Chapter 47: Oil and Salt Rice!
When she had just gotten back on her bike for the return trip, a light drizzle began to fall again. Huai Yu almost wanted to sigh out a whole year’s worth of frustration but forced herself to stay calm and not get too annoyed.
However, once she returned to her shabby little home, her emotions settled down again.
The broad leaves of the scallions were quickly cleaned after being placed in a basin. The wild garlic, which was more abundant and a bit trickier to handle, was set aside for now.
Next was the white mugwort. Its leaves were fluffy and slightly green at the base, very cute and easy to clean — a quick rinse in the basin was enough to remove the dirt.
Although it had looked like a big bundle, once packed into the stainless steel basin, it barely poked out over the rim.
Finally, at the bottom of the basket, was the earth moss.
This stuff was damp and slippery, yet extremely fragile. Huai Yu had accidentally picked up a lot of mud and broken leaves along with it. Now, dumped into the basin, even a little force caused it to fall apart into an unusable mess.
She could only roughly stir it around and then throw it straight into the pot to boil.
The yellow-green, slightly brownish earth moss floated in the water. As the heat rose, the water gradually boiled, and the slippery, fragile texture started to firm up.
Staring at the pot, Huai Yu couldn’t help but think back again—building houses, cooking, recognizing wild herbs.
And looking at her notebook, her handwriting wasn’t bad either.
Wow! She knew how to do everything! Could she have been highly educated? A professor? An expert? Maybe she studied landscape architecture or botany?
Surely she wasn’t from an agricultural university? But even if she was, that’s still impressive!
But no matter how hard she racked her brain, her past remained a blank mist. Huai Yu rested her chin in her hand, frowning in frustration. Until the bubbling water in the pot reminded her—
Scoop it up!
If she didn’t, it would overcook.
She quickly threw all her worries aside, grabbed a small basket to strain and rinse the earth moss, and then made another note of something she needed to buy:
[Strainer Basket]
After boiling, the earth moss wasn’t so fragile anymore and had darkened in color. Huai Yu sat on the blue bricks and carefully picked and washed it, feeling the damp, cold chill seep into her skin…
Thinking about it, there were really a lot of little things she needed to buy. If she had extra supplies, getting a small stool wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
Just as she was thinking this, a sudden warm sensation flowed down her body, and a deeply ingrained sense of dread made her jump up instantly.
After standing there in a daze for a moment, realization finally hit her:
“……”
She gloomily dug out some sanitary supplies from the very bottom of her storage bag and, sighing, went to the bathroom.
No wonder she had been feeling so emotional lately — it was her period, something she had been prepared for but completely forgot.
(╥_╥)
Luckily, she didn’t feel too bad otherwise. But still cautious, Huai Yu didn’t dare sit back down on the cold bricks after returning. Instead, she crouched down and continued washing the earth moss with warm water.
While washing, a scarier thought struck her—she always felt her real age wasn’t as young as her appearance. But how old was she exactly?
Was she married?
Could she even have kids already?
She touched her stomach, her face turning pale from the avalanche of questions, too scared to think any further.
Regardless, the earth moss was finally cleaned. Since nothing could dry in the rainy weather, she simply put the pot back on the stove and slowly dried the earth moss by roasting it.
Speaking of which, how do you build an earth kiln again? Should she make one by the door?
Otherwise, having only one pot was really inconvenient.
Crouching on the ground was too uncomfortable, so after spinning around a few times, Huai Yu dragged the blue bricks over again, layered several mats of straw on top, and resumed handling the wild garlic.
This stuff was called both “garlic” and “onion,” with thin stems and tiny bulbs at the bottom.
Listening to the soft sound of the rain, she slowly worked through it. The two large, muddy, dust-covered bundles of wild garlic were slowly turned into neat, clean bunches.
She left a small dirty bunch for tomorrow and chopped the rest into little pieces.
She filled a bowl with the chopped garlic and set it aside. Meanwhile, the earth moss had dried into hard, crisp pieces, so she packed it away and began roasting the wild garlic next.
Across the entire Rosewood Pavilion area, there were wild herbs, but not many.
After all, the land had been flattened and landscaped already — totally different from the primitive mountain forests. Wild garlic hadn’t even been seen growing naturally yet.
If she didn’t want to climb the mountains every time she needed some, preserving them like this was the only way.
The sweet, soft taste of the steamed flatbread still lingered in her memory. Staring at today’s harvest, Huai Yu started wondering:
“What should I eat tonight?”
Plain dough drop soup with steamed white mugwort?
Or white mugwort flatbread?
Or maybe a fragrant green onion pancake?
Or — use the purified rice with diced wild garlic, salt, and tiny bits of pork fat to make a simple but comforting oil and salt rice?
So hard to choose!
She drooled at the thought, but with only one stomach, she fell into a painful and difficult decision.
…
By six o’clock in the evening, the drizzle outside had stopped again. The sky was pitch black, with only the faint outline of distant mountains visible.
Huai Yu was used to it all by now. In the dim firelight, she poured out the roasted wild garlic to cool and began preparing dinner.
After eating flour-based food twice in a row, she decided it was time for balance — tonight would be rice!
Fragrant, steaming white rice!
If she had two eggs right now, she could make stir-fried earth moss with eggs, an egg pancake, or egg fried rice… and she could easily eat two bowls of it!
But in reality, the dried earth moss was stored away for later, and there were no eggs.
She thought to herself that next time she went to the trading market, she should bring back a book. Otherwise, stuck indoors all day with nothing to do, she would even have to slow down vegetable washing just to kill time. Life was getting way too boring.
During the day it was okay — there was always something to do.
But at night, the firelight was too dim. Other than sleeping, there was really nothing else.
And she didn’t need to sleep for a dozen hours every day anymore.
While pondering what she could do to pass the time, Huai Yu dropped a small lump of pork fat into the pot with chopsticks.
After three cautious uses, the lump of lard in the lunchbox was now seriously battered.
She then stir-fried the wild garlic pieces and tiny pork fat bits, added a bit of salt, and set them aside in a bowl.
Then she washed the pot and started cooking rice.
Her movements were smooth and practiced.
Once the rice grains bloomed open, she lowered the heat to let it simmer, then poured the fried scallion oil and pork fat bits evenly over the rice!
She found a few scallions, chopped them up, and sprinkled them evenly as well.
The steam rose from the bottom, and the firewood crackled and popped. The rich aroma wafted through the air. She covered the pot lid, feeling full of anticipation once again.
Although there were only a few tiny bits of pork fat and she hadn’t dared to use much oil, as stingy as an old landlord feeding a farmhand…
It smelled amazing!
The fragrance of the rice! The fried pork fat aroma mixed with the wild garlic and scallion scent…
At that moment, it felt like her entire treehouse could barely contain her excitement.
