Aunt Cheng wouldn't listen: "Mother, my eldest brother's family all work at the brick factory and can't even come out. If I don't do something about it, are we just going to let that Jiang family bully our Cheng family's children to death?"
"You're overthinking it. With Cheng Yajun's personality, it's good enough if he doesn't bully others. How could he let others bully him?" The old lady was speechless. "Alright, Auntie, that's enough about this. It's none of your business. Stop meddling and you'll end up doing all the work for nothing."
“Mother! Ya Jun is also your grandson. Even if you favor Bai Dong, there should be limits. Ya Jun was indeed wrong last time, and I understand that you are angry, so I won’t speak up for him. But Mother, even if you are very angry, more than a month has passed, so you should have calmed down by now, right? One thing at a time. Now that Ya Jun is being made difficult, are you just going to stand by and watch?”
Aunt Cheng got stuck on her own ideas. The more the old lady tried to persuade her, the more she felt that the old lady was biased towards Cheng Baidong and didn't care about Cheng Yajun's life or death.
She felt that the runner-up was a pitiful little guy, and if she didn't help him, no one else would.
"Then what do you want to do?" the old lady asked impatiently.
Aunt Cheng said, "If the runner-up doesn't want to break off the engagement, could you step in and send the people from Daxu Village and the matchmaker away?"
"They're determined to break off the engagement. What's the point of just sending them away? You might be able to get rid of them this time, but what about next time? And the time after that?"
"Anyway...anyway, the runner-up doesn't want to break off the engagement, so let's get rid of him first."
Despite being advised against it, she insisted on getting involved. At her advanced age, she couldn't even tell right from wrong. The old lady was so angry that she kept sneering.
"He doesn't want to call off the engagement, so he just won't. Who does he think he is?"
"If people can't agree on a marriage and want to break off the engagement, that's their right. If they don't want to, you can't force them to get married. What's the difference between that and being a bandit?"
Aunt Cheng was speechless after the old lady's words. After a long while, she muttered unhappily, "That doesn't mean she can just call off the engagement like that."
The old lady was really annoyed: "They returned the bride price and even gave us compensation, isn't that enough?"
"But the runner-up said..."
"Stop calling him 'Yajun' all the time. He's just a nobody. You don't need to listen to him." The old lady got annoyed just hearing Cheng Yajun's name. Her good manners, cultivated over her age, finally gave way, and she started swearing.
"I think you're a fool too. I can't reason with you. Go back to your old haunts."
"mother!"
"Even if you call me 'Dad,' I won't pay you any attention." The old lady started to shoo him away: "I'm annoyed just looking at you. Don't eat lunch at my house."
"Mother..." Aunt Cheng didn't want to leave because the matter hadn't been resolved.
The old lady completely ignored her.
Aunt Cheng felt awkward and couldn't sit still for long. "Well, I'm leaving."
The old lady naturally wouldn't keep her.
After listening to the whole story, Fang Qiao was speechless at Cheng Da Gu's behavior.
"She meddles in so many things, but it doesn't bring her any good. What do you think my aunt is after?"
"I'm not a mind reader, how would I know if you ask me?" Cheng Baidong found the question pointless. "Let's not worry about other people's business, let's think about what we want to eat for lunch?"
Fang Qiao thought for a moment and said, "I want to eat shepherd's purse wontons, but unfortunately shepherd's purse won't be available until after the New Year when it gets warmer."
"There's a life-protecting herb in the space, do you want to eat it?" Cheng Baidong asked. "If you want to eat it, I'll buy some meat and wrap it up for you tomorrow."
What is *Herba Viridae*?
Cheng Baidong explained: "It is a kind of spiritual herb in the cultivation world. It is good for the eyes and stomach. It is the main ingredient in several elixir formulas. It is also a type of shepherd's purse and looks similar to shepherd's purse."
Is it edible?
"I guess... I think so." Cheng Baidong wasn't too sure either.
