The thin slices of beef and lamb were cooked through after just a few swishes in the pot. After finishing two boxes of meat, the siblings finally slowed down their pace.
They added several ingredients they had never seen before, along with some grass-like vegetables, into the pot and waited eagerly.
Lin Erhu picked up a piece of crown daisy with his chopsticks. “Sis, will this grass-like stuff actually taste good?”
“The broth is so fragrant; even a shoe insole would taste delicious in it. Plus, we cooked all that meat, so the vegetables have absorbed the meaty flavor.”
Lin Erhu slurped his saliva. As soon as the vegetables changed color, he immediately grabbed some and put them in his bowl. Ignoring the heat, he took a big bite, sucking in air from the burn but refusing to spit it out.
“So fragrant! Sis, this vegetable is really tasty. I was starting to feel a bit greasy from all the meat, but this cuts through the grease. You have some too.”
Lin Xiaoman also picked up a few pieces of the vegetable and put them in her mouth. Though the texture wasn’t like meat, they had been boiled in the oily broth and were infused with the meaty flavor—completely different from the astringent, bitter wild vegetables they used to eat.
They also had meatballs, fish balls, shrimp balls, and stuffed beef balls. The siblings nodded in satisfaction as they ate. “Erhu, what do you think? If we set up a stall in town selling this in a few days, do you think it would work?”
Lin Erhu imagined them running such a stall, meaning he could eat this all the time. He nodded eagerly, like a chick pecking at grain. “It would work! It would totally work! Sis, let’s set up the stall tomorrow.”
Lin Xiaoman was tempted too, but thinking about the difficulty of sourcing ingredients like the sliced meat and leafy vegetables, she hesitated. They couldn’t keep using ingredients from that other place, could they? If people asked where the ingredients came from, they wouldn’t be able to explain.
Still, as she had said, even a shoe insole would taste good in this broth. Maybe instead of all these ingredients, they could just buy a few chickens, chop them into small pieces, and make hotpot chicken? That could work, right?
Lin Erhu was so engrossed in eating that he almost forgot his own name, but Lin Xiaoman, while enjoying the meal, had already figured out their business plan.
…
After finishing the hotpot, there was hardly any broth left in the pot.
The siblings then sorted through everything they had bought that day. Anything with packaging was locked inside a chest; they would have to remove the packaging before taking it out when needed.
Perishable foods without packaging were placed in a bucket and lowered into the well, which would keep them fresh for a few more days.
It was the end of August now—the nights were already a bit chilly, but during the day, the sun was still scorching.
They worked until after midnight and were so exhausted that they fell asleep as soon as they lay down.
The next morning, the villagers went up the mountain without calling for them. The siblings slept until the sun was high in the sky.
Realizing it was too late to go up the mountain, they decided to have breakfast and then go to the other place.
Since they had eaten hotpot the night before, they made instant noodles for breakfast.
Instant noodles were easy to prepare. They cooked two packs of spicy beef-flavored noodles and added two eggs each, which they had bought from the supermarket.
When the noodles were done, they each filled a bowl. Carefully picking up a strand to taste, they were immediately choked by the spiciness and coughed for a while. But the intense, spicy flavor exploded in their mouths. They alternated between exhaling to cool down the heat and swiftly finishing the entire bowl.
“Erhu, help me remember: next time we go there, check what kind of chili peppers they use. If they can be grown, we should plant some too. Otherwise, if people ask what we put in our hotpot, we won’t be able to explain.”
“Okay, I’ve got a good memory. I won’t forget.”
The siblings both had hearty appetites; one bowl of noodles and two eggs were far from enough. Lin Xiaoman then cooked two more packs of shrimp-flavored instant noodles.
This time, they weren’t spicy. The first bite was so fresh it felt like their eyebrows might float away.
Lin Erhu praised the noodles between mouthfuls, “Sis, these instant noodles are really tasty and so easy to make. Let’s just eat these from now on.”
But Lin Xiaoman refused. “I’ve seen there are plenty of other delicious foods over there. Don’t you want to try them all?”
“I do! Then how about we try a different one each day?”
Lin Xiaoman nodded approvingly. “Alright, whatever our Erhu says!”
Lin Erhu swayed his head proudly, feeling pleased.
After finishing two packs of instant noodles, Lin Erhu was almost full, but Lin Xiaoman was still only half-satisfied. She ate three more steamed buns with the remaining broth before finally feeling like her stomach wasn’t so empty.
They didn’t really know what to buy, but browsing the supermarket was addictive. They planned to take a good look around again today and figure out what each product was used for.
By the time they finished shopping and walked out of the supermarket with bags in hand, it was noon. They had finally bought the chili peppers Lin Xiaoman had been wanting. Upon asking around, they learned that chili peppers were grown from the seeds inside. However, every spring, people cultivated chili seedlings, which could be planted in the ground and watered to grow.
The siblings made a mental note to try planting some seeds themselves when they got back. If they couldn’t grow them, they could always wait until next spring to buy some seedlings.
On their way, they passed a hand-pulled noodle shop and went in to order a bowl of bone broth noodles each, along with a large plate of braised bones.
Who would have thought that the bones they looked down on back home could be made so delicious? Remembering that the supermarket sold braised bone seasoning, Lin Xiaoman planned to buy some bones next time and braise them at home.
Back in their village, bones were cheap and unwanted. They could ask the butcher to set aside some meaty bones for them, saving quite a bit of money.
Lin Daqiang had led the villagers up the mountain for five days straight, finally combing through all the spiky fruit forests within Hedong Village’s territory. For areas farther out, other villages had also learned that the spiky fruits were edible and started harvesting them.
To avoid conflicts with other villages over gathering the fruits, Lin Daqiang decided to end the harvesting mission.
With over three hundred villagers, they had collected more than four hundred sacks of fruit, each sack weighing over a hundred jin. Lin Daqiang decided to give one sack to each person. The remaining hundred-plus sacks were stored in the clan’s ancestral hall. If anyone ran out of food later, they could buy from the clan with money, and the proceeds would be used to repair the hall.
The villagers all agreed. A hundred jin of spiky fruits meant a hundred jin of grain. A person could survive on it for over three months if they rationed carefully, at least enough to get through the winter.
Since it was Lin Xiaoman and her brother who had discovered that the spiky fruits were edible, even though they hadn’t gone up the mountain in the past few days, few villagers objected when Lin Daqiang suggested giving them an extra sack.
Some spiky fruits were still left on the mountain in scattered patches. Lin Daqiang didn’t organize another village-wide harvest; whoever wanted to go up could gather them for themselves, and whatever they collected would be theirs to keep.
For the next few days, the villagers still went up the mountain daily, not only gathering spiky fruits but also picking mushrooms and digging up wild vegetables.
Lin Xiaoman agreed to trade salt for mushrooms, offering one jar of salt for a basket of mushrooms. She even showed everyone the salt she had.
The salt was fine and white, even better than what was sold in the county town. A jar of such refined salt would cost dozens of wen in the county, whereas a basket of mushrooms, at best, could only fetch a dozen or so wen.
With nothing much to do after the autumn harvest, even more villagers started going up the mountain.
Lin Xiaoman and Lin Erhu collected a large amount of mushrooms, but even after running back and forth between places every day, they couldn’t sell them all. Seeing dried mushrooms being sold over there, they thought about having someone dry their mushrooms so they could sell them gradually.
After considering their options, they finally chose Lin Er Lai and his mother, who also lived in the west of the village.