In the evening, Liu Sitian got to drink the chicken soup she had been longing for.
Hearing in the afternoon that her granddaughter wanted to drink chicken soup, Grandma Liu immediately had Liu Mancang slaughter the fattest wild chicken.
Logically speaking, wild chickens would lose some weight after being caught and brought home, but over the past two days, the wild chicken had not only failed to thin down but had actually grown fatter.
It was stewed for a long time until it was falling-apart tender; the meat fell off with just a gentle tug.
Right before taking it out of the pot, she added a handful of small yellow mushrooms, which were even fresher than hazel mushrooms.
There was only one downside—they were too small.
The mushroom caps were only slightly larger than a beer bottle cap, and they were exceptionally brittle and prone to breaking.
Just like the small grey mushrooms and sticky bun mushrooms, they all grew inside the pine forests.
Liu Sitian drank two bowls of chicken soup, ate two chicken wings, and also ate a roasted potato.
Potatoes roasted over firewood were exceptionally delicious.
Crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, especially that layer of burnt crust, which was incredibly fragrant.
“Grandma, I want to eat roasted potato again tomorrow morning. When you finish cooking, bury another one for me in the stove pit, okay?”
Since these potatoes were so huge, one would be enough to feed her.
Grandma Liu immediately agreed with a beaming smile, “Alright, Grandma will roast one for you tomorrow morning. I’ll pick a longer potato so it cooks faster, ensuring my darling can eat it as soon as she wakes up.”
The round ones were too large, and she feared the inside wouldn’t cook through.
“Grandma, I want to eat one too. Roasted potatoes are more fragrant than steamed ones,” Liu Siwei requested, wolfing down a mouthful of chicken meat.
“What’s wrong with steamed potatoes? They’re glistening with oil.” Li Sufen rolled her eyes at her youngest son, who was frantically stuffing potatoes into his mouth.
He was eating so many even when he claimed they weren’t delicious; how would it be if they were?
There was still quite a bit of lard left over from the wild boar that crashed into their front gate last winter. Grandma Liu said that if they didn’t finish it soon, she feared it would develop a rancid taste, so she added a large spoonful of it when stewing the green beans in the evening. The green beans were stewed until oil foam rose to the top, and the steamed potatoes were also glistening with oil, yet he still dared to be picky.
“Some families can’t even afford to eat steamed potatoes.”
This wasn’t blind talk on her part; many families only planted a few rows in their own vegetable gardens.
Their private plots were mostly used to plant large Chinese cabbages and green radishes.
Apart from using them for dishes, they didn’t dare steam them to eat as a meal. If they wanted to eat them, they would steam them once or twice at most to satisfy a craving, and they couldn’t steam very many each time.
If they ate them all now, what would they eat in the winter?
Other people’s potatoes didn’t grow as wildly as theirs either. In the afternoon, before making dinner, she had gone to Liu Manjin’s house to casually test the waters.
Her sister-in-law, Sun Xiuying, said that their family’s potatoes were generally around two or three liang, with the largest being only about four liang, and there were far more small ones.
She even complained, wondering if it was due to the rainfall this year.
She also mentioned fearing that they wouldn’t have enough to eat during the winter!
After returning, she specially went to visit their neighbor Tian Jinbao’s house, thinking that since the two houses were close and the soil quality was nearly identical, perhaps it was the same.
She arrived just at the right moment; the old Tian family’s boy happened to want to eat steamed potatoes too and was crying and fussing at home.
His mother, Yuan Guihong, had no choice after being ground down by him, so she dug up a plant. When she went over, Yuan Guihong was grumbling, saying that the potatoes hadn’t grown large and weren’t fully ready yet, but they had to be eaten anyway.
Wasting good things, she grumbled for quite a few sentences.
She saw it too; they were indeed not large.
With her mind preoccupied by this matter, she didn’t even manage to answer when people asked her how her family’s potatoes were growing this year, and she immediately went home.
Over these next few days, they absolutely had to eat up those excessively large potatoes, lest anyone who came over for a visit see them.
Large potatoes couldn’t be roasted, as roasting wouldn’t cook them through; they could only be cut open and steamed to eat, or used in stews.
Thinking of this, Li Sufen decided that starting tomorrow, it would be stir-fried potato slices with chili, stir-fried shredded potato with celery, cabbage and potato chunks, soy-braised potatoes, and green beans stewed with potatoes—whatever they ate, they would add potatoes.
They would finish eating those absurdly large potatoes first before talking about anything else.
