Chapter 91: Handsome man and beautiful woman, repaying the life-saving grace
"The water is almost ready, let's take it to Dad and the others."
After putting the fish away, Xiulan walked into the house and looked at Lin Heng and said.
"Okay, you hold our daughter and I'll fetch the water." Lin Heng nodded.
"Wait a minute, I'll go into the house and change my clothes. You should change too. You've been wearing this dress for a few days."
Xiulan also said that there were many people in the yard over there, so they should pay attention to their image.
"Okay, you look after my daughter while I go out and take a shower."
Lin Heng thought it was right, so he took the basin and soap and went out.
I took a cold shower and rubbed my body and hair with soap, and I felt much refreshed.
After changing into shorts, a short-sleeved shirt and the cloth shoes that Xiulan made for him, he suddenly looked much more handsome and pleasing to the eye.
Xiulan also put on lipstick, wore her hair in a high ponytail and had middle-parted bangs, looking like a gentle and capable sister next door.
"Wife, you are so beautiful." Lin Heng couldn't help but kiss her.
"Let's go." Xiulan gave him an unpleasant look.
Xiulan held her daughter in her arms, while Lin Heng scooped the boiling water into a wooden bucket and carried it to the old house on a shoulder pole.
At this time, half of the sun had fallen below the mountain ridge, and the entire western sky was blood red.
There were fewer people watching at the door of the old house, but there were still about twenty or thirty people, and it seemed very crowded.
"Make way. Be careful of getting scalded by the boiling water."
Lin Heng shouted and walked over carrying the bucket of water.
"Lin Heng is here, he looks so good dressed up."
"Hey, not only is he good-looking, but his hunting skills are also impeccable."
"That's right, otherwise we wouldn't be able to kill such a big wild boar."
"They are a perfect match. Look at Xiulan. They are a perfect match."
Lin Heng and Xiulan look like a handsome man and a beautiful woman when they dress up.
The Lin family has good genes. Despite lack of food and clothing, Lin Heng is about 1.78 meters tall, with regular facial features and clear edges and corners.
Xiulan is from Lushui County, where water is good for health. She is 1.68 meters tall, has a slim figure and beautiful appearance, and has the delicate and gentle nature of a Jiangnan woman.
The two of them together can definitely be considered a perfect match.
There were many women present, including Jin Yan.
They used to look down on Lin Heng. When Xiulan got married, they all felt sorry for her because she was deceived and didn't even realize it.
Even though she is not as pretty as Xiulan, she is often proud of her husband's hardworking and down-to-earth nature and looks down on her.
But now, these women are extremely envious. Lin Heng has returned to live a down-to-earth life. It has only been more than a month, but the situation of the Lin family has changed dramatically.
Liu Lan, Li Caifeng and the others all wanted to replace Xiulan's position. After dinner, they would wonder why they didn't see Lin Heng's potential in the first place. What a luxurious life it would be to eat meat every day.
After all, he has a junior high school education, and he is indeed different from the uneducated men in the village.
Jin Yan stood aside, looking at Lin Heng and Xiulan, and felt a little regretful that she had not married him.
She thought Lin Heng would look at her and show off to her how well he was doing.
In the end, he didn't even look at her, his eyes were on his wife, children and the wild boar. When he looked back, he was calm and indifferent, without any show-off or other emotions, just like looking at a passerby.
This made her feel a little uncomfortable. After all, he had proposed marriage to her before, so why did she seem to have no reaction at all now, as if she was just a gust of wind.
"Dad, the water is here, let's start cooking the pig."
Lin Hengke doesn't have as complicated a mentality as others, and he doesn't know what they are thinking.
"Pour it into the bucket, and the ones in the house are also burned."
Father Lin nodded.
Lin Heng poured the water into a large wooden barrel with a diameter of two meters, then turned around and went back to fetch the remaining boiled water from home.
Xiulan went into the house and chatted with Bi Caiyun.
My eldest brother Lin Yue’s family also has boiled water, and it would be enough if all the water from the three families was poured in.
"Dad, have you weighed it? How much does the pig weigh?" Lin Heng asked as he put down the wooden barrel.
"I weighed it, it's more than 250 kilograms, 280 kilograms."
Tian Baishun said with a smile.
"No wonder it's so heavy. I can't lift it." Lin Heng chuckled.
"Come, help carry the pig to the wooden barrel for soup."
The butcher Li Niu looked at everyone and shouted, a noose had been put through the pig's nose.
Lin Lin's father and four or five other people walked over to hold the pig, shouting, "Come on, one, two, three, go!"
In one breath, the big wild boar was lifted into the wooden barrel, and then one person pulled the noose on its nose, and another pulled its tail and soaked it in boiling water.
