Xu Han slept until about 10 a.m. before reluctantly getting dressed and leaving the room.
As soon as I stepped out of the house, I saw Lu Chuan holding his youngest son and his eldest son, laughing and playing in the yard, a scene of fatherly love and filial piety.
Mu'er was the first to spot Xu Han, and she came running over, saying, "Mommy, get up!"
Xu Han smiled sheepishly upon hearing this. It was just that everyone was less busy today, and someone was taking care of the child, so she rarely had a chance to rest for a while. Even without her phone, just lying in her room felt very relaxing.
"Has Mu'er finished her studies today? I haven't seen Great-Grandpa."
"I'm done. My great-grandfather told me to come out and play for a while, and I'll continue studying in the afternoon."
"Okay, then you play with Daddy, Mommy is going to have breakfast."
Lu Chuan chimed in at the opportune moment, "Breakfast is in the pot. Check if it's gotten cold. If it is, eat the food from the space. Don't reheat it."
"Okay, I understand." Xu Han said and went into the kitchen to eat breakfast.
Xu Han hadn't seen the Taoist priest and Grandpa Zhao after finishing her meal. She later asked Lu Chuan and learned that the two had gone fishing at their family's fishpond.
Xu Han asked incredulously, "Go fishing at the fishpond at home?"
"Yes, there are more fish in the pond, so it's easier to catch them."
"Alright then, we haven't had fish at home for several days anyway, so we might as well catch some fresh fish to make fish soup for them."
Lu Chuan then spoke up, "I noticed yesterday that you didn't make much sweet potato wine. Should we make more so that Yunhua can take it with her?"
"Well, I wasn't confident at first and didn't dare to make too much. I was originally planning to make another batch of wine. The weather is nice today, and the water isn't too cold. Let's wash some sweet potatoes and start fermenting them around noon."
“Okay, we have a lot of sweet potatoes at home this year, so we can make more and make more fruit wine next year.”
Upon hearing this, Xu Han said with a regretful expression, "It's impossible to make fruit wine this year. There aren't many fruits in the mountains, and we can't pick many. There aren't many fruits growing in the orchard either. It seems we can only wait until next year to make more fruit wine."
As of now, all the other fruit wines in the house have been finished, and now only some mulberry wine is left. And that's only because we picked a lot of mulberries, so we made some extra mulberry wine, otherwise we would have finished it long ago.
Lu Chuan agreed, "Then we'll wash more sweet potatoes later. Anyway, we have several large bathtubs at home for storing water, so we can use those to ferment them."
As for the wine jars, if we don't have enough, we'll buy some more later.
Xu Han thought for a moment and said, "We still have quite a few wine jars at home, and they're all big ones. We can clean them and that should be enough. If we don't have enough, we can buy some more when we go to the county town next time."
The two chatted casually as they watched the child basking in the sun in the yard.
It wasn't until noon that the Taoist priest and Grandpa Zhao returned from outside, carrying wooden buckets and swaying back and forth.
The Taoist priest joked, "Oh, the lazybones in the house is up."
Xu Han, thick-skinned as ever, replied, "Yes, yes. Didn't I hear you went fishing? I got up especially to prepare to eat fish. Let me see how many fish you caught."
After Xu Han finished speaking, she lifted her foot and looked into the Taoist priest's bucket.
Seeing this, the Taoist priest quickly hid the bucket behind his back, but Xu Han still glanced at it and then laughed loudly without any politeness, "I thought I could have a whole fish feast today, but it seems I won't be able to. However, this little bit can make Mu'er and Ze'er have a bowl of fish soup."
Upon hearing this, Lu Chuan asked in surprise, "Didn't you two go fishing at the fishpond? You can't have really not caught anything, can you?"
At this moment, Grandpa Zhao finally couldn't help but speak up, "I told you not to bring it back, but you insisted on bringing it back. Look, this little bit of fish isn't even worth the price of firewood. Only Mu'er and Ze'er can have a couple of sips of soup."
The Taoist priest retorted, unconvinced, "I was just worried about wasting food. Besides, I went fishing to make fish soup for these two kids. As for the others who want some, they can go catch their own."
After saying that, he raised his head with a smug look on his face, as if to say, "I'm the best."
Seeing this, Xu Han couldn't help but chuckle. The Taoist priest looked so adorable.
"Alright, alright, hurry up and process these small crucian carp. I'll make some fish soup for them in an earthenware pot to soak steamed buns in later."
In the end, the fish soup made from these few small crucian carp was just enough to fill the two children's stomachs, while the other adults really didn't eat a single bite more.
If Xu Han hadn't added so much water, there probably wouldn't have been enough for the two children. After all, Xu Han's two sons are really big eaters and not picky at all; they'll eat anything given to them.
The group finished lunch early and then went to the stream to wash sweet potatoes.
As the days gradually shorten, everyone no longer has time for afternoon naps. However, Ze'er and Mu'er are still young and still take their afternoon naps every day without fail.
Four people were washing sweet potatoes together in the stream. They used a net to enclose a section of the stream and then dumped all the sweet potatoes into the net to prevent them from being washed away.
Because the water in Xiaoxi is running water, and the group washed the sweet potatoes upstream, the muddy water was washed away directly.
Lu Chuan used a bamboo pole to stir the sweet potatoes in the pile, while Grandpa Zhao and the Taoist priest used the same tool to rub the sweet potatoes in the water.
This tool is just a wooden stick with a thicker wooden board nailed to one end. By hitting it repeatedly, the mud on the sweet potatoes quickly comes off.
Xu Han laughed as she washed, "Haha, this is much faster than when I washed at home last time."
While stirring, Lu Chuan said, "Last time there was too little, it wasn't worth all this trouble. This time we're washing a lot, so we have to use this method, right? Otherwise, just washing sweet potatoes is exhausting enough."
The group spent half an afternoon washing the sweet potatoes they were going to make.
However, cooking the sweet potatoes was also a laborious task. There was only one large pot at home, and it would take quite a while to cook them all.
In the evening, after dinner, we boiled sweet potatoes in the yard. Everyone sat around the big pot of boiling sweet potatoes and shared the freshly roasted sweet potatoes.
"The sweet potatoes this year are really sweet and delicious."
Lu Chuan looked at the Taoist priest who had said he was full during the meal and asked, "Didn't you say you were full? How can you still eat?"
The Taoist priest said with a serious expression, "I have eaten my fill, but what does that have to do with me eating roasted sweet potatoes? Roasted sweet potatoes don't count as a meal."
"Haha, when you say you're full, you mean you're full but you can still eat if you want to. You can eat as long as you want to, whether you're full or not."
Grandpa Zhao scolded, "At your age, you're still acting like a child. You're already full, why are you still eating? Aren't you going to sleep tonight? Don't wake me up in the middle of the night if your stomach hurts."
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