Chapter 58: A Difficult Choice

Wen Jiajia didn’t like to eat old tofu, so she removed the stone press at night.

The tofu was as white as snow and was carefully cut into 25 small pieces, each as large as a palm. Frying two pieces made a dish.

The next day, Wen Jiajia fried some tofu in an oil pan, preparing both large and small pieces.

The large ones could be used to make stuffed tofu, while the small ones could be fried on their own.

After frying the tofu, Wen Jiajia didn’t immediately start making the stuffing. She asked Wen Chun and Wen Xuan to stay at home while she rode her bicycle to the city.

The Hao family had already prepared the meat for her and tied it up with ropes for easy transport.

Wen Jiajia first stopped at the vegetable market before arriving at the Hao family’s place.

Hao Qingying said, “I knew you would come today. Here it is. Did you bring a bag? If you don’t have one, you might attract too much attention.”

Wen Jiajia patted the back seat of her bicycle and said, “I brought it!”

The bag was folded and hidden in the back seat, ready to be used when needed. It could also serve as a cushion when not in use.

Hao Qingying helped pack the bacon and sausages into the bag. Noticing another basket of meat and vegetables, she asked, “Do you want to put these together? I have some oil paper at home.”

Wen Jiajia waved her hand. “No need.”

She took out a bowl with a lid from her basket and handed it to Hao Qingying. “My family made some tofu yesterday. You should try it. And here’s some freshly fried bean curd. It tastes great when stuffed with meat.”

As she spoke, she handed over an oil-paper bag from the basket. The bag was still warm, and a delicious aroma of deep-fried food wafted out when opened.

Hao Qingying took a deep breath, popped a bean curd into her mouth, and said through a full mouth, “I won’t be polite then. I’ll give you a good thing tomorrow!”

She quickly took the bowl to the kitchen, carefully removed the tofu, washed the bowl, and returned it to Wen Jiajia.

Wen Jiajia didn’t stay long. After exchanging a few more words, she left.

This time, she returned with a full load. Fortunately, it was the end of the year, and everyone was preoccupied with buying things, so no one commented on her large load.

At home, she hung the bacon, sausages, and cured pork ribs on the kitchen beam. With winter’s absence of mice, she could hang them without worry.

She then cut the fresh meat she had just bought into three portions: one for the cupboard and the other two in the water tank outside the house.

Wen Jiajia had made a makeshift “refrigerator” using the water tank. The cold weather kept the ice solid, and as long as the ice didn’t melt, the meat could be preserved.

She boiled the fresh meat, chopped it into small pieces, and stir-fried it with winter bamboo shoots to make stuffing. After stir-frying, she added minced garlic. Then she poked a hole in each large tofu puff and stuffed it with the filling.

Wen Jiajia made a total of 60 soybean puffs, and the filling was just right. After stuffing all 60, the pan was empty. She had hoped to have some filling left for pancakes, but there was none, so she let it go.

After preparing the stuffed tofu, she started making fried dough twists.

Making mahua^[1]refers to a type of traditional Indian sweet or dessert. is simple, with the key being the dough.

Wen Jiajia had done this before in her previous life and would often share it with her fans, so she was quite skilled at it now.

Using all-purpose flour, she cracked a few eggs, added sugar and salt, and then poured water mixed with yeast into the flour. She kneaded it into dough and let it rise in a pot for half an hour.

Once the dough had risen, she rolled it into long strips, cut it into small pieces, twisted them into shape, and fried them in a pan.

The aroma of the frying dough was irresistible. Wen Chun and Wen Xuan, who were playing basketball next door, soon came back and hovered near the stove, sniffing eagerly.

“Aren’t you afraid of getting splashed with oil if you’re so close?” Wen Jiajia warned them.

Wen Xuan, ever the clever one, raised her chin and said, “I’m not afraid. As long as there’s no water in the oil pan, the oil won’t splash. When water gets into the oil pan, it sinks to the bottom and makes the oil splash out.”

