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The two sisters couldn’t resist the temptation and ate their portions of red bean paste and meat dumplings on the spot.
“How do they taste? Is it better when we make them at home or buy them outside?” Wen Jiajia asked the two. The family had made rice dumplings for the Dragon Boat Festival before, but she wasn’t sure if the sisters remembered them.
“Homemade ones are delicious,” Wen Xuan said, carefully licking the rice grains off the leaves. “I think the dumplings at home are more glutinous and sticky.”
Wen Jiajia understood and looked at the rice dumplings that Wen Chun hadn’t finished. “Maybe the store didn’t cook them long enough.”
Zhong Huisheng commented, “Some glutinous rice is difficult to cook into a sticky texture. If you like sticky food, you should use long, glutinous rice, which becomes sticky when cooked. Round glutinous rice tends to be more chewy and elastic; it’s used for making glutinous rice balls.”
Wen Jiajia smiled and said, “Yes! I also used long, glutinous rice last time. How about we make them again this year?”
She happened to have meat coupons at home.
These coupons were from Hao Qingying, who had exchanged them when Wen Jiajia bought bayberries. Her family had enough meat, so sometimes there were leftover meat coupons. It seemed they were for one pound, which would be enough to make zongzi.
Zhong Huisheng agreed. “Okay! I’m just sitting around anyway. I have glutinous rice and beans at home, so I’ll make them the day after tomorrow.”
After eating two rice dumplings, the sisters drank some egg and rice soup and felt full.
Instead of going back to her room, Wen Jiajia played with her Xiaomei. She couldn’t help but kiss her, admiring her chubby little hands. Wen Chun sighed, “My Xiaomei is so cute and has so much meat.”
“Is that so?” Wen Jiajia agreed. She noticed her Xiaomei had gained weight quickly once she started complementary feeding. Thankfully, the doctor said this weight gain was normal and that her Xiaomei was in excellent health, which reassured her.
As the Dragon Boat Festival approached, the aroma of rice dumplings grew stronger.
Wei Dai had been idle for a few days, so she went out in the rain to pick bamboo leaves and brought back some mugwort.
The weather cleared the day before the Dragon Boat Festival. Zhong Huisheng prepared the red bean paste and soaked some peanuts. The peanuts tasted great when boiled and mixed with glutinous rice.
Wen Jiajia also asked Wei Dai to bring back meat, which Wei Dai was going to do on her trip to the city. She planned to marinate it first.
The meat was leg meat with fat. It was cut into small pieces and marinated with soy sauce and rice wine. After marinating in the afternoon, it could be wrapped and cooked.
Despite the taste, Zhong Huisheng’s rice dumplings were much better than Wen Jiajia’s.
Zhong Huisheng wrapped them tightly to prevent water from seeping in, so the dumplings wouldn’t lose their flavor or fall apart.
When Wen Jiajia returned home from work, the aroma of the rice dumplings had already spread more than ten meters away—it was irresistible!
“Auntie, can I eat now?” she asked as soon as she got home.
Zhong Huisheng was fiddling with matches in front of the stove. “Not yet. We have to wait at least another hour.”
Wen Jiajia smiled and said, “I’ll save some food for dinner so I can enjoy the rice dumplings.”
Because the pot was cooking rice dumplings, dinner was relatively simple.
What was on the menu? Egg fried rice.
The rice was leftover from the morning, and she used six eggs, some chopped green vegetables, cucumber, and carrot, stir-frying them in two pots.
The pot was small, the kind used on a stove, and couldn’t hold much rice. With Wei Dai’s appetite, she would have eaten half the pot.
Wen Jiajia’s estimate was accurate; Wei Dai had indeed eaten most of the pot.
With nothing else to do, Wen Jiajia made the fried rice. As a chef, she appreciated having her cooking appreciated.
Seeing Wei Dai and her two sisters enjoying the meal, Wen Jiajia unconsciously ate half a bowl more.
