Chapter 177

The lard had the highest oil yield, followed by the suet, and then the fat meat.

Lard was also the most expensive part of the pig.

Butcher Hu didn’t expect his daughter to be so generous, even offering the lard for exchange.

He felt a bit distressed.

However, considering the food they had been eating lately—chicken, duck, fish, eggs, plus lamb and rabbit meat, with no shortage of oil—he understood his daughter’s lack of enthusiasm for pork fat.

What he couldn’t understand was why she preferred offal and bones.

These parts were either difficult to clean and had a smell or had no meat and little oil. Poor families might buy them to get some taste of meat, but with plenty of meat to eat, why would they bother?

It would be better to trade these for mushrooms, even if it meant getting fewer mushrooms in return.

Butcher Hu was busy chopping ribs with a loud thud.

Oh, right, his daughter said they should keep the ribs for themselves.

Hu Wenhua enthusiastically explained, “Yes, you can! But there’s not much lard or suet, so each household can only get about half a pound.”

The villagers were thrilled to hear they could trade and that they could get as much as half a pound.

Half a pound was a lot.

When they went to the pork stall before, they couldn’t afford even a little bit of lard or suet, let alone fatty pork.

“How is this calculated? How many pounds of mushrooms for each pound of lard?”

“If we don’t have enough mushrooms now, can we owe you and bring the rest in the coming days?”

After the notice yesterday, all the able-bodied people in their families had gone out and collected almost ten pounds of mushrooms in one day!

That could get them two to three pounds of pork.

But if they wanted to trade for lard too, it wouldn’t be enough. With the hot weather, they couldn’t store the meat for long, and by the time they collected more mushrooms, the meat might have spoiled.

Shuiqing came out to check on the pig and heard the conversation. She smiled and said, “Sure, you can bring the mushrooms anytime. We still have several pigs. If you want to trade, just bring the mushrooms over;

I’ll keep track of the amounts, and each time we slaughter a pig, you can exchange it for pork. How does that sound?”

“Great!” the women around her exclaimed eagerly.

They thought Shuiqing was extremely generous.

Of course it was great!

It was pork, fatty and full of oil.

Mushrooms were delicious and made the soup tasty, but nothing compared to pork.

Plus, mushrooms were free and easy to gather. After the rain, they were everywhere, and it only took time to collect them.

With the roads blocked by the flood, they had plenty of time.

Shuiqing needed manpower the most!

Chickens of the Chicken of the Woods mushroom could sell for almost two hundred per pound in the city, even the less desirable ones could fetch one hundred sixty to one hundred seventy per pound. A pound of mushrooms could buy a lot of pork, especially since the cheapest thing in the market was lard!

In Shanshui Village, it took four pounds of mushrooms to trade for one pound of fatty meat. How could she not be eager?

The Chicken of the Woods mushrooms were available for only a few months a year, and they were most abundant after the rain. She had to seize the opportunity to collect and make money!

Thinking of this, she added, “If you don’t want pork, you can trade for eggs. We have more eggs than we can eat.

Two pounds of mushrooms for one pound of eggs. If you want to trade, I can register it.”

Hu Wenhua thought his sister was really quick-witted!

Now they collected over a hundred eggs a day from their chickens. With thirteen people in the house, they ate fifty eggs at most. His mother said they already had several baskets of eggs!

With the hot weather, eggs didn’t keep well. Selling them wasn’t very convenient either. Trading for mushrooms was a good idea.

Shuiqing was thinking that with over a hundred chickens laying eggs, they could get over two hundred eggs a day. If they didn’t have enough mushrooms to trade, they could always collect more eggs.

After all, you couldn’t fake pork, but you could fake eggs.

Faking eggs was much easier than faking pork!

“Trade! Shuiqing, where do we register?”

“Just bring them over each day. Does that work?”

The women who had been surrounding the pork table all turned to Shuiqing, asking eagerly.

A few days ago, during the heavy flooding, their biggest worry was not the crops in the fields but the mushrooms they had collected, which they could no longer trade for rice.

With the roads blocked by floods, transportation was impossible, let alone bringing rice back.

Last year, with favorable weather, the Bai family was willing to trade rice for mushrooms with Shuiqing’s family. This year, with potential crop failures and rising grain prices, who would still be willing to trade food?

Shuiqing, being grateful and considerate, intended to trade mushrooms for rice to store for the Bai family, which also benefited the villagers.

Shuiqing welcomed everyone and pointed towards the courtyard, “Register with Yan Qiu.”

Neither Xing Hui nor Da Jiang were meticulous enough for this task.

Fan He’s calligraphy was too sloppy, and Fanhu was too young. Yanqiu was careful and steady, making him the best choice for record-keeping.

Yan Qiu had already set up the ink and brush in the courtyard, initially for registering pork trades, but now he would also register egg trades.

Zhaodi had been informed in advance to stay inside Yan Qiu’s room due to the increased traffic in the household over the next two days. Last time her biological father, Fan Qian, came to transport lime, he insisted she stay in bed to recover and didn’t even ask her a single question, clearly fearing she would consume their food and need care.

This was actually beneficial, as Zhaodi was eager to learn. In another two or three months, she would be more literate and skilled in cooking, both valuable for her future survival.

The women, eager not to miss out, rushed to the courtyard, wanting to register early to get their pork and later, the eggs.

Meanwhile, Shuiqing instructed Hu Wenhua to move the ribs, intestines, kidneys, pig head, and solidified blood inside, as she was preparing lunch.

Hu Wenhua worked diligently, not only moving everything but also starting to clean them without being told.

Such initiative!

Shuiqing thought: The power of love is truly remarkable.

Nearby, Granny Xu, standing by Yan Qiu, marveled, “I used to think only boys could read and write. Who knew girls could write so well!”

A young woman teased, “Granny Xu, you can’t read. How do you know it’s well-written?”

Granny Xu snorted, “I may not read, but I can see! Look how steady her hand is holding that brush! Just like we hold needles. But holding a brush looks much better than holding needles!”

The other women nodded in agreement.

The villagers held a natural reverence for reading and writing, always believing that literate people were knowledgeable and capable.

Previously, they thought only boys could study. Now, seeing Yan Qiu write so well with a brush, they realized that girls could also be literate.

Families with literate members were different, with children also learning to read and write.

In the past, Hu Shuiqing hadn’t let her eldest and second daughters study, but perhaps it wasn’t that she didn’t want to—it was that she couldn’t.

After the family split, her daughters not only changed their names but also started learning to read and write.

With no one oppressing them, it’s no wonder their lives kept getting better.