“Wow! You know that?” Wen Jiajia was surprised. This was common knowledge that everyone would know, and even three- or four-year-old children decades later would be familiar with it.

But given that this was before the information explosion, it was surprising that Wen Xuan knew it.

Wen Xuan beamed with pride and said, “It was mentioned on the radio. Auntie, you should listen more. The grandfather on the radio said that if you learn more scientific knowledge, you won’t get hurt in the kitchen.”

Wen Jiajia understood, and because the term “kitchen” was included, she remembered it particularly well.

After frying, the dough twists were golden yellow and extremely crispy. The sweet taste bloomed in her mouth with each bite. If it weren’t for the fact that she easily got a sore throat, Wen Jiajia could have eaten more than ten in one go.

“Here, have one each,” Wen Jiajia said, pinching a twist with each hand. Wen Chun and Wen Xuan eagerly reached out to take one.

Wen Jiajia put some more food into an oil-paper bag and asked the children to deliver it to the Xie Yi brothers who lived next door.

She planned to visit Sister Bao’s house herself.

Although Sister Bao’s house appeared smaller than hers, the area was actually the same. Sister Bao’s family had built sheds on the left and right sides of the yard, which had gradually turned into wooden houses.

The logistics department had said that adding more buildings was not allowed, but since the structures were already built, there was no way they could be ordered to tear them down.

Thus, Sister Bao’s house had become a traditional courtyard style, though it could only be considered a prototype at this stage.

Families living in the bungalows in Beishan thought they had a pretty good setup, so they began adding to their houses. Now, among the families in their row, only Wen Jiajia and the Xie family still maintain the original layout of their courtyards.

Ultimately, it was because Wen Jiajia’s family was smaller. If she had five, six, or seven people like Bao Jie’s family, she would have had to expand the house, even if she didn’t want to.

“Sister Bao!” Wen Jiajia called out as she knocked on the door. She waited for Sister Bao to respond before entering the yard.

Sister Bao had a great sense of practicality. She had paved a gravel path leading directly to the doorways of the houses, and the rest of the yard was planted with commonly used vegetables like leeks and onions.

“Hey! What brings you here? I smelled something delicious coming from your house and thought you were cooking something special,” Sister Bao said with a smile, patting flour off her hands as she was kneading dough.

Wen Jiajia placed the oil-paper bag on the table and said, “I fried some dough twists for your children.”

“You’re already so considerate,” Sister Bao started to say, but Wen Jiajia interrupted.

“No matter how old you are, you still like fried dough twists. Just remember, they are very hot right after frying and can be irritating. Don’t eat too many at once.”

“Okay!” Sister Bao replied cheerfully. “I’m making steamed dumplings now. I’ll let you taste them when they’re done. What a pity we don’t have sea cucumbers here. In my hometown, dumplings are often filled with sea cucumbers. Jiajia, you’ve never had them. They taste better than meat!”

Wen Jiajia swallowed her saliva secretly, thinking that she had indeed eaten sea cucumber dumplings before. When she had traveled to the Northeast in her previous life, she had tried them and found them even better than meat after a quick bite.

“Logically, we should have access to sea cucumbers here as well,” Wen Jiajia said, “but we don’t seem to have any.”

“Yes, it’s because the sea is far away. It takes four or five hours to get there by car. I went there once when I visited my daughter. The ride was so bumpy, it felt like my organs were being shaken out of place. I nearly died in the car… After that, I had to take a boat, and it took over an hour to reach the island. No wonder my daughter asked me not to go again.”

Wen Jiajia laughed. “Can we eat as much seafood as we want on the island?”

“I don’t know about everything, but you can often find clams, oysters, and sometimes razor clams. However, there are no big crabs or lobsters. I spent about half a month there and didn’t see a crab bigger than my palm,” Sister Bao said with some disgust. It wasn’t like her hometown, where there were many things to pick up, and fish were often abundant.

As Sister Bao kneaded the dough, her technique was noticeably better than Wen Jiajia’s.

Wen Jiajia had another reason for visiting. She told Sister Bao, “Sister, you asked me to help keep an eye on job opportunities… The pharmaceutical factory isn’t recruiting workers, and there is no OEM work^[2]stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer. It refers to a company that specializes in providing original equipment manufacturing services, often focusing on specific industries or product types. available. But the chemical factory said they were hiring. I asked, and they’ll start recruiting in the spring of next year.”

The mention of the chemical plant^[3]refers to a facility where chemicals are produced, processed, or stored. made Sister Bao a little nervous, remembering the recent explosion.

“Does the chemical plant hire many people?” she asked, feeling she couldn’t miss this opportunity. The explosion had occurred in the boiler room, and she hoped the plant had learned from it and improved safety measures.

Wen Jiajia thought for a moment and shook her head. “I don’t know the exact number of hires. We won’t know until the last minute. Sister, please have Jiaming prepare himself. Read more books; you might not end up in the workshop. There’s a chance you could be assigned to the logistics department or the radio station.”

Sister Bao sighed. “It would be great if you could share more concrete information.”

Wen Jiajia wanted to say something but decided against it.

She had learned from Director Xue two days ago that the pharmaceutical factory might be collaborating with the chemical plant to open a new factory.

However, this information was uncertain. She had only seen a document on Director Xue’s desk mentioning “plans to build a factory.” No one knew when it might be completed.

Wen Jiajia couldn’t disclose such uncertain details.

Firstly, she didn’t have formal confirmation, and secondly, the potential scale was enormous. If Sister Bao leaked it, everyone in the entire family compound would likely come to her.

A new factory starting from scratch would require at least several hundred employees!

Wen Jiajia chatted for a while longer and then left.

When she got home, Wei Dai was already back and eating a fried dough twist.

“Why are you home so early today?” Wen Jiajia asked with a smile, quickening her pace.

“I finished my work a few days ago and didn’t go on any missions today. You wanted to eat yam, but I didn’t find many,” Wei Dai said, pausing before adding, “But I did bring back half a sheep. Think about how to prepare it.”

Wen Jiajia opened her mouth slightly and said in disbelief, “Wait, where did you get so much mutton?”

Did you buy it?

No, the meat coupons were all in her possession. It would be very difficult to buy half a sheep with money alone.

So, it could only have been hunted in the mountains. After a moment’s thought, Wen Jiajia deduced this possibility.

Wei Dai smiled and said, “You guessed right, it was hunted. I just got it two hours ago and killed it directly in the mountains. Feel it; it’s still warm. The remaining half has been divided up as a year-end gift. This sheep was quite large, with half of it weighing 14 kilograms, which should be enough for us.”

Wen Jiajia was astonished and slapped him on the chest. “You’re so brave! You dared to kill a sheep in the mountains? Aren’t you afraid that other animals might smell the blood and come after you?”

“What’s the big deal? I’m not afraid of wild animals, but I am wary of people,” Wei Dai admitted. He felt it was quite risky when he thought about it now. A sheep had suddenly appeared and clumsily bumped into a tree, then tripped over a pit.

It was one thing to kill the sheep, but carrying a rope and a machete made it even more questionable. If they didn’t hunted it, it would have been a waste of a rare opportunity.

Wei Dai had slaughtered the sheep rather roughly; its head was still attached, the wool was intact, and blood covered the bottom of the pelvis. Some internal organs were still hanging in the abdominal cavity, making the sight quite gruesome.

Wen Jiajia could barely look at it once, let alone a second time. It was as terrifying as it could be.

“Hey, hurry up and clean it up. Don’t let people come to our house following the smell of blood,” Wen Jiajia urged, pushing Wei Dai. After living in the army for a long time, she knew that some people had very sensitive noses.