By the time the rice dumplings were ready, Wen Jiajia had only managed to eat one meat dumpling.
The aunt not only made rice dumplings well but also cooked them to perfection. They were not too salty and were cooked just right—soft and sticky.
How soft and sticky? They were so soft and sticky that you could even pull them into threads when tearing the leaves apart.
The next day, Wen Jiajia brought a few rice dumplings to Director Gao. She wasn’t trying to curry favor but was returning a favor since Director Gao had given her salted duck eggs and glutinous rice balls.
She had taken the salted duck eggs home but hadn’t cooked them yet, so she didn’t know how they tasted.
However, the glutinous rice balls were delicious. The dough with sugar was dipped in white sesame seeds and fried until golden brown and fluffy. When you tasted them, they were amazingly rich and fragrant.
If she had more oil at home, she would have liked to make a few more.
“The rice dumplings made by your Aunt? They taste really good, and the red bean paste is very sweet,” Director Gao, who loved sweets, said. Wen Jiajia had only brought sweet rice dumplings.
Wen Jiajia nodded. “The beans this year are very sandy, and there’s a lot of sugar in them.”
Director Gao finished the rice dumpling in just a few bites, then went back to work and assigned a series of tasks to Wen Jiajia.
After the Dragon Boat Festival, the festive atmosphere in the factory dissipated. The machines were running at high speed, producing products on the assembly line to be transported to various pharmaceutical factories.
Wen Jiajia had been troubleshooting machines recently, repairing those with issues. Some problems couldn’t be solved by the factory repairmen and required the machine manufacturer’s intervention.
By the end of June, it was time to address other matters.
“Director Gao is calling for you,” Liang Mu said, knocking on her office door.
Wen Jiajia responded, “Okay,” and then got up to leave. Liang Mu was still waiting outside.
“You’re getting married at the end of March? That’s fast. Before I went on vacation, you were still saying you didn’t have a wife,” Wen Jiajia said with a smile.
Liang Mu shrugged. “My family is pushing me hard. I finally met someone I like, so I have to seize the opportunity. Otherwise, finding someone compatible might take forever.”
Wen Jiajia was curious. “Is your wife working?”
Liang Mu replied, “Yes, my wife works at the pharmaceutical factory where you used to work. She’s at the radio station.”
Wen Jiajia was surprised. “That’s amazing! All the female workers at our pharmaceutical factory’s radio station are high school students.”
The radio’s sound quality was smooth and pleasant. She remembered that when she worked at the factory, the voices of the female comrades on the radio seemed to relieve all her fatigue.
As soon as the conversation ended, they arrived at Director Gao’s office.
Wen Jiajia knocked on the door and entered, followed by Liang Mu.
Director Gao was pleased. “Just as you wished, our department will be going together this time.”
Wen Jiajia was shocked. “Really?”
Then she became excited. “When do we leave? How many people from our department will go? How many days will we be there?”
Director Gao chuckled. “Problems come one by one! I’ll definitely go. Who will stay in the department for me?”
Wen Jiajia immediately turned to Liang Mu. “Team Leader Liang, you can’t abandon your wife when you’re newlyweds. After all, you’ll have other opportunities to go to the capital, but you only get this chance once.”
She spoke earnestly, as if she were looking out for Liang Mu’s best interests.
Liang Mu was left speechless but couldn’t help retorting, “You have a baby who is only a few months old. Logically, you should stay at home more than I should.”
He continued, “Forget it. You can go. My wife is pregnant, and I’m worried about leaving her at home for just over a month.”
Wen Jiajia smiled, feeling that Liang Mu’s child was well-timed.
Director Gao also preferred Wen Jiajia to go, so she said, “We’ll set out on the 10th of next month and will be gone for six days. Note that this includes travel time.”
Wen Jiajia did a quick calculation and realized that she would only be in the capital for two days at most.
***
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