Chapter 16: The Oil Press

The plump woman saw that Lin Yue was someone she could do business with in the long run. She had seen through Lin Yue’s little schemes.

However, she didn’t get angry. She bought a lot of things, making her a big customer. The plump woman even offered to deliver the goods to her house, ensuring it would be done secretly at night, without anyone noticing.

Lin Yue declined, making an appointment to meet her here again in the afternoon, and was about to leave.

The plump woman stopped her. Her eagerness had a reason. She had heard Lin Yue mention that her in-laws grew a lot of peanuts, and she had an idea.

The New Year was coming soon, and every household wouldn’t be able to do without the four essentials: melon seeds, peanuts, candies, and tea.

Lin Yue had initially thrown out a bait, wanting to see if the plump woman had any way of getting peanut oil.

She had been wanting peanut oil for a long time. As a modern person, cooking without oil was simply torture.

Every year, the village would collectively press oil for the villagers. Lin Yue had seen the oil pressing tools. First, they would use a stone mill to crush the peanuts, then steam them, wrap them in straw into round cakes, and then put them into a cylindrical container called a press, extracting the oil by manually pressing it.

This set of tools was large and heavy. Lin Yue could store them in the space, but it would be very easy to leave traces of movement when she took them out again after using them, so she could only watch helplessly and dare not have any crooked ideas.

Now, hearing the plump woman mention peanuts, she said with difficulty, “We do have a lot of peanuts. The New Year is coming soon, and we’re about to run out of oil. My mother is looking for a place to press oil. The big oil press in the village is too big, and those few peanuts wouldn’t be worth using it.”

The plump woman’s eyes lit up even more. She quickly asked, “How many do you have? If you can spare 200 jin for me, I can introduce you to a good place to press oil.”

Lin Yue hesitated. She had revealed a bit too much today, but she felt that this plump woman was decent and thought they could do business together in the long run.

However, she didn’t want to interact with her too frequently, fearing that someone might discover her secret, or even that she might be tricked.

It wasn’t yet the later years, and there were still many people who were secretly doing business like this. They usually had some connections, and the security team wouldn’t catch them. But once the transaction was complete, buyers like Lin Yue, who had no background, might be arrested.

Don’t show off your wealth, and a big tree attracts the wind. Lin Yue was afraid of being taken for a fat sheep.

She said with difficulty, “Our village is far from here. It’s not worth it to travel so far for a little oil. Forget it.”

The plump woman grabbed Lin Yue’s arm and said anxiously, “Hey, hey, girl, don’t rush to leave. Listen to me.

I have a relative who used to run a small oil workshop.

He has a set of old oil pressing tools from before. They’re not worth much, and he’s reluctant to throw them away, so they’ve been sitting in his house.

If you’re willing, his house isn’t far from here. I’ll take you to see it.”

Lin Yue was tempted and agreed, but still pretended to be hesitant, saying, “I can only spare you 150 jin of peanuts, and they’re still in the shell.

If you think it’s okay, we’ll go take a look this afternoon. I’ll bring the peanuts with me then, anyway, I’m going to bring them back home anyway.”

The plump woman was looking for peanuts in the shell, and she kept agreeing, “Okay, okay!”

After saying goodbye to the plump woman, Lin Yue carefully carried the two bolts of cloth and turned into the alley she had entered before. Fortunately, she didn’t encounter anyone, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She went back to the space, changed her clothes, and came out empty-handed. Then she went back to that state-owned store and bought half a jin of white sugar and half a jin of sorghum candy.

She didn’t go to a restaurant for dinner. At this time, whether it was a state-owned restaurant or other collective restaurants, you needed food coupons to eat.

She didn’t have food coupons, so she had to go hungry. She got back on her 28-inch bicycle and rode towards Xiaowu Village.

Passing by the post office, Lin Yue saw a familiar figure.

She secretly followed, and saw the person enter the post office and was talking to the staff.

The person seemed dissatisfied with the result of the negotiation, and his voice suddenly rose, “Why not, I come here to collect every month, I remember clearly, it’s supposed to be today! You quickly find it for me, my family is waiting for the money urgently.”

The staff ignored the person, and after a while, he turned and left.

