At first glance, the pile of food looked surprisingly large.
As Tang Jiao sorted through everything, she kept a careful count. They happened to have a woven polypropylene sack, so anything that could be squeezed or stacked without damage went into that. Items that couldn’t be crushed or bumped were packed into a rolling suitcase. As long as the weight on both sides stayed roughly even, they could carry everything using the shoulder pole.
Gu Yu came over to help. One of them held the bag open while the other packed things inside.
First came the rice—over fifty jin (about 25 kilograms). It had been bought in bulk from a vendor who drove a small truck into their village, claiming it was freshly harvested rice. One full sack weighed eighty jin. Since both Tang Jiao and Gu Yu loved eating rice, her mother-in-law had kept only a small portion at home and sent most of it with them to the mountains.
Next was flour. There wasn’t much—around ten to twenty jin. Normally, steamed buns were made by either Gu Yu’s mother or Tang Jiao’s own mom, so the flour they brought was mostly for porridge or pancakes. It was stone-ground from wheat they’d grown themselves—not as white as store-bought flour, but chewy and fragrant with a rich wheat aroma.
After that came various grains and legumes: millet, mung beans, red beans, soybeans, peanuts, black rice, sesame seeds, and dried sweet potato slices.
Aside from millet, peanuts, and dried sweet potatoes—which they had in slightly larger quantities—most of these were only one or two jin each.
They had about four to five jin of millet, since Tang Jiao often drank millet porridge to soothe her stomach. The peanuts, homegrown, totaled over ten jin. The dried sweet potatoes—thinly sliced and sun-dried—filled a large supermarket-sized plastic bag. They were especially delicious cooked into porridge. There was also one or two jin of pre-mixed “eight-treasure porridge” ingredients bought loose from the supermarket.
That covered the staple grains. Next came semi-prepared and ready-to-eat foods:
They still had twenty steamed buns.
There were twenty cooked salted duck eggs, plus a small bucket of raw salted duck eggs—about twenty to thirty of them. There was also a medium bucket holding fifty to sixty free-range chicken eggs. The eggs were packed in buckets with layers of soft grass between them, making them stable and hard to break.
There was one large glass jar of fermented watermelon-rind bean paste—amazing with steamed buns and great for adding flavor to stir-fries. It probably weighed thirty to forty jin.
A large box of shredded pickled radish from the supermarket.
A small carton of “dragon beard” dried noodles, bought online—eleven bundles in total, each bundle weighing one jin.
One case of instant noodles. It originally had twenty-four packs; three were eaten as a late-night snack on the day they arrived, leaving twenty-one.
A small case of snail rice noodles—ten packs total.
Mooncakes: after eating some over the past two days, they still had twenty-two left. With the Mid-Autumn Festival approaching, Tang Jiao had bought a lot. She’d given over ten to her mother’s family the day before; the rest were shared between them and Gu Yu’s mother.
There were also about ten to twenty tiny individually wrapped mooncakes—bought especially for An’an, who loved them.
Other items included: one bag of sliced toast, eight pork-floss buns, eight cream-filled buns, six shredded bread rolls (most had already been eaten), twenty to thirty mini buns, over twenty loose wafer biscuits, more than twenty loose soda crackers, a large bag of assorted dried tofu snacks, and two large cakes—one egg cake and one jujube cake. These cakes were genuinely huge, square blocks over ten centimeters wide, soft and perfect for An’an.
On top of that were the Mid-Autumn gifts they’d brought back from Tang Jiao’s mother’s home:
One crate of milk—twenty-four cartons total, with twenty-one remaining after An’an drank some over the past two days.
One crate of yogurt—twenty-four cartons.
One box of sausages, with twenty-eight sticks left.
One box of canned eight-treasure porridge—ten cans.
One box of canned yellow peaches—twelve small glass jars.
Next came the snacks and drinks…
They also had snacks and dried goods: four one-jin packs of sunflower seeds, two packs of cheese sticks, six bowls of old-style yogurt, ten autumn pear syrup lollipops, thirty-six loose hawthorn rolls, three large bags of spicy gluten strips, two packs of spicy fish skin, five packs of crispy dried jujubes, one to two jin of dried red dates, and two to three jin of raisins. The dried dates and raisins were mainly for cooking porridge.