People in the cultivation world practice abstaining from grains, but since elixirs can be eaten, then the life-protecting herb, as the main ingredient, can certainly be eaten as well.
"Uh." Fang Qiao hesitated for a moment, but in the end, her desire for food overcame her reason: "Then let's make some egg dumplings first. Meat is hard to buy, and it would be a waste if they didn't taste good."
"OK."
Cheng Baidong placed An'an on the cradle and lay her down before slipping into his spatial dimension.
When they reappeared, they brought with them a handful of emerald green spiritual herbs.
It was tender and fresh, with dewdrops still on it.
Fang Qiao took it and glanced at it: "Hey, this shepherd's purse does look quite similar to shepherd's purse, but I don't know if it tastes the same."
"You'll know once you've wrapped it up and tasted it."
Cheng Baidong took the herbal medicine to the kitchen and said to the old lady, "Grandma, we're having egg dumplings for lunch today."
The old lady replied "Okay" and went to knead the dough without saying anything more.
Her grandson would occasionally produce some unusual items out of thin air, and he never hid them from her.
The old lady is a smart woman. If her grandson doesn't say anything, she won't ask. Some things are better left unsaid; there's no need to explain them so clearly.
When Cheng Baidong saw that the old lady had only poured one serving of flour into the bowl, he quickly said, "Grandma, make more flour so our whole family can eat."
"knew."
The protective grass in the space is indeed no different from shepherd's purse. Wrapped with eggs, it is fresh, tender, and fragrant, and its taste is no less than that of real shepherd's purse dumplings. At the same time, it contains abundant spiritual energy, and you will feel warm all over after eating it.
It was this unique meal of shepherd's purse dumplings that inspired Fang Qiao, giving her the idea of cooking with spiritual herbs.
It's delicious and can also enhance one's cultivation, so why not?
Anyway, with Cheng Baidong looking after An'an, she can only stay in the house during her postpartum period and has nothing else to do for the time being, so she's just idling around anyway.
Without hesitation, Fang Qiao plunged into the library of the space that very day.
To incorporate spiritual herbs into dishes, one must first learn about them. The vast library contains enough knowledge for her to study for quite some time.
On the sixteenth day of the twelfth lunar month, before dawn, Fang Qiao heard the screams of a pig being slaughtered outside. This sound also indicated that the day the villagers looked forward to the most in the year—the day of slaughtering the New Year's pig—had arrived.
First distribute the grain and money, then distribute the meat.
The brigade accountant calculated the income based on the work points accumulated by each household. The more work points a household had, the more grain and money they would receive in the end.
As for the meat, the village slaughtered two pigs in total, and the meat from one of the pigs was distributed equally among each household in the village.
On the other end, the meat was cut into small pieces for villagers to buy as needed. The price was 75 cents per pound for pork, 85 cents for ribs, 50 cents for large bones, 30 cents for pig's head meat, and 10 cents per pound for offal.
Chengzhuang Village is a small village under Gaozhuang Commune, with only about forty households in total.
A pig weighs over 150 jin (approximately 75 kg), and after removing the bones and internal organs, it can yield about 100 jin (approximately 50 kg) of meat. A family can get about 2.5 jin (approximately 1.25 kg) of meat, which is enough for the whole family to eat during the Chinese New Year if they are frugal. However, the Chinese New Year is all about eating meat to one's heart's content, so many families spend extra money to buy meat.
Cheng Baidong has a high salary and is not short of money. In addition to the pork belly needed for the banquet, he also bought several kilograms of hind leg meat, two kilograms of ribs, and two large bones.
The butcher who was distributing the meat was Cheng Hui, Cheng Baidong's cousin who was not yet five years old. Seeing that Cheng Baidong was generous, he knew that he was not short of money. At noon, he came to his supplier and asked him, "Brother Baidong, there is still half a pig's face and a whole set of pig intestines left on the stall. Do you still want them?"
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