Lin Yue saw that the person was about to come out, she quickly hid far away and secretly looked over. When the person came out onto the street, she finally saw his face clearly. It was indeed her father-in-law, Zhang Zhiwei.

However, she really didn’t know that her honest father-in-law had this side to him. He probably thought that he had been collecting his allowance every month, so he thought he could come and show his face.

Well, he got the cold shoulder.

Lin Yue felt a secret joy in her heart, but she had seen what she needed to see, and she didn’t take it too seriously.

Xiaowu Village was very close to town, only ten minutes by bicycle.

Lin Yue put the bicycle away in the space at the entrance of the village, asked someone for directions, and walked towards the carpenter’s house.

The things she wanted weren’t troublesome, most of them were ready-made at the carpenter’s house. The only thing that wasn’t in stock was the long table.

The old carpenter had already prepared all the things she had ordered in the past few days, and she borrowed a cart from his house.

There were a lot of furniture, and it took four trips for the old man to help her pull them to the entrance of the village. They agreed that she would return the cart before evening.

She paid the remaining 15 yuan to the old man and said goodbye.

Lin Yue was afraid that the old man would come back, so she stood in the cold wind for 20 minutes, watching that no one came this way, before she dared to take the things into the space.

Lin Yue was already starving by this time. She picked some vegetables from the vegetable patch and made a simple loofah and mushroom soup. She ate a large bowl of noodles with the soup, and finally felt that she had recovered.

Lin Yue had just had meat a few days ago, and she was still a little bit unsatisfied. Her eyes were fixed on the few chicks and rabbits playing happily in the grass, and her eyes were shining green.

After resting for a while, she came to a flat piece of land.

She had secretly “borrowed” a stone roller from the threshing ground and compacted this piece of land.

She had cleared out two large and small areas, the larger one for drying grain, and the smaller one for building a house.

Unfortunately, she had no experience in building houses. She had been busy for several days and hadn’t even built a thatched hut.

Lin Yue was now standing on the smaller area. She rolled the ground with the stone roller a few more times before moving the furniture over piece by piece.

She could actually use her mind to move things and even change the terrain in the space.

She had tried it before, and it had indeed been successful, but the space had also closed up, and even she herself had become listless.

She had no energy.

Fortunately, it was daytime and the sheep weren’t in the space, otherwise the two little ones would have starved.

She tried a few more times later, and found that as long as she used her mind to do anything in the space, even just taking a small stone from a distance, she would be ejected.

It was just that sometimes it was longer, sometimes it was shorter. The shortest time was a few minutes before the space opened again.

She needed to use the space today, and she didn’t dare slack off. She had to move the furniture herself.

Actually, there was another way, which was to put the things in the desired location when she brought them in, but who could blame her for forgetting that?

After moving the furniture, Lin Yue found two sacks and filled them with peanuts.

These sacks usually held 70-80 jin each, and the 150 jin the plump woman mentioned was referring to two sacks like this, no need to weigh them.

Most of the peanuts she had collected in the space were here. She really didn’t want to do the work of shelling the peanuts, as it was time-consuming and hand-cramping. This time, she could take the opportunity to sell them all. Anyway, it was only about ten days before the next harvest, so she wasn’t afraid of running out of peanuts.

After resting for a while, Lin Yue left the space and went to meet the plump woman.

The place where the plump woman’s relative lived was called Youfangtaizi Street.

There used to be many small oil workshops here, and a few were still secretly operating, but it was difficult to get grain now, so those few were just barely hanging on.

Lin Yue pushed the cart and turned into this street, and saw the plump woman’s son playing marbles at the corner.

As soon as the boy saw Lin Yue coming, he jumped up and ran into a small alley next to him, not afraid of being lost.

She followed him in and found that it was a dead end, with a side door opening in one of the walls.

She parked the cart at the entrance and looked inside. She saw the plump woman and a thin, dark-skinned young man standing in the courtyard. They noticed her and quickly came out to help her lift the two sacks of peanuts inside.

It was a very dilapidated small courtyard. It was clear that it hadn’t been lived in for a long time.

There were four adobe houses, and the roof of the outermost one had collapsed.

There were many withered weeds in the courtyard, and a small locust tree. It must have been cut down once, but it had grown back on its own, and many locust saplings had sprouted from the exposed roots.

