It's already past 2 PM. Although the snow has lessened, the roads are icy due to the rain and snow over the past two days. Chen Shuning is worried that it might be unsafe for Du Qianjin to drive home so late.
That's why he thought of finding a few more people in the village, paying them some wages to unload the goods as quickly as possible, so as not to delay Du Qianjin's return journey.
Chen Shuning was thinking about this, and Du Qianjin, seeing that Chen Shuning believed him, secretly breathed a sigh of relief, while also hurriedly stopping Chen Shuning, who was about to go to the village to look for people.
"Comrade Chen, you don't need to find anyone. I have a loader here. Just take us to where you put the coal, and we'll carry it in for you."
As he spoke, Du Qianjin shouted towards the truck, "It's this way, guys, hurry up and unload the truck."
Because the truck had a canopy, Chen Shuning didn't notice that there were people in the truck bed. After Du Qianjin shouted, five or six young men jumped out of the truck bed and started unloading the truck without saying a word.
After glancing at the bamboo baskets unloaded from the truck, Chen Shuning quickly walked over and saw stacks of honeycomb briquettes neatly arranged in square bamboo baskets.
To be honest, this was the first time Chen Shuning, who had lived two lives, had ever seen the legendary honeycomb briquettes.
Looking at the honeycomb briquettes that supposedly burn for a whole night, I thought that if I could really keep the fire in the stove burning all night in my little room, then sleeping in the room at night wouldn't be so unbearable.
After she finished paying her grain tax and had some free time, she made two more cotton curtains to hang up and then sealed the windows. Her little house should be able to reach a temperature of over 20 degrees Celsius in winter.
Just thinking about it makes Chen Shuning happy. In the cold winter, she can sit in a warm little house, drinking hot milk tea, having some desserts, reading a book, and enjoying the snow.
Since it was arranged by his own elder brother, he stopped being coy and happily led everyone to carry baskets of coal into his woodshed.
Chen Shuning, caught up in his joy, didn’t notice what Du Qianjin was carrying when he came in later.
It wasn't until Du Qianjin called out to Chen Shuning, who was about to go into the woodshed to help stack the bamboo baskets, that she noticed that Du Qianjin was holding a strange iron trough and an iron hook.
The iron trough was welded from a half-centimeter-thick iron plate. It was a long trough surrounded on three sides. The iron hook was about the thickness of Chen Shuning's little finger. The handle was ring-shaped, and it looked a lot like the iron rods used for heating boilers that I had seen on TV. However, this one was not pointed at the front, but was a hook that was bent at an 80-degree right angle.
You have to understand that iron was a valuable commodity in that era, so Du Qianjin took these two items out of the driver's cab. At that time, Chen Shuning, who was happily looking at the baskets of coal, naturally did not notice them.
Seeing Chen Shuning's puzzled expression, Du Qianjin didn't keep him in suspense and explained with a smile: "Comrade Chen, this trough and hook were specially made by Brother Chen, because the earthen stoves in the village are not suitable for burning honeycomb briquettes."
So Brother Chen came up with this solution: when you cook during the day, just burn firewood and coal as usual.
Oh, by the way, today's delivery included not only honeycomb briquettes, but also some coal blocks. Those burn very quickly and can be used for cooking during the day.
At night, you put two honeycomb briquettes in this trough, light them, and then use this iron hook to hang them in the outer iron ring, pushing the side without the iron plate into the stove with the other side facing inwards.
This way, the heat won't escape and will all enter the kang (heated brick bed), ensuring it stays warm all night. The honeycomb briquettes are also durable and burn slowly, so you don't need to get up to add firewood all night.
While speaking, Du Xiangqian asked Chen Shuning about the location of the kitchen, personally demonstrated how to push the iron trough into the stove, and explained several precautions to Chen Shuning in detail, all of which were to prevent burns.
Even so, he wasn't satisfied and made Chen Shuning demonstrate twice. Only when he saw that she could skillfully push the iron trough into the stove pit did he go out to help unload the truck.
You see, Brother Chaoyang had repeatedly told him that Comrade Chen was not in good health and that he must get more coal for him and help him put it in the woodshed.
The way he meticulously explained how to use the iron trough for cooking and how to use it was as if he was afraid that Comrade Chen would get tired or hurt in the slightest. This was the first time he had ever seen such a thing since he met Brother Chaoyang.
So even for such a small matter as delivering coal, he still personally made the trip, and now he also had to personally supervise the work of his subordinates.
Brother Chaoyang had clearly explained where to put the honeycomb briquettes, where to put the coal blocks, and how to put them. He had even clearly explained where to leave space for Comrade Chen to store winter vegetables, so he couldn't leave it unattended.
Du Qianjin, watching his loading and unloading workers at work, and then looking at the iron trough in the kitchen that was just the right size to fit into the stove pit, seriously doubted how his elder brother, who was still far away, knew so much about her situation, as if he had seen it with his own eyes.
You should know that her stove was modified a little bit, because she wasn't very good at lighting fires, so Shen Dahe widened the stove pit a little when he built it.
She clearly remembered that she had never mentioned this to anyone in her family. So how did her older brother manage to get Du Qianjin to make such a perfectly sized iron trough?
Thinking of this, Chen Shuning hurriedly ran to the woodshed and saw Du Qianjin skillfully directing people to arrange the bamboo baskets. Seeing how well Du Qianjin knew his woodshed, Chen Shuning felt more and more that his guess might be correct.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
