Chapter 27

“Miss, do you have any companions with you?”
Jiang Li shook her head.
In that moment, a trace of admiration appeared in Mrs. Zhang’s eyes as she looked at Jiang Li.
“You are quite capable, young lady.”
“Well then, once you’re done with your work, if you manage to hunt any wild boar, no need for you to carry it back yourself. We can come and help drag it, how about that?”
Jiang Li nodded in agreement. “Alright.”

With the matter settled, Mrs. Zhang prepared some pork fat and leg meat for Jiang Li, along with a piece of pig intestine and a leaf of pig liver.
In total, Jiang Li paid only two hundred and forty-three copper coins.
“Madam, isn’t this price a bit low?”
Mrs. Zhang smiled. “Given our relationship, it’s not like I’m selling it at market price. It’s just the cost.”
“Thank you, madam. I’ll head into the mountains as soon as I’m done.”

Fortunately, Jiang Li had brought a bunch of cloth bags, which she used to pack the meat and fat, while the pig intestine and liver went into a bamboo basket.
Having secured the meat, Jiang Li felt much more at ease and headed straight to the grain shop.

There was a large barrel of brown rice, more than last time.
Jiang Li picked up some brown rice to examine and asked the shopkeeper, “Hmm, I didn’t see brown rice the last time I came.”
“That’s because it was all sold out. This batch just came from the county town.”
“What’s the price?”
“Fifty-four copper coins per dou.”

Hearing this, Jiang Li furrowed her brow. Even brown rice had become so expensive.
“Shopkeeper, what about the prices for the others?”
“Millet is fifty-three, wheat fifty-eight, white rice sixty-four, and flour is also sixty-four.”

She inhaled sharply. The prices had risen since her last purchase.
She had spent over two hundred copper coins on meat, and with over a dozen people eating during the house construction, each meal required at least four to five jin of rice. Even if it were brown rice, a single meal would cost twenty coins. Two meals a day meant forty coins, and over ten days, that would total four hundred copper coins.
She couldn’t afford white rice anymore, so she had to stick to brown rice and millet.

“Shopkeeper, I’ll take five dou of brown rice and three dou of millet.”
The shopkeeper gave the usual price first, “Four hundred and twenty-nine copper coins.”

Jiang Li handed over the sack and began counting the money. After paying for the grain, she was left with only a small handful of coins from a large string of copper cash.
She winced at the sting of spending so much.

The shopkeeper packed half the sack with brown rice and the other half with millet, just like last time. Fortunately, the sack was large enough.
Jiang Li carried the full sack of grain and secured it onto her basket with prepared vines. The shopkeeper lent a hand, helping her lift it onto her back.

After buying grain and meat, Jiang Li purchased a jin of salt for thirty copper coins, then went to the medicine shop to buy some peppercorns and Sichuan pepper. She was delighted to learn they also had bay leaves and fennel and happily paid twelve copper coins before leaving.

Having bought everything, Jiang Li was left with only thirty copper coins in hand. The thought stung painfully, and her stomach grumbled—she hadn’t had breakfast before leaving.
Despite the pain of parting with money, she couldn’t bear to neglect her own hunger.
She bought three lamb meat pancakes, four copper coins each, spending another twelve copper coins.

After spending a significant sum last time, she was left with just sixty-four copper coins.
Well, it would cover the start-up expenses for tomorrow morning’s work.

Though it hurt to lose so much money, Jiang Li was unwilling to skimp on her own meals.
She lived to eat well and sleep well—nothing more.

The lamb pancakes were cooked to a golden crisp on both sides, with plenty of meat cubes inside, releasing a rich aroma with every bite.
There was both lean meat and lamb skin within.
The lean meat was chewy, while the lamb skin was likely slow-cooked, giving it a pleasantly springy texture.
Combined with the crisp pastry, these pancakes became increasingly delicious with each bite.

Those four copper coins were truly worth every penny.

As Jiang Li ate and made her way home, Xue Man and A Ning were just about to have lunch.
“What are you having for lunch?”
“Mother, millet porridge.”

Xue Man helped Jiang Li take down the basket. Jiang Li unloaded the sack of grain and placed the meat, pig liver, and intestine nearby, then handed the lamb pancakes to the siblings.

The two children looked curiously at the wrapped pancakes and asked, “Mother, what’s this?”
“Lamb pancakes, very tasty. Once we have some money, we’ll raise a couple of sheep ourselves,” Jiang Li said as she went to check the millet porridge cooking in the clay pot.

The porridge was dark; she stirred it with chopsticks and saw only vegetable leaves and wood ear mushrooms, with hardly any millet grains visible.
“This is the porridge you two cooked?”

The siblings, who had been eagerly eyeing the pancakes, suddenly looked guilty.
“Yes, little sister said she wanted to eat the wood ear mushrooms from last night, so we cooked some,” they admitted.

Jiang Li frowned slightly, her expression serious as she looked at them.
“Do you think saving grain by eating mostly vegetables will help?”

The two children pursed their lips in silence.
“With just the two of you, your appetite isn’t much. It won’t save much anyway.”

A Ning pinched a piece of pancake, speaking softly to Jiang Li, “Building the house costs a lot of money. These wild vegetables taste good, and brother and I can get full. Being able to eat our fill is already good enough.”

Jiang Li sighed gently.
“Though we’re still poor, we can still afford to eat. Don’t think eating vegetables saves money. Fresh wood ear mushrooms shouldn’t be eaten in large amounts—you can get poisoned, and treating it costs money.”

