Chapter 25: Moving the Grain

“Dad, did I make everything clear?

Don’t rush, take your time. Pork is in short supply right now, it should sell well.

Our price is low, and it’s harvest time.  If families have some money, they’ll want some meat.”

Qiao Youcai nodded. There was no turning back.

They had already earned sixty or seventy yuan selling pork, and Jiangxin had taken almost fifty yuan from Lei Honghua.

With over a hundred yuan, Qiao Youcai felt confident.

Even if they were kicked out, they wouldn’t starve with this money.

Once they sold the pork, his brother could get married. Even if Qiao Jiuwang killed him, it would be worth it.

It was better to risk it all and turn the pork into a wife for his brother than to let it become a wife for Fourth Brother at the end of the year.

Fourth Brother was lazy and didn’t deserve it. If it weren’t for him, his sister-in-law would have had a child last year.

“Jiangxin, don’t worry, I’ll do it!”

“Be careful. If you run into Lei Honghua and the others, don’t fight, just avoid them.”

Qiao Youcai instructed his daughter, carrying two baskets and his pregnant wife to the next village.

After eating four chickens in two days, he was full of energy.

If he wasn’t carrying his pregnant wife, he would have been jumping for joy.

After his parents left, Qiao Jiangxin and Qiao Youfu hurried home.

The courtyard was a mess: wet tables and chairs, blood and pig hair on the ground.

There was blood in various basins, barely any space to walk.

Qiao Jiangxin and Qiao Youfu went straight to the east room.

The Qiao family’s large tile-roofed house was old, built high, with large beams supporting the main wall.  Wooden planks formed a loft, commonly used as storage in the countryside.

The Qiao family’s granary was in the loft, above Qiao Jiuwang and Lei Honghua’s bedroom.

Normally, they had to go through Lei Honghua to get grain, as the granary was above her bed.

Qiao Jiangxin looked up. The loft was only half-floored, the other half open to the roof, with a bundle of sacks hanging in the middle.

“Uncle, are the sacks ready? You catch them below, I’ll go up,” Qiao Jiangxin said, setting up a wooden ladder.

She climbed into the loft and saw a large rectangular wooden box.

It was about 2.2 meters long, 1.8 meters wide, and 1.5 meters high.

It was locked.

Qiao Jiangxin used the cleaver to loosen the lock and remove it.

The top boards were removable.

Qiao Jiangxin took a look.  They were quite wealthy.  No wonder their granary was bigger than others’.

They had so much grain, yet they made their family eat so poorly.  They were real exploiters.

Unthreshed grain was piled in the granary, along with many tied sacks.

Qiao Jiangxin checked several sacks dried peanuts, soybeans, sweet potatoes, and corn kernels.

She went to the edge of the loft and pulled the rope holding the sacks hanging from the roof. A long tube like sack fell down.

The top opened like a long chute, flared at the top.  Pour grain in, and it flows down.

“Uncle, I’m letting the grain down,” Qiao Jiangxin called down.

Qiao Youfu quickly picked up the “grain chute” and inserted it into the sack.

“Okay!”

Qiao Jiangxin took a winnowing basket and poured grain into the chute.

The grain slid down the chute into the sacks, without spilling a single grain.

One sack was quickly filled. Qiao Youfu changed sacks and tied the full one.

They worked quickly. The grain in the warehouse visibly decreased, and the full sacks piled up.

Qiao Jiangxin was covered in dust and sweat.  She could no longer use the basket and had to use her hands.

She gave up on the remaining grain; it wasn’t worth the time.

“Uncle, that’s enough,” Qiao Jiangxin shouted, pulling up the “grain chute” and lowering a sack of peanuts.

Then came the soybeans.

Peanuts and soybeans were expensive.

Peanuts could be pressed for oil, and soybeans had many uses.

Lei Honghua kept soybeans for seeds and making tofu and soy sauce at the end of the year.  She always kept a lot.

Even during collective farming, the Qiao family made a lot of tofu, much of it deep-fried and salted, stored in jars for half a year.

Several jars of fried tofu were for Qiao Jianguo’s siblings.

They needed side dishes for school, and Lei Honghua would cut up fried tofu and mix it with other dishes for them.

They weren’t in school anymore, but the habit of making tofu remained.

The family often had soft fried tofu on the table, placed in front of Qiao Jiuwang.

Only Qiao Jiuwang, Lei Honghua, and their sons dared to eat it.  Qiao Youfu and Qiao Youcai’s family didn’t dare.

Lei Honghua would say it was for their father, that the younger generation would have plenty of opportunities to eat, but their father was old and had worked hard his whole life.

So, even if they were hungry, they didn’t dare to take any.

Qiao Jiangxin became angrier, muttering to herself.

“Damn it, we grew these soybeans, we harvested them, we even got up in the middle of the night to boil water to make tofu, but we didn’t get any!”

“Those who chase chickens and dogs, sleep all day, they’re tired of eating tofu!!!”

“Uncle, weren’t we so stupid before? That shrew Lei Honghua said a few words, and we didn’t dare to eat tofu?”

Qiao Youfu pursed his lips, his scalp itching with anger, “Weren’t we stupid? The peanut oil for the fried tofu was from the peanuts we grew and shelled. Even the firewood for making tofu was cut by us!”

“We were stupid, incredibly stupid!”