Chapter 136 Eat to your heart's content
On the third day of autumn harvest, Lin Qi caught two large baskets of sparrows in the morning and went to the canteen.
"Normally, a sparrow shouldn't have 2 taels of meat, but the sparrow Lin Qi brought back was actually a bit fat, several times bigger than the average sparrow." The chef was plucking the sparrow's feathers, pinched its belly, and said in surprise, "It has fat."
The other chef also nodded. "These sparrows are not small, weighing about 150 grams. They are plump and don't look like they are wild. Instead, they look like they were carefully raised."
"There's not enough food for people to eat, so who would feed sparrows?"
"That's true."
Lunch was spicy stir-fried sparrow meat, diced sparrow meat and diced green and red peppers, with some fermented black beans, which went very well with rice.
Everyone was given a spoonful and ate it with rice. It was no worse than the fish they had yesterday.
"Xu Hexiao, was this sparrow also caught by Lin Qi?" Old Yi looked at Xu Hexiao opposite him and thought to himself that he was indeed a descendant of a big family, his eating manners were quite elegant.
Xu Hexiao nodded and didn't explain further.
"This sparrow is really fat. When you take a bite, oil comes out of your mouth." Lao Bi said in amazement, "In this Anliang Brigade, not only are the fish big, but the sparrows are also bigger than in other places."
"Xu Hexiao, where is Lin Qi? Why don't you ask her to have dinner together?" Old Fu asked curiously.
"She went to the mountains and is not in the team." Xu Hexiao knew that Lao Yi and the other two were curious about Lin Qi, so he did not deliberately conceal Lin Qi's information.
"Did she catch all these sparrows by herself? How did she do it?" Old Fu continued to ask.
Xu Hexiao glanced at him indifferently and said nothing.
Lunch was sparrows, and in the afternoon Lin Qi brought four baskets full of mice. She carried a shoulder pole on one shoulder, and the mice in the four baskets were sticking out and about to fall out of the baskets.
"Why are there so many rats!" the chef was stunned.
Lin Qi shook her head, "I don't know."
It has only been half a year since the area was cleaned up, and these rats have become an infestation. Each one has shiny fur and is round and about the size of a puppy that is only a few days old.
Today she only picked out the biggest ones, and tomorrow, no matter whether they were big or small, she would catch them all, leaving not a single one behind.
"These rats must weigh one or two kilograms. I've lived for decades, and I've seen rats weighing one kilogram, but I've never seen ones weighing two kilograms." The chef pinched himself to calm himself. Apart from anything else, this pile of two-kilogram rats looked a little scary.
Lin Qi's face didn't look very good. The fact that these mice had grown so big must have meant that they had stolen a lot of her fruits, vegetables and food.
The mice in the afternoon are fatter than the sparrows at noon. You don’t need to add oil. Just fry them in a big iron pan and they will sizzle with oil.
"Smells good! It smells so good!"
The wind blew in from the direction of the cafeteria, and the rich aroma of stir-fried protein and fat reached everyone's eyes, making everyone's saliva flood.
"After we finish this piece, we'll call it a day." The team leader said this. Not only did the team members want to eat, but he, as the team leader, also wanted to rush to the cafeteria immediately.
But eating is important, and so is food. If the ripe food is not harvested in time, it will go bad when it rains.
The area the team leader pointed to was not small, but everyone had no objection. Everyone worked hard and increased their efficiency two or three times, especially the young people and children, who almost ran.
Lao Yi and the other two couldn't help but speed up, but no matter how fast they were, they were still far behind the others.
The last ones to leave were the three of them and Xu Hexiao. Xu Hexiao's tall figure walked in front, while the three of them fell behind, supporting each other.
"The closer we get to the cafeteria, the stronger the aroma becomes. It's even more fragrant than this afternoon." Lao Bi swallowed his saliva. He wanted to speed up, but his legs were trembling and he didn't have the strength.
Old Fu moved his nose and said, "I can't smell the aroma of meat."
"We've eaten sparrow meat, so I wouldn't be surprised even if it's rat meat later," said Lao Yi.
Xu Hexiao: “….”
The guess was quite accurate.
"It's all thanks to Lin Qi, otherwise we would have fainted a few more times in the past two days. We couldn't have endured such heavy farm work without any food in our stomachs." Lao Yi sighed.
When they arrived at the cafeteria, Xu Hexiao and his companions were still at the end of the line.
Seeing the people who had already prepared the food, with a plate full of meat, Lao Yi and the other two were all stunned, "So much!"
Xu Hexiao was also a little surprised. How many mice did Qiqi catch?
Xu Hexiao brought four lunch boxes today. When it was his turn, the chef specially packed a box of leg meat and instructed, "This box is for Lin Qi."
Xu Hexiao hummed.
Lao Yi and the other two were extremely envious. This was such blatant favoritism.
When it was Xu Hexiao's turn, the chef casually scooped two large spoonfuls into the lunch box, and seeing that the lunch box was not full, he put some vegetables in it. Then the remaining two lunch boxes, one was filled with a full box of rice, and the other was half filled with rice and half a box of vegetables.
Lastly it was Lao Yi and his two companions’ turn. Each of them got two spoonfuls of meat and half a plate of vegetables.