This step is to scald the pig hair. After scalding one side, several people will help to turn it over and continue scalding.
Normally it takes about ten minutes to blanch, but because it was wild boar, it took twenty minutes to blanch.
When the hair is almost done, you can start removing the hair. In rural areas, we use a fist-sized black volcanic stone that has many small holes and is very rough.
He held the pig skin with his hands and smashed it, and the pig hair and the old skin were rubbed off, revealing the snow-white fur.
"Come on, try your best."
All the pig hair was removed, and everyone worked together to lift the pig out.
Use a stick to support the pig in the middle of the wooden barrel and place it on it, with its head and tail resting on the edge of the barrel and its waist resting on the stick. Straighten the pig and let it crawl with its belly facing down.
If you raise the pig at home, you should set off firecrackers and put a small bowl under the pig's head to offer to the Kitchen God.
For wild boars, this process is naturally omitted. The butcher picks up a meat-cutting knife and first cuts along the pig's spine. This step is called checking the fat.
"This pig is fat, with fat three fingers wide." Li Niu said with a smile.
"This big boar eats a lot, so it must be fat." Tian Baishun said with a smile. The thicker the fat, the more oil there is, which means the pig is fat enough.
After checking the fat, the butcher cut off the pig's testicles, cut open the anus, took out the large intestine, and tied it up with a rope to prevent it from shitting.
Then comes the chopping off of the pig's head. Watching the butcher easily cut the meat and chop the bones is as beautiful as a chef butchering an ox.
After cutting off the pig's head, cut off the tail and clamp the tail in the pig's mouth. This is called having a head and a tail.
Then the circle of meat on the pig's neck also needs to be cut off. They call it "xingquan" here. Half of it, about five or six pounds, is sent directly to the kitchen so that we can eat enough today.
At this step, the operation is considered to be preliminarily completed. The butcher took out two iron hooks and hooked them on the pig's chest.
"Come, help lift it."
The butcher Li Niu said something, and Lin's father and others came over to help. They lifted the pig and hung it vertically on the rack they had built.
Then the butcher took out the boning knife, cut open the belly first, and took out the heart, liver, spleen, lungs and other internal organs one by one.
"Give me the large intestine, I'll turn it." Li Baiquan took over the job of turning the large intestine with a smile.
This is a technical job that requires turning the large intestine over to clean it, and most people cannot do it.
"Let me deal with the small intestine." Father Lin took over the task of dealing with the small intestine.
The same goes for the small intestine, which needs to be turned over and cleaned.
"You beat him too hard. His intestines and liver were broken."
Li Niu looked at some feces flowing out of the pig's body and shook his head.
"Hey, you don't know how fierce this wild boar is. It didn't kill him with two shots and two arrows. Old Man Tian was almost knocked down by it."
Tian Baishun shook his head.
"That's because you don't have good skills. If it were me, I would have shot him in the head."
Li Niu said loudly with a smile.
Lin Heng smiled but said nothing. This butcher was used to bragging and had no idea how powerful a wild boar weighing more than 200 pounds was.
"Humph, it's good if you don't get scared to the point of your legs going weak." Tian Baishun gave him a disdainful look.
"Hehe, I have killed five or six hundred pigs. What's there to be afraid of about a wild boar?" Li Niu didn't care.
Tian Baishun was too lazy to argue with an outsider.
Although Li Niu was not very experienced, he did a great job of slaughtering the pig. In his hands, the pig was cut into pieces like a work of art.
Lin Heng took a fancy to the two big pieces of pork fat, while Tian Baishun was drooling over the pig eggs and pig gun.
In half an hour, the pork was chopped and the ribs, pork legs, pork belly, etc. were all divided clearly.
"Okay, now that the pork has been chopped, how are you going to divide it?" Li Niu said to Lin Heng after he finished his work.
Everyone's eyes turned to look over, and Xiulan, Caiyun, Liu Juan and others also came over to see.
"Just as we agreed, take them one by one. Li Baiquan, you choose first, Lin Heng second, Lu Honghai third, and I fourth."
After Tian Baishun finished speaking, he asked Lin's father to get four winnowing baskets from the Lin family and bring them to everyone.
"Then I won't be polite." Li Baiquan said, and first picked up a pig's hind leg.
Of all the cuts of pork, the hind leg is definitely the best.
"Then I'll get a pig's hind leg too." Lin Heng also took one.
Without the pig's hind legs, the remaining two front legs were taken away by Lu Honghai and Tian Baishun.
"I'll take the pork liver." Li Baiquan chose the pork liver second.
