Chapter 49: Spicy Cabbage Soup

She picked up another chestnut; it tasted sweet and glutinous in her mouth, the flavors of the chestnut and chicken fully integrated—the taste was superb.

"So guud, so guud." Xie Yuanyuan didn't care about her image at all, her speech becoming unclear; it seemed there was no one here she needed to impress.

"I'll bring my chestnuts over to you in a bit," Zhang Qian said, settling the matter.

An Yinan twitched the corner of her mouth, speechless—was this the start of someone trying to sponge off her?

Seeing the interaction between the few of them, Li Xiue smiled to herself; such unreserved joking was truly wonderful.

An Yinan quite liked Li Xiue's character; if they were in ancient times, she would certainly be a refined young lady, well-educated from childhood, a person gentle from the inside out—this temperament was rare.

She even had the urge to design a set of ancient-style clothing for Li Xiue every time she saw her.

Inspiration came from people; she had already put pen to paper a few times without hesitation, hoping for a chance to let Li Xiue wear them in the future.

The group ate very happily, and Xie Yuanyuan and Li Xiue quickly tidied up; originally, it was three people going to the backyard to clear the garden, but now it had turned into four.

Li Xiue felt truly embarrassed to have eaten so much meat after only cooking one meal, so she came to help.

Zhang Qian and An Yinan swung their pickaxes, loosening the hard soil, while Li Xiue and Xie Yuanyuan divided up the small garden; the four of them worked in great harmony.

"Educated Youth An..." Before Li Xiue could finish, Xie Yuanyuan straightened up, leaning on her iron shovel and knocking on her lower back.

"Li Xiu'e, don't call her Educated Youth An anymore, just call her Nan Nan; always 'Educated Youth' this and 'Educated Youth' that, I still haven't gotten used to it even now." Xie Yuanyuan felt a bit uncomfortable; she always called people by their names directly and rarely heard her being called 'Educated Youth' unless she had to keep a great distance from that person.

Li Xiue also straightened up and looked at An Yinan.

An Yinan nodded, "Call me Yinan or Nan Nan; I'm getting used to it too."

Li Xiue smiled and didn't dwell on it, "Then, just like Xie Yuanyuan, I'll call you Nan Nan."

"Li Xiu'e, you're wrong again; if you call her Nan Nan, how can you not call me Yuanyuan?" Xie Yuanyuan pointed at her own round face, making everyone burst into laughter.

The people in the Educated Youth Courtyard heard the laughter from the back, but since the location was behind An Yinan's room, although everyone was curious, they acted as if they hadn't heard anything.

It wasn't that they didn't want to investigate, but after the example of Zhao Jiang flying out last time, they didn't want to become human projectiles.

"Alright, Yuanyuan," Li Xiue replied as if coaxing a child.

The four of them had high efficiency; originally thinking they would need to work for half a day tomorrow, they pushed through today and actually finished cleaning everything up by the time the sky was turning dark.

"We can dig and loosen the soil again next spring, and then we can plant vegetables," An Yinan said, looking at the vegetable garden with satisfaction.

Li Xiue looked at the forty small vegetable plots, "Planting vegetables in all of them? Can we finish eating them?"

Forty of them... their collective vegetable garden only had twenty, and no one was even willing to plant those.

"We won't finish them, but we can dry some vegetable preserves and mail some to my godmother; vegetables are hard to buy in the City," An Yinan calculated the quantity, and she also had to look after the Cowshed.

Educated Youths were allowed to start their own vegetable gardens as long as they told the Captain, but the people in the Cowshed couldn't; all their vegetables were wild greens, which was probably why Xiao Yunshen knew his mushrooms and wild greens.

She could also dry more vegetable preserves so that when winter came, they would have vegetables to eat instead of just cabbage and pickled cabbage.

"By the way, I'll make spicy cabbage soup tonight; it's delicious," An Yinan remembered her spicy cabbage was ready to eat, and the kimchi should be ready too.

She had bought two hundred jin of cabbage from Uncle Xie Er's house, along with some chili peppers and long beans, and made all two hundred jin of cabbage into spicy cabbage.

The white radishes, chili peppers, and long beans had all been made into kimchi.

"No, I won't eat here tonight; I'll go back to the Educated Youth Dormitory to eat," Li Xiue hurriedly refused; she had eaten a full meal at noon and could still taste the chicken in her mouth.

"Don't be so formal with me; I'm just making simple spicy cabbage soup tonight, heating up some Steamed Buns and meat buns, and stir-frying a plate of kimchi," An Yinan thought of her kimchi, and her mouth began to water; she really wanted to eat it.

Everyone was very tired; upon returning to the courtyard and putting the tools back in the collective tool shed, Xie Yuanyuan said she was going back to her room to boil water, but An Xiangbei said, "I took the key and boiled a pot of water in Sister Yuanyuan's room, and we boiled a pot in our room too; you guys go ahead and wash up."

"Beibei is so sensible," Xie Yuanyuan's eyes sparkled; she had intended to boil the water, and among the group, she felt Li Xiu'e was an outsider, and of the three of them, she had done the least work but eaten the most, so she naturally wanted to do more.

Unexpectedly, the sensible Beibei had already boiled the water; she took out the porcelain basin from her room, mixed in warm water, and placed it on a stool, telling An Yinan to wash quickly.

An Yinan didn't stand on ceremony; she had to cook after washing, so she took her towel, wiped the dust off her face and neck in a few swipes, washed her hands, poured out the water in the basin, and handed it to Xie Yuanyuan.

Over there, An Xiangbei also carried water and handed it to Zhang Qian.

After washing up, An Yinan went to her small jar and dug out half a head of spicy cabbage, chopped it up, and set aside some chopped green onion, ginger, and garlic.

Thinking there were no Golden Needles, she went to the shelf, took the remaining fresh mushrooms to the kitchen, blanched them in the hot water, and then tore them into small pieces.

She took a block of tofu—this tofu wasn't from her space, but something she had Beibei trade for in the village that afternoon—and cut it into cubes.

She scooped the water out of the pot into the porcelain basin, added a piece of firewood, put a tiny bit of oil in the pot, then added the green onion, ginger, garlic, and chili peppers to sauté until fragrant, stir-frying until the spicy cabbage turned pale, then added hot water and brought it to a boil.

In the boiling pot, she added the tofu cubes and the blanched mushrooms, simmering on low heat until the tofu puffed up, then took it off the heat.

The flavor of the chili peppers merged with the tofu and mushrooms; although there was no meat and very little oil, the fragrance still drifted far away.

While the soup was boiling, she had already heated up eight Steamed Buns and ten meat buns; after living together for nearly half a year, she had a preliminary estimate of everyone's appetite.

"Time to eat," An Yinan called out, and the few people sitting in the courtyard hurriedly moved their stools into the room.

Xie Yuanyuan even went back to her room to get a few bowls so that one bowl could hold the soup and the other could hold the rice.

An Yinan went to another small jar and scooped out a plate of kimchi; the color was a bit grayish, but it wafted a sour scent.

"Alright, the meal is a bit simple, everyone just make do," the five of them gathered around the small dining table; it wasn't very big, and with so many people, it was slightly crowded.