The siblings exchanged looks as if mildly blaming each other.

Jiang Li sighed helplessly.
“The most important thing is to eat staple foods to nourish your qi and blood. Even if you don’t eat vegetables, you have to eat rice to restore your body, understand?”

They nodded earnestly.

“Eat your lamb pancakes. I finished mine on the way here.”

A Ning tore off a piece and offered it to Jiang Li, “Then mother, eat with me.”
“I want some too,” Xue Man said, pulling off a piece and holding it out.

“You two eat. I’ve already eaten,” Jiang Li declined.
The kids didn’t withdraw their hands, so Jiang Li accepted the pieces, tore them up, and mixed them into the clay pot with the vegetables and wood ear mushrooms to add a bit of meat flavor.

Jiang Li couldn’t do without staple food. She could skip meat and vegetables, but not rice.

For convenience, she planned to knead dough and cook noodles next.
She had bought a dou of flour last time, which was nearly used up, but hadn’t touched much of the rice yet.

Jiang Li kneaded the dough while the two kids carefully ate their lamb pancakes, biting gently as if afraid the meat pieces might fall.
Every bite was met with satisfied expressions.

Jiang Li felt those eight copper coins were well spent.

She quickly finished kneading the dough and set it aside. She rendered some cracklings and pig fat in a copper cauldron, added a little water, brought it to a boil, seasoned with salt, tore the noodles and dropped them in.

Two and a half pancakes weren’t enough to fill the siblings, so Jiang Li served each half a bowl of noodles, with the wood ear and wild vegetables as accompaniment.

The large clay pot of boiled vegetables and wood ear mushrooms had become limp and tasteless from being overcooked.
Such boiled wood ear mushrooms lacked fragrance.

The more Jiang Li ate, the more disheartened she became. If she had to go out alone again, she would make sure to arrange better food for the two.
This meal felt like a waste of half a pot of vegetables.

After lunch, Jiang Li soaked nearly ten jin of brown rice in the copper pot and clay jar.
She remembered how her grandmother used to steam rice in a bamboo steamer, always soaking the rice first so it would cook evenly and become soft.
Brown rice needed to be soaked even longer.

Once the rice was soaking, Jiang Li took some unusable straw to lay on the side of the house, retrieved the woven winnowing basket she had made earlier, and carried the pig intestine outside to wash.
She asked Xue Man to bring some wood ash.

Squatting by the side, she scrubbed the pig intestine clean.
If only they had a basin—it was her only earthenware basin, used for washing her face, and the cauldron was occupied soaking rice. No choice but to scrub it clean in the winnowing basket and have A Ning fetch water to rinse it.

Though the butcher washed the intestines after slaughtering the pig, one rinse was never enough to clean all the grime.
Jiang Li scrubbed with wood ash four or five times, with A Ning rinsing alongside.

The intestines had turned white overall, and she carefully checked them again.
Finally, they were clean.

She washed the basket once more and gave the intestines a final rinse, completing the task.
By then, the pig intestines were glistening with fat, yet the strong odor was difficult to ignore.

A Ning and Xue Man looked worried at the smell, but Jiang Li remained unfazed.

With the rice soaked and the intestines cleaned, it was already late afternoon.
The sun was just right as she inspected the wood ear mushrooms again.

Thinking she still had two hours until dark, Jiang Li decided to strap on her basket, take her hoe, knife, and bow and arrows, and venture into the mountains for a walk.
Even if no game appeared, she could look for wild vegetables.

Just as Jiang Li entered the mountain path, she met two women—familiar faces who had accompanied her and Zhao Qingzhu to the valley to pick thorn dragon buds last time.
Though familiar, Jiang Li didn’t know their names.

The two women brightened instantly upon seeing her.
“Mrs. Jiang, heading into the mountains?”

Jiang Li nodded.

The women exchanged a glance, took a deep breath, and cautiously said, “If you go in now, you’ll come out after dark.”

“I won’t go deep, just wander around the outskirts.”

Jiang Li understood their meaning—they likely wanted to follow her into the mountains.
She wasn’t going deep, so having them accompany her on the edges wouldn’t be a problem.

Upon hearing this, the women hesitated. One spoke after a while, “Mrs. Jiang, shall we go with you?”

Jiang Li looked at them. “Ladies, may I know how to address you?”

“I’m Wang Xiu, wife of Qiu Yuan. Call us sisters-in-law, according to Xiao Man’s father. This is my cousin-in-law Wang Lian. Our home is just five households behind the village head’s family.”

Xue Cheng, who was eighteen years older than Jiang Li, was her nominal husband.
Their familial relations followed accordingly.

Jiang Li smiled awkwardly.

Wang Lian looked at Jiang Li’s expression, uncertain if she would agree.

But they all walked together nonetheless.

And so, they entered the mountain together.

Wang Xiu talked as they walked about the dangers of the mountains, recounting how, in the past, the village men had been plentiful, and several families’ men would hunt after the autumn harvest.
They would agree to enter the mountains together to hunt.

But those men had all been conscripted, and years had passed without news.
Since then, few dared to venture into these mountains.

Only Jiang Li had the ability and courage.

Listening to her ramblings, Jiang Li sighed and shared her own hardship.

“If it weren’t because there was no other way to survive, I wouldn’t come here either.”

“You all know my situation. Xiao Man’s father is gone, the two little ones depend on me, and I’m an outsider with no support from my family. We were assigned to that broken straw hut, and Grandma Xiao Man only gave me a handful of sweet potatoes, maybe twenty jin or so.”