twojebook Chapter 371 - 368: As Long as You’re Safe
Chapter 371 - 368: As Long as You’re Safe
Lin Lan and Yao Xiuyun placed the grilled sausages, mushrooms, ribs, and small intestines on plates. They took out the steamed dumplings and filled bamboo cups with fruit juice. The two small square tables were laden with food.
Several children ran back from the river, barefoot. Yao Xiuyun quickly shooed them back to the river to wash their feet and put on their shoes and socks.
The children all loved the grilled sausages, thinking they were even tastier than regular sausages.
After the children had eaten and drunk their fill, they followed Xu Dong to the river to learn how to cast a net for fish. Old Li and Lin Changyou took out a Chinese chess set and sat at a small square table, locked in a fierce battle.
Lin Lan and the other two women took pictures everywhere with a camera. It wasn’t until dusk that everyone headed home.
Before they even got home, the children were already planning when they would hang out again.
The next day, Lin Lan hired someone to build several shallow pools in the empty space by the backyard wall, in preparation for making zongzi for the Dragon Boat Festival.
In the blink of an eye, another week passed. Duan Hongjun and Li Bing helped transport the goods and spices back to the East Market, and they also brought back a letter for Lin Lan from Li Xiangyang.
Li Xiangyang told her he missed her very much and said he would do his best to get back before the Dragon Boat Festival to accompany her on her visit to her parents’ home to deliver festival gifts.
For Lin Lan, all that mattered was that he was safe and sound on his travels. She, along with Old Li, He Li, and the others, took inventory of the goods and put them in storage, then distributed them to Little Xue and Ren Jing to be placed on the shelves.
On the second day of the fifth lunar month, the zongzi leaves Lin Lan had ordered were delivered to the South City Pastry Shop. The lush, green leaves were piled up in the backyard like a small mountain.
Lin Yuezhen’s belly was big now, so she couldn’t squat down to wash the zongzi leaves and could only mind the shop and sell things. After they finished making pastries, Lin Lan and the other two women sat in front of a large wooden basin to wash the leaves.
In the afternoon, Lin Lan closed the shop, sent Lin Yuezhen home to rest, and got busy with Qiaohui and Tong Xinglan.
They had just sat down for a moment when someone knocked on the gate.
Tong Xinglan looked at Lin Lan happily. "Cousin, it must be Auntie and our sisters-in-law."
Lin Lan shot her a look. "Then hurry up and get the door!"
Tong Xinglan ran out with a grin. A moment later, she returned to the backyard, pulling Wu Shufen, Zhang Xiuqing, and Zhao Xiaohui with her. She looked at Lin Lan smugly. "See? I knew it was Auntie and my sisters-in-law."
"This girl was just hoping you’d come help," Lin Lan said, also happily taking Zhang Xiuqing’s and Wu Shufen’s hands. "I was just about to have Xinglan ride her bike to the restaurant to let you know I was starting the zongzi today!"
Wu Shufen gave her a look of mock reproach. "You mentioned it the other day, and I remembered! As if you needed to call for us."
Zhao Xiaohui smiled. "That’s right. Mom even told Dad to have your second brother and the others close up their stall and come back to help too."
Lin Lan said gratefully, "Thank you, thank you!"
Zhang Xiuqing beamed at Lin Lan. "What’s there to thank us for? We didn’t thank you when you and Xiangyang bought clothes and shoes for Little Jun and the others!"
Zhao Xiaohui nodded with a smile. "Exactly. We’re all family. Aren’t you tired of all this ’thank you’ back and forth?"
Wu Shufen thought about how Li Xiangyang hadn’t returned yet, and how a new son-in-law was supposed to visit his mother-in-law’s house for his first Dragon Boat Festival. "Little Lan, the Dragon Boat Festival is in two days. Is Xiangyang really not going to make it back in time?"
Lin Lan shook her head. "I’m not sure if he can make it back. In the last letter he sent with Master Duan, he said he’d try his best, so he might already be on his way."
Wu Shufen said, "It’s fine if he can’t make it. As long as he’s safe and sound when he’s away from home, that’s all that matters."
The six of them split into two teams. Three people scrubbed the zongzi leaves, while the other three bent over the tap to rinse them.
