webnovelvip Chapter 126 New Year
Chapter 126 New Year
The sounds of the stream and the wind mingled and poured in through the window. Someone was cooking, someone was dozing by the fire pit—all sorts of sounds, yet it was quieter than if there were no sounds at all.
The next morning, smoke rose from the rooftops of various houses in the village. The wind was light in the valley, and the smoke lingered in front of the rock walls for a long time, like a thin veil covering the mountain.
After leaving Dehang, the car turned onto the highway and headed home. The back seat was piled high with things—rice tofu from Furong Town, ginger candy from Fenghuang, chopped chili peppers bought from a roadside stall in Aizhai, a few pieces of cured meat from Dehang, and a bamboo basket given to us by an old lady.
Su Peixue held the bamboo basket on her lap and counted on her fingers whether the things she brought back were enough to share.
The car drove smoothly forward on the highway, and the scenery on both sides gradually changed from mountains to hills, and from hills to plains.
Lin Ran turned the air conditioning down a bit and glanced at the person sleeping in the passenger seat. Su Peixue's lips were still curled up in a smile.
On the morning of New Year's Eve, Lin Yuefeng parked his car in front of his grandfather's house. When he opened the trunk, it was filled with New Year's goods he had brought from the county town.
Lin Ran carried two boxes of milk and a bag of candy, while Su Peixue held a bamboo basket containing cured meat given by Grandma Dehang and ginger candy brought back from Fenghuang.
Xu Wanru walked in front, carrying a slaughtered chicken. As soon as she entered the yard, she called out, "Mom!" Grandma Lin poked her head out from the kitchen, her apron covered in flour. When she saw them come in, her eyes crinkled into slits with laughter. She said, "If you hadn't come, no one would have put up the Spring Festival couplets."
Lin Ran was assigned to put up Spring Festival couplets. Every year, Grandpa Lin would write the Spring Festival couplets himself. He would cut the red paper, dip his brush in ink, and spread them out on the Eight Immortals table in the main room.
This year's couplet reads, "A thousand homes are warm at the foot of the persimmon grove, and all things are new along the Tuojiang River," with the horizontal inscription "Abundant Harvest of Grains."
After finishing writing, Grandpa Lin examined the character "柿" (persimmon) for a while and said it wasn't written well, so he wanted to rewrite it. Lin Ran said it was fine, but Grandpa Lin said, "You don't understand. This character is for Xuexue to see. Her video made our persimmons famous, so this character can't be embarrassing."
Su Peixue, who was helping to cut the paper, looked up when she heard this and said, "Grandpa, you wrote it beautifully." Grandpa Lin then kept the couplet with the character "persimmon" that he wasn't satisfied with, saying he would paste it in the backyard.
Lin Ran held the bowl of paste, and Su Peixue held the couplets. The two of them, one brushing on the paste and the other pasting it up, worked together.
Paste one on the door frame of the main room, one on the door frame of the kitchen, and one on the door frame of the backyard.
When Su Peixue was pasting the couplets in the backyard, she noticed they were crooked. She stood on tiptoe to reach them, but couldn't, so Lin Ran picked her up from behind.
As a result, Su Peixue actually stayed on it for even longer.
"Are you acting as me?"
Hehe~
Su Peixue wiggled her little bottom, pasted the couplets, and crawled out of Lin Ran's arms.
The couplet was pasted neatly in the center of the door frame. Su Peixue said that the previous position was only slightly crooked, but Lin Ran said that even a slight crookedness is still crooked.
In the kitchen, Xu Wanru and Grandma Lin were preparing the New Year's Eve dinner. The firewood in the stove was burning brightly, and the oil in the iron pot was sizzling.
Grandma Lin was chopping minced meat. With two cleavers, she moved up and down quickly and evenly, and the pork on the cutting board slowly turned into minced meat.
Xu Wanru was picking vegetables nearby, washing the garlic sprouts one by one and arranging them in a bamboo basket. Grandma Lin, without looking up, said, "Eldest daughter-in-law, go and rest. Don't undercook the green beans again."
Xu Wanru said she wouldn't stir-fry green beans this year; instead, she would make braised duck for Xuexue. Grandma Lin glanced at her and said, "You do make braised duck very well."
