Chapter 100: Rural Absurd Past Events Chapter 100

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Protagonist:

Li Xiulan

Time rushed by, and in the blink of an eye it was winter vacation.

The final exam results came out.

Wang Dashan, unsurprisingly, scored dead last in the whole class.

Wang Erhai, on the other hand, got middling grades.

Those two guys, the moment winter vacation started they went wild playing, not caring about grades at all, and not doing their winter homework either.

Li Xiulan urged them several times not to leave their winter homework until right before school started, otherwise they'd be the ones crying then, but they just wouldn't listen.

Day after day, they'd either go flick glass marbles, or go into the mountain gully to catch yellow eels, or go up the mountain to pick wild fruits, go to the fields to bake sweet potato kilns, catch field mice.

They just knew how to run wild, like little savages.

Li Xiulan couldn't manage that much, and couldn't be bothered to waste her breath, so she just let them go.

Rural children, their childhoods are almost all spent playing like this.

As long as the kids can grow up healthy, that's already pretty good; she didn't dare hope for too much else.

Time flew and it was almost Spring Festival.

Today is the twenty-third of the twelfth lunar month, Little New Year; every household is making fried sugar rings and fried dumplings.

The custom here is like this: sugar rings and dumplings are essential New Year goods for every household.

Sugar rings are those coiled into a wreath shape, fried fragrant and crisp, a kind of snack.

The dumplings are fried, filled with peanut sugar filling, different from northern dumplings; this is also a kind of New Year snack, and after frying they can be stored a long time, until next spring they can still be taken out and eaten, still not expired, not spoiled.

Li Xiulan planned to make more sugar rings and dumplings this year, because the family had no money and couldn't afford too many New Year goods; sugar rings and dumplings could serve as snacks for the kids, so they wouldn't be so greedy during the New Year.

This morning, Li Xiulan brought the glutinous rice and sticky rice she had soaked in advance early on, and came to Shanggou Village's rice milling house to mill rice flour.

The milling machine chugged away, sounding about the same as a tractor.

There were already many villagers lined up to mill flour.

Li Xiulan chatted idly with the villagers amid the noise.

Li Yunxia from the Village Entrance Convenience Store was also lining up.

Li Xiulan saw a few yellow gardenias placed on top of Li Xiulan's rice, and only then discovered she herself had forgotten an important ingredient.

For sugar ring rice flour, it's best to add yellow gardenia; that way the fried sugar rings come out both yellow and crisp.

Li Yunxia discovered Li Xiulan had no yellow gardenia, and very warmly gave her a few.

She also said:

"Sister-in-law Xiulan, how about I come help you make them today? Two people together is faster; tomorrow you come to my place to help me, what do you think?"

Li Xiulan hurriedly said:

"Sure!"

Back then when everyone made sugar rings and dumplings, one person couldn't handle it alone, so villagers would all help each other.

Nowadays the countryside rarely makes sugar rings and dumplings anymore; everyone's life is better, New Year goods are all bought from outside, but the New Year flavor isn't as strong as before.

This day, with Li Yunxia's help, by after three in the afternoon Li Xiulan had finished making all the sugar rings and dumplings.

But this wasn't over yet.

Frying sugar rings and dumplings is also a big project.

Li Xiulan took out her family's own pressed peanut oil, heated the big iron wok dry, poured in half a wok of peanut oil, and when the oil smoked she started frying.

Fry the sugar rings first, then the dumplings.

Because the dumplings might leak filling; the sugar in the dumpling filling would leak out and might turn black in the oil wok, affecting appearance.

When frying sugar rings and dumplings, Wang Dashan and Wang Erhai, even Wang Xiaohua, all followed the fragrance and gathered around.

The sugar rings had just come out of the wok, still steaming hot, and they were drooling wanting to eat.

"Don't eat too much, they're piping hot right out of the wok!"

Li Xiulan instructed while busy working.

The kids took sugar rings and ran outside, munching crunchily while playing glass marbles.

