Traveling through ancient times, I led my family to prosperity

To celebrate the perfect completion of the tofu workshop this year, the family decided to eat dumplings in the evening. There was still a lot of pork left from the half-spine pork they bought last time. Zhang and Xiaoting were responsible for chopping the meat, Xiaoyan and Xiaolan were responsible for chopping the cabbage, Xin and Fu were responsible for kneading the dough, and they planned to make dumplings with pork and cabbage stuffing tonight. Zhang Shanfeng, Zhang Qingfeng, Shengxuan Xiaowen, and Xiaohu were also busy, they were responsible for cleaning up the sundries behind the house.

If you want meat dumplings to taste good, you need to put a lot of meat in them, but rural families are generally reluctant to put meat in them, and usually put more vegetables in them just to make the meat taste better. Today, Zhang saw that there was a lot of meat at home, so she cut off a large piece of meat and planned to have a good meal of meat dumplings with her family.

After the cabbage is chopped, it needs to be drained. If it leaks out when wrapping, it will not only be difficult to wrap, but also break easily when cooking dumplings. Draining the water is a strenuous job. Zhang and Fu are both very skilled. They squeeze the cabbage into small balls and put them in a basin. Then pour in the chopped meat, add lard, soy sauce and salt, and stir in one direction. The stirred meat is shiny and oily.

After the dumpling filling was prepared, the dough was also mixed early. Today, white flour was mixed. Zhang and Fu were responsible for rolling the dough, while Xin, Xiaoyan, Xiaoting and Xiaolan were responsible for wrapping. Although there were many dumplings, they were very fast.

When Zhang Shanfeng and the others came back from the backyard, the dumplings were already cooked.

"Dad, grandpa, uncle, please wash your hands first. We'll start eating soon." Xiao Lan saw them coming back and hurriedly greeted them.

"Take a bowl to your grandparents." Sheng Xuan said to Xiao Lan.

It’s not common to have such a delicious meal at home. Sheng Xuan is a filial son and wants to let his grandfather have a taste of it.

Xiao Lan took a full bowl and went to the next room. The table in the upper room had just been set up, with steamed corn bread, bean porridge, fried cabbage, and green onion dip.

They still had their meals at separate tables for men and women. Xiao Lan brought the dumplings to Grandpa Sheng's table and said, "Grandpa, my family made some dumplings today. I'll give you a bowl to try."

Mr. Sheng smiled and said, "I told you not to send it, why are you sending it again?"

"Dad, the third brother's family is very rich now. Look at the white flour dumplings they are making. And look at Xiaolan and the others, they are white and plump. Their food must be good, this is nothing." Sheng Kai looked at the dumplings in the bowl that were still steaming, and his mouth was watering with greed. "Xiaolan, why don't you send more? You only bring one bowl. Who will eat it? Your grandparents eat delicious food at your house every day, and these dumplings are not enough for us to fill our stomachs."

This Sheng Kai really doesn't act like an elder. He seems to have lost his memory and completely forgot about stealing from her house. Now he is making trouble like this, which makes Xiao Lan very angry. She wants to scold him a few words, but she is still a little hesitant in front of Mr. Sheng.

Seeing Xiao Lan remained silent, Sheng Kai became even more aggressive, "I heard that you got your wages today, and everyone got a lot. It seems that your family is making a lot of money from business, but you didn't even think of giving me a piece of tofu as a gift."

The old man got angry after hearing this, "Don't be stupid, second brother. You dare to cause trouble in front of me. I think you are looking down on me more and more."

Sheng Kai immediately fell silent.

Old Master Sheng turned around and comforted Xiao Lan, "Xiao Lan, don't listen to your second uncle's nonsense. He is just a jerk and doesn't act like an elder. We are good children, so don't bother with him."

Xiao Lan smiled immediately. They had separated and were no longer living with the Sheng family, so they had to do their best to save face.