Take the pork leg, the other meats are all about the same, so naturally the most cost-effective thing is to take the internal organs.
"I'll take a piece of pork lard." Lin Heng chose pork lard.
"I want a piece of lard too." His uncle Lu Honghai took away another piece of lard.
Tian Baishun chuckled: "I'll take the pig egg and pig gun, the old man likes this."
"You old man are really good at picking."
"When people get old, eating can't make up for it"
The people watching nearby laughed and cheered.
"Hey, I'm an old man with a strong gun." Tian Baishun sneered.
At the beginning of the third round, Uncle Lin Heng set his sights on the pig's heart.
Since the total weight will be weighed at the end and the average is calculated, it is economical and cost-effective to take the pig heart.
Lin Heng looked at the remaining internal organs, including the large intestine, small intestine, stomach, kidneys, and lungs.
No one eats the pancreas, it has been fed directly to dogs.
Lin Heng wanted to choose pork kidneys, as he liked to eat them, but he was afraid that people would take away the large intestines, as Xiulan liked to eat them.
"I'll choose pig intestines." Lin Heng still chose pig intestines.
Then his uncle chose pig small intestines and Tian Baishun chose pig kidneys.
Then Li Baiquan took away the pig's stomach, leaving only the pig's lung.
"Let me take a piece of meat." Lin Heng gave up the pig lungs and didn't want to take the pig head. Although the ears, tongue and tail were all delicious, the pig head was too heavy and there wasn't much meat on it.
"I want meat, too."
There was no good stuff left, so everyone started picking the meat. Soon all the pork was distributed, leaving only a pig head and a pig lung.
"No one wants them. Why don't we weigh the total weight and see who's short of money can make up for it."
Tian Baishun said.
A scale was brought and everyone started weighing the wild boar. The total weight was 280 kilograms, so each person should weigh 70 kilograms.
Because there is pig hair and some meat for eating, each person will lose five kilograms, so the amount will be calculated as 65.
Lin Heng weighs 63 kilograms, Li Baiquan weighs 75 kilograms, his uncle weighs 58 kilograms, and Old Man Tian weighs 50 kilograms.
"This pig's head and lungs weigh about 25 kilograms. They're yours, Old Man Tian."
Lin Heng handed the meat to him.
Li Baiquan gave some more meat to Lu Honghai, and now the weight of the four people was about the same.
The sun has completely set, leaving only a little afterglow for those who have not yet returned home.
The villagers who were watching the pig slaughtering in the yard also turned around and left, with complex emotions such as envy and jealousy.
If they didn't leave now, they were afraid that they would drool over the aroma of the fried meat and their stomachs would growl in embarrassment.
Lin Heng and the others were just being polite. In that era, they were not wealthy enough to treat so many people to a meal, and everyone was living a hard life.
"Lin Heng, how much is one pound? Sell me five pounds." At this time, Jin Yan walked up and said with a smile.
"The price of domestic pork has recently increased to 80 cents per pound, and wild boar meat is not in great demand. It's 90 cents. Do you want to buy it?" Lin Heng looked at her and asked.
"Buy it. Four dollars and fifty cents, right?" Jin Yan took out a handkerchief from her pocket, which contained some scattered money. She gave Lin Heng four dollars and fifty cents.
Lin Heng weighed five pounds of pork belly for her and asked her to check the scale herself.
"No need to look, I trust you, I'm leaving." Jin Yan said, turned and left.
Lin Heng walked into the house carrying the meat without paying much attention.
Lin's mother had already prepared the dishes, and Xiulan and others had already started wiping the table and picking up chopsticks.
"Li Niu, do you want money or pork?" Lin Heng asked.
"If you want money, just give me 80 cents." Li Niu said that he charged 80 cents for slaughtering a pig, which was considered quite expensive. A normal day's work in the countryside would only make 50 cents.
"Here." Lin Heng took out eighty cents and gave it to him.
"Okay." Li Niu grinned and took it.
"You can't give it to me. I have the most meat. I'll give it all to you and cut two more pounds," said his uncle Li Baiquan.
"Uncle, just sit down and eat. It's just a few cents, there's no need to worry about it." Lin Heng waved his hand and said.
After some arguing, Li Baiquan finally bought two kilograms of meat for Lin Heng. Although eighty cents might not seem like much to him, it was a lot for a farmer.
"Have a meal!"
Father Lin smiled and said, the dishes have been served and the wine is hot.
The adults were sitting at the table. Caiyun took Lin Wei and the others to the kitchen, where there was also a pot of meat, enough for them to eat.
Lin Heng tasted a bite of wild boar meat. It was an uncastrated male wild boar, so it still had a strong fishy smell. Even after Lin's mother's treatment, he could still smell the smell.