"It's really rat meat." Lao Yi whispered, "But it smells really good, even better than pork."
"This chef's cooking skills are good. Every piece of meat is delicious, and the vegetables are not bad either." Although I was hungry, everything tasted good. But I couldn't ignore the taste of the food itself. The meals these two days were really delicious, especially the meat.
"I don't know what I'm going to eat tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to it now."
Xu Hexiao has long legs and is fast, so when he returned to Lin Qi's house, the food was still hot.
Lin Qi placed the table in the yard, took the bowls and chopsticks, and poured a glass of watermelon juice for Xu Hexiao. "I squeezed it myself and chilled it in well water for an afternoon."
"Thank you." Xu Hexiao picked up the cup and drank. The cool and sweet watermelon juice went from his mouth into his throat and into his stomach. The hot feeling instantly disappeared.
Lin Qi opened the lunch boxes one by one and looked at the tightly packed food. "The amount of food today is the same as yesterday, both are very sufficient."
"The chef favors you." Xu Hexiao felt a little jealous.
"They prefer the meat I brought back, not me." Lin Qi was very sober.
Xu Hexiao didn't think so. The meat that Lin Qi brought back was certainly a reason, but she didn't know how charming she was. She was such a powerful person, but she had a compassionate heart. She looked cold on the outside, but her heart was softer than anyone else.
On the morning of the fourth day, Lin Qi picked up two more baskets of mice and went to the cafeteria. "These are the last two baskets."
"It's okay to eat rats every day. Everyone likes it." The chef himself likes it too. The cooked meat is delicious, and it would be even better with a little wine.
Lin Qi shook her head, "I don't want to catch mice anymore."
The chef suppressed his laughter and said lovingly, "Then don't catch it. What do you want to catch?"
"Let's eat fish in the afternoon. There's still a lot of fish." Lin Qi said.
"Fish is good too. The fish you caught is fresh, sweet, and very tender. It's great to eat it raw. But not everyone likes to eat sashimi." The chef felt a little regretful. The fish Lin Qi brought back was perfect for making sashimi.
Lin Qi didn't comment. She had eaten a lot of raw meat in the last days, and now she prefers to eat cooked meat.
On the fifth day, Lin Qi brought out two sows from the planting area.
There are now sixty-seven wild boars in the planting area, which is a large number and cannot be increased for the time being, so she needs to reduce the number of sows in the planting area.
The two sows weigh a total of 500 kilograms, which is the amount of meat the canteen consumes in one day.
When Lao Yi and the other two heard that there was wild boar meat, they were shocked. Lin Qi was so powerful that she could even hunt wild boar meat!
"I'm becoming more and more curious about Lin Qi!" How could a 19-year-old girl go hunting? It's totally unheard of.
The lunch was sauerkraut pork and wild boar stewed with cabbage, which everyone enjoyed very much. There was a lot of pork, and the cabbage soaked in gravy was unlimited.
Lao Yi and the other two ate so much that they were full.
For dinner, we had braised pork and pig's trotters stewed with soybeans, which were richer in fat than the meal at noon.
The braised pork immediately captured the hearts of men, women, young and old in the Anliang Brigade. The mixture of fat, sugar and oil greatly pleased everyone both physically and mentally.
"How come this wild boar meat, or sow meat, tastes better than the domesticated pig meat we've eaten?" Lao Yi was puzzled. It's not like he hasn't eaten wild boar meat before, but the wild boar meat he remembers is woody and has a fishy smell. It's completely different from what they're eating now.
"Maybe it's because there are so many talented people here, and even the animals raised in the mountains taste special." Lao Bi said solemnly.
"The terrible thing is, I actually started to like this place a little bit." Old Fu rubbed his head. After experiencing the betrayal of his wife and children, the delicious food here greatly soothed his soul.
In addition, I am so tired every day that I fall asleep as soon as I lie down, and I have no time to think about those annoying people and things.
"If it could always be this peaceful, it would be acceptable. But do you think it's possible?" Lao Yi smiled bitterly.
Before coming here, their bodies and minds had been subjected to inhuman torture, and some of those with weaker psychological endurance had directly given up their lives.
Lao Bi is not so pessimistic. "Let's take it one day at a time. Think positively. We have survived worse situations."
Lao Yi smiled, "That's true."
On the sixth day, there were fish all day again.
The chef was a good cook and used the lard from the pork fried the day before to make fried fish fillets. The fish fillets were fragrant and crispy, and the team members chewed up the fish bones and swallowed them together.
On the seventh day, there were pheasants at noon and hares at night.
It was another eye-opening day for Lao Yi and the other two.
On the same day, the leaders of the commune came again.
In previous years, there were dozens of experts and professors who came with the leaders, but this year only three leaders came. They came at a very coincidental time, at noon, and the team leader received them in the cafeteria.
"The food in your team is so good? Everyone even has meat to eat!" the leader said in surprise.
The team leader groaned in his heart. A few years ago, these people ate wolf meat and wild boar meat in the cafeteria, and then put forward the condition that they should send the prey to the commune.
But he couldn't lie, so he smiled bitterly and said, "This is a pheasant that the team members hunted."
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