Chapter 12: All Things Before the Year

Chapter 12

At this time, a circle of people had already gathered in the courtyard, with both adults and children.

The children each held a small rice ball and gnawed on it while laughing and watching. They quickly made way for the best spot when they saw Jiang Clan's eldest brother carrying his younger sister out.

The steamed fragrant glutinous rice was bright yellow, with each grain clearly visible. It was poured into a special large stone mortar, and three burly men took turns pounding it with wooden mallets, turning it over while yelling rhythmically, "Hei yo, hei yo!" This task required a great deal of experience and strength.

After pounding for a while, the three burly men switched out for another group to take over hammering. Front to back, it pounded for about two ke/hours.

The fragrant rice in the stone mortar was then thoroughly pounded into a fine, sticky dough.

Then the older aunties came over with clean, oiled bamboo sieves.

They put the pounded dough into a large funnel-like device and used a trapezoidal wooden wedge to press it down.

The dough was squeezed out from the funnel's lower circular pipe, forming neat, smooth cylinders.

Then, using clean scissors wetted with water, they cut it into sections of a certain length and laid them out on special wooden boards to dry. Once dried, the rice cakes were finished.

The freshly made rice cakes were the tastiest, both fragrant and chewy with a nice bounce. But because this food was precious, even though the spectators were drooling, they didn't dare ask for any.

Old Lady Hu, however, took the initiative to have some short sticks cut to share with the watching children.

The process for making zongzi glutinous rice dumplings was similar.

The premium glutinous rice was steamed until cooked, then pounded in a stone mortar into a fine, sticky dough. Then it was pinched into fist-sized pieces and pressed into shape.

Making candied fruits was much more complex.

After the glutinous rice was soaked, it was washed clean and drained. Then it was ground into a foamy flour. One-fifth was taken out, mixed with water into a dough, pressed into cakes, and cooked in boiled red sugar syrup.

The cooked dough along with the syrup was poured into the remaining rice flour, mixing into several large 10+ jin doughs, and left to ferment for two ke.

Then it was rolled out with a rolling pin into large 1 cm thick dough sheets, and cut with a special ruler into 5-7 cm wide noodles.

Then it was cut into 1 cm wide strips with scissors or a knife, sprinkled onto a cutting board to dry out the moisture, and finally fried in hot oil.

The Jiang house was filled with alluring fragrances the entire day. The finished rice cakes, zongzi, and candied fruits filled Jiang's three wing rooms.

After dinner, Old Jiang and Old Lady Hu called the three sons and daughters-in-law to sit together and hold a family meeting to discuss sending out New Year's gifts.

Everyone chimed in, and after drinking two pots of tea, they finally came up with a reasonable plan.

First were the gifts for clan members.

There were 47 Jiang Clan households. Plus Village Chief Zhao Liuzhi, Qi Doufu, and Granny Yang, there were 51 households total.

For these families, each would get 5 rice cakes, 5 zongzi, totaling 1 dou. Additionally, each would get 1 jin of candied fruits and 2 jin of meat.

Over the years, Jiang Clan had received no small amount of help from their relatives and clan members. Now that they themselves were better off, they naturally could not forget everyone else, otherwise it would be forgetting their roots. For example, the Zhao family.

Zhao Liuzhi and Jiang Wenyuan were childhood friends, with Zhao being 2 years older than Jiang Wenyuan.

When they were children, Zhao helped Jiang Wenyuan take quite a beating when their village kids got into a fight with kids from another village. Later on, he also helped Jiang Wenyuan a lot.

His family had little land. During the farming busy seasons when he saw Jiang Clan was shorthanded, he would often come over to lend a hand.

Whenever there was something good, he wouldn't forget to save some for Jiang Wenyuan. Therefore, Jiang Wenyuan remembered his kindness deeply.

As for the Qi Doufu family.

Although the Qi were settlers, they made a good living with Qi's superior beancurd-making skills.

Over ten years ago, Old Jiang fell gravely ill and needed an extremely expensive medicinal ingredient to save his life.