Wu Shufen said, her heart aching at the waste, "The tap is just gushing water! That’s so much money going down the drain! I think tomorrow we should just take the leaves back to Lexing to wash. We can scrub them clean by the ditch and then just rinse them once with well water back home."
Zhang Xiuqing also felt it was too wasteful. "Exactly. Little Lan should have a well dug here too."
Lin Lan smiled. "The water bill isn’t that expensive, but the water getting shut off every so often is really annoying. Every time, I have to go to my third sister’s house to fetch water. I’ve been thinking about hiring someone to install a hand-pump well."
’I’ll install a water pump on the pipe. That way, when the water is out, I can just plug it in and won’t have to struggle with pumping by hand.’
Zhao Xiaohui agreed. "Right, it’s always more convenient to have your own."
As the group worked with gusto, Lin Guoliang and his brother, as well as the couple Shi Song and his wife, also arrived, and the backyard suddenly became crowded.
After Shi Song and his wife had helped Lin Guoliang and the others for half a month, Lin Guozhu found them a spot to set up a stall in the small alley near the People’s Armed Forces Department.
They were still selling fried potatoes and grilled skewers. After running the stall for a week, they were earning more than ten yuan on a slow day and twenty to thirty yuan on a good day.
The couple was overjoyed. On Sunday, they invited Lin Lan and everyone over to their home for a meal, and they were also planning to send their two children to Lexing Elementary School.
Lin Lan divided everyone into four teams. Lin Guoliang and the other two men helped wash the zongzi leaves. Among the women, one team wrapped meat zongzi, one team wrapped eight-treasure zongzi and salted egg yolk zongzi, and another team wrapped candied date and red bean paste zongzi.
Li Xiaofeng looked at the mountain of zongzi leaves and said worriedly, "Cousin, are you sure you can sell all these zongzi you’re making?"
Lin Lan smiled. "The quantity is a bit large this year, but it should be no problem to sell them in the shop."
Zhao Xiaohui smiled and pointed at the various fillings in the basins. "Sister-in-law, Little Lan has so many kinds of zongzi. With all these different flavors, I could eat them for every meal and never get tired of them."
Li Xiaofeng looked around and said with a smile, "The city is different from the mountains. In the mountains, people have few rice paddies. The production brigade only plants a small amount of glutinous rice each year, so each family can get two or three jin of it at most."
"For the Dragon Boat Festival, we mix the glutinous rice with more than half sweet potato to make zongzi. Some people put a couple of chestnuts inside, others a couple of dates. They taste pretty good too."
Qiaohui nodded. "Every year, it takes half the day just to shred the sweet potatoes. Normally I get sick of eating sweet potatoes, but after they’re made into zongzi, I can eat a couple more."
Lin Lan had never tried zongzi made with sweet potato and glutinous rice. She smiled and said, "How do you make sweet potato zongzi? I’ll go buy a few dozen jin of sweet potatoes tomorrow and make some to sell."
Qiaohui said, "It’s very simple, Cousin. You just peel and shred the sweet potatoes, chop them finely, then mix them with glutinous rice and wrap them in the leaves. That’s a sweet potato zongzi."
Zhao Xiaohui added, "Little Lan, if you add some salted egg yolk or cured meat inside, I guarantee it’ll taste great."
Lin Lan said, "Mm, I’ll go buy some tomorrow and give it a try."
Just then, Yang Zhigang came in carrying baskets on a shoulder pole. "Sister-in-law, the salted duck eggs are here."
"Great, put them here." Lin Lan pointed in front of the workstation. "Zhigang, when you go back, please tell my dad that I’ll be sleeping at the pastry shop tonight. Ask him to look after Little Douzi for me, please."
Yang Zhigang nodded. "Okay, I’ll head back now. I’ll bring another load over tomorrow morning."
Lin Lan saw him out, closed the door, and returned to the workstation. She separated the yolks from the whites of the salted duck eggs. She arranged the yolks on a baking sheet, sprayed them with a little white liquor to remove any gamey taste, and then baked them in the oven for a few minutes until the golden-yellow salted egg yolks were ready.
She handed the salted egg yolks to the team wrapping the egg yolk zongzi and continued to bake more.
An hour later, Wu Shufen saw that the wrapped zongzi had already filled the wooden basins, baskets, and water buckets. She said to Lin Lan, "We can start boiling them. They’ll need to cook for two hours without the fire going out."