In a quiet farmhouse courtyard.
Time passed as I weeded the yard.
Lin Momo stood on a ladder in the space, carefully taking stock of all kinds of supplies.
As she took inventory, she affixed the prepared labels to the shelves so that she could quickly retrieve the items in the future.
Lin Momo looked up as she walked through the narrow aisle, barely wide enough for one person to pass through, and was about to bump into the shelves on either side.
I couldn't help but think to myself that they had a pretty complete selection of things.
Suddenly, she felt that something was missing.
Although the cooked food section had a lot of food from various places that I bought along the way last time, it seemed that steamed buns and mantou were nowhere to be seen.
The wicker baskets she bought specifically to hold the steamed buns are still empty.
So Lin Momo decided that once the stove arrived tomorrow, she would steam some buns, dumplings, and multigrain buns herself. After all, she had plenty of time now, and she was just idling around anyway.
She hadn't done these kinds of jobs in a long time, so this was a chance to refresh her old skills.
With the plan settled, Lin Momo continued taking stock, aiming to check everything by the end of the day.
*
To reward herself for her hard work, Lin Momo decided to make a more elaborate dinner.
Take out the small cast iron pot that has already been seasoned, and place it on the small stove to steam the rice.
Then she started preparing the dishes. First, she sliced a plate of braised beef and then stir-fried a plate of hot and sour shredded potatoes. This dish looks ordinary, but it can capture the taste buds of a large number of people. Lin Momo likes to eat it and thinks that rice and hot and sour shredded potatoes are a perfect match.
These potatoes were bought from farmers in Sichuan. They're not the big potatoes from the supermarket; they're more like the small potatoes Lin Momo ate when she was little, and they taste even better.
It must be an older variety.
Along the way, Lin Momo would buy any old-fashioned crops she came across.
This is because such species are now very rare.
Lin Momo has planting plans, and naturally she feels more at ease planting this old variety.
In addition to these two dishes, Lin Momo also made a stir-fried pork with long green peppers and a cold purslane salad.
The long green peppers were picked from the yard, as were the purslane. They were picked and cooked on the spot, taking less than half an hour from being picked from the ground to being served on the table. They were absolutely fresh and spicy enough.
The two of them ate four dishes, something Lin Momo had never done before.
Tonight, we gave time a great deal of respect.
As for why no soup was made?
The answer is that Lin Momo prepared rice porridge, so that Shi Guang wouldn't be without soup.
Looking at the unique four dishes and one soup, along with crispy rice, on the small table, Shi Guang couldn't help but chuckle. He glanced at Lin Momo, who was watching his reaction, and said, "It looks pretty delicious."
Then, pointing with her chopsticks at the plate of cold purslane salad, she said with barely concealed surprise, "You actually made it?"
After finishing her work in the afternoon, Lin Momo went to see him in the yard. She picked through the weeds he had cleared and found a handful of purslane, saying she would cook it for him that evening.
At the time, Shi Guang thought she was joking.
Unexpectedly, Lin Momo actually turned the weeds into a dish and served it on the table.
"Dare to try it?" Lin Momo asked provocatively with a smile.
Holding the chopsticks, Shiguang picked up a little bit and put it in her mouth to chew. Her eyes lit up immediately, and she looked curious. "Hmm, it's pretty good. What's it called?"
Purslane is a very common wild vegetable that can also be used in medicine. It has the effects of clearing heat and detoxifying, cooling blood and stopping bleeding, and treating dysentery and eczema.
After saying that, Lin Momo also reached for the plate of purslane with her chopsticks.
Shi Guang was slightly surprised: "I thought it was a weed. I didn't expect it to be not only edible, but also a medicinal herb."
He had an expression that said he had learned something new.
He's never been to places like this before, and probably can't even tell the difference between wheat seedlings and chives, so how would he know anything about this?
Lin nodded silently: "Traditional Chinese medicine believes that everything can be used as medicine. Shennong even tasted hundreds of herbs. However, you don't usually come into contact with these things, so it's normal that you don't know."
Finally, they didn't forget to consider the feelings of time.
Shi Guang smiled but didn't say anything, and continued eating with his head down.
He put in a lot of effort today, and his lunch has long been digested. He's starving now, and could eat a whole cow, especially meat.
After eating a few bites of braised beef, he went to pick up some stir-fried pork with green peppers, which almost made him cry from the spiciness.
"So spicy! Ouch—" He gasped for breath from the spiciness and quickly shoveled a few mouthfuls of rice into his mouth, trying to suppress the burning sensation.
Lin Momo quickly picked up the rice soup and handed it to him, urging, "Drink some rice soup to relieve the spiciness!"
The rice water has cooled down now, so it's perfect to drink and can help relieve the spiciness.
Shiguang isn't very good at eating spicy food, but lately she's been eating with Lin Momo a lot and has gotten used to spicy dishes because of her.
But today's pepper was clearly beyond his tolerance.
Meanwhile, Shi Guang drank a few sips of soup and slowly recovered, but her face was still flushed.
Lin Momo smiled and suggested, "Try this hot and sour shredded potatoes. It only has a little chili, so you should be able to handle it."
Shi Guang took a bite as instructed and nodded, saying, "Hmm, this is alright. That chili pepper was too spicy."
"Who told you to pick these dark green ones?" Lin Momo added with a smile. "The peppers have been growing there for a long time without anyone picking them, so they've gotten old and must be very spicy. If you can't eat them, next time pick the lighter-colored ones; the tender peppers won't be as spicy. Let these old ones grow red."
Suddenly realizing that she might not be able to eat the red chili peppers in time, she changed the subject, "Actually, you can also pickle them or make them into green chili sauce."
As he spoke, he began to plan in his mind: why not pick all the old chili peppers from the vegetable garden tomorrow, make them into pickled chili peppers and green pepper sauce, and put them in his space to eat later?
Perfect timing! She hasn't used any of the huge pile of bottles and jars she bought yet, so she's not worried about having nothing to store them in.
Today, Lin Momo and Shiguang were both very busy, and their appetites were much larger than usual.
The two of them actually finished all four dishes and even drank all the rice porridge.
There's only one bowl of rice left over from making too much; I'll use it to make fried rice with eggs tomorrow.
The two of them now had breakfast sorted out.
*
After the meal, the two held hands and took a walk in the yard to digest their food.
Lin Momo asked him curiously, "Why haven't I heard your phone ring these past two days? Did you forget to charge it and turn it off?"
It shouldn't be this quiet, right?
Could it be that Xu Qingya didn't tell Shi Guang's parents that he had a girlfriend, or even Shi Guang's parents, and instead planned to continue pretending to be oblivious?
Or perhaps someone is holding back their anger and hasn't expressed it yet?
Lin Momo was genuinely worried about Shi Guang, but he himself seemed completely calm and composed.
Is it that they haven't taken it to heart, or have they already come up with a solution?
Lin Momo was very curious about this.
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