Chapter 32: Rock Sugar Chestnuts
She had bolted the back door of the old house. For the time being, aside from Taoya, she wasn’t planning on letting any other temporary workers inside the house to avoid causing trouble. The kitchen and the washroom were separate outbuildings with doors facing the courtyard, which was why Jian Xingxia allowed Old Man Xu and Da Hei inside.
“Da Hei, stoke the fire first. I need to boil chestnuts. Once the fire gets going, help me score the rest of them.”
Da Hei complied. He had piled the branches and dry grass dug up from reclaiming the land outside the courtyard wall. Having baked in the sun for two days, they were perfect for stoking the fire now and would save on regular firewood.
Jian Xingxia guarded the massive wok, simmering the chestnuts.
She made two flavors. One was the original flavor; she added only a tiny pinch of salt while boiling to elevate the chestnuts’ natural sweetness. The other was the rock sugar flavor; she tossed in large chunks of rock sugar, melting them into a syrup that seeped into the chestnut meat through the scored slits, coating the entire batch in a thin, glossy layer of syrup.
She wasn’t done yet. Once the rock sugar batch was scooped out, she spread them flat in stainless steel basins and placed them into the chest freezer to freeze.
Fifteen minutes later, the outer syrup had hardened into a crispy rock sugar shell. She took them out, gave them a good shake, and rattled them around to speed up the separation. For the ones stuck tightly together, she used a small scoop to gently poke them apart one by one.
Jian Xingxia scooped out a small bowl to let Da Hei taste the flavor, leaving the rest in the freezer to continue freezing.
“How is it? Delicious?”
“Delicious,” Da Hei said blankly.
Jian Xingxia grumbled internally. She felt Da Hei would find absolutely anything delicious; if she didn’t stop him, he would even chew on a corn cob with absolute relish.
She sampled one herself. The rock sugar shell on the outside was crispy but very thin, melting into a sweet nectar upon being bitten open and coating her mouth. The chestnut meat inside was soft and chewy; it wasn’t frozen solid yet, but the texture already closely resembled ice cream.
The original flavor chestnuts weren’t as sweet, but the chestnut flavor was richer. Having come out of the wok first, they had frozen longer, making their texture closer to hard ice cream. Scraping them with her teeth to eat was highly satisfying.
The original flavor felt healthier and could be eaten as a staple food without becoming sickening or dirtying one’s hands. The rock sugar flavor leaned closer to a snack, with the crispy sugar shell providing a more fun crunch and a much richer sweetness. However, they couldn’t be left out for too long, or the syrup would melt.
After a moment’s thought, Jian Xingxia decided to package the original flavor at one jin per bag, and the rock sugar flavor at 300 grams per bag. She called Da Hei over to take over the stove duties, managing the heat and stir-frying the chestnuts while she fetched the electronic scale to start packaging.
Before she could even begin, Da Hei came down with a massive thrust of the spatula, nearly puncturing the iron wok!
Jian Xingxia grew anxious. “Whoa, be careful! The iron wok is very expensive!”
Da Hei clutched the spatula, thoroughly ill at ease. He was used to heavy physical labor and truly wasn’t suited for such delicate tasks. Seeing how nerve-wracking his stir-frying was, Jian Xingxia bit the bullet and had him attempt to pack the chestnuts instead.
But Da Hei had never seen such thin, transparent, slippery “paper” before; he couldn’t even rub open the mouths of the food packaging bags. After he ruined three bags in a row, Jian Xingxia said with a blank face, “You’d better go back outside to turn the soil.”
Da Hei felt dejected, sensing he had messed up again, but his fingers were too large, thick, and rough to untangle that thin, weightless “paper.” Standing at over 1.9 meters tall, his head hung nearly all the way to his chest.
Jian Xingxia sighed. “Da Hei, this isn’t your fault. The plot outside is already turned, and I can manage the rest myself. But I’m severely short on cash right now, so I need to finish, package, and sell these chestnuts quickly.”
