Ch 58: Daily Farm Life After Returning from Interstellar

Pork Offal

Zhao Lei arrived quickly. Su Mu arranged for his team to rest in the villagers’ homes for a day before formally starting work the next morning. Due to the major actions taken by the Su family in the past few months, the villagers had also benefited. The rural houses were built spacious and with multiple rooms. These rooms were rented out to the workers. The construction team from before stayed for more than a month, and each household earned almost two thousand yuan.

Furthermore, the workers building the recuperation center stayed even longer. Without almost half a year’s time, the construction wouldn’t be complete. This became an important source of income for the village.

The various changes in the village were somehow connected to Su Mu. Therefore, the villagers were very grateful to her. As soon as the workers arrived, they were arranged in spacious and cozy rooms. The villagers even took out the fruits they had grown themselves to treat them. They hoped that these workers would put more heart into helping Su Mu build that labor-intensive flower house.

The next day, firecrackers crackled and popped. The flower house that Su Mu had been looking forward to was finally ready to begin construction. She watched for a while as the workers orderly went about their tasks. Zhao Lei was the overall manager, responsible for constantly monitoring the progress. With him present, Su Mu left feeling assured.

After returning home, she greeted her mother, took the car keys, and prepared things before leaving. The workers needed a significant amount of food for their meals each day. Additionally, the day of moving to the new home was only two days away, and preparations needed to be made to entertain relatives and friends. Biscuits, candies, and other items had to be prepared in advance to avoid being rushed on the day of the event.

She first drove to the entrance of Lin Li’s home. She had parked her car at their doorstep during the Dragon Boat Festival and owed them a favor. This time, she had brought something to express her gratitude.

Unfortunately, Su Mu’s timing was off. Lin Li wasn’t home; she was at work in the county. She was a primary school teacher and today wasn’t a weekend.

However, someone was home at the Lin residence – Lin Li’s grandmother.

Su Mu carried the things from her car into the Lin household and explained to Grandma Lin, “Li Li helped me out last time. These things are all from our own produce. Please accept them.”

The gifts she brought included a few bunches of vegetables, a small basket of lychees and passion fruits, and the most valuable item, a live chicken.

Grandma Lin wanted to push the chicken back, but Su Mu was too quick. As an elderly person with limited mobility, she could only watch Su Mu drive away.

Looking at the small pile of items, Grandma Lin had no choice but to arrange them neatly and wait for her granddaughter to return from work to handle them.

After parking her car, Su Mu arrived at the farmer’s market. Her main purpose was to buy meat. She greeted the familiar butcher shop owner and discussed whether they could arrange for daily deliveries. She needed quite a bit of meat, and after thinking for a moment, the owner agreed.

They exchanged contact information. Every morning, Su Mu would confirm how much meat she needed, and the owner would deliver it accordingly. This would save her from having to go to the county every day.

She saw a few sets of pig offals on the cutting board and carefully selected one. She remembered that her father liked this, so she planned to cook it for him at lunch. He would definitely be happy.

Su Mu was a regular customer at this stall, and after securing another significant deal, the owner was quite pleased. He even gave her a pig head that had been shaved of its meat.

Unlike in the city, the pig head here wasn’t completely cleaned. There was still a lot of meat left on it. Most importantly, the pig brain hadn’t been removed. Generally, it was still quite popular among customers.

She thanked the owner with a smiling expression, “Thank you.”

“No need to be polite, young lady.” The owner’s wife was straightforward. She found Su Mu pleasing and saw no harm in giving her something in return.

Su Mu returned home with a fruitful haul. After Mother Su helped her unload the goods from the car, she started busying herself with preparing lunch. Preparing meals for so many people alone was a bit challenging. Su Mu thought for a moment and decided to ask Grandma Li for help. She would assist in making both lunch and dinner, and the fee for the day would be fifty yuan.

Grandma Li now helped out in the vegetable field every morning, watered the plants in the evening, and weeded on alternate days. With the additional task of preparing lunch and dinner, she felt it was manageable and agreed to Su Mu’s request.

Her wages were nearly a third of her son’s salary, and she was quite proud of this fact.

With Grandma Li’s assistance, Mother Su breathed a sigh of relief. “If it weren’t for you, I’d really be overwhelmed.”

Grandma Li skillfully sliced the meat into thin slices and smiled, “Mu Mu earnestly invited me. I was worried you might get tired. Qiao Hong, you and Su Tang are fortunate. Both your son and daughter are so filial.”

“Aunt Li, your clever son is quite outstanding too. He’s a rising star in the village.” Mother Su gave her a thumbs-up.

As parents, they loved hearing praises about their own children from others, so these two mothers started a mutual admiration session.

Blushing, Su Mu listened from the side and focused on processing the ingredients in front of her.

Cleaning the intestines was quite troublesome, especially for the large intestines. They were still coated with a fair amount of fat, and she didn’t like the greasy feeling. Carefully, she used scissors to trim off the excess fat.

Actually, she used to avoid handling these organs before. She found them dirty and had a psychological barrier against them. It seemed that during her university days, triggered by some unknown incident, she had tried sausage and couldn’t stop after that. She gradually accepted various types of offal like small and large intestines, sausage, and pork liver.