The meat was a little hard to chew because the wild boar might have lived for many years, especially the skin, which was impossible to chew.
The taste of the meat can only be described as unique, which is far inferior to domestic pork, but some people think it is delicious, which may be related to personal habits.
Of course, in rural areas of this era, meat is delicious and quality is not a consideration.
"Come on, drink!"
Father Lin held up the wine glass and said that wild boar meat goes really well with wine.
At the dinner, everyone ate so much meat that they didn't eat much rice in the end.
After dinner, Lin Heng's uncle Li Baiquan carried the meat back. He was in a hurry to salt and smoke the meat, otherwise it would easily go bad.
"Uncle, here's your honey." Lin Heng chased out to deliver the honey, and they had already reached the dam.
"Take some and eat them. I have bees at home, so we can afford this." Li Baiquan said with a smile on the other side of the river.
Lin Heng had no choice but to leave it at home and wait for him to take it home next time.
"I'm leaving too. I haven't been back for many days." Lu Honghai also packed up his things and said goodbye. No one could stop him.
Finally, only Tian Baishun had not returned yet. He picked and chose among the meat and packed up the pig eggs, pig guns and two kidneys.
As for the rest of the meat, they only took a pig's head and a small piece of meat, and left the rest in the winnowing basket.
He turned around and looked at Lin Heng and smiled: "Lin Heng, these are all for you. Thank you for saving my life twice. Thank you so much."
"I didn't save you just for your little piece of meat. Take it back quickly." Lin Heng shook his head, not wanting to take advantage of this.
"I told you this is just a little gift, a token of my appreciation. It's not a question of whether you want it or not." Tian Baishun shook his head and turned away.
Lin Heng was speechless and carried the meat to his backpack.
As a result, Old Man Tian ran away without a trace, and he couldn't catch up with him.
"What should we do with the meat?" Lin's mother and others were applying salt to the meat for preservation, and asked when they saw the leftover meat.
"Put salt on it first and leave it there." Lin Heng thought about it and decided to accept it.
Accept the meat, even if it is just to let Tian Baishun repay the favor of saving his life, there is no need to get entangled any further.
I saved his life twice, and no one dared to say anything about me taking this little thing.
Sister-in-law Liu Juan drooled at the sight of the meat in the winnowing basket, and she regretted more and more that she did not insist on letting Lin Yue go along, otherwise she would have at least been able to get a share.
"Dad, brother, each of you gets one of these two pieces of meat."
Lin Heng picked out two pieces of meat weighing 11 or 12 pounds and handed them to his father and elder brother.
"What do we need this from you for? Take it back and eat it yourself." Father Lin refused.
"Yes, you fought hard for it, we can't accept it." Lin Yue couldn't take it even though he shouted.
"Take it. You've done so much farm work, this is what you deserve. I'll be angry if you don't take it." Lin Heng forced it in the two of them.
This amount is enough for now. More than ten pounds of meat is worth ten yuan. They will definitely not accept more. This amount is the most appropriate.
"Xiu Lan, let's go home." Without waiting for the two to refuse, Lin Heng packed up the rest of the meat and carried it home.
"This is too much, Lin Heng, you can just give me a smaller one." Lin Yue was still a little uneasy. Lin Heng gave too much, and he was the older brother, so there was no reason for him to take so much.
"You keep it. He doesn't need this little bit of meat. Otherwise, he will feel embarrassed if he slacks off in the future." Father Lin stopped his eldest son.
"Dad is right, big brother, please keep it. You have helped with so much work." Lin Heng said with a smile. Giving meat was nothing. What he wanted to do was to lead everyone in the Lin family to live a life of worry-free food and clothing without having to worry about money.
Lin Yue looked at the meat in his hand and nodded helplessly: "Okay then."
After returning home, Xiulan coaxed Xiaoxia to sleep, then walked into the main room and saw that there were still more than 100 kilograms of pork in the backpack. She felt so grateful that it seemed unreal.
For the next six months, our family won’t have to worry about having no meat to eat.
"Would you like to take Tian Baishun's meat?" Xiulan asked a little worriedly.
"I saved his life twice, and everyone in the village knows it. It's normal for him to give me meat. It's nothing. He just returned the favor and I got the pork. It's the best of both worlds." Lin Heng said with a smile.
"Then what should we do with the meat? Fat is okay, but the lean meat might become smelly. The temperature is too high in the summer." Xiulan never thought that there would be a day when she would have to worry about how to preserve the meat that she could not finish.
"I have an idea." Lin Heng said. He had already thought of a solution.
(End of this chapter)
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