Cheng Yue brought this up intentionally to show everyone how to make a heated kang (a traditional Chinese bed-stove), and seeing everyone's expectant faces, she nodded and said:
"When Master Ji and the others were making it, I glanced at it and roughly knew how to do it, but I still had to try it myself to know if it would work."
She's a true northerner; she used to watch her grandfather build the kang (heated brick bed), so she definitely knows how to do it!
Making a kang (heated brick bed) is a craft that can't be seen by outsiders. It would be strange if the craft wasn't stolen.
But that's all she could say, since nobody knew anyway.
The village head was overjoyed, "Excellent, excellent!"
Madam Feng couldn't help but praise, "You can figure out how to do it just by looking? How did your mother give birth to you? You're so smart!"
"He's always been quick-witted; otherwise, how could he have run a successful business and built such a big house?"
Mrs. Wu straightened up, extremely proud, but wouldn't say whose daughter she was.
Uncle Cheng, Uncle Cheng, and Uncle Wu and Aunt Wu were even more proud. Look at their children, they are so proud!
Mr. Cheng felt a little uneasy, as this could be considered stealing someone else's skills, but then he thought he was overthinking it.
After all, if it were a real skill, it certainly wouldn't be shown to others. Since my daughter was able to learn it, it must have been with their permission. Otherwise, how could she learn it just by looking at it once?
Of course, it's mainly because his daughter is clever. Thinking about the warm kang (heated brick bed), Mr. Cheng said with longing, "Daughter, make one for your parents too!"
"What are you saying? Do you think our daughter would forget her father?"
Wu rolled her eyes at Cheng's father. If it weren't for the presence of so many outsiders, and not wanting to embarrass him, she would have pinched him.
Mr. Cheng could only chuckle awkwardly.
Cheng Yue laughed along, "Not only our parents have to do it, but our second and third uncles and maternal uncles' families also have to do it, and everyone else too, as long as they want to do it!"
The heated kang (a traditional heated brick bed) is used for heating. Its materials and usage are very common and nothing special. Why can't ordinary people use it?
This shouldn't be the privilege of the wealthy.
Upon hearing this, everyone looked at Cheng Yue with anticipation, "Cheng Yue, if this heated kang can be made, you will be a great benefactor to our whole village! We don't know how to thank you enough!"
They were terrified of winter. Not only did they not have enough to eat or drink, but they also didn't have the money to make warm clothes. In winter, they could only endure the cold by burning firewood, and their hands and faces were covered with frostbite.
If we had this heated kang (a traditional heated brick bed), at least we could get a good night's sleep! And in winter we wouldn't have to do any work, and if it got too cold we could just snuggle up on the kang. Just thinking about it makes me happy!
“But our house isn’t laid out like this. Cheng Yue and her family have a stove for cooking fires here, but our kitchens are all in the side rooms, not next to the bedrooms. What are we going to do? Are we going to have to build a new house?”
Wei Lanfen felt something was wrong. When she asked, everyone realized the same thing: their bedroom wasn't next to the stove, so how were they going to cook?
Building a new house is unrealistic. They earned money from collecting medicinal herbs, but it wasn't enough to rebuild the house. Even if they had enough money, they couldn't just throw it all into the project!
Cheng Yue smiled and said, "It's not that complicated. You don't necessarily need a stove to heat the kang. You can just heat it directly, but that will waste some firewood. Or you could move the kitchen to a different location."
If you directly heat the kang (a traditional heated platform bed), firewood only has one purpose. If you move the kitchen to a different location, you can heat the kang while cooking.
Everyone perked up when they heard that, saying, "That's great!"
"It's best to burn it directly. Our village is near the mountains, so there's plenty of firewood. Just cut more! We also need to move the kitchen. We'll be burning it anyway, so we should save as much firewood as possible."
Ultimately, it all comes down to not having money. If you had money, you'd be like Cheng Yue, with a separate kitchen and a separate stove for boiling water and taking a bath.
Everyone chattered and discussed for a while longer, but finally the village headman, seeing that they were getting more and more excited, quickly stopped them, "Alright, today is a big day for moving into the new house, we can't keep talking about this, let's talk about it another day!"
Madam Feng also called out to the group of women, "Yes, yes, it's still a long way from winter! It's getting late, let's go prepare dinner!"
Wu nodded and said, "Let's go pick some vegetables over at the old house!"
With that, Wu, Feng, Xu, and the others went to the old house.
Cheng Yue smiled. Her mother was truly decisive and efficient.
The three aunts and Liu stepped forward and pulled Cheng Yue, "Then let's go too, let's go check the kitchen, let the men talk together!"
"Okay! I'll go right away!"
Then he called to Chen Lin and his two siblings, "Xiao Lin, Xiao Tong, Xiao Ning, you three take care of your younger siblings and play together. There are candies and snacks in the main room, go and get them yourselves."
The three siblings hadn't even seen their own room yet, and their hearts were already wandering off. Finally, when Cheng Yue spoke, they grinned and said, "Yes! We understand!"
After saying that, he started running around the yard having a blast, followed by a bunch of little tails...
As soon as Cheng Yue left, Chen An led a group of male guests to the main hall to sit and drink tea, and casually discussed the matter of building a kang (heated brick bed). A Yue had explained it to him very clearly, so he knew what to do.
Everyone was listening intently when the aroma of food filled the air. Suddenly, the village headman remembered something and hurriedly called for everyone to go home and fetch tables, chairs, bowls, and chopsticks.
With so many people coming to the village all at once, it's definitely not enough.
Normally, it wouldn't matter if we squatted to eat, but today is a big day for moving into the new house, so we have to be a little more particular.
Once everyone had brought up the tables, chairs, bowls, and chopsticks, the dishes were also prepared and served one after another.
The meal consisted of six dishes and one soup: braised pork knuckle, braised chicken, braised lion's head meatballs, stir-fried eggs with chives, eggplant and green beans, braised tofu with scallions, and a soup of loofah and sliced pork.
Everyone stared in disbelief at the food on the table, their mouths watering. How was all this made? It looked so delicious! They'd never eaten anything this good, not even during Chinese New Year!
Chen An and Cheng Yue greeted everyone, "Thank you all for coming. Have a good meal today!"
"How could we not enjoy such delicious food! You're too kind. Please just make us something simple!"
Cheng Yue smiled and said, "We'll definitely treat everyone well, let's eat!"
Just as Cheng Yue finished speaking, Lai Xing and Lai Wang rushed in: "Master, an old gentleman has come to the door, saying he's here for dinner!"
Although the old man was dressed in rags and they didn't know who he was, they knew that Cheng Yuechen was kind-hearted and would even give food to beggars passing by, so they quickly came in to announce his arrival.
The two knew who it was as soon as they heard the name. They really came to eat. They didn't show up until the meal was served. They really knew how to time things right!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com