Old Lady Hu took the three sons to borrow money from all the clan members, but still could not raise enough money for the medicine.

When Qi Doufu heard about it, he took the initiative to lend the Jiangs a sum of silver, which allowed them to finally purchase the lifesaving medicine.

Back when life was difficult, Lu would come to the shop every month to sell embroidered goods, and received a lot of care from Aunt Chen.

After Lu gave birth to a daughter, her visits became less frequent.

On one hand, she didn't have as much free time; on the other, with the family's situation improving, she no longer needed to do embroidery day and night.

"These days, there are so many things at home that I really can't get everything done. I took this chance today when I have time to come see Sister Chen," said Lu.

"It's so nice of you to come. I heard your husband passed the imperial exam and became a scholar. Now you're a scholar's wife. After so many years, you've finally succeeded," Chen said.

Lu was delighted and replied, "Thanks to Aunt Chen's blessing, I'm doing quite well now."

When Aunt Chen saw the chubby baby in Lu's arms, she happily exclaimed, "This must be my little niece! Just look at her cute face, she's as beautiful as the goddess in front of Guanyin statue. She's so adorable!"

Like all mothers, Lu was no exception in feeling happy when others complimented her daughter.

Although Aunt Chen's words were just pleasantries, she still felt extremely joyful every time someone praised her daughter.

"Come on, greet Auntie!" Lu told her to greet the guest politely.

Jiang Yuqing babbled "Ya Ya" obligingly.

"Oh my, what a good girl!"

The three sisters-in-law each picked some fabrics, getting ready to bring them as gifts when they returned to Lu's parental home on the second day of the lunar new year.

When checking out, not only did Aunt Chen give them the best discount, she also gifted Jiang Yuqing two beautiful pairs of little tiger head shoes embroidered with rice beads.

Lu tried to decline but had to accept in the end.

After bidding Aunt Chen farewell, the three left the Embroidery Shop and continued shopping.

Seeing it was past lunch time, they were all quite hungry.

Lin suggested finding a place to grab a quick bite first before filling up their stomachs, then going to wait for their donkey carts at the city gate.

Most importantly, the child was hungry.

It was inconvenient to nurse outside, and the baby hadn't eaten anything for half a day, her little tummy was growling.

Lu had already heard it rumble twice.

The child was also sensible, she must have known it was difficult for Mother and didn't cry or fuss even though she was starving, which made people's heart ache for her.

After walking for a while, the sisters-in-law saw a dumpling stall on the roadside that seemed to have good business and looked clean. They went over and sat down at a clean table and ordered three bowls of pork dumplings.

While the owner was cooking the dumplings, Eldest Sister-in-law Lin took over Jiang Yuqing and held her on her lap, playing with her.

The nine-month-old chubby baby was quite heavy after being nurtured with good nutrition. It was fine to hold her for a short while but tiring after a long time.

Holding Jiang Yuqing, Lin weighed her in her hands jokingly, "Our good girl has grown so well, she's heavy! It's a good thing you were holding her for so long."

Lu shyly said, "I only held her, didn't carry anything. You and Second Sister-in-law were the ones carrying all the stuff, you must be the most tired."

Soon, the dumplings were served. The skins were thin and the fillings were big and tasty.

Lu wanted to take her daughter back so her sisters-in-law could eat. But Lin refused happily, "You eat first, I'll feed her! Usually I can't even fight to do this job."

Zhu piped up, "I'll help you!" Then she pretended to glare fiercely at Lu, "Eat your food, this is none of your business!"

That was true.

Ever since Jiang Yuqing started eating solid food, the job of feeding her was basically monopolized by Old Lady Hu. Even Lu as the mother had to stand aside.

Jiang Yuqing was an extremely easy baby to feed, she was not picky at all and would eat anything given to her. She ate mouthfuls eagerly and with great appetite.

When happy, her chubby arms would subconsciously sway around. The silver rattles on her wrists would chime crisply with her movements.

Just then, a brash voice called out, "Nanny, I want that rattling bracelet!"