Chapter 179

Ding Heli and Qin Yilin had already been introduced to everyone by Fan Jin.

Hu Wenhua was Shuiqing’s younger brother, which they knew.

Bai Ziqian and Ling Ran were guests.

Bai Ziqian looked youthful, but it was clear he was older than Fan Jiang, with the appearance of a wealthy young master.

As for Ling Ran, he looked even older. This young man was calm and composed, with an air of nobility.

Neither of these boys came from ordinary families!

In other households, parents might hope for their daughters to marry into prestigious families, but Ding Heli and Qin Yilin shunned the idea.

Prestigious families came with their own troubles. They knew their daughter, Jiajia, wasn’t the type to engage in scheming; she would likely suffer in such an environment.

Moreover, their own status was not something they could openly reveal, offering no support or backing.

Their gaze then shifted back to the exceptionally strong and robust Hu Wenhua.

Ding Heli: ….. He doesn’t seem to be someone who could offer much backing either.

Qin Yilin: ….. It’s good to have a strong build, but it seemed neither he nor Jiajia were interested in each other.

While arranged marriages sometimes worked out, wouldn’t it be better to choose someone they liked? It would save them from many troubles, and the young couple could live a harmonious life.

Especially since they had met twice already, forcing it wouldn’t be right.

Ding Heli felt a bit troubled.

Qin Yilin also felt a bit worried.

Butcher Hu, on the other hand, was not worried at all. He enthusiastically called out, “Come, eat while it’s hot! The taste won’t be as good once it cools.”

Hu Butcher looked at Ding Heli’s thin frame and thought that the village doctor didn’t eat as well as he, a butcher.

He kept picking dishes for Ding Heli using clean chopsticks, as per his daughter’s rules.

Mother Hu was also using clean chopsticks to serve Jiajia.

She should have been serving Qin Yilin, but seeing the plump Qin Yilin and the shy, slender Ding Jiajia, her heart immediately leaned toward the latter.

“Jiajia, don’t just eat vegetables; you need to eat meat to gain some weight! Look at Wenhua.”

She placed a piece of soft, tender braised pork trotter into Jiajia’s bowl. Jiajia looked up to see Mother Hu’s loving eyes, smiled back, and began to eat in small bites.

It wasn’t smelly or greasy, tender yet not fatty, and it was so soft it fell off the bone easily.

Jiajia had never eaten such delicious pork trotters before, her eyes sparkling with delight.

Seeing that the girl liked it, Mother Hu was overjoyed and kept piling food into her bowl, fearing she might be too shy to help herself. Soon, Jiajia’s bowl was piled high like a small mountain.

On the other side, Ding Heli’s bowl was also piled high, while Qin Yilin was busy picking her own food, eating heartily.

The braised pork trotters were a glossy red, flavorful and delicious, so good that they wanted to pour the sauce over their rice!

The salted duck eggs were tender and fragrant, with sandy, rich yolks—truly excellent salted eggs!

The braised intestines were savory and flavorful, the braised pig ears were smooth and crunchy, and the braised duck wings, feet, and neck had a unique taste when gnawed on…

They found everything delicious and didn’t know what to eat first.

Midway through their meal, they remembered their precious daughter. Looking up, they saw Jiajia’s bowl was equally piled high, with Mother Hu still adding more food.

Their hearts felt warm, more so than if the food had been served to them.

Qin Yilin fished out a snow-white chunk from the ribs and paused as she tasted it.

She looked at the others, seeing their natural expressions, and quietly swallowed.

Maybe they didn’t know this was a type of medicinal herb. But could it really be found in Shanshui Village…

That day, the lunch in Shanshui Village was exceptionally lively.

Everyone, both children and adults, eagerly awaited lunch, so much so that even while foraging for mushrooms, their thoughts were elsewhere, hoping for their family members to call them home for lunch.

Whoever got called first earned envious looks from the others.

This was true even at the old village chief’s house.

Wang Guifen was in charge of making lunch. Apart from her, her father-in-law, and a few young children, everyone over the age of eight was out foraging for mushrooms!

Unlike when they traded for rice, this time the children were particularly enthusiastic because they were exchanging for meat and eggs.

When they traded for rice, it wasn’t for them to eat. The rice was usually exchanged for coarse flour and salt or sold for money. But meat and eggs were definitely going to end up in their bellies!

Wang Guifen first rendered half a pound of pork fat into lard, scooping the clear lard into an oil canister to cool and solidify into white lard.

The cracklings were sealed in another ceramic jar.

Pork cracklings keep well and can be eaten carefully over the next few days.

Next, she fried the fatty pork to extract more oil, which she continued to store in the oil canister, saving it for lean times when the oil supply ran low.

She then tossed the fried fatty pork into a pot with chopped potatoes, stirring them together before adding boiling water to make a stew.

Half of the lean pork was sliced thin and stir-fried with green peppers, making a large plate of pork and green pepper stir-fry.

The other half was sliced and stir-fried with soaked dried shiitake mushrooms.

She made a refreshing and appetizing cold dish with wood ear mushrooms – plentiful in the mountainous and forested area.

Finally, she took out three eggs, added two more, and made a large bowl of loofah and egg soup.

This meal was almost as good as a New Year’s feast. They hadn’t even splurged on three pounds of pork for New Year’s!

Wang Guifen was very satisfied with the meal she had prepared.

Her husband, brother-in-law, and sisters-in-law, who returned from foraging mushrooms, were also very satisfied.

The children gathered around the table, their eyes wide with excitement.

“Sis-in-law, did you cook everything?” Li Wu asked, swallowing his saliva, stunned by the sight.

So much meat, with every dish containing it. It tasted delicious, but he wanted to have enough to last for several meals.

Zhang Hui and Zhao Lan weren’t worried. They both could cook and could tell at a glance that not all the meat had been used up.

Then they heard their sister-in-law laugh and say, “This is just mixed with meat. We didn’t use all three pounds. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of meat for lunch and dinner today.

And not just today, but tomorrow as well!”

The lean meat was soaking in the well water, ensuring it wouldn’t spoil by tomorrow. They also had pork cracklings to eat the day after tomorrow, and lard to cook with in the future.

Thinking about it, just one day of foraging for mushrooms resulted in several days of eating meat! It was a great deal.

“Wow, there’s meat tomorrow too!” Li Qiang murmured.

Li Wen, being the oldest, was more mature and calculated, “Considering this year’s floods, our family hasn’t suffered much.”

Li Wu immediately chimed in, “Exactly! Dad reminded us to stock up on firewood. Despite the heavy rain and everything being damp now, we’re not worried;

The crops in the fields are likely lost, but we harvested nearly 20,000 pounds of potatoes from our ten or so acres, enough to feed the family until next year with plenty to spare. With enough food, we feel secure.”

“More than that, Shuiqing sent us five or six pounds of mutton during the heavy rains. You three brothers, despite digging ditches and building embankments, had enough sustenance!

And now, we get to eat meat consecutively. In the past, we couldn’t even dream of such days,” Wang Guifen remarked with a happy sigh.

Not just Wang Guifen, but everyone in the village felt the same way.

At this moment in Shanshui Village, except for a few households, the aroma of meat wafted from every home’s kitchen.