Chapter 91: Chapter 88: Other Than Your Family, No One Dares to Lay a Hand on Me

Lin Lan smiled and nodded. “Okay, Mama will tell you the story of the Three Little Pigs. In a faraway mountain village lived a mother pig and her three adorable little pigs. The mother worked very hard every day, and the little pigs grew bigger and bigger…”

Lin Lan watched her sleeping son and leaned over to kiss him. ’She’d originally bought these storybooks to read to her little niece. The older she got, the more she loved children. She had even thought about persuading Liu Jianguo to try artificial insemination, but she never expected that piece of trash…’

She stopped her mind from wandering, got out of bed, and left the room. In the main room, she scooped out six catties of glutinous rice, rinsed it gently, and left it to soak in a bucket.

The two of them finished making the pea cakes, washed up, and went to their separate beds.

Life became much more convenient for Lin Lan after Lin Guoliang gave her the watch. She woke up, pulled the light cord, and saw it was only four-thirty. She dozed for a while longer, finally getting up to dress at five-thirty.

Hearing the noise, Lin Yuezhen got up as well.

Lin Lan brought over the wooden bucket of soaking fava beans and had her start splitting them. Only then did she go to check on the glutinous rice soaking in its own bucket.

She changed the water once, then went to check the marinated pork belly, which now seemed to be well-seasoned.

She went to the woodshed, grabbed a handful of rice straw, and twisted it into a thin rope. She used it to string up the strips of pork and hung them on a wooden rod above the stove to smoke.

By the time she finished making the kidney bean rolls, Lin Yuezhen had finished splitting the fava beans and was starting to fry them.

Before seven-thirty, the two of them had already prepared the morning’s deliveries.

Lin Lan went to the pigpen. Seeing their owner, the two little pigs scrambled to their feet and propped themselves up on the low partition wall, oinking and squealing.

She picked up a bamboo switch and swatted the pigs twice, scolding, “Your feed won’t be ready for a while. Now get down.”

The two pigs watched from their perch as their owner carried away the chicks and goslings that were kept under a wicker basket. They then obediently climbed down from the low wall and went back to lie in their sty.

Lin Lan took out the chicks, placed them back under the wicker basket, and gave them some crushed rice and finely chopped ramie leaves. She relaxed when she saw them crowding around a broken pottery bowl, scrambling to eat.

Of the old woman’s fifteen chicks, a little less than half were roosters. Both goslings were female. Including the dozen or so chickens they already had, there were over thirty birds in total. Luckily, they had the bean dregs Yang Liying had left behind; otherwise, feeding them every day would have been a problem.

“Mama, I’m up!” Little Douzi said, clutching his crotch as he ran toward the pigpen.

Lin Lan watched him run so fast his heels barely touched the ground and laughed. “You little rascal, it’s the same thing every day. Try to wake up earlier to use the latrine next time!”

Lin Yuezhen stood at the kitchen door, watching Little Douzi with a gentle smile. ’She liked it here. She liked Lin Lan and Little Douzi.’

After the three of them ate, Little Douzi put down his bowl, mixed the chicken feed, and then went to the pigpen to open the small door of the coop. Two mother hens led their little soldiers out in a swarm.

He noticed something white in the nesting box. Peeking inside, he picked it up and shouted happily, “Mama, a pullet laid an egg!”

Seeing how happy he was, Lin Lan laughed too. “Go put it in the rice crock. We’ll have steamed egg custard for lunch.”

“Okay!” Little Dou Ding chirped happily. He took the egg to the kitchen and showed it off to Auntie Yuezhen.

When Zhou Xiaohong came to pick up her order, she pestered Lin Lan to double the quantity.

Lin Lan agreed to her request and asked about setting up a stall at the garment factory. Zhou Xiaohong told her everything she knew.

After seeing Zhou Xiaohong off, Lin Lan asked Yuezhen to stay home and mash the red bean paste. She then slung the wicker basket onto her back and prepared to go to work.

Lin Yuezhen gestured that she wanted to go to work in her place, but Lin Lan refused.