The Liu family members, who had no idea they were about to face a full potato feast, finished their meal, cleared up, chatted for a while, and lay down by nearly seven o’clock.
The countryside during this era was just like this; there were no entertainment activities, and everyone slept early.
Moreover, they had to go up the mountain tomorrow, so they needed to sleep early and wake up early even more.
Liu Sitian took out a box of pure milk from her space, gulped it down completely, and fell asleep after a short while.
In the East Room
Grandma Liu, however, couldn’t sleep. By the moonlight, she spoke to the old man, “Old man, what do you think is really going on with these potatoes?”
This was a time when feudal superstitions were opposed; otherwise, she would have wondered if their family had some kind of protecting immortal, like a weasel spirit or something similar.
Grandfather Liu was also harboring doubts in his heart. He took a puff from his tobacco pipe. “I estimate this matter is still related to Tiantian.”
“What do you mean? Those potatoes weren’t planted by Tiantian.”
“Where has your mind wandered off to? My meaning is that our granddaughter has good fortune!”
Grandfather Liu wasn’t talking blindly; he felt he had evidence.
“Do you remember? Tiantian was born in the morning. Not long after she was born, we received a letter from our eldest son saying he had performed a meritorious service and was promoted to deputy division commander.
According to the time written in the eldest son’s letter, it just happened to be the afternoon of Tiantian’s birth when he performed that meritorious service.”
“There’s also Manhong. Before, she was always a temporary worker at the grain depot. For so many years, even after finding connections and giving gifts, there was never a slot to become a permanent employee.
A few days after Tiantian was born, the person they had approached before gave a definite word, saying that a slot had become available.”
“Furthermore, look at our own house. In the past, some chickens laid an egg every two days, and some laid one every day, but they would stop laying once the weather turned cold. Since Tiantian was born, look again—even in the dead of winter, they occasionally lay one!
Think about it carefully; haven’t similar good things all occurred after Tiantian was born?”
This granddaughter of his was absolutely someone with good fortune, there was no mistake about it.
When he spoke like this, Grandma Liu also grew spirited. She had long suspected that their precious darling might truly have a special origin.
She slapped her thigh, “I’ve long thought so too. You say our Mancang is a bit taller and larger than others.
But in the past, nobody said his skills were that great; he would just set a noose or dig a pit trap, occasionally catching a wild chicken or a wild rabbit or something.
Look at him now; not only can he catch them with his bare hands, but he caught quite a large number last time.
And talk about last winter—those wild chickens were frozen stiff, and they didn’t go to anyone else’s yard, yet every single time they dropped into our yard, along with that big wild boar.
How could it break its leg right at our doorstep so perfectly, and exactly at the time you went to the outhouse in the middle of the night?
Then there are the vegetables in the field. Reasonably speaking, the weather in our Northeast turns cold early, and by this time, the cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants, green beans, and chilis should nearly all be finished.
But look at ours, hanging in thick clusters one after another.
The green bean trellises are nearly collapsing under the weight.
This year, Sufen and I have dried quite a lot of green bean skins and shredded green beans, and we’ve also made a lot of garlic eggplants.
We even sent quite a lot over to the third son’s family.
You don’t know, but during this period, my heart has been in my throat, just fearing that someone would come over for a visit.”
Fortunately, every family was busy going up the mountain, hauling firewood, and gathering mushrooms, so no one had the time to drop by.
Grandfather Liu nodded his head in agreement, “There’s also the potatoes this time. Normally, an acre of potatoes can only yield about fourteen or fifteen hundred jin.
With ours, if we really planted an acre of land, I estimate it could reach seven or eight thousand jin.”
Grandfather Liu’s words left the old lady clicking her tongue in amazement.
“Alright, don’t think about it anymore. No matter what, she is our sweet granddaughter. Sleep. Tomorrow I still have to go up the mountain with the second son and his wife!”
Grandfather Liu tapped his tobacco pipe against the edge of the kang, rolled the pouch around the pipe stem, and lay down inside his quilt.
He let out a comfortable sigh.
“You sleep first. I’ll go check on Tiantian and come back to sleep.”
Tomorrow morning she also needed to wake up early to slap more cornmeal cakes onto the iron pot; this time she absolutely had to bring some lunch along.
Lest it be like last time, when the grandfather and his sons grew so hungry their legs went soft.
Grandma Liu put on her shoes, stepped onto the ground, and went to the west room to glance at her granddaughter. She pulled the quilt to cover her little belly before returning with peace of mind.
In a short while, she too was sleeping soundly and sweetly.