80s Transmigration: The Young Widow's Hustle to Riches-Chapter 129 - 126: Can’t Even Steal Right, Just Robbing a Single Nest

Chapter 129: Chapter 126: Can’t Even Steal Right, Just Robbing a Single Nest

Lin Lan and Lin Yuezhen took Little Douzi home. The two women sorted the Sichuan and green Sichuan peppercorns until they were clean, then found two large, clean ceramic basins. They stoked the fire in the stove and ladled about a dozen pounds of rapeseed oil into a wok.

They placed the sorted peppercorns into the large ceramic basins. Once the rapeseed oil in the wok stopped bubbling, they raked a thick layer of ash over the charcoal fire.

Each holding a ladle, they poured the boiling rapeseed oil over the peppercorns. Bursts of a fresh, numbing, peppery aroma filled the air.

They continued until the hot oil submerged the peppercorns and the wok was empty. Then, they covered the basins to let everything soak overnight. The next day, they would strain out the peppercorns, pour the oil into ceramic jars, and seal them for storage. The longer it sat, the better the flavor would become.

"That smells amazing! Little Lin, are you making pepper oil?"

Lin Lan walked to the kitchen doorway and saw Li Guizhi arriving with a carrying basket on her back. "Mhm! My dad brought over some fresh Sichuan and green Sichuan peppercorns. I’m making them into oil so it’s more convenient to use."

"The batch I made last year will last me until next year. The longer you let pepper oil sit, the more fragrant it gets." As she spoke, Li Guizhi pulled two winter squashes from her basket, along with a good number of taro roots. "Little Lin, my mom gave me these and told me to bring them to you."

Lin Lan accepted them with a smile. "Auntie, you’re too kind. Is this the fragrant taro?"

"Mhm!" Li Guizhi nodded with a smile. "My mom’s family grows them. They taste better than the fuzzy taro."

"Not many people grow fragrant taro around here. This is the first time I’ve seen it." Lin Lan thought for a moment. "If your family grows a lot of winter squash and fragrant taro, you can bring them to me. I’ll buy them at the market price."

Li Guizhi nodded happily. "We do! My mom’s side of the family grows a lot of squash and fragrant taro. I’ll go get them for you after we’ve divided up the rice straw and sweet potatoes."

Lin Lan nodded and reminded her, "Pick the ones with smooth skin, so they’ll last longer."

Li Guizhi nodded repeatedly and left with a smile.

After the brigade distributed the grain to the households, the production team began to divide up the rice straw. Lin Lan’s family received ten loads of it.

The old woman still hadn’t been discharged from the hospital, so He Xianghua helped bring her grain ration and rice straw back to her home.

Next, the production team started digging up the sweet potatoes and potatoes they had planted on Niu Bei Mountain.

Niu Bei Mountain was covered with commune members digging up sweet potatoes and potatoes. The harvested vegetables were piled up into mounds.

They also dug up quite a few bare sweet potato and potato stalks.

A commune member named Yang San held up a bare stalk and laughed. "These guys don’t even know how to steal properly. They emptied out a whole plant."

Zhang Rongqing laughed and slapped him lightly. "Yang San, fess up. How many sweet potatoes and potatoes did you filch back in the day?"

Yang San rolled his eyes at him. "Rongqing, that’s the pot calling the kettle black. Don’t you remember? That day, this old man wasn’t even down the mountain yet when you showed up and stepped right in the shit I’d just taken."

Zhang Rongqing’s eyes went wide as he pointed at him. "So it was you, you bastard!"

"HAHAHA!" Yang San planted his hands on his hips and let out a triumphant laugh.

Zhang Rongqing laughed and tossed a potato at him. "You punk! You made it so this old man lost his appetite for sweet potatoes!"

Everyone laughed for a while, then started reminiscing about their "battle achievements" from the years when they didn’t have enough to eat and had to sneak out at night to steal food.

Lin Lan remembered her parents saying that during the famine years, people would go to the sweet potato fields to steal sweet potatoes when they had nothing else to eat.

There was a technique to stealing sweet potatoes and potatoes. You’d lie down in the furrow, start digging into the base of the ridge, and take just one tuber from each plant. Afterward, you’d cover the hole back up with soil.

Who would have known that every thief had the same idea? One person would take one, then another would take one. By the time the sweet potatoes were harvested, they’d discover that sixty to seventy percent of the plants in the fields were just bare stalks.

