80s Transmigration: The Young Widow's Hustle to Riches-Chapter 110 - 107: Yang Xiaoguo

The next day, Lin Lan dressed Little Douzi in a newly made sailor suit—a white top and blue bottoms—and led him out of the room.

Little Douzi puffed out his small chest, walked up to Lin Yuezhen, and showed off, "Auntie, do I look good?"

Lin Yuezhen nodded and gave him a thumbs-up.

"Auntie, it’s time to register!" Little Kai and his older sister, Little Mei, ran into the courtyard. Seeing Little Douzi in his new clothes, they said with envy, "Little Douzi’s sailor suit looks so good today!"

"Little Douzi looks good too," Little Mei added.

Little Douzi said shyly, "Mommy and Auntie made it for me."

Little Kai took his hand. "Let’s go! We’re going to school."

Lin Lan followed behind the three skipping children with a smile, while Dahuang darted back and forth in front of them.

When they reached the small bridge, Little Mei turned to look back at Lin Lan. "Auntie, Little Douzi needs a formal name for school. He can’t be called Little Douzi. Does he have a formal name?"

Little Douzi ran back. "Mommy, do I have a formal name?"

"Yes!" Lin Lan nodded with a smile. "Your formal name is Yang Xiaoguo."

Little Kai laughed when he heard it. "Yang Xiaoguo, Little Guozi."

Little Mei smiled and patted Little Douzi’s head. "Little Douzi, Yang Xiaoguo is a nice name too."

As the three of them chatted, they arrived at the schoolhouse for Production Team Two. The layout was similar to the one at the Shilian Brigade, resembling a large courtyard.

Inside the school gate, a large platform raised about five feet off the ground stood directly opposite the entrance. A red flag flew from a flagpole. A few desks were set up in the schoolyard, where children were lining up to register.

Little Kai pulled Little Douzi up to a sweet-looking female teacher in her twenties. "Teacher Zheng, my cousin Yang Xiaoguo wants to register."

"What a handsome little sailor! Did you come by yourself?" Teacher Zheng asked with a smile.

Little Douzi answered confidently, "My mommy came with me."

Lin Lan stepped forward with a smile. "Teacher Zheng, I came to ask about enrollment last month. This is my son, Yang Xiaoguo."

Teacher Zheng nodded and smiled at Little Douzi. "Yang Xiaoguo is such an adorable little boy. Tell me, can you count?"

Little Douzi stood up straight and proper. "Yes, I can count! One, two, three..."

When he counted all the way to fifty in one breath, Teacher Zheng smiled and interrupted him. "Not bad. You’re a smart boy. I’ll accept you."

Little Douzi happily grabbed Little Kai’s hand and started jumping for joy.

The preschool class wasn’t split into groups for older and younger kids. The tuition was three yuan, and Lin Lan saw that only a dozen or so children from the two brigades combined had registered.

After registering Little Douzi’s name and her own, Lin Lan paid the tuition. Little Douzi then happily said goodbye to Teacher Zheng.

On the way back, Little Kai and Little Mei said they would come get Little Douzi for school every morning and walk him home in the afternoon.

Lin Lan also reminded the children not to play by the irrigation ditches, and they all nodded repeatedly.

The next day, Little Douzi got up and put on his new clothes without needing to be called. After breakfast, he slung on his little schoolbag and looked happily at Lin Lan. "Mommy, I’m going to school with Brother Kai and Sister Little Mei."

Lin Lan was taken aback for a moment. "Oh! You don’t want Mommy to take you?"

"No need. They all go by themselves."

There was none of the clinging at home or begging for her to take him that Lin Lan had imagined. Instead, Little Dou Ding joyfully went off to school with Little Kai and Little Mei, who had come to pick him up.

Lin Lan and Lin Yuezhen were stunned. "Sis, I’m going to go watch."

Lin Yuezhen nodded, gesturing for her to go quickly.

Lin Lan followed them secretly for a while. Only after seeing the three of them laughing and chattering all the way, entering the school with their friends from the production team, did she return home, reassured.

In the afternoon, Lin Yuezhen went to the school early to wait for him. Little Douzi told her not to wait for him in the future; he would wait for Little Kai and the others after school and come home with them.

She had originally thought he was only so well-behaved because starting school was a novelty.

