Chapter 65: Chapter 39: A Heartfelt Bond by the Xiaoqing River

The following days were a bit like the busy autumn harvest season—tense and tiring, yet incredibly fulfilling. Every day, they watched with joy as the number of Copper Coins in the money pot steadily climbed. Just as Juhua had thought, they had to switch to a larger money pot.

Zheng Changhe could already walk on his own, but he still couldn’t do any heavy labor. Qingmu had carved him a cane, which he used to get around every day. He was the one who cleaned all the pig heads and trotters.

With so much to prepare, they had to find a more efficient way. To speed up the process of cleaning the pig heads and trotters, Juhua had Yang Family buy two sharp little knives—almost like daggers. With these, they simply carved out the hair from the folds of the pig faces and trotters that couldn’t be scraped clean. This made the cleaning process much faster. Without needing anyone else’s help, Zheng Changhe could clean four pig heads and sixteen pig trotters completely spotless in a single two-hour period!

Every morning, Juhua would cook the pig heads, trotters, and tails. In the late afternoon, she’d cook the pig offal, always leaving one pot free for making their meals. If there were small fish, she would just cook them early in the morning, since they cooked quickly!

They had also processed a lot of acorns. After being soaked and then sun-dried, all the collected kernels were packed into hemp sacks and stored in the cellar. This finally set Juhua’s mind at ease. If they hadn’t been so busy with the business recently, she would have even gotten two more piglets. After some thought, she decided against it. ’One step at a time,’ she thought. ’You can’t get fat in one bite.’

Why was the Zheng Family working so desperately? It was all to save up enough money to quickly buy new quilts and winter clothes.

The weather was gradually becoming bitterly cold, and Juhua found it unbearable. That’s why she loved staying in the kitchen to tend the stove, not minding the greasy smoke one bit. And why was that? It was a great way to warm herself by the fire!

But she couldn’t stay in the kitchen all the time. She still had to do the laundry, feed the pigs, and wash vegetables. For these chores, she would always try to use water drawn from the well—the well water was warmer, after all!

Fortunately, with Zheng Changhe busy with the pig heads and trotters every day, Juhua meticulously cooking at the stove, Yang Family struggling daily under the weight of a huge pole-load of cooked dishes to sell at Xiatang Market, and Qingmu squeezing in time to help in the mornings and evenings, the family’s hard work from dawn to dusk paid off handsomely. In just over twenty days, they had earned seven or eight taels of Silver.

This was more than the Zheng Family used to make in an entire year!

Normally, they wouldn’t have been able to make this much money. The weather had gotten much colder, so fewer people were going to the market, and naturally, there were also fewer laborers in Erli Village.

However, the dishes Juhua cooked had somehow managed to make a name for themselves. Even residents of Xiatang Market itself would often buy some to take home. Nearby farming families wanting a special treat would also make the trip to buy some to please their little kids.

And it didn’t even cost much. You could get a big bowl for two cents, so why not buy it? If you didn’t buy this, were you going to buy pork at twenty cents a pound instead? That would be squandering money!

So, Yang Family’s huge daily load of cooked dishes would actually sell out completely. If anyone came late, they wouldn’t be able to get any at all!

But Juhua didn’t plan on increasing the quantity. Food tastes best when you crave it; if it’s no longer a rare treat, it loses its appeal.

It made sense. If someone traveled a long way to Erli Village only to find the pig offal and head meat were sold out, how disappointed would they be? They would probably keep savoring the memory of the taste, and they wouldn’t be satisfied until they came back early the next day to buy some. They might even buy an extra cent’s worth!

And so, a little drama played out in Erli Village every day: someone would come to buy the pig offal and head meat, only to leave disappointed. This mobile, low-cost eatery became more and more famous, eventually attracting the attention of some interested parties who took note of the pig offal.

Now that they had money, the Zheng Family unanimously decided: it was time to get new quilts and winter clothes!

Yang Family had long noticed Juhua shivering all day and was determined to make the bedding soft and warm, and to make her a thick, padded cotton jacket and a pair of cotton-padded shoes!

However, while autumn had been dry, winter brought several days of cold, drizzling rain, so they had to put the matter aside.

When the sky finally cleared, it happened to be a rest day from Qingmu’s school, so he and Yang Family went to the market to buy cotton and have new quilts fluffed.

Seeing her long-awaited wish about to come true, Juhua excitedly dismantled all three of the family’s quilts. She soaked all the quilt covers to wash them and hung all the old cotton batting on the clothesline, weighing it down so much that it bowed into a deep curve!

Zheng Changhe quickly finished cleaning the pig heads and trotters. Seeing Juhua carrying a large basket of quilt covers and heading for the river to wash them, he quickly stopped her and said, “Juhua, the river water is freezing! You should draw water from the well to wash them instead!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep