Chapter 83: The First Signs of Drought
Just a few days after the spring planting was finished, Muchun still couldn’t relax, thinking about the rain this year.
Even if the food supply for Zhangjia Village was settled, the few hundred refugees outside the city were still a threat. If they found out they had grain, they would definitely rush into the forest when Wanliu City’s thin porridge ran out.
For now, besides storing grain, she also had to find a safe escape route. But there was no place to hide people in this forest. When the grain in the fields grew, it would also be seen by the refugees who came into the mountains.
“Sigh, I won’t think about it for now. Let’s just hoard grain,” Muchun said, lying on Liu Yunhe’s lap, her eyes closed.
Liu Yunhe untied her hair, her fingers pressing firmly on her scalp. Her long, loosened hair, with its natural curls, spread out. She studied Muchun’s beautiful brow ridge, her fingers playfully tracing it over and over. On the sixth time, a long, slender hand cupped her milky-white, fragile neck.
Although the farm work was done, there was no sign of rain from old man heaven. The old and young of Zhangjia Village would water the fields every few days. Although the process was a bit difficult, each family didn’t have much land, and they could persevere if they gritted their teeth.
Now was the peak season for wild vegetables. Muchun called on all the old and young in the village to dig for wild vegetables. But when everyone saw that the green vegetables in their courtyards were gradually becoming edible, and their taste was much fresher and sweeter than wild vegetables, they were not very willing to go out and dig for them.
In the end, Muchun had to get everyone to be more active by offering to buy the wild vegetables. One hundred jin of wild vegetables could be exchanged for one jin of coarse salt, or half a jin of malt sugar. Salt and sugar were rare things, and everyone’s eyes lit up when they heard this. Now, they all wove baskets and went into the forest to dig for wild vegetables.
Muchun also wanted to save all the edible things in the spring and summer. When autumn and winter came, it would probably be a situation of only going out and not coming in.
The things that Liu Yunhe had prepared were enough for them to eat for a few years, but coarse salt was an indispensable seasoning. Before, she would basically save some whenever she came across it, and she had saved fifty jin intermittently. It was impossible to buy too much of this thing. It was only when the merchants who traveled between the few cities would occasionally come over to sell some that Muchun had gotten lucky.
Before noon, a long queue had already formed at the entrance of Muchun’s family’s courtyard, all of them here to deliver wild vegetables.
“Aunties, please go to the river and wash the wild vegetables before you send them over. Otherwise, there are too many, and we won’t be able to handle them,” Huang Caiying said, standing at the door and checking them one by one. Only after they were cleaned would she let the others take them into the courtyard.
“Alright, we’ll go now,” she said. The washed wild vegetables weighed more, and the villagers’ faces were full of smiles as they all went to the river.
A basket of wild vegetables weighed about ten jin. Baozhu held a ledger and a brush and was recording by Huang Caiying’s side.
Whoever sent a basket of wild vegetables, she would write a stroke of the character ‘正’ under her name. After two full characters, they could take away a bag of coarse salt.
T/N: (The 正 (zhèng – proper, correct) character here is being used as a tally mark system. Five strokes = 5 (completed character 正), so two full characters = 10)
Dongjiu put a small amount of coarse salt in an iron pot, and then threw the wild vegetables that the villagers had sent in to blanch. It didn’t take long. After turning them over a few times, she took them out, drained them, and spread them out to dry on a white cotton cloth, a full patch after a patch.
Even the clean stones were not spared. They were all covered with drying vegetables.
The wild vegetables that were everywhere in the forest seemed to have been swept by locusts and became bare in two or three days. Even the small birds had an opinion.
The wild vegetables in Muchun’s courtyard were also drying more and more. A total of three thousand jin were collected, and twenty-five jin of coarse salt and five jin of malt sugar were used, which made everyone’s faces bloom with joy. They all said that the village head was a capable person, to be able to get even rare things like coarse salt and sugar.
Because the blanched wild vegetables had a better texture and more moisture, after the three thousand jin of wild vegetables were dried, there were still about one thousand two hundred jin. In the end, they had to be packed in about twelve sacks.
All of them were arranged by Dongjiu in a well-ventilated, cool, and dry place.
In the blink of an eye, another half a month had passed, and it was directly into May.
The spring thunder had not yet sounded, and there was no sign of the spring rain.
But the green vegetables in the garden were growing lushly.
Palm-sized cucumbers, kidney beans climbing all over the racks, large and long zucchini, and green spinach and cabbage.
White radishes, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, green peppers, chili peppers, eggplants, and pumpkins. There were all sorts of vegetables that a farming family could see. Muchun herself did not know that so many kinds could grow when she had planted them.
The habit of drying wild vegetables had not stopped. Her gaze had shifted to her own vegetable garden. Radish tops, sweet potato vines, long beans, and white radishes were eaten and dried at the same time.
Nothing edible was thrown away. They had to be saved to fight against the bleakness of winter.
The beans planted in the fields had not yet ripened, but that did not stop Muchun from taking out a hundred jin of soybeans to make tofu.
She picked out two suitable stones and had an elderly villager help her grind them into a stone mill. She soaked the selected soybeans until they were fully expanded, and then poured them onto the stone mill bit by bit, adding an appropriate amount of clear water, and slowly ground them into a fine soy milk, circle by circle.
Recently, her wife had wanted to have fish and tofu stew. Thinking that the two of them had a lot of soybeans, she had taken out a hundred jin to grind into tofu.
What couldn’t be saved could also be dried into tofu skin.
The soy milk, after being filtered with a cotton cloth, was pure and fine, and filled four wooden buckets.
It was then poured into a pot and boiled, then simmered on low heat. Finally, the process of adding brine to the tofu was handed over to the professional chef.
After everything was ready, all that was left was to wait for the freshly made, tender tofu.
Zhao Xing’er stood by Dongjiu’s side, watching her with admiration.
“Dongjiu, you’re really amazing,” she said, her eyes shining like stars as she watched the process of turning soy milk into tofu.
“What’s this?” Dongjiu said dismissively, but she pressed her lips together and worked even harder.
After noon, Muchun returned home with Liu Yunhe, carrying a wooden bucket with a large fish and the rest small. Fishing was getting more and more difficult now. The water level was constantly dropping with the climate, and the fish inside had been mostly caught by the refugees. The water flow was slow, almost to the point of being undetectable.
“You’re back. The tofu has just set,” Dongjiu said, and cut a piece of white and tender tofu with a knife and placed it on a plate. Today, she was preparing a tofu feast for everyone.
“It smells of a rich soy fragrance. I haven’t had tofu in a long time. This is just right to stew with this fish,” Muchun said, handing over the wooden bucket.
“This fish is really not small. It must be more than two jin,” Dongjiu said, lifting the wooden bucket.
“I’ve been fishing for half a day and only found one big fish. Let’s just stew the big and the small ones together. There are many of us.”
“Alright. I’ll make a few good dishes for everyone today.”
Half an hour later, the simple long table began to be served. In a blue and white bowl, the tender tofu, which looked as if it would break with a single touch, was drizzled with sauce and sprinkled with chopped spring onions and cilantro. The light taste was filled with a rich soy fragrance, which looked very refreshing.
On a black-glazed plate, small, square pieces of pan-fried tofu, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, were arranged neatly. A few green spring onions and red and green chili peppers were used as garnish, which greatly whetted the appetite.
Two large bowls of fish and tofu stew, the heat just right, the domineering fragrance of the stir-fried spring onions, garlic, and chili peppers, the portion large and satisfying, and the taste full.
She scooped out a large piece of tofu with a spoon and placed it on a plate. Dongjiu had specially made a small jar of chili oil, seasoned it, and poured it on the tofu, and sprinkled some sesame seeds and chopped spring onions. The red oil cold-tossed tofu was ready.
Pork belly braised with tofu, spicy tofu, minced meat and bean paste tofu, scrambled eggs with chives, garlic spinach, and cured meat stir-fried with kidney beans. More or less, ten dishes were made. Today was an exceptionally extravagant day.
It was also the first time they had improved their meals after the farm work was done. To go with this table of dishes, a full pot of white rice was steamed, as sumptuous as the New Year.
The girls washed their hands and waited for the great chef to come to the table before they would move their chopsticks.
“Dongjiu, you’ve worked hard. Come and eat. There’s not much oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar at home. It must have been difficult for you to make this table of delicious and fragrant dishes,” she said. Although they were all home-cooked dishes, for everyone who had not relaxed and been so extravagant in a long time, they were definitely a delicacy.
Muchun praised her with great certainty and did not forget to pick up a piece of tofu that had been stewed in the fish for a long time for her wife.
“Just a few home-cooked dishes. Not worth mentioning,” Dongjiu said with a wave of her hand, happily.
“Everyone, hurry up and try this fresh tofu. I haven’t had tofu in a long time,” Huang Caiying also said, greeting everyone.
Guan Yue was the first to scoop up some tender tofu with a wooden spoon and taste it.
“It’s so tender. I haven’t even tasted it, and it’s already slid down my throat.”
“Hahahahahaha,” a sentence made everyone burst into laughter.
“Hurry up and eat. It’ll get cold in a bit. You should eat too. Don’t always just take care of me,” Liu Yunhe said, glancing at Muchun.
“Okay,” she said, but the chopsticks in her hand were still helping Liu Yunhe get the pan-fried tofu from a distance.
The pan-fried tofu, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, was fragrant and flavorful in the mouth, soft and juicy with a single bite, very satisfying.
Although life in the forest was a bit hard, the people of Zhangjia Village felt as if they had entered a paradise, far away from the hunger and turmoil of the outside world.
As the edible vegetables grew bit by bit, the variety of things people could use to fill their stomachs also increased. They might not have a full meal every time, but at least the feeling of hunger was diminishing.
Compared to this place, the days in Wanliu City were just beginning to get difficult.
By May, old man heaven had not let a single drop of rain fall. The farmers who were still waiting to plant were all dumbfounded.
Even with a great disaster like last year’s, Wanliu City had safely passed through it with its geographical advantage. Now, they had thought that the natural disaster was over, but who would have thought that this was just the beginning?
But the City Lord, recently entangled in family affairs and run off her feet all day, had actually ignored this year’s strange phenomenon.
It was not until a subordinate advisor came to report that the seeds had not yet been planted this year, and that if they delayed any longer, they would miss the spring planting season.
Only then did Wan Liufang come to a sudden realization and summoned her subordinates and advisors to discuss countermeasures.
It was nothing more than using the river water outside the city to irrigate. Besides this, not even the gods had any other solution.
But this simple yet difficult solution was also fraught with obstacles. Not to mention the distance between the farmland in the city and the river, the few hundred refugees outside the gate could not be settled.
And the river, which had been bottomless before the New Year, had become less than a meter deep at some point. The entire wide river had lost its vitality at a speed visible to the naked eye.
At this time, some smart families had already smelled the drought and had begun to secretly store grain.
Wan Liufang had another major matter that gave her a headache.
After discussing with her advisors for a whole night with no result, she was tired and planned to go back to her room to sleep.
Jiang Xirou’s relationship with her was very subtle at the moment. In her heart, she couldn’t say that she liked her, and there was even a little bit of dislike.
But physically, she seemed to have gotten used to the intimacy between the two of them. Ever since she had been forced to drink the aphrodisiac wine last time, she seemed to have let go and was no longer coy. Sometimes, she would even take the initiative to press against her.
After a long time, she felt that Wan Liufang was actually alright. Anyway, she had never seen Wan Liufang sleep with other women.
Her food and clothing were also the best within her ability. Sometimes, she would even be given things that even the First Madam did not have.
But to say that this person liked her, she herself had not felt it.
That time, not long after Liu Yunhe had left, this person had rushed in angrily and had the little maid confess that she was preparing to send her cousin to the City Lord.
She stared at the pot of aphrodisiac wine and had the maid close the door and leave. Jiang Xirou had a bad premonition.
Sure enough, that bastard drank the entire pot of wine in one go, grabbed her, and fed it to her mouth-to-mouth, choking her until she coughed up tears.
The consequences were predictable. She had pestered her for more than half the night. This person had many tricks up her sleeve, and she only remembered that her own throat had become hoarse from shouting in the second half of the night…!
From then on, she had lost all face. The feeling of being naked in front of her was unbearable.
But sleeping together every few days, she slowly got used to it. It was just that the three Madams were unhappy and would find fault with her in various ways.
Since she had no family to rely on, she vented all her anger on Wan Liufang.
Why did you have to marry so many madams? With the backyard on fire every day, don’t you think you can stay out of it?
But looking at the City Lord sleeping with a frown, Jiang Xirou’s heart softened again. What an enemy. Why don’t you just die far away?
…
The next day, Wan Liufang was sitting in the main hall with a group of advisors again.
“Father-in-law, your family is a major grain household. Do you have any countermeasures this year?” Wan Liufang asked, looking at her father-in-law with an eager expression.
“Sigh, what can I do? Last time, the warehouse inexplicably lost a third of my family’s grain, which was a great blow. If there’s a drought this year and the harvest fails, then I won’t have any extra grain for the City Lord next year,” the father-in-law said, glancing at Wan Liufang with a look of disdain.
She doesn’t think of giving good things to her own daughter, but when she needs grain, she thinks of me. No way.
Wan Liufang knew that her father-in-law had lost grain and also suspected that it was related to the person who had hijacked her.
But besides their luggage, those few people had nothing extra. So how did they transport the grain out? Or was it not them? Where the grain had gone was a mystery.
Wan Liufang did not dare to tell this speculation to her father-in-law, afraid that she would continue to pursue the matter and she would be a headless fly again.
“Father-in-law is the richest man in Wanliu City and also the hope of the whole city. If you have no solution, then let’s all just wait for death! Guards, go and open the city gate and let the refugees in. Since the fields can’t be watered, everyone will die anyway,” Wan Liufang said, having given up. She sat crookedly in the grand master’s chair, with no proper posture.
“Hey, hey, hey? Wait, wait! What are you doing? Isn’t this just fooling around?” the father-in-law quickly got up and stopped the pageboy who was about to go and report.
“I say, City Lord, don’t take such a big matter lightly,” the father-in-law’s nose was crooked with anger. If these refugees were let in, then it would be a disaster. It wouldn’t just be a matter of his family losing a small half of their grain.
“I’m not joking. If we don’t open the city gate, how can we irrigate the land in the city?” Wan Liufang sat up straight, her long, narrow eyes looking at the few people below with a hint of seriousness.
The advisors and the richest man below were all stunned. Had the City Lord gone mad? Although that was true, if they really let the refugees into the city, how would they settle the several hundred of them?
Besides, most of the refugees outside the city were sickly. The long-term hunger had made them as thin as skeletons. If they were let into the city, they would not be able-bodied laborers. They were probably even worse than the beggars in a time of peace and prosperity.
“I have my own way for these things. You don’t have to worry about it, father-in-law,” Wan Liufang had lost her patience with these old and cunning people.
