Time Travel to the Educated Youth Era [Space]

31

As the saying goes, heavy snow means a good harvest, but not a single snowflake has fallen in the north so far. As the end of the year approaches, the wind is blowing harder and harder.

From the second day of the county meeting, the sky has been gloomy and blue, and it didn't clear up until the afternoon when the people from Gadatun returned to the village.

The New Year's goods that Tao Xiang bought in the county, including the two large quilts that her grandmother kept her promise to make, were covered with fertilizer bags and placed in her compartment.

Tao Xiang, who was currently preoccupied with work, was carrying a small basket of peanuts and sitting on the doorstep of the west wing, peeling them in the afternoon sun. Grandma Chen and Guo Guo, who were able to get out of the field, were also helping. Chen Dangui had not appeared since she returned to the village.

A pot of boiling water was bubbling on the earthen stove under the corridor. The last remaining dried chicken in the house lay quietly in the iron basin, waiting to be cleaned and chopped before being put into the pot along with a few potatoes.

Of course, it is better to cook the chicken slowly on the coal stove in the house. The weather is getting colder and people don't want to go out. The big pot outside is not very useful. It is usually only used to heat domestic water. The Chen family still uses the coal stove more for serious cooking.

Accompanied by the hoarse and painful cough of Comrade Gu in the cowshed outside the wall next door, Tao Xiang, who was peeling the peanut shells in his hands, became more and more absent-minded.

The atmosphere was a bit strange and dull. There was only the sound of three people peeling shells.

Grandma Chen knew about the niece and granddaughter stealing the Red Book in the county town, but she didn't dare to say much or ask more, for fear of making Tao Xiang unhappy, so she just accelerated the action of her hands.

Touching the full and heavy peanuts, the old man with blurred eyes could not see anything clearly, but he could not help but secretly praise.

After peeling half a basket of peanut shells, Tao Xiang weighed the small half basin of naked peanuts in her hand, intending to fry them with some oil and salt.

Thinking of this, she asked Grandma Chen for the key to the food cabinet to open the cabinet and check how much food she had left.

Tao Xiang had always been used to putting the staple food she exchanged with food coupons and non-staple food books together with the Chen family, such as the fifty kilograms of sweet potatoes distributed after the autumn harvest in late October, the thirty-five kilograms of corn and potatoes exchanged at the grain store, and some less than two kilograms of Fuqiang flour left over from her previous time as the head of the family.

The things were so scattered that Tao Xiang couldn't remember them all. Now was a good time to check them out. If there wasn't much food left, she could move to the Youth Hostel early and not have to haggle with Granny Chen and the others about the little things.

Now she calculated that besides the 35 kilograms of buckwheat and many uneaten candies and cakes, she also had the New Year's goods she had just brought back from the county town, as well as the accumulated food coupons and other tickets. With these things, she could get through the winter comfortably.

But after moving to the Youth Hostel, she would be far away from the cowshed, and Tao Xiang hadn't figured out how to bring it up with Granny Chen. She just wanted to see how much food she had left.

When Tao Zhiqing asked for the key, Granny Chen did not refuse and immediately took out a copper key from her collar and handed it to him.

The old lady guarded the key very closely, and outsiders could not easily see what was in the food cabinet. Even Chen Dangui, who had lived there for a while, had rarely looked at it.