A tragic journey through ancient times, trying to make money

Zhao Xiufen took the coins and counted them. After finding no problem, she said goodbye to the others.

By the time work was over at noon, the workshop had harvested a total of 500 to 600 kilograms of red peppers. During this time, Zhang Yunyue was thinking that if the amount of red peppers and garlic delivered in the morning was the same, it would probably not be enough for today.

After asking a few aunts, they all said that they still had a lot of ginger and garlic at home. Zhang Yunyue asked them to send them to the workshop. After a while, she would probably have to ask her uncle Qiao Dacheng and uncle Zhu to help collect the ginger and garlic, otherwise there would not be enough for the village.

After closing the workshop door, Zhang Yunyue and Grandma Zhang linked arms and followed the working villagers to their homes.

Back home,

Zhu's lunch was ready. After seeing Grandma Zhang and Zhang Yunyue come back, Zhu saved some food for Zhang's father and the others. Then she put all the food on the table and started eating.

After finishing the meal, everyone went to wash up and prepare for a nap because they would start chopping peppers in the afternoon. Everyone had been busy for the whole morning, so they needed to take a break and refresh themselves.

Not long after everyone had taken a nap, Zhang's father and his friends came back. The three of them pushed the wheelbarrow into the yard and unloaded the things on it.

Zhang's father put the knife that Zhang Yunyue asked him to get aside so that his daughter could see it when she woke up. He still kept the meat in the well to cool it as usual.

Seeing that everything had been packed up, Zhang Xingyun washed his hands and went to bring out the food that the kitchen had reserved for them. After eating and clearing away the dishes, the three of them went to take a nap to refresh themselves after a busy morning in the town.

At 3:00 p.m., except for the three people who had returned from the town, everyone else woke up and washed up in the yard to sober up.

As soon as Zhang Yunyue left the room, she saw the knife on the table in the yard, just as she remembered.

"Uncle, brother, I need you to find five 1.5-meter-long wooden sticks and stick them on top of it. This will make it easier to hold and keep your hands away from the peppers."

As soon as Zhang Cheng saw the knife, he knew what Zhang Yunyue meant. "Okay, there are a lot of sticks in the woodshed. Xiaohao, come with me to find a few. Choose straight sticks."

"I understand, Father." After saying that, he followed Zhang Cheng to the woodshed.

"By the way, grandma, we'll be at Tianxianglou tomorrow. In addition to pork chili oil, I want to have another dish, chicken chili oil, so I guess I'll have to prepare a few more chickens."

“Hey, that’s nothing. Let your second uncle and the others finish moving the goods, and then go to the backyard and kill three or four chickens. We don’t need three or four chickens at home now. I can just raise more if we don’t have them.

I'm a bit busy today. When I come back tomorrow night, I'll ask your second aunt to kill a chicken and make soup for you. Everyone in the family has lost weight in the past few days."

Zhang Yunyue leaned her head on Grandma Zhang's shoulder: "Thank you, grandma." The happiest thing for a person is to have the support of his family in everything he does.

Zhang Cheng and Zhang Xinghao picked and chose in the firewood room for a while and selected five relatively straight wooden sticks that looked like they could be inserted. After selecting them, Zhang Cheng and Zhang Xinghao first used tools to peel off the skin on the surface of the sticks, and then polished them until they were smooth.

While Zhang Cheng and Zhang Xinghao were dealing with the wooden sticks, Zhang Yunyue took the five knives to the kitchen and washed them like a pot. After cleaning them, he heated up the lard and smeared it on them. After the knives absorbed the lard for a while, he washed them several times repeatedly, for fear that the knives would rust.

Grandma Zhang, Mrs. Zhu, and Zhang Yunxue were washing the large basin and chopping board that Zhang Yunyue and Zhang's father had bought at the grocery store yesterday at the well.

By the time Zhang Yunyue's knife was cleaned, his second uncle Zhang Cheng and Zhang Xinghao's wooden sticks were also ready, and they were inserted into the holes of the knife one by one.

