Having seen off the very last customer, Gu Lin went to the butcher shop before leaving the county town to pick up the pig’s ears and chicken he had pre-ordered. Since he didn’t know how to slaughter a chicken and found the processing troublesome, he had specifically asked the butcher to slaughter the chicken beforehand, making it so that he only needed to rinse it when he brought it back.
Carrying the chicken and pig’s ears, Gu Lin took Zheng Hao out of the city, boarded the ox cart, and returned to Xiahe Village. After finishing their midday meal, Gu Lin felt a bit drowsy. Letting Zheng Hao know, he returned to his room to rest.
Evening.
Gu Lin woke up after a deep sleep. At first, his mind was somewhat hazy, and he thought he had slept all the way until dawn of the next day. Then, catching sight of the orange-yellow sunset outside his window, Gu Lin realized that he had slept all the way from noon until evening.
He sat up on the bed to clear his head. Once fully awake, he stepped out and walked to the woodshed, where the meat and vegetables he had prepared earlier for dinner were waiting on the stove.
Hearing footsteps approaching from behind, Gu Lin turned his head slightly to see Zheng Hao. “I just woke up. Are you hungry?”
Zheng Hao stepped into the woodshed, shook his head, and replied, “Not really.”
That meant he was a little hungry. Gu Lin said, “Shall we have chicken tonight?”
Unlike the first few days after his transmigration when he craved meat intensely, Gu Lin had eaten pork for several consecutive days and was starting to feel a bit tired of it. Realizing he hadn’t touched chicken yet, he set his sights on the chicken brought back at noon.
Zheng Hao wasn’t a picky eater and nodded. “Alright.”
Selecting the smaller of the two slaughtered chickens, Gu Lin chopped it in half. He placed one half into the pot to simmer for soup, and chopped the other half into thumb-sized meat chunks, marinating them with seasonings before tossing them into the wok to deep-fry. Soon, a fragrant plate of salt-and-pepper chicken pieces was ready.
Inhaling the aroma drifting through the air, Gu Lin’s stomach began to rumble.
He couldn’t help speeding up his cooking. Cleaning the iron wok and heating it up, he tossed in a large chunk of lard to melt, then took the greens washed by Zheng Hao and poured them in for a high-heat stir-fry. To preserve the crisp texture of the greens, Gu Lin didn’t cook them for long. Seeing them turn slightly soft, he scooped them out immediately to prevent them from becoming overcooked, tough, and bitter.
When Gu Lin emerged from the woodshed carrying the greens, Zheng Hao had already placed the rice and the other two soup dishes onto the table.
After setting the greens down, Gu Lin sat down, picked up a piece of salt-and-pepper chicken, and placed it into Zheng Hao’s bowl. “Hurry and try it. You must be starving after waiting so long.”
With that, Gu Lin also picked up a piece for himself and took a bite, instantly captivated by the savory, flavorful juices bursting forth in his mouth.
Picking up his own chopsticks, Zheng Hao picked up the salt-and-pepper chicken piece from his bowl and took a bite. His hand holding the chopsticks paused momentarily; the chicken in his mouth was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, and the savory juices overflowed, leaving a lingering fragrance in his mouth. Swallowing the chicken, Zheng Hao looked at Gu Lin beside him and asked, “Is this a new food item you plan to sell?”
He had just witnessed the process of making the salt-and-pepper chicken. Although the prep work before deep-frying was slightly more involved, it wouldn’t be impossible to sell salt-and-pepper chicken in the county town. The preparation wasn’t complicated: marinate in advance and deep-fry. To save trouble, one could even fry the chicken pieces at home before transporting them to the county town to sell.
Gu Lin was momentarily stunned, spitting out a bone.
He hadn’t thought of that possibility. Frowning slightly, he said, “Let’s stick to selling cold dishes for now. If we make too many different and complicated items, not only will I be too busy to manage, but customers might not accept it either.”
This wasn’t Gu Lin exaggerating or lacking the courage to try; rather, whether talking about small stalls or storefronts, business nowadays relied heavily on simplicity. Those who sold noodles sold noodles, those who sold buns sold buns, and those who sold wontons sold wontons, with the three categories never mixed together.
