Chapter 33 Chapter 33 Maltose
Miao Ying was still very happy after selling the things. Now, every penny he earned at home was enough to make him happy for a while, just like when he got a salary from working in the past. But at that time, he was alone, so he would reward himself a small thing after receiving the salary, perhaps a starch sausage or a cream ice cream.
There wasn't much to see in the town, the afterglow of the New Year was still there, and there weren't many vendors setting up stalls around, so they also planned to go home.
When passing a dim sum shop, Miao Ying stopped. Huo Xing thought he wanted some dim sum and was about to go buy some, but Miao Ying stopped him: "Don't you have any candy? Pure sugar ones."
Miao Ying doesn't want to eat snacks, he just wants to eat some candy now.
Huo Xing shook his head: "I've never seen it before."
Miao Ying was not discouraged: "Ding Ding Candy, Jiao Jiao Candy, are there none?" Logically, there should be a lot of people selling these, like peddlers, walking around the streets.
"What are ding ding candies and stir-fried candies?" Huo Xing didn't understand, he just thought Miao Ying was missing home.
"Could it be that the only candy they know how to make is candied haws?" Miao Ying said again, but he was not talking to Huo Xing, because he wouldn't understand anyway.
Thinking of the videos he had watched before, Miao Ying pulled Huo Xing back, and an idea came to his mind: "Let's go buy something."
Huo Xing naturally agreed with him. He saw Miao Ying walking to the grain shop, apparently preparing to buy grain. The grains eaten at home were all coarse grains, and today's money was also earned by Miao Ying, so it would be okay to buy some fine grains.
The shopkeeper was not in the store, only a servant was there. Miao Ying said he wanted to buy glutinous rice. The servant was confused for a moment, then said, "You want glutinous rice, right?"
Miao Ying nodded. It turned out that glutinous rice is now called Jiangmi.
"They are all the best new rice this year. The price of glutinous rice is 40 coins per dou." The servant showed it to Miao Ying skillfully.
Miao Ying was puzzled. How many pounds was a dou? It was all his fault for not knowing he was traveling through time. Otherwise, he would have studied this knowledge carefully. He seemed to know a little bit about everything now, but not too much. To put it in a common way, it was like a half-filled bottle of water making a jingle.
"A bushel of it would be good."
After buying glutinous rice, Miao Ying wanted to buy wheat. Huo Xing stopped him and said that he had wheat at home. Although he didn't know why Miao Ying bought glutinous rice, he must have his reasons.
When Miao Ying saw the bucket of glutinous rice packed by the servant, his eyes widened. It looked like it must be at least ten kilograms.
Huo Xing carried the glutinous rice they bought and followed Miao Ying to buy two large drawer cloths. Huo Xing had no idea what he wanted to do, but he just followed his advice.
Seeing them buy a lot of things, Li Hongying just asked a question and didn't blame them. During dinner, they put all the belongings in the house together, intending to check the accounts and then distribute them to see how to spend them.
Miao Ying earned five taels from selling handkerchiefs, Huo Xing received ten taels as compensation for his injury, Li Hongying got ten taels for the divorce, Huo Xing got eight taels for the separation, and Chen Nan compensated him with ten taels. Today Miao Ying earned three taels, which makes a total of forty-six taels. Almost six taels had been spent before the separation, and almost six taels were spent on Li Hongying's household registration and renting a house, leaving thirty-four taels.
The thirty-four taels should be used to buy more land at the lowest possible price, and the remaining money should be used to settle the household registration. Huo Xing will need money to go out after the New Year, and he will have to pay taxes after a while. Their family has no land now, and no food to pay taxes, so they can only pay money. Life is still tight, but they should be able to eat and dress warmly. When it is time to plant rapeseed, he will have to spend even more.
The money is still kept by Miao Ying, who has now started to manage the household.
After clearing the table, Miao Ying asked Huo Xing to find him some wheat. They didn't bring much stuff with them when they moved out, and there wasn't much wheat either, so Huo Xing took it all out.
