That night, when Shi Zhen returned to Guan Baiyu’s place, the pig skin and pig tail stewed with soybeans in the pot was ready and it was very fragrant.
Shi Xinghuo kept swallowing his saliva. He ate with his employer for lunch. The conditions of that family were not too bad, but most rural people were reluctant to spend money to buy food, so they never had meat. Occasionally, there would be a dish of fried eggs with garlic leaves or something similar. However, he remembered Shi Zhen’s instructions and didn’t dare to eat more eggs.
Now the pig tail and pig skin stewed with soybeans smelled really delicious.
Shi Zhen filled two small bowls of soybean stew and gave one each to Guan Baiyu and Shi Xinghuo to eat. Then he placed the remaining ingredients in the pot and started cooking.
Seeing this, Guan Baiyu quickly went to light the fire.
Although Shi Zhen’s family was poor, his mother cooked when she was alive. After his mother died, his father cooked for a while, and later, his stepmother did the cooking.
When he was originally eighteen, he actually didn’t know how to cook and was not willing to learn.
As a young man who grew up in a small and isolated mountain village, his thoughts were still stuck in the Qing Dynasty. He always felt that these jobs should be done by women and that he, a grown man, could not do them.
Now he no longer had such thoughts. During the years when he lived alone before his death, he also developed decent cooking skills.
While cooking the rice, Shi Zhen cut some mustard greens* and put them in a bowl, then poured in water and placed it on the steaming rack, so that when the rice was cooked, he would also have a bowl of mustard greens soup to drink.
This was something his stepmother often made. Like Guan Baiyu, his stepmother steamed something while cooking and served it as a dish.
Guan Baiyu could make pickled vegetables and pickled mustard greens. His grandmother taught him how to make them when she was still alive. When his grandmother died, he made them himself.
Thanks to his skill, he picked up the unwanted mustard greens that had grown poorly in the mustard greens factory in the next village. He was able to pickle enough mustard greens to eat for a year.
His adoptive parents had a vegetable garden at their house, but he didn’t go there to pick vegetables. Instead, he grew some scattered vegetables by the river, plus the occasional vegetables from his neighbors, which was enough for him to eat.
Just… he couldn’t eat meat.
But when his grandma was alive, he couldn’t eat meat either, so he was actually used to it.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
He didn’t know what his grandma was like before. But ever since he could remember, his grandma had always only cared about eating and drinking well for herself. She didn’t even allow her daughter-in-law to eat meat when she was breastfeeding. Not to mention him, this adopted grandson.
Guan Baiyu looked up at Shi Zhen.
The sudden appearance of this cousin made him a little uneasy at first, but now he became frightened.
This man was really good to him.
After the three of them had eaten, Shi Zhen said, “We don’t have enough firewood at home. I’ll go out and buy some.”
Hearing this, Guan Baiyu hurriedly said, “I’ll go with you.”
Seeing Shi Zhen looking over, Guan Baiyu added, “I know all the people around here. I will go with you. It will be cheaper to buy firewood.”
His life experience was a bit embarrassing, and there were always some children in the village who looked down on him and made fun of him for it.
However, most of the adults in the village sympathized with him and did not dislike him, especially since his grades were very good.
After all, he didn’t bother others, and his biological father grew up in the village.
”I originally wanted to buy some from Uncle Guan…” Shi Zhen said.
Guan Baiyu said without thinking, “Uncle Guan has no firewood. Aunt Guan works in a factory. Their family does not raise silkworms and they have no mulberry branches.”
Guan Jianguo’s wife worked in a chemical fiber factory in the village before getting married. After getting married, she was fired by the chemical fiber factory when she had a baby. A year later, she went to find a job in a sofa factory.
The sofa factory was a bit far away from here. She had to work one of three shifts, and sometimes she couldn’t even come back to sleep. She slept in a dormitory in the factory. Shi Zhen had never met her before.
Since she had a job, she naturally didn’t need to raise silkworms. After all, raising silkworms was hard work. She had to work from dawn to dusk and raise them carefully, but couldn’t even make much money.