By after seven in the evening, the sugar rings and dumplings were finally all fried.

Li Xiulan made dinner and had Li Yunxia eat with her.

Li Yunxia ate dinner before leaving; before leaving she agreed with Li Xiulan to come to her house at eight tomorrow morning to make sugar rings and dumplings.

Li Xiulan naturally agreed readily; after all, Li Yunxia helped her today, so tomorrow it would definitely be her turn to go help Li Yunxia.

The next morning at eight, Li Xiulan arrived at Li Yunxia's house as agreed.

She discovered Li Yunxia had also invited quite a few relatives and friends to come help.

Li Xiulan then discovered Li Yunxia actually planned to make over a hundred jin of sugar rings and over a hundred jin of dumplings.

"Yunxia, you're not even married with kids yet, why make so many sugar rings and dumplings? Can you eat it all?"

Li Xiulan asked in surprise.

Li Yunxia said with a smile:

"If we can't eat it all we'll give it away; if we still can't give it all away, we'll put it in the convenience store to sell. Anyway, making a bit more never hurts!"

Li Xiulan then realized Li Yunxia had quite a business mind; she was planning to sell her own handmade sugar rings and dumplings in the convenience store!

Sure enough, after another day passed.

Li Yunxia set out the sugar rings and dumplings at the convenience store entrance.

Whenever someone passed by, she would go up and ask if they wanted to buy her own handmade sugar rings and dumplings.

Some villagers who found it troublesome and didn't want to make them themselves tasted her sugar rings and dumplings, thought the flavor was pretty good, and actually bought them — and once they bought, they bought several catties, even a dozen or more catties.

Seeing this, Li Xiulan couldn't help but secretly admire Li Yunxia.

If she were still running this village entrance convenience store, she definitely wouldn't have thought of selling sugar rings and dumplings.

In the blink of an eye, time had already reached the twenty-seventh of the twelfth lunar month.

Shanggou Village's New Year flavor was already very strong.

The village was bustling with noise and excitement.

Quite a few men who had gone out to work elsewhere had returned one after another.

But Wang Zhanggen still had no news at all.

Li Xiulan had an increasingly strong feeling that this year Wang Zhanggen probably really wouldn't come back for the New Year.

Watching other families reunited and happy, Li Xiulan couldn't help but feel a bit downhearted.

Although once Wang Zhanggen came back she couldn't avoid arguing with him, for some reason, deep down she still hoped Wang Zhanggen would come back.

With Wang Zhanggen not coming back, she appeared very lonely.

Letting other families see, they would laugh at her, thinking she had no one to cherish her and no one to love her.

In a flash, it reached the twenty-ninth of the twelfth lunar month.

On Shanggou Village's nights, people began setting off fireworks.

Those people who toiled to earn money in the city, just for these few days of the New Year, to properly show off the money they'd earned.

Zhang Zhongtian, this Shanggou Village's Acting Village Committee Secretary, suddenly came knocking at the door.

"Xiulan, Changgen still hasn't come back?"

Zhang Zhongtian had just entered the house when he asked Li Xiulan this one sentence.

Li Xiulan could only give a bitter smile:

"Ghost knows when he'll come back!"

Then she asked: "What business do you have?"

Zhang Zhongtian said:

"Actually it's not any big thing, just came to notify you — the Town Government side has already distributed the demolition compensation. These past few days I've been going door to door handing out the demolition compensation. You already received yours long ago, so I didn't give you another. The Town Government people said next year in June they'll formally demolish. I'm coming now to give you a heads-up: after the New Year you'd better hurry up and get the new house built. Otherwise, when the time comes and this side is demolished but the new house still hasn't been built, that'll be troublesome."

Hearing this, Li Xiulan's heart couldn't help but tremble.

Her new house, not even half built, because of all sorts of unexpected circumstances, now had no money — simply no way to continue building!

Once next year's demolition time arrives, what should she do?

Could it be she really has to take her three children and sleep on the streets?