Jian Xingxia measured her words carefully. “Furthermore, your life isn’t actually that difficult. You’re just used to following orders and don’t dare venture out on your own.”
Jian Xingxia handed him a few packets of seeds. “Here are some radish seeds and peanut seeds. I’ll supplement them with some sweet potatoes in a bit. Find a plot of land to plant them when you go back, and hunt for yourself—you’ll always manage to survive.”
Seeing the panic and anxiety intensify in Da Hei’s eyes, Jian Xingxia comforted him, “Don’t worry, I’m not abandoning you. It’s just that right now, I need someone who can help me with delicate work. Once the chestnuts are sold and the crops are planted, I’ll call you back to gather chestnuts, water the fields, and continue reclaiming the wasteland.”
Da Hei helplessly rubbed the plastic bag he had torn, hating his own uselessness.
Over the course of his recent employment slots, Jian Xingxia had gradually come to understand Da Hei’s circumstances. Compared to Taoya and Old Man Xu, Da Hei held a lower status, but his daily life wasn’t considered perilous. The Great Yu Empire was vast and sparsely populated; nobody would travel deep into the mountains to cause trouble for a slave guarding his late master’s lonely grave. There was land in the mountains, but without a master’s command, Da Hei didn’t dare and couldn’t bring himself to farm, relying entirely on hunting and foraging wild fruits and vegetables—which was why his massive frame had starved down to its current state. But he had hands, feet, and raw strength; he would always be able to live well.
Jian Xingxia hardened her heart, ignoring Da Hei’s emotional distress.
Da Hei’s shift today ran from six in the morning until seven in the evening—a full thirteen hours. At a standard wage of one yuan per hour, it came to thirteen yuan total.
Jian Xingxia meticulously balanced his wages with seeds. “The radish seeds are one yuan. The spinach, amaranth, and cabbage seeds are one yuan. The sprouting sweet potatoes and potatoes are cheap, this small heap is three yuan total… Absolutely do not eat these!”
Jian Xingxia warned Da Hei fiercely, “You must plant them. When I call you back next time, I will ask you about their growth!”
His master was going to ask! Then this was an official assignment!
Da Hei’s eyes instantly blazed bright. “I will not eat them! I will farm!”
Jian Xingxia didn’t care what exactly he had misconstrued, continuing to utilize his limited wages to arrange more resources. “This small knife is for you. I bought it online for five yuan; it’s a bit pricey for you, but it’s remarkably sharp and can help you hunt and process game. Finally, let’s give you some coarse salt. Keep some for yourself to eat, and store the rest safely. Each time, just use a leaf this size to wrap a tiny bit, and look for kind-hearted people to trade it for food.”
Jian Xingxia emphasized, “You can only trade once every ten days, and you cannot trade too much. You are only allowed to use a leaf this size, wrapped until not a single grain can be seen inside, before you go trade.”
The leaf Jian Xingxia picked was only the size of a palm; fully wrapped, it could only hold a thumb-sized pinch of coarse salt grains, which shouldn’t draw any unwanted attention.
Jian Xingxia weighed out the coarse salt for Da Hei, remarking, “You’ve caught a good window too; I happened to pick up my packages today.” The coarse salt was bought online very cheaply at one-fifty a jin, typically used for salt-baking quail eggs or roasting nuts.
Da Hei had three yuan left of his wages. Jian Xingxia packed a full two jin for him, sending him outside to chop a stalk of dried bamboo to store the salt securely inside the hollow tube.
Before darkness fell, she boiled another massive pot of noodles and ladled a bowl of the chicken soup simmered the day before for him.
Da Hei ate his chicken soup noodles in silence. For the first time, he found chicken soup to be so fragrant, yet he couldn’t taste a single thing.
Jian Xingxia picked up a chestnut and chucked it at him. “Oh, stop sniffling. Eat your fill and head out. It’s not like I’m never calling you back. If you hadn’t kept giving me low scores, would I have to swap workers?”
Jian Xingxia had plenty of her own frustration with nowhere to vent!