As for drinks, they still had thirty-seven bottles of mineral water, seventeen bottles of beer in green glass bottles, twenty-four cans of beer, one two-liter bottle each of cola and lemon-lime soda, and several dozen jin of bulk grain liquor stored in plastic jugs.
Next came the seasonings.
First of all—salt. There were forty to fifty packets of it. Don’t ask why. The answer was simple: during “those special three years,” her mother-in-law had stocked up heavily.
In rural areas, as long as expectations aren’t too high, families can usually be self-sufficient in grain, cooking oil, vegetables, and meat. Salt, however, is the one thing you can’t produce yourself. Add in the inconvenience of going out during the pandemic years, and everyone followed the trend of hoarding—hence the mountain of salt.
There was also white sugar and brown sugar. Tang Jiao bought them whenever she had time, so they still had five to six jin of white sugar and about two jin of brown sugar.
Endless gratitude to her mother-in-law!
They also had four to five jin of rock sugar, plus large quantities of MSG, chicken bouillon powder, white pepper, barbecue seasoning, cumin, dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, aged vinegar, white vinegar, “Thirteen Spices,” Nande seasoning, oyster sauce, hot-pot seasoning, and more. Most of these were bought in double portions or larger, since they had planned to start a small breeding operation and expected to be busy for quite a while. There were also two to three jin of loose Hu-la soup seasoning.
Cooking oil consisted of one large white fifty-jin plastic barrel of peanut oil—almost full—pressed from their own peanuts.
There was also a small jug of sesame oil and a large jar of peanut-sesame paste, both homemade.
Star anise, cinnamon bark, and bay leaves were packed in a single supermarket jar. The Sichuan peppercorns were harvested and sun-dried from their own trees—a big bag of them. The dried chilies were home-dried, the chili powder was home-ground, and the ginger and garlic were all homegrown.
Finally—An’an’s milk formula.
It had been bought just two days earlier. There was a promotion: buy two cases and get a rice cooker for free. Without hesitation, they’d bought two cases—twelve cans in total. An’an wasn’t drinking much formula anymore, so this would easily last a year.
That was all of their food.
It looked like a lot, didn’t it?
But when you did the math, it was sobering.
Based on the average Chinese diet, an adult needs at least six liang (about 300 grams) of rice per day—and that’s the bare minimum.
And that didn’t even account for heavy daily labor. Over the past two days alone, Tang Jiao could already feel herself eating more, and she knew this level of physical activity would become the norm.
Once they calculated it properly, the numbers were alarming.
Fifty jin of rice would only last them about a month—and that was with careful rationing. Despite the wide variety, the actual quantities weren’t that large. Rice was really the only thing they had in abundance.
Even so, after finishing the inventory, both Tang Jiao and Gu Yu let out a huge sigh of relief.
They were satisfied. Truly satisfied.
These supplies were their confidence as they stepped into this strange new world. If they were careful, even if food gathering didn’t go well, they could survive for a month or two. And it wasn’t like they planned to just sit and wait to starve. With so many wild vegetables around, as long as they were willing to work, they wouldn’t go hungry. Wild greens, after all, were surprisingly filling.
After sorting and packing everything, they decided to leave the milk and drinks behind for now—they were simply too heavy. The eggs and duck eggs also stayed, since they already had containers and were fragile. The rest weighed a little over two hundred jin in total.
Gu Yu balanced the load evenly on both sides, tied everything securely to the shoulder pole, and lifted it to test the weight. He could carry it—but it swayed badly, and the pole dug painfully into his shoulder.
Tang Jiao quickly grabbed a piece of clothing and wrapped it around the pole. That helped a lot. Gu Yu tried again, and after a moment, he found the trick to keeping it steady.
Tang Jiao stuffed her own backpack as full as she could, dug out An’an’s old baby carrier, and awkwardly strapped him to her chest.
Then, at last, they set off on the journey back.