Chapter 28: Harvesting Seaweed

After all the fuss, both the Liu and Zeng families were furious. Liu Xiu’s mother was not one to back down easily. “You don’t want to marry him? I’ll make sure you marry my Fuzhen, and once you’re in my house, I’ll teach you a lesson.”

She came up with a terrible idea for her silly son. “From now on, every time you see her, you go and hug her. After a few hugs, she’ll agree.” If she gets into a public commotion with my son, she’ll have no choice but to marry him.

Meanwhile, Hu Feng was confused. How did sending my grandson to talk to that idiot Liu end up with the trouble being diverted to Fuzhen instead? Although she was angry, she was also greedy for the 300-yuan bride price. Her eyes darted around, and she came up with a rotten plan.

Zeng Yan, as usual, woke up early. She was a woman of her word; she hadn’t gone clamming for a few days, not just out of spite. The clamming area was a hotbed of gossip, and if she went every day, it would look suspicious since she was taking more than she could eat. From now on, she would only go once every three days.

After a few days of practice, her grass-cutting was getting smoother, and she could finish her daily quota before noon. These days, she cut grass on the same hill where she foraged for firewood. This way, she could cut grass and pick up broken branches at the same time, saving her an a separate trip in the afternoon.

After cutting the grass on land, Zeng Yan turned her attention to the grass in the sea. In the summer, the seawater was warm, and the seaweed on the shore was thriving. From a distance, it looked like the sea was trimmed with a green border.

In the Xiangyang Brigade, seaweed was even less popular than sea urchins. Years ago, people who ate too much seaweed got sick, and they concluded that this stuff couldn’t be eaten in large quantities. This was true. People on the coast had enough iodine, and eating too much could lead to hyperthyroidism, which had the same consequences as an iodine deficiency: thyroid problems.

Others might not care for it, but Zeng Yan did. The seaweed that grew naturally in the unpolluted ocean was far better than the seaweed cultivated with chemicals in modern times. Seaweed was easy to harvest and sell. She could just put it directly into her storage space, which saved her time and effort. Zeng Yan was incredibly efficient. She focused on cutting the tender parts and harvested over a thousand jin in one afternoon. She also managed to collect some of the stray sea urchins and abalones along the coast.

The sun was hot, so she had bought a thin, light sun-protection jacket to wear under her clothes, a “facekini” to cover her face, and a straw hat she had bought online. She was armed to the teeth. The seawater regulated the temperature, so even dressed like this, she didn’t feel hot. The ocean was the most comfortable place to be in the summer.

Zeng Yan finished her work before 4 PM. When she got home, she put the seaweed up for sale. In modern times, farmed seaweed cost about six yuan per kilo. She didn’t raise the price, selling the wild seaweed at the same price. With her fanbase now at 120,000, consisting of both the curious and the impulsive buyers, and a price of three yuan per jin that everyone could afford, the thousand-plus jin of seaweed quickly sold out.

Because of the flash delivery, many people had already received their goods, and the comments section was full of praise for how fresh the seaweed was. Many people were also sharing recipes. Zeng Yan believed that many of her followers would have dishes like seaweed and pork rib soup, “three fresh” seaweed shreds, sweet and sour seaweed, and seaweed rice rolls on their dinner tables tonight.

As modern labor became more specialized, the sense of fulfillment and accomplishment decreased. Zeng Yan was no exception. After time traveling, she had access to fresh, first-hand ingredients, and she could share the results of her labor with everyone. She felt incredibly fulfilled, tired but happy.

Although she lived far away, the stone house was on high ground. People couldn’t smell what she was cooking, but they could see if she was cooking. It wouldn’t look good if her chimney never smoked. To get this big iron pot, she had given up a lot of other things. Cooking on a firewood stove made food taste especially good. Since she had a fresh-keeping space, Zeng Yan decided to cook a lot and save the leftovers for later.

Zeng, the mini-chef, was an all-around expert, and with the memories of the original owner, she was very skilled at using a firewood stove. She had bought many ingredients in the last few days, and like her online followers, she started by making a pot of seaweed, corn, carrot, and pork rib soup. The corn and carrots added a sweet flavor, and the seaweed enhanced the freshness. The orange, green, and brown soup was not only delicious but also beautiful and nutritious.

After the soup was ready, she poured some oil into the pot and slowly fried the dried mackerel and “hairy-button” fish she had received from the Third Granny. The fried mackerel was crispy on the outside, but the meat inside was firm and chewy, getting more flavorful with every bite. The “hairy-button” fish, also known as the yellow grunt, was the opposite. It was so small that after being deep-fried, it became crispy from skin to bone, tasting like puffed-up snacks. Protein-rich puffed snacks, no less! They were far superior to potato chips and were incredibly fragrant.

The soup and fried fish were best with steamed buns. Zeng Yan had made them the night before. A bite of fried fish, a bite of a chewy bun, and then a bowl of rich soup. Her life was incredibly comfortable.

The seaweed and pork rib soup was so good that Zeng Yan decided to continue harvesting seaweed. She did this for three consecutive days. During this time, Zeng Yan also ventured to the northern part of the beach. It was the border between the Xiangyang Brigade and another one. The coast was rockier with more slippery algae, and it was rarely visited by people. The sea urchins and abalones in the rock crevices were all hers.

Sea urchins weren’t valued much yet, which was understandable. But dried abalone had been a valuable ingredient since ancient times, yet no one around here seemed to care for it. Grandpa Zhao even said that abalone was gritty and he didn’t like to eat it at all. At first, Zeng Yan was confused, but she gradually understood why—it was all about the era. This parallel world’s history was similar to her hometown’s. After the founding of the country, everything was in ruins, and the government had always advocated for thrift and opposed extravagance. After twenty years of this, the northern coastal regions, which had no tradition of eating abalone, only had a few elderly people who remembered the noble abalone dishes from the banquets of celebrities in the early days.

With the political movement of the last few years, the atmosphere had become even more conservative. With capitalists gone, there was no room to even mention a luxurious abalone feast. Zeng Yan, who was well-versed in the history of food, knew that at the same time, in a different place, the people of Hong Kong, who had become rich through trade, were feasting on abalone with rice. In another decade, the rise of “Ah Yee” abalone would add a glorious chapter to the world of Chinese cuisine. But this vast continent would need to wait at least another ten years to transition from an agricultural to a maritime civilization. This decade was the perfect time for Zeng Yan to get rich.

There was no need to gloat. Everyone was just a grain of sand in the torrent of history, trying to make the most of each day. But some grains of sand didn’t want to live their lives properly.