Chapter 25: Boiling Chestnuts
After Da Hei left, Jian Xingxia turned on her phone’s flashlight to check the vegetable and fruit seedlings outside the back courtyard. She gave them another thorough watering before closing the courtyard gate to shower and head to bed.
The clothes she had worn during the mountain patrol were covered in grass clippings and burrs, but she was simply too exhausted to deal with them.
“I need to make money fast. I want a washing machine!”
“And a three-wheeler!”
“A water heater too!”
Upon graduating, Jian Xingxia found herself scarcer on cash than ever before.
Curiously enough, ever since moving back to her grandmother’s house, Jian Xingxia found herself asleep before nine each evening and awake by five the next morning. These eight hours of deep sleep left her far more refreshed and clear-headed than her university days, when she would occasionally skip her part-time jobs and sleep for over ten hours at a stretch.
The first thing she did upon getting out of bed was check the [Manor Management System].
Another 60!
[Temporary Worker Satisfaction Score: 60.]
[Temporary Worker’s Anonymous Message: Master is so good. Today I ate my fill. The mountain is so good, so much fruit, much better than the barren mountain on my end. Dahua is good, lays eggs well, eggs are delicious… But I am very scared. Master was possessed by an evil spirit. Will Master die? The late master is already dead, is the new master going to die too?]
Jian Xingxia: “……”
She was truly at a loss.
In Da Hei’s feedback from the day before, he had thought her temper volatile; he hadn’t known if he was performing well and had felt entirely uncertain about the work, so the system had processed his feedback into a score of sixty. Today, his message claimed she was possessed, filled with the deep anxiety that his new master was about to kick the bucket, leaving him to become a stray savage once more.
The system automatically extracted the temporary worker’s “message,” and the matching score was a flat sixty again.
Jian Xingxia posted the recruitment notice and summoned Da Hei once more.
Watching Da Hei emerge from the wild grass, beaming cheerfully and flashing a row of white teeth, Jian Xingxia felt a mix of exasperation and amusement. She didn’t even know where to begin directing her annoyance!
With a stern face, Jian Xingxia barked commands at Da Hei, “Keep turning the soil! Get to farming!”
She resolved not to give Da Hei a single pleasant look today, lest he go back and claim she was temperamental or possessed again.
Da Hei, entirely oblivious, shouldered his hoe with practiced familiarity and set right to work.
Jian Xingxia went into the kitchen to boil water. With very few sweet potatoes and ears of corn left, she boiled a bowl of egg noodles for herself and prepared a massive pot of millet porridge. Millet porridge could be eaten cold; once cooled, it would set into a firm, tofu-like consistency—jiggling, cool, and perfect for a summer day. It wouldn’t spoil even if left out for twenty-four hours.
By the time Jian Xingxia finished washing her laundry, the millet porridge was ready. She called Da Hei over, feeding him two sweet potatoes and serving him two large bowls of the thick millet porridge.
Judging by Da Hei’s expression, he was clearly exceptionally pleased with the porridge. Setting aside the husks and spoiled scraps he had consumed as a slave, even during the period he hunted for himself while guarding his late master’s grave, he had never tasted such refined grain. The millet porridge was boiled until sweet and viscous; once cooled and set, it tasted no different from a sweet rice cake.
Da Hei consumed his millet porridge in blissful contentment, thinking his new master was truly incredible to be able to cook such delicious food. To him, this set millet porridge was the absolute finest food in the world.
Jian Xingxia had no appetite for sweet potatoes, so she munched on an ear of corn alongside her millet porridge, finished two boiled eggs, and began prepping the chestnuts.
The chestnuts gathered yesterday had been left to dry beneath the eaves of the back door overnight. Jian Xingxia intended to score each one with the household’s old kitchen cleaver. However, the wild chestnuts from the mountain were tiny and perfectly round, their shape closer to Chinese chinquapins, making them rather difficult to cut open safely.
Jian Xingxia chopped at a few, but it was an uphill battle.
She recalled seeing people sell chestnut-scoring gadgets online, so she immediately checked her phone. Not only did one cost over ten yuan, but it was also a four-day pre-order before it could ship.