Together, they carried the two sacks of peanuts into the middle room. This room should have been a kitchen. There was a woman sitting in front of the stove. The light in the room was too dim to see her face clearly.

The woman pulled open the sack, grabbed a handful of peanuts and looked at them, but didn’t say anything. She turned around and went into the inner room, took out a cloth bag, poured the contents into the pot, and squatted in front of the stove to start a fire.

Seeing this, the thin, dark-skinned man quickly greeted Lin Yue, “Sister, let’s sit in the courtyard for a while, it’s smoky inside.” His voice was filled with joy.

The plump woman also smiled with her eyes narrowed, pulling her hand and saying enthusiastically, “That’s right, that’s right. You wanted an oil pressing tool, right? Gangzi, quickly take us to see your wooden press.”

The three of them went out of the house, the thin, dark-skinned man named Gangzi led the way, walked to the south wall of the courtyard, lifted a cover, revealing a long wooden stake below. One side of the stake had a rectangular hole chiseled into it, with many wooden blocks neatly inserted inside.

There were also a few wooden mallets, straw-woven circles, and two stone mills of different sizes scattered nearby.

These things hadn’t been used for a long time, and they were covered with a thick layer of dust. The handles of the wooden mallets were almost broken.

Gangzi introduced, “This is a small wooden press. You can take out the wooden wedges inside and wash them all clean before using them.” He said as he took out the wooden blocks and showed them to Lin Yue.

Although they were covered in dirt, they were all intact.

She knew the steps of oil pressing, and didn’t need Gangzi to explain. She pointed to the wooden mallets and pressing rings and asked, “Can you prepare these for me, so I don’t have to bother?”

Gangzi didn’t hesitate. He picked up a stone and knocked a few times on the place where the wooden handle and the mallet connected. The handle fell off with a snap. Then he went into the house and took a knife, found a piece of wood of similar length, and quickly carved a wedge. He used the stone to knock it into the mallet, and then repeated the process, replacing all the remaining mallets.

He explained to Lin Yue, “I only have a little bit of this kind of grass now. I’ll get you some, you can use any kind you want, as long as it can be woven into a circle to hold the peanut residue.”

Lin Yue knew it was like that, so she didn’t dwell on it.

In a short while, the smell of roasted peanuts began to waft from the courtyard.

The plump woman called the two of them into the kitchen, grabbed a handful of peanuts and gave each of them a few to taste.

The peanuts were still hot to the touch. Lin Yue peeled off the crispy shell and ate one. It was five-spice flavored, which was still rare in the market.

The plump woman tasted it and kept praising the woman’s cooking skills. She paid Lin Yue 92 yuan on the spot, two yuan more than they had agreed on, and filled a cloth bag for her with a big handful of peanuts.

Taking advantage of their excitement, Lin Yue asked about the price of the wooden press. She finally bought a set of wooden press and the small stone mill for 11 yuan, and asked Gangzi to help her load them onto the cart.

She then picked up the ten jin of cotton she had bought earlier and loaded it onto the cart. She said goodbye to the plump woman and Gangzi, pushed the cart, and left.

It started to snow softly, and it felt slippery on her face.

By the time Lin Yue arrived home on her bicycle, it was already late afternoon.

She carefully wiped the bicycle clean, returned it to Mrs. Su’s house, gave each of the children two pieces of sorghum candy, and went inside to see her two little ones.

The two children hadn’t seen their mother for a day. As soon as the little girl saw her, she reached out her arms anxiously to be held.

The older brother saw Lin Yue, showed a cute smile, and then, less than three seconds later, burst into tears, looking like he had been wronged.

Lin Yue’s heart ached. She picked up the two little ones, one in each arm, and gently coaxed them.

Seeing the two children like this, Mrs. Su laughed and said, “These two kids can read people’s expressions. They were so well-behaved when you were away. They ate and slept well, and they laughed when you tickled them. They weren’t naughty at all.

Now that they see their mother has come, they cry at the drop of a hat. They’re definitely smart.”

Mrs. Su wanted to keep her for dinner, but Lin Yue declined.

She left three big apples as a thank you for borrowing the bicycle, and then said goodbye to Mrs. Su.

The snow was getting heavier and heavier. Lin Yue held her two little ones, led three sheep, and walked home step by step in the north wind and heavy snow.