The road to wealth of a peasant widow

On the first day of school, the three Changping brothers went to school wearing newly made hemp summer clothes. Although their skin color became darker, their bodies became stronger and they looked more energetic.

Chen Cui saw Mr. Chu greeting students at the school gate and thought he seemed darker.

Could it be that Mr. Chu has been working in the fields these days? Otherwise, why is he so tanned!

"Hello, Mr. Chu!" Chen Cui and the children greeted him.

Mr. Chu was wearing clothes made of unknown material. Although it contained a lot of fabric, it looked very light, cool and breathable. At least even though he was wearing so much, there was not a drop of sweat on his nose.

It's already June, and it's only cool in the mornings and evenings. It's not acceptable to be too hot during the day.

Chen Cui had already rolled up the oilcloth on the mule cart to allow ventilation on all sides so that there would be a breeze when the cart was moving.

Mr. Chu seemed very happy to see Chen Cui and her son. He touched Chang Fu's head and asked with a smile, "You haven't neglected your studies these days, have you? Hand in your homework later. I will test you. If you fail, I will punish you with a ruler!"

At the end, his tone became more severe.

Chang Fu puffed up his chest and said, "Sir, just take the test with confidence. I will definitely pass it!"

Changping and Changan also had confident gleams in their eyes and appeared full of confidence.

During this period, they never put down their books for a single day and were not worried about the teacher's assessment at all.

Chen Cui watched the children walk into the school, and then took Sui Sui to the grocery store in town.

"Hey, give me four of these little jars with corks, three pounds of rock sugar, and four candles."

Chen Cui carefully examined and knocked over the jars in the store before selecting the one she needed. Then, she bought four more candles under the clerk's astonished gaze.

Because candles are relatively expensive, with the cheapest one costing twenty cents each, ordinary people rarely buy them, and sales in grocery stores are not very good either.

Her family had always used oil lamps, and all she needed to do was add tung oil to the lamps.

Tung oil bought for twenty cents is enough for the family to use for at least a month, while a candle can only burn for a few days at most.

Then, Chen Cui went to the pharmacy in the town and bought two kilograms of saltpeter.

At first, the guy at the drugstore refused to sell her so much. Saltpeter is used in medicines either to clear away heat and stop vomiting, or to relieve constipation. Who would buy so much at once? What if someone dies from taking it and the drugstore is in trouble?

It was not until Chen Cui said that it was used to make ice that the waiter agreed to let her know, but he looked at her with a strange look, as if he did not expect that an ordinary peasant woman would be willing to spend money to buy saltpeter to make ice.

After all, wealthy families either have their own ice cellars and store ice in advance for the winter, or they spend money to buy ice from an ice shop.

Although some people know how to make ice with saltpeter, not many are willing to spend money to do so.

Because saltpeter is not cheap and the amount of ice made is not large, it is not as cost-effective as buying ice directly.

In fact, Chen Cui only learned from the clerk in the fruit shop a few days ago that the method of making ice with saltpeter is not a secret nowadays, it's just that ordinary people don't use it on a daily basis.

Finally, Chen Cui went to the street to buy a few pounds of cherries before taking Suisui home.

Whenever I see the bright red cherries, I get so anxious that I reach out to grab them and want to eat them right away.

Chen Cui stopped her immediately: "Go home and let your mother remove the core and mash it for you before eating, otherwise be careful that the core gets stuck in your throat."

Sui Sui is just over one year old, so it’s okay for her to eat some berries. At most, it will get her clothes dirty. But I don’t dare give her the ones with cores directly.

Although the little girl was unhappy, she was still intimidated by her mother's majesty and dared not say anything. She just pouted her mouth unhappily all the way.

When Chen Cui returned home, she washed a handful of cherries, removed the pits and crushed them in a bowl, then gave them to Sui Sui to eat. After settling her down, she started to take care of her own things.

She added water to both pots, started a fire, and put several small jars she had bought into the big pot and boiled them to disinfect them.

Pour out some of the water, add salt to make it salt water, pour the other part of the water into a ceramic pot on the charcoal stove, add rock sugar and cook it into sugar water.

When the other water has cooled down a bit, remove the stems of the cherries, clean them, then rinse them with cold boiled water, and finally soak them in salt water for a while.

Then put the cherries into a ceramic pot and boil for two minutes. When the cherries float up, pour the cherries and sugar water into a sterilized jar.

After all four jars are filled, boil the water in the big pot again and put the jars in to steam for quarters of an hour.

During this period, Chen Cui melted several candles into wax and put the saltpeter into a large wooden basin of water, letting it dissolve and rapidly lowering the temperature.

When the jar is steamed, quickly seal it with wax and then place it in a large wooden basin to cool it down with ice water.

By the time she finished all this, Chen Cui was drenched in sweat and her clothes were soaked.

After eating the cherries, Suisui sat on a small chair beside her, curiously watching her mother busying around, peeking out from time to time to observe, her little eyes full of questions.

Chen Cui wiped the sweat off her forehead, rubbed the little girl's fluffy hair, and said with a smile: "Mother is making canned food. If it succeeds, you won't have to worry about your dowry in the future."

That’s right, Chen Cui is experimenting with canning.

That night, when the children were eating fruit, Changfu accidentally said, "These fruits are delicious, but it's a pity that they are gone after the season. It would be great if we could eat them in winter!"

Changan immediately replied: "It's good enough to have something to eat now. If you want to eat fresh fruits in winter, you have to be a god to do it. What good things are you dreaming of!"

Chen Cui listened to the two brothers bickering and was laughing at first, but as she was laughing, she suddenly had an idea and thought of cans.

When she was a child, canned food was still a rare thing and was a relatively affordable gift when visiting relatives, friends and patients.

But at that time it was still a planned economy, and it was not easy for people to buy this thing. Ordinary families could seldom eat it, let alone a child from an orphanage like her.

It was also during a Chinese New Year that a leader came to visit their orphanage, and the orphanage distributed canned oranges. The photo of the leader holding the cans and giving them to the orphans was taken and published in the newspaper.

That was the first time Chen Cui had eaten canned food. It was the most delicious thing the young girl had ever eaten. The wonderful impression of the delicious canned food was deeply engraved in her mind.

Even after Chen Cui became an adult, her favorite food was still canned fruit, even though it was out of fashion and no longer a scarce commodity, and few people even bought it, she still remained obsessed with it.

Her ex-husband once ridiculed her for this, asking how could she like to eat such old-fashioned things. He also said that canned food contained preservatives, which were bad for the body and would affect pregnancy.

Chen Cui told him that canned food did not contain any preservatives, but the old guy just refused to believe it. Perhaps it was because they were not the same kind of people after all, so they could not agree on anything no matter what, and it was inevitable that they would eventually go their separate ways.

When she got older, she would watch short videos at home when she had nothing to do. There are various cooking methods on the Internet, including how to canned food.

Chen Cui excitedly bought some fruits and followed the video to learn how to cook. Surprisingly, she was quite successful. So she tried all the fruits she could buy and filled an entire shelf with the canned fruits.