A Good Country Wife-Chapter 100 -

Chapter 100: 100

Chapter 100: 100

After returning from Chunxi’s home, Lin Yue went straight to the storeroom and gathered a lot of soybeans, picking out the bad ones, repeatedly rinsing them until they were clean, and then soaked them in water to prepare for sprouting. With only three days until the market day, there was a bit of a rush. However, if she managed to maintain the optimal temperature for sprouting, three days would still be enough.

On the day before going to the market, Lin Yue also ground some soybeans and corn to make soy pulp buns and corn buns, as well as five-spice dried tofu. On market days, when there were many people, many who came to town to catch the early hours didn’t even have breakfast and hesitated to spend money on food. So Lin Yue thought of making two types of buns. Buns could stave off hunger, and as long as they were sold cheap, there were sure to be buyers. The Bun Shop sold them at a high price, but she could still make a profit even if selling them at half the price, especially since the buns included inexpensive soy pulp and corn. Despite this, the buns were fragrant, soft, and their taste was by no means inferior to that of plain flour buns.

As for the five-spice dried tofu, the cost was a bit higher. The soybeans themselves didn’t cost much, but the spices used inside were somewhat expensive, and the production method was more complicated. Since it was her first time selling at the market and no one had seen this product before, Lin Yue wasn’t sure if it would sell well or not, so she dared not make too much—just about five or six jin. If it sold well, she’d make more the next time.

Since Lin Yue thought that buns didn’t taste as good once they turned cold, it was best to sell them warm, or at least keep them lukewarm. She planned to steam them just before leaving, so she got up in the middle of the night. Once the buns were steamed and wrapped in cloth, she placed them in a basket, wrapped in an old cotton-padded jacket that Zhao Erhu wore in the winter, ensuring they would still be warm when she arrived at the market.

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As the buns were steaming on the stove, Lin Yue used the time to pack up the things she was going to sell at the market. The dried bamboo shoots had been soaked in water in a wooden barrel since the day before; now she drained them and packed them alongside the pressed bamboo shoots. These two items weren’t afraid of being squashed, so she put them at the bottom of a large basket, taking up half the space. Then she took out the sprouted soybeans, neatly tied them with rice straws, placed a thin board in the middle of the basket, and neatly arranged the soybeans on top, covering them with a coarse cloth. With that, one basket of goods was ready.

Lin Yue tried lifting it and found it quite heavy. The steamed buns and five-spice dried tofu on the stove needed separate containers. Carrying them all by herself was not easy, but luckily, Chunxi would come to invite her to the market when she set off and could offer some help. She had originally thought it was just a few items, but packed together, it was quite a lot.

The buns were ready and the sky was beginning to light up outside. Lin Yue was about to pack them up when several children burst into the kitchen, “Mother, we’ve come to help you.”

Ever since Dalang switched to calling Lin Yue “mother,” the other children had followed suit.

Dalang and Erhu came in first, followed by the still groggy Sanlang and the extremely drowsy Silang. Silang insisted on getting up with his brothers even though he wasn’t fully awake. His eyes blinked sleepily, his mouth kept yawning, and his eyelids drooped as if he were half-asleep.

“I only need to pack up the buns, and then I’ll be ready to set off. It’s still so early, why are all of you up? Go back to sleep for a while. While I’m away, Dalang, take care of your dad and your brothers,” Lin Yue had already given instructions the night before, but upon seeing them, she couldn’t help but repeat her admonitions. Suddenly noticing Silang wobble, she quickly said, “Sanlang, help steady Silang, don’t let him fall in his dazed state.”