Xiao Lan was telling Grandpa Sheng that she didn't care, when she saw a man push the door open and come in. The man had pockmarks all over his face. Wasn't this Zhao Er Mazi from Zhaojiatun next door?

"Hey, the old man is having dinner. I want to discuss something with your boss." Zhao Ermaizi said with a smile.

Xiao Lan wondered in her heart, when did the eldest brother have anything to do with him? Seeing that someone had come to their house, she said goodbye to the old man and went home.

"Let's eat first, otherwise the dumplings will get cold." When Zhang saw Xiaolan coming back, she hurriedly asked her to sit at the table and eat.

The delicious and fragrant dumplings stuffed with cabbage and pork, served with mashed garlic, make you feel extremely happy after taking one bite.

"Why did you take so long?" Zhang couldn't help but ask Xiao Lan.

Xiao Lan picked out Sheng Kai's words and said that if she told the truth, her grandfather would probably go back tonight. There was no need to make everyone unhappy just for a bad guy.

"Her second uncle has really learned everything from the old lady. He talks nonsense all day long. It's not enough that the old lady has framed us, and now he's included in the mix. He is so shameless. It hasn't been long since he stole from our house, and he still has the nerve to ask us for food! I'm too lazy to talk about the mess that goes on in their family every day, for fear that people will poke holes in their spines. From now on, when someone asks me, I will tell them the truth." Zhang said angrily.

"Everyone in the village knows what kind of person Second Brother is. We have nothing to fear as we are upright." Sheng Xuan wanted to persuade Zhang not to argue with Sheng Kai, but then he thought that he was becoming more and more outrageous, so he stopped persuading her and lowered his head to eat dumplings.

"Your second son is getting older and older. Xiaolan is just a little old, why are you bullying her with such words?" After hearing what Xiaolan said, Xin felt sorry for her granddaughter. She sent dumplings to the upper room with good intentions, but not only did she get nothing in return, she was also scolded by the second son's family.

"I took advantage of the opportunity when Zhao Ermaizi came to say goodbye to my grandfather and came back." Xiao Lan added.

"When did the upper house become related to Zhao Ermaizi? The two families have nothing to do with each other." Zhang wondered.

Sheng Xuan also shook his head. Ever since the family split up, he had only focused on his own family. Later, the old Sheng family moved to the town to live for a while, and he paid even less attention to them.

The family had finished their meal, and Xiao Lan and her friends had just put away the dishes when they heard the door of her house being pushed open. It turned out that people from another village had come. They wanted to work in the tofu workshop and asked if they still needed anyone.

Zhang thought that if the order volume was large after the New Year, she would have to add more staff, so she picked a few of these people and asked them to come back after the New Year to take a look.

After sending these people away, Zhang couldn't help but sigh, "I think there will be more people looking for us in the next two days. They probably want to come and work because we pay them generously."

"Mom, you have to choose the staff for this tofu workshop carefully. We only want capable people and don't care about relatives or friendship. Mom, I know you are soft-hearted and you might agree if others beg you a few times, but our workshop doesn't want to keep idle people, so we can't be careless about recruiting workers." Xiao Lan said to Zhang.

Mrs. Zhang nodded.

Zhang Shan and Xin looked at each other and could see from each other's eyes the admiration for their granddaughter. This girl is already extraordinary at such a young age. When she grows up and has experience, she will be even more extraordinary.

The family went to bed early in the evening. Just as they were getting ready to sleep, they heard a commotion next door again. This time it wasn't Grandpa Sheng and Mrs. Cui, but it sounded like the noise coming from the old family.

"Why did the eldest brother and the eldest sister-in-law quarrel?" Sheng Xuan asked in surprise. His house was far from the main house, and he only vaguely heard that Xiaoru would never marry into such a family.

Xiao Lan also heard it, and thought about the time when Zhao Ermaizi came to Lao Sheng's house to look for Lao Da. Could it be that he came to propose marriage to Xiao Ru? Who was he talking about?