The road to wealth of a peasant widow

Although she fell asleep exhausted the night before, when she woke up early the next morning, Chen Cui felt as if she was full of energy again.

If there is a force driving her, then that force must be called poverty!

It’s all because of poverty!

Because we are poor, we have to work hard. As long as we are willing to work, there is always work to do every day!

Look, the sheets I washed the day before yesterday are all dry. Today I have to add some cotton and sew the thick winter quilt.

Fortunately, it is another good day today and the sun is shining outside.

Chen Cui swept the floor at the entrance of the main room, spread the oilcloth on it, and then sat on it to sew a quilt.

First, put the quilt lining underneath, then put the batting on top, then put a layer of cotton on the batting to thicken the quilt, then cover it with the quilt cover and sew it.

In fact, if she had enough money, Chen Cui would like to buy more fabric and make quilt covers, and put one on each quilt, so that it would be convenient to change or wash.

But it's not that he doesn't have much money. The last time he went to the county town to shop, he didn't stop in time. He spent more than one tael of the five taels of silver he got from selling wolfberries and yams on the same day, which made Changping very distressed.

Thanks to the fact that Chen Cui is a widow, without a husband and with young children, she has the final say in the family, so she has the freedom to spend money.

However, as the head of the family, she enjoys the right to be the master of the household and is also responsible for the livelihood of the family. Before there is a clear long-term income at home, she has to spend the remaining money frugally to avoid deficits and being unable to come up with money when something goes wrong.

Now I just hope that the two piles of firewood in the backyard can be successfully converted into charcoal and bring income to the family.

After all, charcoal burning is an almost cost-free business, and you don’t have to spend money to buy the trees on the mountain. You just have to cut them down and drag them back. The only cost is labor, and in this era, labor is the least valuable.

Chen Cui was daydreaming while sewing a quilt. The big needle in her hand moved very quickly, passing through the cloth and cotton. Rows of seams appeared on the quilt, and soon the quilt was sewn.

Then, another sheet and cotton batting were placed on the oilcloth and sewn together according to the previous process.

Chen Cui is going to sew four quilts today. These were her dowry when she got married. More than ten years have passed, and the fabric has been washed and taken apart many times, and has long lost its original brightness, and the cotton padding is no longer as soft and fluffy as before.

But these quilts are still the most solid support for the family through the winter.

Although the local winter is not as cold as that in the north, according to Chen's memory, it is still below zero degrees.

There is not much work to do in the fields in winter, so everyone tries to reduce the number of times they go out and stay at home lying in bed, one reason being to keep warm and the other to eat less.

If you lie still, you won't get hungry so quickly, and you can eat less and save food.

But their house doesn’t have the kang (kang) like people in the north, and without thick quilts, when it gets cold in winter, they can’t even survive during the day, let alone at night.

In the busy morning, the time passed in a flash.

Chen Cui rubbed her sore waist and looked at the four quilts neatly placed in front of her, feeling a sense of accomplishment.

She had watched many nostalgic videos shot by other people before, which restored old scenes or traditional skills. The videos had a slow pace and simple pictures, but there were quite a few viewers for them, and she was one of them.

But Chen Cui feels that if she is given a mobile phone to shoot videos or live broadcast, it will probably attract a lot of people to watch.

After all, everything here is so real and original, all handmade, without any mechanical assistance, everything depends entirely on manpower!

Oh, time to cook again.

To be honest, she doesn't care much about food and doesn't like cooking.

When she was young, she just ate a bite at a time. Now that she is older and has a nanny to take care of her, it doesn’t matter what she eats, as long as it is good for her body, nutritious and easy to digest and absorb.

Now, in order to take care of these little ones at home, Chen Cui has to rack her brains to think of ways to cook every day.

Chen was just a peasant woman who had seldom been out of the house. The food she had seen and eaten was very limited. Although Chen Cui herself had tasted many delicacies, what she could cook was very limited.

Besides, in this day and age there is a lack of ingredients and seasonings, so there are some things she can’t make.

It was winter and there were not many vegetables, so all she could make was pasta and a few other dishes she knew how to cook in rotation.

However, this has already amazed the little guys. They feel that their mother's cooking skills have improved a lot and the food she cooks is much more delicious than before.

In fact, Chen Cui’s secret is very simple, that is, she is willing to use oil.

People at this time generally lack oil and water, and are reluctant to add seasoning, so the food they cook tastes bland.

As long as you are willing to add some oil and salt, an ordinary steamed bun can be so delicious that children can hold it and chew it.

Just at noon, Chen Cui was teaching the children how to make scallion rolls. When they came out of the pan, the aroma filled the air. Chang Fu couldn’t help himself and grabbed one in his hand regardless of how hot it was. Then he found it was too hot, so he switched it to his other hand.

In this way, Changfu finished eating a steamed bun by switching from his left hand to his right hand.

After finishing it, he picked up the second one with relish. At this time, the temperature of the steamed bun had dropped slightly, and he could already hold it calmly in his hands, put it to his mouth and eat it with relish.

In fact, Chen Cui did not put any other seasonings in the flower rolls, only oil and salt. Just the aroma of chopped green onions made it taste a lot better.

A large basket of steamed buns was eaten up by one third after the meal.

There are a few kids at home who love to eat, and the noodles are consumed very quickly. I have to knead the dough almost every two or three days to make steamed buns or flower rolls.

Chen Cui felt that if she continued like this, she would definitely be able to develop muscles in her arms after some time, all from kneading the dough!

Therefore, she wants to train these boys. After teaching them, the family members can take turns to do the job, and she can't just be the one to do it.

The boys couldn't resist their curiosity and went to the backyard several times a day to touch the mud on the firewood pile to see if it had cooled down.

Unfortunately, until dark, the mud outside the firewood pile still retained a trace of temperature and had not completely cooled down.

It seems that if I want to open it, I will have to wait until tomorrow.

At night, Chen Cui secretly smuggled an old mattress from home into the space and spread it on the bed in the wooden house.

This old mattress was used by Liu Eryong before he got married. Although it has many patches and looks very old, he still can't bear to throw it away.

Chen Cui took it apart, cleaned it, and used it as is.

There was also some wheat straw that was brought in sporadically over the past few days, which was spread on the bed. This way it would be much softer. At least when she lay on the bed, her back wouldn't be hurt by the bed boards.