’If I wasn’t home, it would be fine for Yuezhen to cover my shift, and no one would say anything. But if I’m here and let her go in my place, people will say I’m exploiting my cousin.’

The sun was already strong early in the morning. Wearing a straw hat and carrying the wicker basket, Lin Lan arrived at the foot of the mountain.

Liu Jinbao shot out from a straw shed, glaring at her menacingly. “You bitch, was it your family that ambushed me?”

“HAHAHA… HAHA…!” Lin Lan burst out laughing, gloating. “Scumbags get what they deserve! Too bad they didn’t beat you to death, you piece of filth!”

Liu Jinbao’s mouth twitched in anger. “You bitch, don’t you get too happy. I’d like to see how long you can keep up this act.”

Lin Lan grinned, brandishing her sickle. “You bastard, a piece of filth like you is a waste of air. The day some hero beats you to death, I’ll go buy a few ten-thousand-shot firecracker strings to celebrate.”

“You—” Liu Jinbao’s face darkened, his eyes fixed on her like a viper. “I’ve thought it over. No one would dare to touch me except your family.”

Lin Lan snorted. “You bastard, the line of people who want to beat you up would stretch from here to the police station.”

Liu Jinbao glared at Lin Lan. “You, surnamed Lin! Just you wait!”

“I’ll be waiting. You think I’m scared of you?” Lin Lan retorted. Without even bothering to give him another look, she walked straight to the foot of the mountain to cut grass.

Seeing Lin Lan’s fearless demeanor, Liu Jinbao was so angry he clenched his fists. He didn’t turn and leave until two people approached from a distance.

Lin Lan glanced over her shoulder at him, then bent down and began swinging her sickle rapidly.

When she finished her work and returned home, Lin Yuezhen had already made lunch and finished mashing the bean paste.

“Cousin, with you at home, my life is so much easier.”

Lin Yuezhen looked at her gratefully and signed, “Thank you, Little Lan.”

After lunch, Lin Lan and Yuezhen rolled the bean paste into balls, chopped pork fat into small pieces, mixed it with a little white sugar, and began to wrap zongzi.

Little Douzi was playing with a rolling iron hoop on the stone steps, while Dahuang lay nearby, occasionally lifting its head to watch him.

Lin Lan rinsed the soaked glutinous rice twice, drained it, and put it in a urea bag to weigh it on a scale. She calculated that one catty of glutinous rice expanded to just over one catty and eight taels after soaking.

She poured it out and divided it into three portions again, planning to wrap just over three catties of glutinous rice for each type of zongzi.

Lin Yuezhen tore the soaked bamboo leaves into thin strips to be used for tying the zongzi.

Lin Lan picked up one of the selected bamboo leaves. After overlapping the head and tail ends, she folded it a third of the way down to form a short, triangular cone.

She spooned some soaked glutinous rice into the bottom, added a few pieces of the chopped pork fat, placed a red bean paste ball on top, and finally added two more spoonfuls of rice to level it off. She then wrapped the bamboo leaf around it, securing it tightly and tying a knot at the end.

With just over three catties of glutinous rice and the red bean paste balls, they made forty red bean paste zongzi.

Just as Lin Lan finished wrapping the zongzi, she suddenly realized she hadn’t heard the sound of Little Douzi’s iron hoop for a while. She hurried to the doorway but didn’t see him. She only saw Dahuang lying at the entrance to the east wing.

She rushed to the door of the east wing and found him asleep on the bed, a picture book lying by his hand.

Lin Lan breathed a sigh of relief. She took off his shoes and pulled the blanket over him. Little Douzi opened his eyes, glanced at Lin Lan, and then closed them again.

Turning around, she saw Yuezhen also standing at the door. Lin Lan smiled at her and whispered, “The little rascal. He gave me a scare.”

Yuezhen smiled and nodded. The two of them returned to the kitchen to start boiling the zongzi.

After scooping a few ladles of water into a clay pot and bringing it to a boil, they placed the red bean paste zongzi inside, put on the lid, and let them simmer.

The strips of salt-cured pork hanging above the stove had been smoking for the better part of the day and were now semi-dry. From time to time, beads of oil would drip onto the edge of the stove with a SIZZLE.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep