Chapter 51

After a night of sound sleep, the next day before dawn, the rooster in the backyard diligently began its morning service by crowing.

Sang Lou got up in the dark and went into the kitchen. She lit a fire with a matchstick, boiling water while using the light from the fire to process the last batch of solidified fairy tofu. As she sliced it all, she scooped out two large bowls of the smaller pieces.

When the water in the pot boiled, Sang Lou reduced the heat and scooped out all the water. Once the bottom of the pot was dry, she added a spoonful of lard and tossed in a bowl of leftover tofu residue from last night’s tofu-making. After a few stirs, she added freshly boiled, hot water and let it simmer.

While waiting, she chopped up some wild onions that were left on the table from last night. After the tofu residue in the pot had boiled for a while, confirming it was fully cooked, she seasoned it with salt and soy sauce. Finally, she sprinkled some chopped green onions on top and served it in large soup bowls.

After rinsing the clay pot with hot water, she stir-fried another bowl of fairy tofu residue. This was breakfast for three.

In fact, with limited ingredients at home, using tofu residue to make pancakes would have been the best breakfast option.

Shen Ning rubbed her eyes as she entered, seeing the large soup bowls on the table. She stared at them for a while before reacting, “Sister-in-law, is this the leftover tofu residue from last night’s tofu-making?”

Sang Lou smiled and said, “Yes, we’ll have this and fairy tofu for breakfast. Let’s freshen up and then eat.”

Shen Ning was surprised. So, this was edible too. But it made sense; soybeans themselves were edible, so why not the residue?

Seeing that breakfast was ready, she went to wash up. When the siblings arrived, Sang Lou was using the steamer to steam the remaining tofu residue. Seeing them, she invited them to eat while explaining, “Tofu residue is nutritious and tastes good, but don’t eat too much. One important thing to note is that it must be cooked thoroughly and boiled for a while before eating. Otherwise, it’s easy to get stomachaches, or worse, food poisoning.”

Seeing the two siblings looking a bit startled, she reassured them, “Don’t worry, when it’s thoroughly cooked, it’s safe. I’ve steamed the leftovers from today. You can stir-fry them with a little oil for lunch, then add water and seasoning to make a dish. You can also feed some to the chickens, but it must be cooked, not raw. Mix it with the same ratio of wild vegetables, millet, and bran as yesterday when feeding the chickens. For chicken feed, nine parts other ingredients and one part cooked tofu residue are enough. Don’t give them too much.”

Shen Ning’s eyes lit up, “This can be fed to the chickens?”

She seemed happier about this than about the food being edible for humans.

“Sister-in-law, can we raise more chickens then?”

Raising chickens mainly consumed bran and grains. If this tofu residue could replace some bran, they could raise more chickens since wild vegetables and millet were free.

Sang Lou thought about it and agreed.

“Okay, it seems fine. It might be difficult to buy in the village, but I’ll keep an eye out. I’ll also buy a few ducks and geese later, as they can eat this too.”

If they raised more, and if bran wasn’t enough, they could just buy more bran.

After eating breakfast in the dark, Sang Lou instructed that the ducklings should still be fed with partially cooked rice for a few more days and to make sure they were given plenty of clean water. Chen Youtian and Qin Fangniang also arrived at the Shen family’s courtyard.

While selecting items, Chen Youtian first noticed the square wooden frames Sang Lou had asked him to make originally. Today, they were also being taken to the county seat, and it was obvious there was something inside.

Seeing him eyeing them, Sang Lou laughed, “I bought a stone mill to make food. There’s not much today, so I’ll sell it myself. When you two come to my house for a meal tomorrow, I’ll make some for you to try. If you’re willing to sell it, just come to me for supplies after the busy farming season.”

Chen Youtian hadn’t said anything yet, but Qin Fangniang’s eyes were already shining brightly. “Did you come up with a new dish? Can I have a look?”

“What’s the harm in that?” Sang Lou said, then lifted the lid of a board covering a tofu container and peeled back the tofu cloth to show them.