While chestnuts could keep for a while, Jian Xingxia couldn’t afford to wait. With temporary workers being recruited daily, she couldn’t raise their wages yet, so the least she could do was ensure they were fed well. Furthermore, if she didn’t boil these chestnuts to use as staples, given the sheer volume Da Hei and Taoya could consume, buying commercial grain would become a massive recurring expense. Temporary workers were wonderful, but their appetites were simply too vast.
Chestnuts might be small, but they didn’t cost a single cent.
After a moment’s thought, Jian Xingxia rummaged through the firewood shed and found a few blocks of wood that met her specifications. She then retrieved the small utility knife she had bought at the market, unscrewed it, and removed the blade.
She called Da Hei over and described the design of the tool she wanted to create.
Lacking a hand plane, Da Hei used the sickle, kitchen cleaver, and utility knife in turns. Very quickly, he carved a neat groove down the center of the slightly larger wooden block.
The craftsmanship was a bit rough, but Jian Xingxia wasn’t picky; as long as it worked, it was fine. She had Da Hei use a brick to hammer the utility blade into the groove, then bound the slightly cracked wood tightly with iron wire. Meanwhile, she finished fashioning the handle for the homemade chestnut scorer.
She tested it out; it didn’t glide perfectly, but it was countless times more convenient and safer than hacking at the chestnuts with a cleaver.
Jian Xingxia placed the chestnuts one by one into the groove fitted with the blade and pressed down on the handle. As the chestnut rolled through the groove, its hard outer shell was instantly sliced open with a neat slit.
“Alright, go back to turning the soil. We’ll boil chestnuts for lunch.”
Jian Xingxia nimbly set to scoring the chestnuts.
In one continuous stretch, she prepared twenty jin of chestnuts. Today the main stove was dry enough to use, which meant she could finally utilize the massive iron wok—a single batch could hold ten jin.
Jian Xingxia used firewood to stoke the flames. The household stove featured three burner holes—two large and one small—powered by two separate fireboxes. Regardless of which main firebox was lit, the small central burner meant for a clay pot would catch the heat, allowing her to boil water simultaneously while cooking dishes.
Jian Xingxia scrubbed clean the massive iron wok left behind by her grandmother. She first boiled a batch of water to discard and season the wok, then boiled a second pot of water to cook the chestnuts. She also placed a clay pot over the small central burner, boiling two pots of water consecutively, which she poured into bowls to cool down.
She also grabbed a handful of scored chestnuts and tossed them right near the mouth of the firebox to make roasted chestnuts.
The chestnuts needed to boil for a good while, so Jian Xingxia used the downtime to continue scoring the remainder. As the wood wore in from friction, the groove of her homemade gadget became smoother, making it even easier to use.
Once the first wok of chestnuts was thoroughly cooked, Jian Xingxia fished them out and spread them across the stove counter to cool down.
During this brief window, it occurred to her that she needed to purchase more basins, vegetable baskets, and winnowing trays for the house to make it convenient to air-dry and store items. After all, the volume of wild goods in these mountains was truly staggering.
The second batch of chestnuts was smaller. Jian Xingxia added a tiny pinch of salt to the wok, and lacking rock sugar, scooped in two large spoonfuls of brown sugar. This was exactly how her grandmother had boiled chestnuts for her during her childhood—a tiny pinch of salt would elevate the natural sweetness of the chestnuts.
Rock sugar could be added a bit more generously, allowing the water to simmer continuously. Once the chestnuts were cooked through, the lid would be removed to reduce the liquid, causing the sweet syrup to coat the shells in a sticky, intensely sweet layer.
Right as she set the chestnuts to simmer, a voice called out from the front courtyard.
“Sister Xiaxia! Are you home?”
It was Fangfang.
Why was Fangfang looking for her at this hour?
Jian Xingxia’s heart instantly leaped into her throat—Da Hei was still outside the back courtyard turning the soil!
The scenario she dreaded most had occurred: a villager was about to cross paths with a temporary worker! How on earth was she going to explain Da Hei’s presence?
