Sisters in the Deep Forest Valley: Many Fun Things

Lin Chunyi walked into the yard. Their fence was wide open, and there was nothing inside.

"..." She began to wonder if she had forgotten them at the village chief's house yesterday?

Lin Lanshan also walked over at this moment. Seeing the empty room, she said with some fear:

"Sister, did we leave the peaches and 'Reunion and Peace' at Uncle Lin's house yesterday?"

It has to be said, they really have to be sisters.

However, the two soon discovered that it seemed that it wasn't just Peach's house that had its door open.

The inner courtyard gate was also wide open!

The two continued walking out, oh... the outer gate was also wide open!

Lin Chunyi and Lin Lanshan then realized that these little brats had opened the door and slipped out on their own!

They went to the place where Taozi and Tuanyuan Ankang often stayed without having breakfast.

At the end of the pebble path lies a stream with large patches of green grass.

The peach is grazing with its head down, Tuan Tuan Yuan Yuan is catching insects, and An An Kang Kang is catching fish in the water.

Wow, the kid's really grown up. Not only can he find his own food, but he can also open doors by himself.

Lin Chunyi walked over and asked with a smile, "Who was so clever as to open the door?"

The cries of reunion and peace resound, "Gu!" and "Ga!": It's us!

"Then, who opened the inner courtyard gate?"

Peach snorted: It's me!

Lin Lanshan's fist hardened. "Then who opened the outer courtyard gate?"

Peach raised her mule head: It's me again!

She couldn't understand how a mule could have removed the latch and opened the door.

"Slap..." Five slaps rang out in a row, and each of the boys received a slap on the head.

In the small eyes of Taozi and Tuanyuan Ankang, there was a great deal of confusion and grievance.

Lin Lanshan admonished:

“You’re still complaining? We woke up to find you all gone, and the door was open.”

"If I didn't know you weren't worth much, I would have thought someone had come all the way to the mountains to steal you!"

The calls of Peach and Reunion grew weaker, becoming "Eek...", "Gah, gah", "Coo coo..."

They lowered their heads and cried out pitifully, indicating that they were hungry.

Lin Chunyi said coldly:

"Then get out, but at least close the door behind you. Don't you know how to close the door when you leave?"

"Sis, if all the doors are closed and they still disappear, isn't that a little scary..."

Lin Chunyi thought about it and it seemed to be true.

He sneered:

"It's okay, now that we know they can open the door themselves, it's not scary anymore."

The two sisters chased them home and tied long ropes to the knockers of both gates.

A rope was also tied to the wooden barrier behind the door because Lin Lanshan noticed several teeth marks on it!

So that's how the doors open, one by one, they're really clever.

If it keeps biting like that, the door latch might not be able to hold it in place anymore.

They repeatedly demonstrated to Taozi and Tuanyuan Ankang the correct way to open and close the door...

Whether they could learn it or not, the two sisters didn't care.

After all, the intelligence of these people made them suspect on several occasions that they were all monsters who had become spirits.

Peach was forced to learn how to close the door, and said:

Master, is it possible that I'm just a mule? Such delicate work is beyond my ability to learn or remember...

Forget it, they only understand what they want to hear. I'll just have to work hard on my own.

To be free in public, you must suffer in private.

Reunion and well-being are also a source of distress:

Because they have to assist Sister Peach.

Sister Peach chews the rope outside, so the animals have to push it from behind the door.

Freedom is so hard to come by...

The two sisters taught them a few times, then stopped and let them play by themselves.

After breakfast, the two practiced their skills, using fist and leg techniques, a whole set of moves, and then finished.

Then came the fight...

After a short rest, they moved several bags of grain from the carriage to the kitchen.

This happened the night Uncle Lin collected the taxes...

At that time, the two sisters really forgot about the peaches, the taxes, and even the grain rent.

It was only when Uncle Lin helped them carry the packed grain into the carriage that the two women remembered they needed to pay the taxes.

Uncle Lin said he had prepared this food for them last October, just waiting for them to come down the mountain to collect it.

Their family rented a total of fifteen mu of dry land and paddy fields to the village chief.

Huaizhou, where Youxian Village is located, is geographically located in the north, with far more dry land than paddy fields.

So of the five bags of grain the village chief gave them, only one was flour.

What remains are two small bags of millet, one small bag of soybeans, and one small bag of rice.

It weighs about 300 jin (150 kg) in total.

Looking at the kitchen now, it's cluttered with too much stuff. On the floor, on the counter:

A huge pile of grain, dozens of kilograms of fresh pork, duck eggs bought last time, two pheasants, sixty kilograms of coarse salt, and so on...

So you really can't procrastinate when it comes to work, the longer you procrastinate, the more work you'll have to do!

First, clean the two pheasants and hang them up to make air-dried chicken.

Half of the lard was cut into pieces and rendered into pork fat.

The coarse salt was completely purified, yielding over twenty pounds of fine salt. Adding to that the remaining ten pounds at home, we won't have to worry about salt for the next year.

Then, as they mentioned before, they were going to make salted duck eggs.

Wash the thirty duck eggs thoroughly and place them in the sun to dry for half an hour.

The best way to pickle salted duck eggs is, of course, to use red clay and wood ash.

Red clay has good adhesion, resulting in better-tasting pickled duck eggs. Wood ash, on the other hand, can sterilize and absorb moisture.

They didn't have any red clay here, so they had to dig up some yellow clay instead.

Add appropriate amounts of salt, cooled boiled water, and wine to the sifted yellow mud and stir it into a mud paste.

Then soak the dried duck eggs in wine for a while, coat them with yellow mud, and then coat them with wood ash.

Finally, place them in a cool, dark place and wait for a month, and you can enjoy salted duck eggs that are savory, fragrant, and oily.

The two spent two whole days tidying up the odds and ends. Next up was another big project: making tofu.

Uncle Lin gave them a bag of soybeans, which they could use to grind tofu with the stone mill they had just bought.

Let's test it out with a pound of soybeans first, just in case it fails and we waste food.

Wash the stone mill clean and let it dry. Then soak the soybeans in water overnight.

The next morning, Lin Chunyi went to the kitchen, picked up a soybean, and gently squeezed it, breaking it in half.

"Lanshan, take a clean basin to the yard. Set up the stone mill, and I'll wash the beans and come right away."

She poured out the water used to soak the soybeans, then added fresh water to cover them, and took a large ladle to the inner courtyard.

Lin Lanshan placed the wooden base on the stone table in the courtyard and put the millstone on it.

Then attach the upper millstone and the wooden handle.

Then I placed the large basin under the trough and took the basin of soybeans from my sister.

She put half a spoonful of soybeans and water into the millstone, and Lin Chunyi grabbed the handle and started turning the millstone.

The stone mill they bought was small, its diameter less than the size of a woman's embrace.

It's not difficult for them with their current strength, but their hands easily get tired.

The slurry, mixed with some small particles, flowed out of the grinding tank.

Lin Chunyi turned the millstone for a while, feeling somewhat tired, and said:

"I feel like I'm pushing a millstone, like a donkey..."