The sky was still very dark, but once their eyes adjusted to the brightness, they could see things, albeit not very clearly. “It looks very similar to fairy tofu, just a different color. We haven’t seen anything like this around here.”

Whether it existed or not was hard to say. In the original owner’s memory, this thing existed during the Great Qian Dynasty, but the method of making it seemed to have been held by certain prestigious families. When their status reached a certain level, they weren’t after profits but rather uniqueness. Even though this so-called uniqueness wasn’t unique at all, the main housewives of befriended prestigious families would exchange some recipes, but this was limited to their circle.

What did common people eat?

Well, what did that have to do with them?

The reason why prestigious families were prestigious was because they held many resources and legacies that others didn’t, such as books, antiques, artworks, and various recipes.

For girls from prestigious families, a significant part of their dowry when getting married consisted of these kinds of things, which were often valued more highly than gold, silver, or precious stones.

Of course, Sang Lou was just thinking about it. She smiled and responded to Qin Fangniang, “It does look similar, but the texture is different. Auntie, try it tomorrow. This is even tastier than fairy tofu when cooked as a dish. If we were to sell it, this should sell even better than fairy tofu.”

Qin Fangniang was excited. To be honest, after running a stall for about ten days, their family had saved up four strings of coins, which was something they hadn’t even dared to dream of before. In less than half a month, they earned four strings of coins. If they ran the stall for another half a month, wouldn’t they have over twelve hundred wen?

That could be directly exchanged for one or two silvers.

Previously, she had faintly worried whether the ingredients for fairy tofu would be seasonal. Now that there was something else to follow up with, how could Qin Fangniang not be excited? She smiled so much that fine lines appeared at the corners of her eyes. “Sell it? Definitely, I’ll definitely sell it. Tomorrow, I’ll try it.”

Thinking of this, she realized something. Tomorrow wasn’t when they were invited as guests, so was Alie’s wife planning to let the Shi family and Lu family know about tofu?

Was it just to treat them with this food, or also to let them know she made it?

This thought only briefly crossed her mind before Qin Fangniang pushed it aside. Whether to let them know or not was Sang Lou’s business. Even if the Shi family and Lu family found out and had the idea to sell it, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for Sang Lou to agree. This was Sang Lou’s livelihood, and being able to give her a share was already a favor to their family.

The group descended the mountain in the dark, loaded the cart, and set off.

…

County town, West Market.

The sale of sour jujube cakes had been warmed up from yesterday, and today there were quite a few returning customers. It seemed that the women and children at home all liked them. Many people bought them, and as for tofu, with fairy tofu being introduced first, many people found this new item intriguing. After hearing Sang Lou’s various cooking methods, most of them made purchases.

In comparison, it was actually fairy tofu that was affected by tofu. Some people bought both, while others, who lived frugally, chose one or the other. Naturally, they opted for the one they hadn’t tried before, so fairy tofu sold slightly slower than usual.

Fortunately, there were only three boards of tofu, totaling only forty-eight pieces. They were almost sold out in half an hour at the morning market, and sales of fairy tofu then picked up speed.

By noon, everything they had brought was sold out. Sang Lou tidied up, paid the taxes, and then wandered around the West Market, counting the money in her hand. She bought a live chicken and a live duck, fearing that she wouldn’t have enough money later when buying a kitchen knife. She didn’t dare to buy anything else, so she waited at the gate of the West Market for Qin Fangniang to come and pick her up.

This was because she was selling so many things now that it was almost impossible to transport them all to the East Market to meet Qin Fangniang after selling out. They had agreed early in the morning to meet at the gate of the West Market today.

Sang Lou sat on a stone platform at the gate of the West Market. After waiting for about a quarter of an hour, Qin Fangniang arrived with her cart. Seeing Sang Lou from afar, Qin Fangniang quickened her pace with the cart.

After meeting up, Qin Fangniang saw that Sang Lou had bought a chicken and a duck. Looking at how fat they were, she calculated in her heart that it would cost at least one hundred and twenty cents.

She marveled inwardly, realizing that tomorrow’s feast would be quite profitable.

It should be noted that because of this year’s early collection of taxes for a whole year due to war, ordinary farmers in the entire county, except for those with a solid financial background like the Zhou family, had been living frugally for the past half year or so. Even if there were joyous occasions, they couldn’t afford such extravagance.

As she thought about this, Qin Fangniang helped Sang Lou load the items onto the cart and asked, “Do you need anything else today?”

Sang Lou replied, “I need to buy a kitchen knife. I’m afraid I won’t have enough money. Just now at the West Market, besides this chicken and duck, I didn’t dare to buy anything else.”

Upon hearing this, Qin Fangniang thought for a moment and said, “It’ll cost around three or four hundred cents, right? Over these years of war, anything made of iron is expensive. But that’s just an estimate. The kitchen knife we use at home is still the iron one brought from our hometown during the famine years.”

After saying this, she took out her money pouch from her pocket and said, “This is the money from selling tofu today. You count it.”

Having been in this business for a long time, she had a clear idea of her own accounts. Usually, she kept her share in her sleeve pocket, and after doing business, she just put all the money that should be given to Sang Lou into the money pouch, so there was no need to count it all over again after working hard.

Sang Lou took it and counted it briefly. Since they were standing on the street, leisurely counting copper coins might attract the attention of petty thieves. So Sang Lou stuffed the money pouch into her bosom and said, “This should be enough. Let’s go buy the kitchen knife. I’ll return the money pouch to you after I finish shopping.”

The money pouch would be empty after shopping.

Qin Fangniang found this amusing and also felt for Sang Lou’s struggles. Clearly, Sang Lou earned more money than her, but after all these days, she still couldn’t save anything.

At the ironmonger’s, Sang Lou inquired about the price and found that the finished products were even more expensive than Qin Fangniang had estimated, costing three hundred and eighty-five cents.

Sang Lou emptied Qin Fangniang’s money pouch directly and then began searching her own sleeve pockets. Finally, she took out her own money pouch. Ah… using copper coins was truly inconvenient. This stuff took up too much space and was too heavy. How many pockets did she have to dig into just to buy a kitchen knife?

It was truly embarrassing and amusing.

So, they say “rolling in wealth” is just a saying. Even if you wanted to roll in wealth, trying to wrap yourself in wealth like a coil around your head, you might not succeed in wrapping up all that wealth.

After emptying several pockets, she exchanged it for a kitchen knife. Sang Lou sighed at the high prices of goods and the inconvenience of using coins. After counting, she found she had thirty-eight cents left. She couldn’t walk away empty-handed. She carefully stored the kitchen knife and went with Qin Fangniang to the grain store.

Their targets? Flour and soybeans.

There was no need to explain soybeans. She had to make tofu tonight and sell it tomorrow to earn some money for buying meat and eggs. As for flour, after making tofu, there would be fresh tofu residue at home. She had thought of making tofu residue cakes and tofu residue balls for breakfast today, but the family was so poor that they couldn’t afford the ingredients, apart from a little rice.

Now that there was some money left, she could buy some flour today and earn more money tomorrow to buy some eggs. Not only would this satisfy her cravings, but it would also provide a dessert and a main dish for entertaining guests.

She happily praised herself in her heart for being clever enough to manage her life.

After carefully calculating the amount needed, she used the remaining money to buy some condiments like star anise and cinnamon at the drugstore.

That’s right, you can only buy these kinds of condiments at the drugstore now. Although their function as seasoning was not well known, it wasn’t unheard of. There were probably more people like Sang Lou, so it wasn’t surprising to see her buy them from the drugstore. The young attendants in the drugstore probably knew a bit about it. Seeing Sang Lou order several types of spices, they probably guessed she was buying them for cooking.

For Sang Lou, it was nothing unusual to buy things in the pharmacy. It was quite normal to spend a few cents in the pharmacy.

With a mix of odds and ends, Sang Lou emptied the last few coins from her money pouch.

But at least she had the condiments now.