Because he didn't have the accurate measuring instruments he was familiar with, Miao Ying could only rely on Huo Xing's hands to measure.
He asked Huo Xing to grab the wheat with his hands, grab four handfuls in total, then find the vegetable washing basin, put the wheat in, and then soak it in water.
Huo Xing finally asked, "What exactly are we going to do?"
"Sugar, malt sugar. There will be a lantern festival during the Lantern Festival, right? Let's go to the lantern festival and sell candy."
"Can you make candy?" Huo Xing opened his eyes wide.
"I barely know the method, so let's give it a try."
After soaking the wheat, they returned to the room. Miao Ying leaned against the head of the bed, thinking about the next steps. After Huo Xing returned to the room, he moved to the side of the bed, without saying a word, still immersed in his own thoughts.
That night Huo Xing had some bizarre dreams, all of which were the things Miao Ying had described. However, no matter how hard he tried, the big iron box just wouldn't fly. Finally, he ran over and carried the iron box, sighing with exhaustion.
When he woke up, he found that Miao Ying had climbed onto his back and fallen asleep without him noticing. The iron box in his dream was Miao Ying.
Li Hongying got up and saw the wheat soaking in the basin. She didn't know what they were doing, but Miao Ying always had brilliant ideas. Maybe this was another way to make money.
After they had breakfast, Miao Ying scooped up the wheat that had been soaked overnight, found a colander, covered it with a cloth, put the soaked wheat on it, covered it with a lid, and put it into the house to let it sit and germinate.
Everyone in the yard was looking at him while he was working. Miao Ying chuckled and said, "I'm just trying to see if I can make some sugar."
Grandmother looked at him and asked, "Xiaoying, can you make candy? Did your family teach you?"
His family were all butchers, so how could they do such delicate work? He quickly said, "I learned it from reading miscellaneous books before."
Li Hongying was a little skeptical. A craft like this was usually passed down in a family, not just to sons or daughters. Would anyone write it down? But since Miao Ying had said so, she didn't dare to ask any further.
It takes three days for the germination to occur, and Miao Ying is busy with other things during these three days. He is planning the tools needed for oil extraction. He is not worried about manpower, as Huo Xing is strong enough to do the work of two people. If that doesn't work, he can get his brother to do the hard labor as well.
The most important thing is the tools. Miao Ying has been drawing with charcoal these days. This is a relatively private thing and cannot be drawn everywhere. It has to be hidden. It seems that I still have to buy paper and pen. I'll think about it in my mind now.
Three days later, the wheat on the cloth had grown little white sprouts. In the following days, he had to water it once in the morning and once in the evening. Because it was winter, the sprouting time was several days later than expected. Ten days had passed since he started doing this.
It was already the thirteenth day of the first lunar month, and the Lantern Festival would be in two days. Although Miao Ying didn't show it, he was still a little anxious.
They had nothing to do these days. The Chinese New Year should have been a good opportunity to visit relatives and friends, but because their family had just moved to Rongshu Village, although they had talked to each other, it was not to the point of inviting them to a banquet.
So the whole family's attention has been focused on that pot of wheat these days.
When Huo Xiaobao went to see the wheat again, he jumped up in surprise: "Brother, it's sprouted, and it's green!"
Miao Ying finally breathed a sigh of relief, rolled up his sleeves, and pulled Huo Xing in front of the bag of glutinous rice they had bought: "Do you remember how many handfuls of wheat you grabbed?"
"Remember."
"Then you should get four times as much glutinous rice as wheat." Then he turned to his grandmother and said, "Grandma, can you help me steam the glutinous rice?"
Grandma put down her needle and thread, took the glutinous rice that Huo Xing had picked out and went to wash it and steam it.
Miao Ying asked Huo Xing to fetch water, while he and Li Hongying tore the malt off the cloth.
The sound of tearing malt was very relaxing, but a little tiring. He was tired in a short while. Huo Xing had already fetched water and took over his work. In a short while, all the malt was torn off. Li Hongying had anticipated his next move and started to wash it.