After trimming the fat, she used a water hose to rinse the intestines, flushing away the dirt. She then turned them inside out, kneaded and rubbed them with flour for a few minutes. After cleaning them thoroughly, she added salt and cooking wine and continued kneading, repeating this process multiple times. She continued until the water in the basin was no longer discolored, indicating that they were thoroughly cleaned.

Finally, she brought water to a boil, added the large intestines, and let them boil for a few minutes. Then she took them out for later use.

The small intestines underwent similar treatment. Those that needed to be cut into small sections were cut accordingly, and those that needed to be sliced were sliced. After completing these tasks, Su Mu didn’t immediately start stir-frying. Instead, she turned her attention back to the pig head.

The pig head had tough bones. Su Mu exerted a lot of effort to split it open. She carefully took out the brain and placed it in a bowl. She added cooking wine and ginger slices for marination. Then, she chopped the pig head into pieces, cleaned them thoroughly, and marinated them with ginger slices and cooking wine as well.

Pig head bones were best suited for making soybean soup. However, since the soybeans needed time to soak, this dish would have to wait until the evening to be prepared, as would the pig brain.

Translated on ho lo lo novels dot com.

Su family didn’t have lunch with the workers. After all, using these organ meats to treat the workers wasn’t very suitable.

Su Mu planned to make a dish of stir-fried pig offal with pickled peppers. She still remembered that a few days ago, her father enjoyed the dish of pickled pepper beef and even had an extra bowl of rice.

This dish required high heat to bring out the best flavor. First, she sautéed green onion, ginger, and garlic until fragrant. Then, she added pickled peppers and stir-fried for a few seconds before adding the pig organ meats. She quickly stir-fried them until well-cooked, then added white wine to remove any undesirable odor, followed by salt and soy sauce for seasoning. She added green and red bell peppers for color and finished the dish with some chopped scallions and cilantro.

The dish Su Mu prepared was of high quality, boasting both appearance and flavor.

Busy in the kitchen, Grandma Li couldn’t help but praise, “I didn’t expect Mu Mu to have such good culinary skills!”

“Grandma Li, you’re too kind. Would you stay for lunch today? Let’s invite Grandpa Li too.”

“How can I do that? I’d better go home to eat and not be a bother.”

“How could you be a bother? I’ve enjoyed your food since I was a child. I remember Grandpa Li loves pig offals just like my dad does. I’ll go invite him over later.”

Both families got along very well now, so having a meal together wasn’t a big deal. Grandma Li ultimately couldn’t resist Su Mu’s insistence and agreed with a smile. At most, she could send over a few blocks of tofu in return.

Today, Su Mu not only bought pig offals but also some freshwater shrimp and a few pounds of clams. She quickly prepared the freshwater shrimp for a simple dish of blanching in boiling water, preserving their original taste.

Half of the clams were used to make clam and mustard green soup, which was fragrant and refreshing. The other half were used to make spicy clam dish. When Father Su and Grandpa Li sat at the table for lunch, they would likely have some wine, making it the perfect accompaniment.

Su Mu also stir-fried a plate of vegetables before considering the lunch complete.

The workers’ lunch was nearly ready as well. Su Mu glanced at the time and realized it was already half-past eleven, perfect timing for lunch.

“Mom, should I take the food over now?”

Su Mu could ride a small three-wheeler, so she planned to deliver the food herself.

Mother Su glanced at the courtyard and pointed to a small silhouette on the road, saying, “No need, your dad is back.”

Since she had eaten the pink melon seeds given by her daughter, her vision had been improving day by day. Her eyes had no issues now and were even better than when she was young.

The flower house wasn’t far from the small courtyard, so she saw her husband heading this way.

After Father Su returned, everyone worked together to load the food, soup, bowls, and chopsticks onto the tricycle.

Before he left, Su Mu said to her father, “Dad, later I’ll invite Grandpa Li to our house for lunch. You should come back and join him for a drink~”

“Alright.”

As the small tricycle moved away, she left her mother to chat with Grandma Li and turned to head outside to invite Grandpa Li.

Because her husband had work to do every morning, Grandpa Li reduced the amount of tofu he produced. He only provided the ingredients needed for the village and the recuperation center. He no longer had to travel around the village to sell tofu, so he had more leisure time.

When Su Mu arrived, he was sun-drying peanuts. They had been harvested not long ago and would be ready in a couple of days. However, the weather was unpredictable lately. It could be sunny one moment and raining the next, so he stayed at home, prepared to harvest the peanuts quickly if it started to rain.

“Mu Mu, Grandma Li isn’t at home.” When Su Mu came and called her husband away, Grandpa Li wasn’t at home, so he didn’t know that Grandma Li was at Su Mu’s house. That’s why he said this.

Su Mu smiled, “I came specifically to invite you. Grandma Li is having lunch at my house today. Why don’t you come too? My dad wants to have a drink with you.”

Grandpa Li didn’t have many hobbies besides making tofu; he also liked to have a bit of wine. Su Mu hit the mark with that invitation. Grandpa Li happily followed her back to her house.

Father Su soon returned. Everyone took their seats, ready to start the meal. Just then, a cheerful voice echoed from outside the courtyard, “Hey, I arrived just in time.”

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