Yang Liying and Yang Meihua said to Lin Lan with a smile, "Little Douzi and Little Kai also contributed to these bare stalks."

An older woman laughed. "How much could a few little kids eat? The other day, I saw a few young men with a couple of girls roasting sweet potatoes at the foot of the mountain."

Yang Liying grinned and pointed at Yang Meihua. "Sister Meihua and Sister He’s husband used to come roast them back in the day, too."

Yang Meihua turned her head and laughed. "That’s ancient history. Eighty percent of the people in the first sub-team have probably roasted sweet potatoes here." Then she asked, "Are you guys making sweet potato starch or potato starch this year?"

Lin Lan smiled and asked, "To make into noodles or just fine starch?"

"I want to make a little of both. My Little Kai loves sweet potato noodles," Yang Meihua said.

In those days, every household made whatever they could by hand instead of buying it from the market.

After the sweet potato and potato harvest was finished, Lin Lan’s family’s share of both combined only amounted to one basket.

Back home, she dug up all the sweet potatoes from her vegetable plot, carried them to the ditch to wash them clean, then chopped them into small pieces and ground them into a pulp using a stone mill.

She added fresh water, filtered the pulp several times through cheesecloth, and let it settle. She put the remaining sweet potato dregs into a cheesecloth bag and kneaded it in a basin of water until all the starch was washed out. Then, she combined all the starchy liquid and let it sit.

Once the starch had completely settled, she poured off the water from the surface, leaving behind the condensed, earthy-white sweet potato starch.

She scooped it out, let it dry completely in the sun, ground it finely, and passed it through a fine sieve. The sweet potato starch was now ready.

The next morning, Yang Dingbang and Li Xiangyang brought the old woman home together.

When Lin Lan saw her, she felt that the illness had taken a great toll on the old woman’s spirit.

The old woman looked around the courtyard and sighed in contentment. "It’s still best to be home."

"Now that you’re back, my mission is complete." Lin Lan smiled and returned the keys to her.

"Thank goodness for you." The old woman took the keys with a smile, then said, both pleased and a little boastful, "I wanted to come back long ago, but Ding Bang insisted the doctor keep me under observation for two more days before discharging me."

Lin Lan smiled at that. "Ding Bang is so good to you! The doctor said your lumbar vertebrae were injured, so you need to rest well for a while now that you’re back."

"I’ll be careful. If there’s anything I can’t carry, I’ll call for Lin Lan and the others to help." The old woman tugged on Lin Lan’s arm. "That bastard Liu Jinbao is still in the hospital! I hear he’s hurt pretty badly. I wonder which deity performed a miracle and took care of that dog."

Hearing this, Yang Dingbang nudged Li Xiangyang and teased, "God Li!"

Li Xiangyang glanced at Lin Lan, his face full of woe. "If I were really a god, would I still be worrying about not being able to win a wife?"

The old woman looked at the two of them. "Are you two secretly talking bad about me?"

"We wouldn’t dare, Grandma!" the two said in unison.

Yang Dingbang remembered something and turned to pat Li Xiangyang. "This afternoon, get a couple of people to come haul the two pigs away. And the dozen or so chickens and the few big geese, find someone to take them away too."

Li Xiangyang nodded. "Okay, I’ll arrange for people to come get them as soon as I get back."

The old woman, distressed, thumped Yang Dingbang on the chest. "I won’t say anything about you selling the pigs, but feeding the chickens just takes a handful of sorghum! A dozen chickens give us seven or eight eggs a day, and the geese have just started laying. If you sell them all, we’ll have to buy everything to eat. If I can’t even do that much, what’s the point of me being alive?"

Yang Dingbang looked at her. "Promise me you won’t do any more heavy labor, and that you’ll let someone else farm your private plot and vegetable garden. If you do, I’ll let you keep them. Otherwise, I’ll just hire someone to take care of you."

Seeing his firm stance, the old woman had to compromise. "How about this! You can give the private plot to Yang Meihua’s family to farm, but leave the vegetable garden for me. When it’s time to plant, I’ll ask Lin Lan and Yuezhen to help me dig and sow the seeds."

Lin Lan smiled. "From now on, we’ll take care of carrying water and digging the soil. Just give us a shout whenever you need anything, and we’ll be right over." ’Did a stay in the hospital really change the old woman’s mind?’ she wondered. ’Is she no longer worried about me and Ding Bang hitting it off?’