She Only Cares About Cultivation

Did Qiuxia really want to give in? Her hatred for her own family is no less than Caihua’s, isn’t she afraid of affecting An Yi?

"The way they’re banging on the door, do they want to tear our house down? Let me go tell them to shut their filthy mouths, what kind of nonsense is this, don’t sully my An’an’s ears!"

Caihua, furious, stood up to confront the people outside, but An Yi grabbed her.

"Why bother with their howling? It’s so cold, if they want to stand outside, let them, as long as they don’t break in, just ignore them. If they really do break the door, I’ll definitely make them pay. In winter, even the sturdiest doors are fragile, just wait and see, no need to bother with them. Instead, let’s make more taro balls, come, I’ll teach you!"

During the New Year, we need to fry balls, tofu, rice cakes, lotus, and also steam buns, sticky bean buns, make dumplings. With so many things to do, who has time to entertain those people?

"This year, I pressed peanut oil, canola oil, sesame oil, the leftover sesame oil we’ll make into sesame paste, save the canola cake and peanut cake to put into our porridge, to add some flavor; it’s too wasteful to throw it away. I’ve saved the soybeans to make tofu for us to eat."

Our homegrown peanuts, canola, and such aren’t enough for oil pressing, so I mixed them with the ones from the space, dried and sun-dried them, and when I went to the Provincial City, I found a place to press them. It’s less conspicuous than going to the village workshop, where everyone knows everyone, and the gossip never ends when they see you press so much oil. I don’t give them that chance.

The yellow rice and sticky rice for the sticky bean buns are ground from space-grown crops, with full stickiness and aroma, no additives. It looks just like what future generations make, but in this era, who dares to make refined grains like this? Even though our family makes them, it’s only about a hundred or so because these small things are filling. Inside is a mix of beans grown in the space, processed and mixed with sugar, tasting excellent.

If we really open the door to those people, we’ll have to clean everything up, how troublesome, so we absolutely can’t open the door.

Starting from the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, the sisters kept the doors closed, only going out in the mornings to sweep the snow and then immediately closing the big door.

This year An Yi has already said she won’t write Spring Festival couplets, still holding a grudge from last year. She doesn’t feel like doing such thankless tasks again.

She’d rather lie on the couch and play with her precious An’an. Isn’t that more enjoyable?

"This year, we’ve fried a lot of good stuff, so during the New Year, let’s make it easy and just eat stews, a big pot of mix,"

Qiuxia and her sister gave a nonchalant look: "We’ll eat anything as long as it fills us, even if it’s just pot washings with a bit of oil. At home, we only eat plain meals, hardly any oil. Our stomachs are used to rough food, everything tastes good here with you, sister."

This year we made a total of three types of dumpling fillings: pork and scallion, pork and sauerkraut, and a three-delicacy flavor. The so-called three-delicacy has minced shrimp, pork, and egg, this is the most traditional three-delicacy filling, mainly for An’an, so the amount isn’t much.

Besides, she also made a lot of fish balls, shrimp paste, crab eggs with the fish from the space. When making porridge for An’an, she could add a bit, a traditional seafood porridge.

The fish bones, shrimp heads, and crab shells left after removing the fish meat are saved for stews. Whatever can be eaten is eaten by the three of them, except for what’s truly inedible.

In these times of eating chaff and skins, these things are premium nutrients, even if they’re thrown away by future generations, she never thought to discard them—she just eats a little less of it herself, mostly it goes into the sisters’ stomachs.

In such a resource-scarce era, she can’t bring herself to let them eat until they’re full, so they only eat what An’an has left, just to get some nutrition.

On the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month, after putting up the Spring Festival couplets, An Yi took the child to give New Year gifts to the captain, secretary, and accountant that evening. Previously for the captain, she gave wine and desserts; this time, she gave six apples. The secretary had the same standard: wine, desserts, apples. For the accountant, it was simple: two packs of desserts and a bag of melon seeds.

These were key figures in the village. When talking to them, she also mentioned Qiuxia and Caihua, hoping they’d take good care of them too.