Xu Wanru said that's right, my daughter-in-law loves to eat it. Su Peixue happened to be passing by the kitchen door carrying a stack of bowls. Hearing this, she paused, came in, and placed the bowls on the stove, saying, "Auntie, let me help you." Xu Wanru pulled her to her side, handed her a pair of chopsticks, and said, "Here, try it and see if it's salty."
Lin Yuefeng and his grandfather sat in the main room shelling peanuts. The grandfather shelled one and threw it into a bowl, shelling three before throwing in one, and then popping the remaining two into his mouth.
Lin Yuefeng said, "Dad, didn't you peel them to fry peanuts?" Old Master Lin said, "What's wrong with eating two before frying? You can't even eat the ones you grew yourself? I'm your dad!"
Lin Yuefeng also peeled one and popped it into his mouth, agreeing.
In the evening, the New Year's Eve dinner was served. Two square tables in the main room were pushed together, covered with a red plastic tablecloth, and filled with dishes.
In the very center is a large plate of chopped chili fish head, made with silver carp caught from the river. The fish head is split in half and covered with bright red chopped chili peppers, steaming hot.
Next to it was stir-fried beef with yellow peppers, the beef sliced thinly and stir-fried with green garlic sprouts, glistening with oil. Braised duck was Xu Wanru's specialty; the duck meat was a deep reddish-brown, and the meat fell off the bone with a touch of chopsticks.
Grandma Lin made the blood-cooked duck, slicing the blood cake into thick pieces and braising it with the duck until it was soft, tender, and flavorful. Grandpa Lin made the braised pork belly two days in advance, boiling the pork belly thoroughly, pricking holes in the skin, coating it with soy sauce, frying it in oil until the skin blistered, then slicing it into thick pieces and arranging them in a bowl, topping it with preserved mustard greens, and steaming it for a whole afternoon. When it was served, the preserved mustard greens were shiny with oil, and the braised pork belly skin was covered with tiger-skin patterns, breaking easily with chopsticks. There was also a mixed steamed cured meat dish, where cured pork, sausage, and fish were sliced and arranged on a plate, sprinkled with fermented black beans and dried chili peppers, and steamed. The cured pork slices were so thin they were translucent.
Stir-fried pickled green beans with minced pork: The green beans were pickled in the summer, so the sourness was just right. The minced pork was chopped from pork belly. Stir-fried together, it was both sour and fragrant. Stir-fried chrysanthemum greens: The chrysanthemum greens were freshly picked from Grandpa Lin's vegetable garden. They were only stir-fried with garlic cloves and were so tender that you could squeeze water out of them.
The cucumber stir-fried with perilla leaves is made from local cucumbers, thickly sliced and pan-fried until golden brown on both sides. It's then sprinkled with perilla leaves and stir-fried, resulting in a soft and tender dish with the unique fragrance of perilla. In the center sits a large bowl of "Family Reunion," containing meatballs, egg dumplings, quail eggs, wood ear mushrooms, daylily buds, and glass noodles. The broth is a rich stock made by Grandma Lin using a whole old hen, with a thin layer of golden oil floating on top.
The staple food was rice steamed with sweet potatoes grown by Grandpa Lin himself. The sweet potatoes were cut into small pieces and steamed together with the rice. The rice grains were distinct, and the sweet potato pieces were soft, sweet, and fragrant. The pot was still steaming when it was served. Finally, there was a dish of braised sheep's head. The sheep's head was boiled until tender, the meat was removed, sliced, and arranged back on the sheep's head bones, then drizzled with a garlic and chili oil sauce. This was a dish that Grandpa Lin learned from a comrade-in-arms from Northwest China when he was young, and he only made it once a year on New Year's Eve.
Lin Yuehua was the last to arrive. As soon as she entered, she threw her bag on the sofa and said that she had only finished writing her year-end summary this morning and almost missed the New Year's Eve dinner.
When she saw Su Peixue sitting next to Lin Ran, her eyes lit up immediately. She squeezed next to Su Peixue and said, "Xuexue, you look so good in this today. Is it a new style from Hanxue?"
Su Peixue said it wasn't a new style. Lin Yuehua said the old styles were also nice, and Xuexue looked good in anything.