Chapter 32: The Fisherman Gains Benefit
The fifteenth day of the first lunar month in Hetang Village is after noon. No one wants to use kerosene lamps to celebrate the festival. At most, the family will take some leftover melon seeds and peanuts from the New Year and chat under the moonlight.
An Zhixia had nothing to do now, so she took the trouble to prepare the food.
There was a fire burning in the kitchen every day, and the temperature in the house was not low. The brother and sister had already planted vegetables with short growth cycles against the wall.
In order to allow the vegetables to get enough sunlight, An Zhiqiu specially knocked out windows on the other two sides of the wall, covered them with paper, and transformed them into a simple greenhouse.
At this moment, the water celery, Chinese cabbage and onions have grown, and the spinach has also grown most of the way.
Using celery juice, pumpkin puree and sesame powder as pigments, An Zhixia directed her brother to knead the dough.
Looking at the white, green, yellow and black dough, An Zhiqiu really couldn't understand. They were making the same glutinous rice balls and dumplings, but there were only two people eating them, so why would he go through all the trouble?
He just wanted to please his sister because she was having fun.
An Zhixia likes to eat glutinous rice balls with sesame fillings, and she also prepared some with peanuts, red beans and chestnuts.
Taking advantage of her good mood, she also prepared several kinds of dumpling fillings, including diced mushrooms and meat, chopped pepper fish, vegetarian three fresh dishes, and celery and meat.
Men have big hands and are good at rough work, so An Zhixia can only make dumplings and glutinous rice balls by herself.
However, looking at the colorful food, she remembered the dishes in a specialty dumpling restaurant. There happened to be a similar recipe in the supermarket, so she instructed her brother to be the chef.
Braised pork, steamed bacon with dried bamboo shoots, spicy diced rabbit, peanuts with aged vinegar, yellow rice jelly, green onion eggs, blanched lettuce, hot pumpkin drink, and a candied apple, and you're all set!
Everything is done according to the recipe, with precise values given for time, heat, and portion. It is said to be a recipe with zero failure.
An Zhiqiu tasted them one by one, and her confidence instantly swelled. "Sister, I think I can be a chef in a state-owned restaurant. Look at my cooking skills. It turns out that if we have the same parents, our talents are similar."
An Zhixia patted his brother on the shoulder and said, "You are a good candidate to be a cook. A man must be able to handle both the living room and the kitchen, fight against mistresses, and beat up hooligans before he can marry a beautiful wife. Brother, you have great potential. Keep working on your skills. I am optimistic about you!"
After more than 20 days of applying antifreeze cream three times a day, using facial cleansers, skin care products, and disposable facial masks every day, drinking tonic soup, eating fish, meat, milk, and eggs in turn, and wearing clean, tidy, and beautiful new clothes, their appearance has undergone a change comparable to that of plastic surgery.
A man with a strong body is tall and majestic, while a woman with a plump and smooth figure.
Their faces were white and fleshy, and their delicate facial features looked like a hazy veil had been pulled down, making them particularly good-looking, standing out from the crowd. The handsome young men from the south, such as Hang Xianglei and Nie Yichang, and the graceful and elegant female protagonists, all stood aside.
After all, only a good-looking supporting role can highlight the main character.
An Zhiqiu's face turned red after hearing what his sister said. He flicked her head rudely and said with gritted teeth: "Little girl, how old are you to think about these things? We just arrived, we must work hard to perform and strive to return to the city as soon as possible. So, these miscellaneous thoughts must be abandoned as soon as possible, and," he looked at his sister who was becoming more and more beautiful, and solemnly reminded her: "You must believe in your brother, we will be able to return to the city within five years. No matter the young men in the village, the educated youth who went to the countryside, or even the workers in the town, you must not have too much contact with them.
When you return to the city, there will be plenty of good young men who can support a family for you to choose from.”
An Zhixia asked curiously: "Brother, how can you be sure that it won't be within five years?"
Five years later, the college entrance examination was resumed. Could it be that my brother was reborn or traveled through time?
He doesn't seem to be doing much these days, and it doesn't seem like...
An Zhiqiu smiled and patted his chest: "Am I a hopeless person? Going to the countryside to support construction is just a plan to temporarily leave my family, to get my household registration and files out, so that I won't be controlled by Kang Xiaohua.
When there are job openings in the city, we will go back to take the exam. With our high school diplomas, we can be assistants or apprentices, not to mention working in an office, right? Once we return to the city, we will climb up step by step and make those people in the An family jealous! "
"Okay brother, I'm waiting for you to take me back to the city."
After dinner, An Zhixia brought the basket from the village chief's house and replaced the things her brother had prepared with a plate of colorful dumplings, a plate of glutinous rice balls, and a plate of yellow rice jelly. When Fei Zheng told her that the village chief's daughter-in-law was in confinement after childbirth, she added a box of ancient brown sugar with the date removed.
Thinking of the rabbit that the Fang family sent in the morning, he prepared three plates of food for them and asked his brother to deliver them over.
Hetang Village is located in the central part of Xiahua State, neither south nor north, surrounded by a river, surrounded by mountains, with great land differences, so there are many varieties of crops.
As soon as the fifteenth day of the lunar month passed, the spring farming mobilization meeting was held and everyone carried their tools and went to work in the fields.
There is a lot of work to do in the spring. The land in the village is divided into paddy fields, dry fields and sandy land, and different crops are grown on each type of land. For the educated youth from the city, they can only start with the simplest and most basic work.
Plowing the land, turning the soil, fertilizing, raising seedlings, watering, weeding, one job after another.
In order to ensure spring planting, the village specially opened a large canteen, using the village's public grain, dried vegetables and pickled meat from the New Year pigs to supply breakfast and lunch, to ensure that everyone had enough physical strength to plant the crops in time.
Hetang Village is not big, but it has its own world.
The village party secretary and the village head were the top two leaders in the village. Because of the conflicts between the wives, they each had their own small power. Therefore, as a result of the struggle between the two forces, Qi Yunlan and An Zhixia both became envied cooks.
Before daybreak, the whistle for the morning work sounded.
People got up, dressed and washed. An Zhixia grabbed her brother who was still dazed as he followed the team out, and stuffed two eggs, a piece of date cake, and a pot of brown sugar water into his arms.
Nie Yichang's face turned pale with envy. He wanted to get some but was too embarrassed to do so. He could only turn around and look at Qi Yunlan who had just left the room: "Qi Zhiqing, do you have any hot food here? I have no energy to work if I don't have something in my stomach."
Qi Yunlan was startled and said embarrassedly: "I'm sorry, I, I'm new here and have no experience, how about you eat some cookies first? Tomorrow, I will get up early and make you some easy-to-carry food."
Everyone rubbed their empty stomachs and went to the warehouse to get tools.
Chen Sike stroked his hair impatiently, without even putting on his clothes, and trotted towards the warehouse with his keys in hand.
Before long, only An Zhixia and Qi Yunlan were left in the yard.
The two of them didn't say anything. They each took their time to take care of themselves, then changed into half-worn clothes, locked the door, and went to the cafeteria.
(End of this chapter)
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