Zheng Hao understood this principle as well. He nodded without a shred of dissatisfaction. He had merely offered a suggestion; as for the final decision, it still depended on Gu Lin’s wishes.
After dinner, Gu Lin began clearing the bowls and chopsticks. Zheng Hao spoke up, “Leave the bowls and chopsticks in the woodshed. I will wash them from now on.”
Gu Lin hesitated somewhat. Although he didn’t like washing dishes, he felt bad letting a half-grown child do the chore. Zheng Hao looked at him and said, “You cook, I wash dishes. It’s only right.”
“Alright,” Gu Lin agreed upon hearing that.
At the same time, he breathed a sigh of relief, feeling that a bit of pressure had been lifted from his shoulders.
After placing the tableware into the wooden basin in the woodshed, Gu Lin returned to his room to bathe. Bathing in ancient times was no easy task; water had to be fetched bucket by bucket from the river, and firewood had to be carried down the mountain load by load. Gu Lin had neither the time nor the physical strength for such labor, so he paid a few copper coins to help him fetch water and gather firewood, and this bathwater had been boiled before dinner.
Soaking his body in the warm water, Gu Lin felt the fatigue of the entire day dissipate significantly. Drying himself and changing into clean clothes, he stepped out of the room to pour the used bathwater from the tub into the courtyard, where the ground, baked by the daytime sun, made a slight sizzling sound upon contact with the water.
Gu Lin put the wooden bucket away and was about to return to his room when the opposite door suddenly opened. Zheng Hao stepped out and said to him, “I learned the Three Character Classic today.”
Gu Lin was slightly taken aback, but subconsciously asked, “How did it go? Could you understand the teacher’s lecture?”
“I understood,” Zheng Hao replied.
Gu Lin blinked. Whether it was his imagination or not, it seemed that when he asked, a look akin to it was effortless or it’s nothing much flashed across the boy’s face.
Yet why would Zheng Hao tell him this? A flicker of confusion crossed Gu Lin’s mind. Could it be that he wanted praise?
The more Gu Lin thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. What child didn’t want praise from adults?
Thus, Gu Lin gave Zheng Hao an unsparing thumbs-up and said, “Not bad.”
Observing the young ge’er’s behavior, although Zheng Hao didn’t understand what this strange hand gesture meant, combined with the current situation, it was very likely a gesture of praise.
Accustomed to Gu Lin’s occasional eccentric behaviors over the past few days, Zheng Hao felt no discomfort. However, he also realized that if he didn’t state certain things directly, the other person might never understand.
Zheng Hao said to the ge’er before him, “Didn’t you want to learn to read? I can teach you now.”
Gu Lin finally understood the boy’s previous action, though he hesitated slightly. “Didn’t you just start learning today? Won’t this delay your homework?”
Seeing that the other didn’t doubt or disdain his abilities, Zheng Hao replied, “I’ve already finished my homework, and teaching you allows me to review it once more.”
“Then I’ll have to trouble you.”
Of course, Gu Lin wanted to learn to read. He didn’t know if he could ever return to the modern era, and if he couldn’t and had to live out his life in this world, learning the script of this world was an absolute necessity for long-term development.
Gu Lin followed Zheng Hao into the side room. This had originally been an empty room, but after Zheng Hao started school, since his previous room lacked a desk, this space was converted into Zheng Hao’s study.
The yellowish candlelight illuminated the entire desk. Once the two of them seated themselves, Zheng Hao carefully opened the book. Watching his actions, Gu Lin could sense how deeply the boy cherished books.
Zheng Hao looked up at Gu Lin beside him and said, “Look at the book and read after me.”
Gu Lin quickly focused his attention on the book. He repeated each line after Zheng Hao read it. These were things he had studied in his past life, but he wasn’t careless; instead, he searched his past memories to recognize the characters in the book.
After reading through twice, Zheng Hao picked up the writing brush, dipped it not in ink but in a little clean water, and wrote the character person on the tabletop to teach Gu Lin how to identify it. Confirming that Gu Lin had memorized it, he continued writing the next character. Gu Lin became more and more absorbed, unknowingly following Zheng Hao’s brushstrokes with his own hand until the boy wrote the final character, stopped, and fell silent. Only then did Gu Lin snap out of it and lift his head.
