Daily Life in the Countryside After Being Reborn-Chapter 20 - 19 Little Baozi Enters the City: The Fish and Rice Section (Part 4)

After walking out of the grain purchase station, Xiao Xian still clutched tightly to those three iron cans, as if fearing that the middle-aged woman might change her mind and chase after her. She didn't consider that besides her, who else in the whole wide world would covet rice seeds that had become moldy and uncertain to sprout.

Zhu Shijun didn't ask why Xiao Xian treated those shabby tea cans like treasures. He found a Miao Family Restaurant along the way and sat down, planning to have lunch before heading to the market to look around.

Sister-in-law Lian had worked in Guangdong for over a decade, and her cooking skills had acquired the tastes of Cantonese cuisine; whether it was meat or vegetarian dishes, they were all relatively light. For an elderly person like Zhu Shijun, this was actually in line with the principles of nourishment, but for a child like Zhu Xiaoxian, it might be somewhat bland. It was with this thought that Zhu Shijun had brought Xiao Xian into this restaurant.

The Miao Family Restaurant had been open locally for over twenty years, with rosewood tables and chairs from the seventies and eighties still in use. They looked a bit worn, but the restaurant's owner kept the place clean, and the dishes were authentically local. At noon, the restaurant was always bustling with people, and the air was filled with the lively sounds of ordering and serving food.

Zhu Shijun and his granddaughter found a south-facing table next to a window overlooking the river. The windows in the restaurant opened just as grandly as the bustling activity of the waitstaff. They stood wide open, with banana leaves peeking through, carrying a faint scent of ripening bananas. The river surface was smooth and undisturbed. An old fisherman upon seeing Zhu Shijun and his granddaughter smiled, revealing several neatly placed silver teeth.

Zhu Shijun, considering Xiao Xian's growing appetite, ordered a two-pound live grass carp. The waitstaff, upon receiving the order, instead of hurrying to the kitchen, leaned out the window and shouted, "A grass carp, two pounds!"

The old fisherman on the river heard the call, stood up, glanced into the river, and picked up a fine bamboo rod that had been resting at the bow of the boat, topped with a green net.

With a swift motion, the fishing rod and net went into the water. After the old fisherman skillfully swirled it in the river, the net emerged with a two-pound grass carp, shimmering with white scales and a green back.

The waiter, holding the still-flipping fish, weighed it, "It's exactly two pounds and one qian. The sour soup fish is made to order, so it will take about fifteen minutes." Seeing that Zhu Shijun had no objections, the waiter went to scale and clean the fish.

The same method of preparing fish is also popular in coastal areas. For example, West Lake's sweet and sour fish is also caught and cooked to order, and some restaurants even allow the customers to participate, serving as an attraction. Fish in rivers and lakes are regularly restocked by the restaurants and corralled by artificial barriers, ensuring that the fish sample natural plankton and grow to have a flesh quality even finer than farmed fish.

However, whether the fish that's just been caught will actually make it to your mouth is another question. The waiter had said it would take about fifteen minutes to slaughter and cook the fish, but the actual time needed is certainly not enough. Usually, the kitchen will prepare the fish a few hours in advance to enhance the flavor. When an order comes in, they pick one that's close in size and weight; it saves time and it's still relatively fresh when cooked.

Once the fish was put in, soon a hot iron pot of bright red sour soup was served. Friends who have been to Yun Gui region would know that the Miao Family's Village often uses 'Mao Lat Jiao' sour, which is tomatoes.

"Xiao Xian, do you see those jars placed around the hall?" Mr. Zhu sipped his tea, dissipating the restlessness from choosing rice seeds earlier.

Xiao Xian also saw on entering the door, besides several potted plants in the corner, there were nearly a hundred sleek black porcelain jars. Covered jars, from which if one drew nearer, a mouth-watering tangy scent could be heard.

A wok was set up on a gas stove, with the flames ignited.

"To enjoy a delicious pot of sour soup fish is no easy task. First, you need to wash tomatoes, along with fresh young ginger, garlic, red-skinned peppers, rice flour, and white wine, and let them sit for ten to fifteen days. Then take them out, crush them, and mix them into the soup. Once the fish goes into the pot, all the fishiness vanishes, and the flesh turns even more tender. To have such a meal in Bai Family Ancient Town, I'm afraid you'll find Sister-in-law Lian's cooking bland in comparison," said Zhu Shijun while Xiao Xian stared at the red broth in the pot, watching the bubbles surface and the pieces of fish turn from red to white.

"Grandpa, how come you haven't asked me why I bought these jars?" Zhu Xiaoxian looked at Zhu Shijun, who hadn't asked for quite some time, and suddenly felt a little showy, a sixteen-year-old girl is still just a child after all.

"Anything our Xiao Xian wants to buy must be something good," said Zhu Shijun, who hadn't even made out what kind of grain was inside those tea jars. In such a town-level grain procurement station, Thai Fragrant Rice would be considered the best of the lot.

"Grandpa, do you know what's inside these?" Xiao Xian asked curiously, opening one of the jars and pouring out a small pile of rice seeds.

The poured rice seeds were somewhat similar to Thai seeds, slender and elongated, yet the husk had long since lost its gleaming golden sheen, appearing duller than the out-of-season variety Zhu Shijun preferred, with some seeds even having what resembled mold spots on their surface. These rice seeds must have been stored in the tea jars for over seven or eight years.

Zhu Shijun took a cup of cold water and dropped a few rice seeds in it. Mold floated on the water's surface, as all the seeds sank to the bottom of the cup.

"These are sixteen-year-old seeds, look how plump each one is, with a high germination rate," said Xiao Xian. The habit of scavenging junk, carried over from the Yunteng Sect, would not change overnight. Ordinary people wouldn't notice a rubbish tin can, but Xiao Xian was the first to spot it, and what's more strange, she noticed a clear script on the iron bottle: "Basmati Rice, long grains, non-sticky, 150 grains per stalk, ninety-nine percent germination rate."

The sour soup continuously emitted a tangy white vapor; Zhu Shijun coughed a few times, for a moment not quite catching Xiao Xian's words. There was a reason he didn't stop Xiao Xian's "garbage picking" at the grain procurement station.

Despite those three rusty tins, the tea brand on them was the prime Huangshan Maofeng. In the Yun Gui area, what's mostly drunk is the Dong's oil tea, and if someone could afford Southern Huangshan Maofeng, that person surely wasn't ordinary. The rice seeds carefully preserved by such a person in tea jars, how could they be anything ordinary.

When Zhu Shijun finally digested Xiao Xian's words, he was abruptly startled: "Xiao Xian, what did you say earlier? Sixteen-year-old rice seeds?"

The red broth in the pot was already thoroughly cooked, the aroma even richer. Xiao Xian picked a piece of fish with her chopsticks, sour and spicy and hot, yet she couldn't bear to put down her chopsticks—like a little puppy, panting and sticking out her tongue: "Yes, and it's none other than the Basmati rice from India."

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