Cheng Baidong didn't know what to do about Jiang Moli, and he didn't want to care about what to do about Cheng Yajun.
Everyone must take responsibility for their actions and the causes they sow. Whether the result is a blessing or a curse, good or bad, it is all their own doing.
After paying, Cheng Baidong put his pig face and pig intestines into a basin and left the brigade headquarters calmly.
He took the pig intestines and pig face home, and under Fang Qiao's guidance, tied the two ends of the intestines with straw rope, scrubbed both sides clean with wood ash, and finally used baking soda to remove the odor.
The pig's face had already had its hair removed once by the butcher, but it wasn't completely clean, so it had to be scalded with hot water and scraped again. Pig hair is indigestible, so any stubborn hairs that couldn't be removed at the end had to be picked off with tweezers.
The tasks themselves weren't difficult, but they were tedious and meticulous. Plus, they required repeated washing with hot water, which took a lot of time. By the time everything was done, it was already two hours later.
Next comes the braising.
Making braised meat can be difficult, but it's not that hard either. As long as you master the ratio of spices, the taste will definitely be good.
Cheng Baidong took the lead, while Fang Qiao directed the entire process. The two worked together, dividing the tasks, and after an afternoon, they finally braised a pot of delicious food.
The large intestine was chewy yet tender, the pig's head meat was lightly flavorful and fatty but not greasy, and the pig's ears were crisp. Fang Qiao ate a big bowl of hand-pulled noodles for dinner.
After slaughtering the pig for the New Year, the festive atmosphere becomes even stronger.
Rural houses are not soundproof, so even if Fang Qiao doesn't go out, she can always hear the laughter and chatter of the old and young wives coming from the road behind the house.
The donkey carts that had been idle in the village all day came in handy, taking villagers to the town commune to buy New Year's goods time and time again.
Fang Qiao couldn't go out during her postpartum confinement, so the old lady took Tian Tian and went to the commune with her third aunt and Xiao Jing.
I went there for a whole morning and came back with bags and bags of things, including honey cakes and candies for the Kitchen God Festival, firecrackers for the New Year, and two red ribbons for Tian Tian to use as hair ties. She tied them into bows on her ponytails, and with every run and movement, she looked like a real butterfly about to take flight. She was so pretty!
Time flew by and it was already the 20th of the twelfth lunar month, the day An'an was to deliver the rice.
Fang Qiao dressed An An in a festive red quilt and changed herself into the new clothes she had just made a few days ago. To make her complexion look better, Fang Qiao even dabbed her lips with red paper.
Not long after Fang Qiao finished getting ready, a neighbor knocked on the door to deliver eggs and also came in to see what the newborn looked like.
The old lady and Cheng Baidong had already cooked the red eggs dyed with sappanwood the night before.
When a neighbor brought eggs, I would pack up a few hard-boiled red eggs and have them take them home as a return gift.
Around noon, the relatives arrived one after another.
First, there was Aunt Cheng and her husband's entire family, and then there was Aunt Cheng's second family, whom Fang Qiao had never seen since her rebirth.
The two aunts weren't close to Fang Qiao. After exchanging a few pleasantries, looking at the child, and giving her a gift, they left.
Next came some distant cousins, aunts, uncles, and cousins, many of whom Fang Qiao had never seen before. In short, when you meet them, just smile at them.
By the end of the morning, Fang Qiao's face was stiff from smiling.
The lunch banquet was prepared personally by Cheng Baidong, because An'an was the precious child that the couple had longed for for two lifetimes. Even though none of Fang Qiao's family members came because of the long distance, the banquet was still very grand.
There were three tables set up in total. Each table not only had two main dishes, braised pork and stewed chicken with potatoes and pancakes, but also a plate of sliced pig's head meat and a bowl of pork bone soup with rice noodles and meatballs.
Three dishes and a soup, all of which were meat, making it the first of its kind in the entire Chengzhuang Village.
At the table, no one was so oblivious as to ask why the child's grandparents weren't there.
Because now everyone knows that Cheng Baidong and his wife have made it clear that they want to sever ties with their biological father and stepmother, so everyone is tacitly aware of it.
After all, this was a banquet hosted by someone else. If you were to eat their food and then bring up their enemies to annoy them, that would be really thoughtless. So even Aunt Cheng, who was biased towards the other side, held back and didn't say anything.
However, the fact that Cheng Baidong did not invite them does not mean that Cheng Guihe and the others were unaware of it.
Although they were being punished, the brick factory was still giving them a holiday for the Chinese New Year, so the whole family went back to the village last night. However, being punished was too humiliating, so they slunk back without daring to make a fuss.
As for An'an delivering rice, they knew it, but the two families had already fallen out, and since Cheng Baidong didn't come to invite them, they were too ashamed to go on their own initiative.
Cheng Hongmei leaned over the wall, looking out with longing. She could smell the aroma of meat from the feast outside, and her mouth watered involuntarily.
Cheng Yajun lay on the bed expressionlessly, his gaze fixed on the roof beams with a gloomy expression.
After delivering the rice, the New Year is getting closer.
Starting from the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, we clean the house, make tofu, cook meat, fry meatballs, and slaughter the New Year's chicken. There are always things to prepare every day.
The old lady was too old to steam buns, so her third aunt steamed several batches of bean buns and brought them over.
Sticky rice cakes are made with fermented dough. The filling consists of steamed red beans, sweet potatoes, and red dates, mixed with sugar and mashed. The finished product is fragrant and is an indispensable staple food for the local New Year.
Amidst a busy yet joyful atmosphere, Lunar New Year's Eve arrived in no time.
That day, after finishing breakfast, Cheng Baidong swept the ground inside and outside the house and the yard clean. Then he wiped the table and stood on a stool to sweep away the spider webs on the beam.
The whole morning was spent cleaning.
The family ate a simple lunch. The old lady used the leftover porridge, added a handful of mixed flour, and cooked it into a thick paste. Together with Tian Tian, they pasted up the couplets inside and outside the house.
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