Zheng Hao put away the book and brush. “Today’s lesson is finished.”
“So fast?!”
Gu Lin glanced at the water clock nearby; only a short while had passed, yet he had finished an entire chapter.
Zheng Hao didn’t say much. Ever since Gu Lin signed the contract with Fang Jiyue, he had noticed that the other person was far from illiterate. Now, learning characters was even less like starting from scratch; it looked more like someone who had studied before and forgotten, able to remember quickly with just a little guidance.
Seeing that it was getting late, Gu Lin looked at the water traces on the table that hadn’t completely dried yet and said to Zheng Hao, “Don’t skimp on the writing materials. Go ahead and use them to practice your writing properly.”
His eyes, slightly darker than average, flashed as Zheng Hao looked at Gu Lin and replied, “Alright.”
With that, Gu Lin turned around and walked back to his own room.
As the business progressed smoothly over the past few days, Gu Lin’s wooden box accumulated a good deal of silver. However, because he still hadn’t found a suitable candidate to hire, aside from maintaining the original volume of cold dishes, he hadn’t made many shredded chicken dishes or pig’s ears.
After finishing the midday meal, the wooden gate of the courtyard was knocked on. Gu Lin walked over and opened it, only to discover it was Sister-in-law Zhao. He was somewhat surprised. “Sister-in-law, why have you come back?”
During this period, Sister-in-law Zhao had stayed almost entirely at the county town clinic to take care of Zhao Dagen. Restricted by the boundaries between men and ge’ers, Gu Lin couldn’t visit every single day, but every other day he would still go to the clinic to see if the Zhao family needed any help.
Sister-in-law Zhao walked into the Zheng family courtyard following Gu Lin, looking somewhat embarrassed as she asked, “Lin Ge’er, do you still need someone here?”
Gu Lin immediately understood her intent. “I’m still missing someone to help me with the business.”
“Do you think I’ll do?” Sister-in-law Zhao asked.
Gu Lin replied, “Of course it would be best if you could come help, but what about Dagen’s injury?”
From what he understood, Uncle Zhao kept watch through the night, while Sister-in-law Zhao watched over Zhao Dagen during the day. If she left, the Zhao household would surely be thrown into disarray.
Sister-in-law Zhao explained, “Dagen’s wound has started healing, and the doctor said he can come home to recuperate.”
Gu Lin hadn’t expected it to be so soon. He frowned slightly; Zhao Dagen’s injury was no small matter. In modern times, resting in the hospital for half a month wouldn’t be considered long, but thinking of the expenses at the medical clinic, Gu Lin said, “Then come over and help me, Sister-in-law! Mixing the dishes here is hard labor, but I won’t let you work for nothing. How does thirty copper coins a day sound?”
“Thirty copper coins?!”
Sister-in-law Zhao thought she had misheard, but seeing Gu Lin’s expression, she knew he was speaking the truth. She found it hard to believe, as this was thirty copper coins! One had to know that men going to the docks to carry sacks of sand all day only earned fifteen copper coins. She merely needed to stand behind the stall and mix cold dishes to make thirty copper coins. As for the hardship Gu Lin mentioned, Sister-in-law Zhao didn’t care about it at all; no matter how hard it was, it couldn’t be harder than toiling in the fields.
However, regarding the generous wage offered by Gu Lin, Sister-in-law Zhao shook her head in refusal. “I don’t need that much. Ten-odd copper coins is enough.”
Gu Lin dropped his usual soft demeanor, hardening his face as he said, “No, Sister-in-law, listen to me. The wage I’m offering isn’t just for you; even if I hired someone else, I would pay this much.”
Sister-in-law Zhao frowned, looking troubled, but seeing the young ge’er’s uncompromising expression, she compromised. “Alright, but I won’t take any wages for the first two months. Don’t try to refuse. My family owes you so much that working for you for a whole year for free is only right.”
Gu Lin didn’t like hearing that. He had never intended to demand repayment of favors, but seeing Sister-in-law Zhao’s stubborn expression and knowing it couldn’t be resolved right away, he agreed for the time being.
As for the wages for those two months, he could easily issue them to her later in the form of a bonus.