Therefore, Guan Jianguo’s family’s land with mulberry trees was rented to others, and those who rented the land were Guan Baiyu’s adoptive parents.
Guan Baiyu’s adoptive parents were very hard-working and raised three or four sheets full of silkworm eggs every year. People in the village all raised silkworms the same way. The silkworm eggs were laid on sheets one by one.
When he was growing up, silkworms were everywhere on the floors of his adoptive father’s ground floor and upstairs of his house. The three members of the family were crowded into one room to eat and sleep.
But even so, they didn’t make much money, because they had to build a house, organize a funeral, support their two children in junior high school, and even owed people money.
Of course, there were quite a few families like this in the village. Many of them had to build a two-story house just for the sake of appearances, even if they ended up owing money.
Guan Baiyu took Shi Zhen to his adoptive father’s house.
This was the first time Shi Zhen met Guan Baiyu’s adoptive parents.
He originally wanted to make some money and buy some gifts before visiting, but unfortunately he was too poor, so now he could only bring a bowl of pig skin and pig tail stewed with soybeans.
Fortunately, Guan Guangguo didn’t care.
If Guan Baiyu’s grandparents came over, he would definitely make trouble with them. After all, he helped others raise their grandchild for so long.
But Shi Zhen was just a child of Guan Baiyu’s aunt’s family. According to Guan Baiyu, his mother was dead, and Shi Zhen’s mother was also dead… What could he say?
Hearing that Guan Baiyu wanted to buy mulberry branches, Guan Guangguo gave him a few bundles. “I don’t want your money.”
Zhang Xiumei was not happy. “If someone wants to buy it, is it your turn to be a good person?”
Zhang Xiumei took out a few more bundles of mulberry branches and said to Guan Baiyu, “One yuan.”
Just as Shi Zhen was about to take out the money, Guan Baiyu gave Zhang Xiumei one yuan.
Zhang Xiumei snorted lightly when she saw this.
She knew that the old woman must have left money for Guan Baiyu.
It was obvious that her daughter belonged to the Guan family, but the old woman only thought about Guan Baiyu.
Guan Baiyu didn’t say anything. Together with Shi Zhen, he carried the firewood bundles back in several trips and placed them next to his bed.
His house was small, so he kept food and firewood beside his bed.
They moved the firewood, but found that the door of Guan Baiyu’s adoptive father’s house did not close as early as usual. The door of the house was wide open, and Guan Baiyu’s adoptive father rolled a large vat out from next door.
”What is this for?” Shi Zhen asked.
Guan Baiyu said, “Someone is coming to kill pigs.”
Someone was indeed coming to kill pigs.
There was usually nothing going on in the village and everyone was very free. Knowing that someone was coming to Guan Guangguo’s house to kill pigs, they all came out to watch the fun. Some people even asked Guan Guangguo for some pig blood.
Guan Guangguo responded, “I will give you a bowl later.”
The pig-killer came not long after, and Shi Zhen was surprised when he saw the man – the pig-killer was actually the vendor from whom he bought meat in the morning.
Of course he was not the only one coming – there were others, three of them in total.
As soon as the three of them arrived, without saying a word, they went to the pigsty behind Guan Guangguo’s house to drag out the pigs. Several grown men forcefully dragged the pigs that kept squealing out and pushed them onto benches, preparing to kill the pigs.
In fact, it was most convenient to kill pigs directly on the ground, but they were reluctant to waste pig blood, so they used benches to elevate the pigs so that the blood could be collected underneath.
Pig blood was also a good thing. Eating it could help replenish blood… Guan Baiyu looked like this. Obviously he lacked nutrition, and he was probably anemic.
Shi Zhen was thinking about buying some pig blood, and also wondered if he could take this opportunity to buy some more meat.
***
T/N: Zhang Xiumei ticks me off – Baiyu obviously lives very frugally. This weird belief that the grandma left him a bunch of money is so weird.
*Mustard is a type of vegetable often eaten in Chinese cooking. It’s not referring to the yellow condiment used in the west. I always use mustard greens in the text to not confuse people. Mustard greens:
