She Only Cares About Cultivation

Even in this mountain stream, it’s not common everywhere. She bent down and searched for two or three hours, probably gathering less than five jin.

A rare five jin, she didn’t plan to share it with others and intended to keep it for herself to enjoy slowly.

The stream also had a lot of small and large snails. Since she was already in the water, she tossed both kinds into a single basket to sort them out at home. The larger snails aren’t edible for humans, so she chopped them up to feed the chickens.

She also caught traces of fish in the river downstream. Back when she was by the sea, she had quite a few fishing nets and traps, but today there was an abundance of ingredients, so she decided not to bother further. She stashed two baskets of ingredients into her space, called over Nut, and strolled leisurely back home.

From afar, she spotted Liu Caixia and Li Qiuxia, who were returning from selling tofu, waving briskly at her.

Before long, Li Qiuxia came running over with a basin. She thought it was leftover tofu for her, which was convenient because she needed tofu, but unexpectedly, it was two pike perches?

"Sis, here you go. Today someone fished in the river and exchanged fish for ten jin of tofu. Their family had an event and needed a lot of tofu. I thought the fish looked nice and brought you two. We still have more. Are you coming back from the river?"

The two pike perches weren’t big, barely weighing two to three jin in total. She couldn’t tell how many fish were exchanged for ten jin of tofu. Initially, she thought of asking for some tofu, seeing as it was sold out, but decided against it. She would wait until there were leftovers next time.

"Yes, Nut needed a bath. Since it’s warm at noon, I took it to the river for a wash. You must be tired, right? Why not join me for lunch?"

"No need, sis. Don’t let us interrupt your nap. We’ll just make something simple at home. We sold out all the tofu today, got five or six jin of fish, three jin of rice, five jin of potatoes, and a big pumpkin. Not a bad haul. Haha, we’ll be heading back now!"

The sisters knew not to disturb An Yi’s nap time, as she valued her peace. They were exhausted enough themselves, so they didn’t bother with pleasantries and each went their own way.

Without tofu, she might as well eat the pike perch for lunch.

Upon returning home, she prepared the pike perch. These slippery things, although scaleless, were covered with a slick yellow protective film. She rubbed some plant ashes on her hands to scrub it down, and once that was done, she started cleaning them. After washing them thoroughly, she marinated them with scallion, ginger, and light soy sauce.

Then she sorted through the snails, separating the larger ones into one basket and the smaller ones into another. She hammered about ten of the larger snails to pieces and tossed them into the chicken coop.

The smaller snails were kept in a basin to expel sand. Afterward, they needed brushing and then marinating.

She picked quite a few, enough to fill a large basin to enjoy.

Once the pike perch was marinated, she stir-fried them with chili, soybean sauce, and scallion, ginger, garlic, and other seasonings, adding water to stew them while placing cornmeal cakes around the edge of a large iron pot. This was a classic Northeast iron pot stew, simple yet delicious. Two fish and four cakes provided a full and satisfying meal.

After eating, she quickly washed everything clean, as the meal was low-fat, making cleaning especially easy. Plant ashes served as the cleaner of the era, and they weren’t dirty at all. Collecting them for laundry was very convenient. Although she was busy, she planned to make some soap when she had time.

Every day she wore coarse linen clothes, sitting in the yard washing and scrubbing, heading to the fields with a hoe to weed, embraced by the autumn wind. She picked sesame leaves before they could harvest. After blanching and drying them, they’d become a delicious winter treat.

With harvest season arriving, clothes grew thicker, prompting her to collect firewood from the back mountain before the snow set in. In the evenings, she would mend and sew her cleaned clothes, beating the gathered cotton into a fluffy state to make thicker cotton-padded jackets and trousers for herself.

She made two sets, one with new cotton and another with old. The bed’s linens and covers were from old cotton but washed and sun-dried many times to keep clean.

From late September to mid-October, the crops in the fields of Northeast began coming home.

The sisters came to help, and over four afternoons, they brought in all the produce from two acres.

Items like corn stalks, soybean stalks, and sesame stalks, once dried, could be used as firewood.

The peanuts were harvested a month earlier, with sweet potatoes and soybeans being the last to gather, as the ground would soon freeze.

The sweet potato pulp was all carted home. The leaves and stalks were left for stir-frying and, if there were leftovers, stored in the space. The sweet potato vines were chopped and fed to the chickens.

The fertile land lay barren once crops were gathered. If they were in the Central Plains, wheat could be planted after corn was harvested. However, their winter was too cold for winter wheat, as nothing could survive temperatures below minus twenty degrees. The only ones left were those hunkering down for winter.

She harvested about a hundred jin of soybeans. The leaves were still slightly green, so she pulled them out once the seeds hardened. It would have been too late if touched lightly, and they fell to the ground.

The harvested soybeans weren’t shared with the sisters, as she intended to make soy sauce and soybean paste in the spring once they dried.

Bringing grain home didn’t signal the end. It needed further processing, like linking corn husks to stack them in the yard for drying. On clear days, the tarps covering them would be removed, while they would be covered on rainy days.

Peanuts, soybeans, sesame—all required sun-drying.

Potatoes and sweet potatoes were stored in the space for preservation, while the root cellar stored radishes and cabbages from the backyard.

By October, she hurried to handle those cabbages, making pickled cabbage, spicy cabbage, and sun-dried radish for Spicy Radish. She had many pickling jars in her space to store these vegetables. When pickling, the sisters also helped, and once done, they took away a large jar.

An Yi pickled three jars in total, giving one to the sisters and keeping two for herself: one jar of pickled cabbage and one jar of spicy cabbage.

Radish was pickled in small jars, totaling two.

Her root cellar, however, was filled with ten or so various sized jars, all prepared when vegetables were abundant in the summer.

Like sour and spicy long beans, sour cucumbers, Chili Sauce, tomato sauce, watermelon soybean sauce, and more. Additionally, there was a vat of grape wine made from wild grapes she picked and used a good deal of sugar to balance their tartness.

Li Qiuxia’s family had a persimmon tree from which she harvested many persimmons. After picking the persimmons, they were left to naturally ripen in the cellar, ready to enjoy frozen in winter, alongside frozen pears. As soon as October hit, temperatures began falling below zero, freezing things quickly.

As winter approached, people in the community started planning to find work outside. The winter in Northeast was too long to stay at home, so they began looking for odd jobs and gigs. Some even wrote introduction letters to work outside the region, though those with skills were less worried than those relying on manual labor.

Even though every family stored enough food and vegetables before winter, nobody wanted to idle away at home. Any opportunity to earn extra income sparked fierce competition. After all, from now until April of the following year—a long six months—would be spent hunkered down!