But who would have thought that even after two straight weeks of school, he was just as obedient.

He would do his homework as soon as he got home, and after finishing his homework, he would go feed the chickens in the bamboo grove. He never gave Lin Lan anything to worry about.

Lin Lan was both happy and a little disappointed. She had often heard her younger sister say that her child hated going to preschool, clinging to her and refusing to let go after school, and that it took every trick in the book just to get him through the gates the next day.

Thinking of this, Lin Lan sighed. ’My baby is too sensible. What’s a mother to do!’

These days, more and more chili peppers in the vegetable patch were turning red. It was time to make chili bean paste.

Lin Lan and Lin Yuezhen shelled the broad beans, picked some pumpkin leaves, and began the process of fermenting the beans to make chili bean paste.

They split the soaked broad beans in half, rinsed them with warm water, and then set them out to air-dry. After lining a winnowing basket with two layers of pumpkin leaves, they spread the beans evenly on top and then covered them with several more thick layers of pumpkin leaves.

They then moved the basket to a cool, dry place to ferment.

After four or five days, the beans were covered in a yellowish-green mold. The color of the mold resembled that of incense used for worship, so the older generation called it "incense ash mold."

Lin Lan went to the general store and bought a wide-mouthed jar that could hold fifty jin. After scalding it with boiling water, she placed it in the courtyard to sterilize under the hot sun.

She removed the pumpkin leaves from the fermented beans and let the beans sun-dry completely. Then, she poured them into the large jar, added white liquor, rapeseed oil, and ground Sichuan peppercorn, and mixed everything thoroughly. After covering the mouth of the jar with cheesecloth, she placed it in the courtyard to bake in the sun for a few days.

Once the beans were sun-dried, she picked the fully ripened chili peppers. She removed their stems, washed them clean, and placed them in a large wooden bucket to be minced with a chopper. She then added the sun-dried beans. Following a ratio of three liang of salt for every one jin of chili peppers, she added salt, more white liquor, and ground Sichuan peppercorn, and mixed it all together.

The mixed paste was left in a cool place to ferment for a few days, then moved to the courtyard for sun-drying. It was left out overnight, stirred, and then put back in the sun. The more it was sun-dried, the more fragrant it became.

After it was fully sun-dried, she divided the paste into smaller jars and poured a layer of raw rapeseed oil on top. This way, the jars didn’t need to be sealed with water and the paste wouldn’t spoil.

About a week later, Little Douzi came home and happily told her that his teacher had chosen him to be the class monitor.

Seeing how happy Little Douzi was, Lin Lan grinned from ear to ear.

’To think I used to be such a terrible student,’ she mused. ’My parents always used my grades to motivate my little sister, telling her to do well and not be like her pig-brained older sibling.’

’But I never felt stupid, just not cut out for schoolwork. I could learn to cook anything after watching just a couple of times. Maybe it’s like the old folks say: Heaven gives everyone a skill to make their living.’

A few days before the Ghost Festival, the old woman came to Lin Lan’s house. "It’s the Ghost Festival in a few days," she said. "We need to buy some spirit money and paper offerings to send to your great-grandfather’s house."

Lin Lan nodded and asked, "Auntie, we have to send offerings to Great-Grandfather’s house to burn for the Ghost Festival? How come I’ve never done that before?"

The old woman shot her a reproachful glance. "If you were still like your old self, no one would have come to get you this year either. Your husband doesn’t handle any of these things. It’s always been Liying and her sisters who buy the offerings and send them over."

Lin Lan said, embarrassed, "I was ignorant before. From now on, please just tell me what needs to be done."

The old woman smiled and nodded. "Good. I’ll include you from now on."

The old woman and the young one went to buy the spirit money and then headed toward Great-Grandfather’s house.

The old woman said that before the Liberation, Great-Grandfather had been a Daoist at Chongtong Temple. He returned home and started a family after the Liberation. Now, at the ripe old age of ninety, he was still as sharp as a tack.

This was Lin Lan’s first time visiting a clan relative from the Yang family. When she arrived at Great-Grandfather’s home, she saw that his courtyard was an old, traditional style. The lower half of the walls was made of patterned blue bricks, while the upper half consisted entirely of carved wooden window panels.