer.
In the past, the Song family had a lot of free time because of Zhuang Qingning and Zhuang Qingsui, two old workhorses who worked hard day and night but ate little. But now that these two people are gone, even if they call Zhuang Qinghe and Zhuang Yuanzhong, they are still useless and can't get any work done.
After finishing the work in the fields, I hurried back to cook. Even in such a hurry, I was still a little late for dinner.
"Be quicker tomorrow and don't eat so late. Don't waste lamp oil." Zhuang Ruman took a sip of cornmeal and said, "The lamp oil is burning all the time and the smell is not good."
"Yes. I understand." Song nodded repeatedly, then looked at Zhuang Qinghe: "Qinghe, when you work tomorrow afternoon, come back early and prepare the meal in advance."
"I see that you are not doing much work in the fields. You might as well come back and cook early, so that I don't have to deal with this when I get back."
When Zhuang Qinghe heard this, he frowned immediately.
When she was working in the fields, she could still slack off because there were many people working there. But now that Song had given her the job of cooking, wouldn't that mean she had no chance to slack off? More importantly, the smoke and fire dried her face and it was no longer tender. Washing pots and dishes, and making fire, also made her fingers rough. How ugly!
When Zhuang Qinghe thought that she might become ugly because of this, she immediately pouted.
"This was a job that those two damn girls used to do. Why do you have to make me do it now?"
"Ancestor, why are you bringing this up?" Song's face turned pale instantly. She quickly pinched Zhuang Qinghe, signaling her not to say anything else. She also looked at Zhuang Ruman with great concern.
Zhuang Rumen had been angry since he came back from the home of the village head Zhuang Jingye in the morning. He thought her nose was not a nose and her eyes were not eyes.
Yes, after hearing that Zhuang Qingning and Zhuang Qingsui had established a female household and would have nothing to do with their family in the future, she could no longer beat or scold them and order them to do work for no reason. Not only was Zhuang Ruman very angry, but Song herself was also very angry.
But it was not her turn to be angry at all. Zhuang Ruman had already scolded her to death, scolding her for being short-sighted and impatient, and for being ruthless in her daily life, and forcing away two good old workhorses.
Song felt that she had done something inappropriate and had caused trouble, but she dared not say a word and just let Zhuang Ruman yell and complain.
After waiting for so long until this moment, Zhuang Rumen was tired of scolding him, and as the matter was done, he was too lazy to say anything more. Song just hoped that Zhuang Rumen would calm down quickly and let the matter pass, but she never expected that Zhuang Qinghe would bring up the matter again.
Isn't this obviously making her feel upset, and also making Zhuang Ruman unhappy?
Zhuang Qinghe was originally dissatisfied with being asked to cook, and now the pain in her arm made her mouth clenched and she burst into tears: "That's right, this is all mother's fault. If mother hadn't forced those two damn girls away, how could this job be my turn?"
"You are getting more and more outrageous!" Song was scared, anxious, and angry. Zhuang Qinghe didn't understand her expression at all. She just shouted, "Why are you bringing up this matter? You are such a grown-up girl, why can't you do some work?"
"Why can't I mention the mistakes mother made? It's mother's fault in the first place, otherwise I wouldn't have to do so much work and wouldn't be so tired..." Zhuang Qinghe felt more and more aggrieved as she spoke, and she cried even harder.
Crying and snotting.
Song felt both distressed and angry when she saw this.
"Bang!" Zhuang Ruman slammed the chopsticks in his hand on the table.
"You can't even have a meal in peace. You're useless. You just keep talking nonsense and crying. What are you crying about? Are you mourning? I'm still alive!"
"If you can do this job, do it. If you can't, get out. We don't want to keep idle people in our house!"
Zhuang Ruman shouted angrily, stood up and went into the house.
The only three people left were Song, Zhuang Qinghe and Zhuang Yuanzhong, none of them dared to speak a word.
Especially Zhuang Qinghe, she didn't dare to make any sound when she cried, she just wiped away her tears.
"Look at how angry your father is. You're crying?" Seeing that Zhuang Qinghe was also full of resentment, Song Shi reached out and touched her forehead: "I really don't know what's wrong with your brain. You have to bring up things that are not related to the topic."
Thanks to "Xue Man Huoyan Mountain" and "Jin Ling Shan Ling" for the reward, thank you for your support~ (End of this chapter)
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