All five knives were attached to wooden sticks, and Zhang Yunyue held one in her hand. Zhu was carrying the meat bought at noon, and she and Grandma Zhang walked towards the workshop together. It was almost time for the workshop to start work in the afternoon.

Zhang Yunyue asked his second uncle Zhang Cheng to use a wheelbarrow to carry the cleaned basin, cutting board, pork, and four chickens from the backyard to the workshop. Zhang Xinghao saw this and hurriedly followed to carry the things. He also helped Zhang Cheng to carry the wheelbarrow loaded with things to the workshop.

While Zhang Cheng was pulling things, Zhang Yunyue asked Aunt Li and Aunt Wang, who were selecting peppers, to wash the ginger and garlic, and asked Zhang Xingzhong and Zhang Xinglin to carry the harvested red peppers to the creek to wash them.

Grandma Zhang is still responsible for waiting at the workshop gate for people to come and sell red peppers.

By the time Zhang Xingzhong and Zhang Xinglin came back with the washed peppers, Zhang Cheng had already brought over some large basins and cutting boards.

Zhang Yunyue placed the chopping board at the bottom of the basin, poured the cleaned red peppers on it, and began to demonstrate to others how to chop the peppers with a special knife.

Watching Zhang Yunyue's operation, the other members of the Zhang family realized the advantages of this knife: it did not hurt the hands at all and was quick.

Zhu, Zhang Xinglin and Zhang Xingzhong followed suit, took a large basin and placed it on the ground, then poured red peppers into it and started chopping it.

It took Zhang Cheng and his son Zhang Xinghao four trips back and forth before they finally moved the cleaned basins, cutting boards, pork, chicken, and the peppers picked from the pepper field in the backyard yesterday to the workshop.

Seeing that there was still a knife that no one was using, Zhang Yunyue asked Zhang Xinghao to take a basin, pour chili peppers in it, and work together.

Then he took the pork and chicken that Zhang Cheng had brought over to the big kitchen and asked the people in the kitchen to make chicken with chili oil. He emphasized that the cooking methods for chicken and pork were the same, and then he returned to the yard to chop red peppers with everyone.

Zhang Cheng pushed a wheelbarrow with several buckets of red peppers that needed to be washed on it to the river for washing. It was much easier to carry the peppers back and forth using the wheelbarrow.

Zhang Cheng came back after washing a cart of red peppers. Seeing that the peppers in everyone's bowls were only half chopped, he stopped washing them and replaced Zhang Yunyue, and started chopping with a knife himself.

Zhang Yunyue would occasionally check on how well everyone was chopping, and then put the ginger and garlic washed by Aunt Li and Aunt Wang in each large basin in a certain proportion and chop them together.

For a while, the only sounds in the workshop yard were "clang, clang, clang".

By the time everyone had finished chopping, half an hour had passed. Although there was still salt in the workshop, there was no wine, so Grandpa Zhang had to bring back wine from the town. So everyone put the chopped peppers into an unused large basin and continued chopping.

Aunt Li and Aunt Wang washed all the ginger and garlic that Zhang Yunyue bought today, and now they started to clean the ceramic jars, which they would use to store the pickled chili peppers later.

If anyone got tired of chopping, Zhang Yunyue would go over to take over, or go to the gate to help Grandma Zhang collect the red peppers.

During this period, Zhang's father, Zhang's mother, and Zhang Xingyun also came to the workshop to help. Zhang's father and Zhang Xingyun replaced Zhu and Zhang Xinghao, and asked Zhang's mother and Zhu to be responsible for washing the red peppers, while Zhang Xinghao went to the gate to help Grandma Zhang collect the red peppers.

In the afternoon, villagers came together to sell chili peppers in large quantities. Zhang Yunyue and Grandma Zhang were overwhelmed. When Zhang Xinghao arrived, they felt much more relaxed.