After washing, the malt was put into the mortar, which was originally in the house, but it was not very big. They had a lot of malt, so it took several times to pound it all.
Huo Xing did all the heavy work, and he worked quickly and efficiently. Soon the tender green malt was pounded into powder and placed in a clean wooden barrel.
After a while, the glutinous rice was steamed. While it was still hot, the glutinous rice was thoroughly mixed with the crushed malt. The freshly steamed glutinous rice was very hot, and Miao Ying was so scalded that he withdrew his hand for a while. Huo Xing observed his movements and started working again.
Looking at Huo Xing's skillful movements, Miao Ying felt relieved. Huo Xing's ability to understand was very good, and there was no need for Miao Ying to say anything more. He would quickly understand what he meant. There was still a tacit understanding between the two of them.
"Press this down tightly and take it to the kitchen. It'll be warmer there and ferment faster."
Huo Xing nodded, carried the wooden barrel into the kitchen, and then waited again, but everyone in the yard, big and small, trusted him.
The next day, Miao Ying got up early, got dressed, and couldn't wait to see the bucket of mixture from last night.
When I walked to the kitchen, Li Hongying was already waiting there. She looked a little worried and said, "Xiaoying, I took a look and it seems to be broken. Water is leaking."
She thought that after mixing it like this, it would become a hard lump of sugar, but when she woke up in the morning, she saw that it had turned into soup.
Miao Ying thought it was because the weather was too cold and the food hadn't fermented properly. After taking a look, he finally breathed a sigh of relief: "It's okay, Mom. This is the right way."
"Really?" Li Hongying confirmed with him like a child, wanting to know if Miao Ying was comforting her.
"Really." Miao Ying laughed, "Mom, light the fire, we're going to start making candy!"
Huo Xing also finished washing up and came over. As soon as he came over, he started to do physical work. After washing his hands, he used a ladle to scoop out the water in the bucket, wrapped it with a cloth and wrung out the water inside, and then put the residue into the colander.
After getting half a bucket of sugar water, Miao Ying poured it into a clean pot. Li Hongying had already started a low fire, and the next step was to slowly boil the sugar.
As the temperature gradually rose, the originally turbid sugar water gradually turned yellow, and then bubbles slowly emerged, and a sweet fragrance slowly lingered in the small kitchen.
Li Hongying and her grandmother sat at the door of the stove. Their eyes turned red when they saw the successfully made sugar. Huo Xing was also a little excited, but did not show it. Miao Ying stirred the pot, and the malt sugar formed a flag on the shovel, proving that the sugar he made this time was successful!
He couldn't hide his excitement and excitement. After laughing, he saw Huo Xing beside him and jumped up without thinking. Huo Xing caught him almost subconsciously.
"I'm so amazing!" Miao Ying hugged Huo Xing's neck and turned to look at Li Hongying and his grandmother. "Mom, Grandma! Am I really amazing?"
Grandmother and Li Hongying also laughed: "You are the best."
After a moment of excitement, Miao Ying realized that he was still being held by Huo Xing, so he quickly got off him and wanted to transfer the sugar from the pot to a clean container as he would go out to sell the sugar tomorrow night.
"You still have to do some work," Miao Ying said. "Go and carve some small wooden sticks so I can make some candy for Xiaobao. Forget wood, use bamboo. I remember we have bamboo in the village."
Huo Xing left the room. The malt sugar had already been placed in a clean small bowl to cool. It was now golden yellow and looked very pretty. Miao Ying first gave a bite to Huo Xiaobao, who had been standing by, and then dipped his chopsticks in the sugar and gave a bite to his grandmother and Li Hongying as well. He looked at them and asked, "How is it? Is it sweet?"
They nodded: "So sweet."
It seemed like a sweetness they had never tasted in their lives. Just a little bit of it made the sweetness penetrate into their internal organs.
"We'll all have candy to eat in the future! I can make it." Miao Ying knew what they were thinking. "We have candy now, and in the future we'll have oil, rice, flour, and everything else."
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