Splendid peasant girl busy farming

Chapter 12113

"Oh my god, a rabbit! We really caught a rabbit!" Xiu Hong exclaimed with delight. Suddenly, she glanced around and stopped him from speaking about how he caught the rabbit. Xiu Hong quickly covered his mouth.

"Don't make a fuss yet, it won't be good if the neighbors hear it."

Sixi realized what was happening and immediately picked up the hemp sack from the ground and headed to the kitchen. Xiuhong followed behind. After entering, Xiuhong immediately turned around and closed the kitchen door.

When she closed the door and turned around again, Sixi had already dumped all the rabbits from the hemp sack onto the ground. The three large gray rabbits were arranged in a straight line.

Two of them had already died, and another was barely alive, lying on the ground with its limbs twitching occasionally.

Without exception, all three rabbits had a thin wire loop tied to either their front or hind legs.

"Caught three rabbits on the first day, Sixi, you're amazing!" Xiu Hong squatted down, her eyes scanning the three rabbits back and forth. Every now and then, she would curiously poke a rabbit's body with her finger and touch its fur, unable to suppress her smile.

Sixi was also very happy and began to share his experience of collecting rabbit traps with Xiuhong.

Xiu Hong listened and nodded. Although she hadn't gone with him, it was as if she had, because of what he said. It was really interesting.

"Wife, what are you going to do with these three rabbits?" Sixi asked again.

“You hunted this, so you get to decide,” Xiu Hong said.

"No, no, no," Sixi shook his head vigorously, "In our family, it's always the wife who makes the decisions. You should speak."

Xiu Hong thought for a moment and said, "Then let's take them to Washi and sell them for money!"

“Okay! Let’s sell them for money!” Sixi said, then paused and added, “But can we take two with us to sell? We can keep one.”

"Why? Are you craving rabbit meat?" Xiu Hong asked.

"No, I want to send a rabbit to your parents."

"Send it to my family?"

Xiu Hong thought she had misheard. She had previously thought that Sixi wanted to send a rabbit to his father and brothers at the old house!

In the past few days, under the pleas of Sixi's older brothers and sisters-in-law, and the pressure from Sixi's two uncles, Sixi's father finally relented and allowed Sixi's mother to return.

After returning home, Sixi's mother changed her previous impoverished temperament and stayed at home obediently and properly, never daring to come over and annoy the young couple again.

Therefore, Xiu Hong thought that Sixi had seen his mother change her ways, so he felt sorry for her and wanted to send her a rabbit as a token of his respect. In addition, he also wanted to prove that he was capable.

Unexpectedly, the rabbit was intended as a gift for her family.

"Why send it to my family?" Xiu Hong didn't nod in a hurry, but asked again: "As the saying goes, one should treat everyone equally. Since it was sent to my family, there is no reason not to send it to your family."

Si Xi shook her head and refused without even thinking: "No, I'll send it to your house, not mine!"

"Why? Aren't you afraid your family will find out and criticize you?"

"What am I afraid of? What right do they have to criticize me?" Sixi frowned. "My father-in-law's family has always helped us, contributing money and effort. What's wrong with eating a rabbit? What have they contributed? I'm not sending it!"

"Alright, at least you're not blind, you can tell good from bad." Xiu Hong breathed a sigh of relief; she wasn't the kind of foolish, good-natured person who would repay evil with kindness.

She wouldn't bully others, but she also wouldn't try to influence those who treated her badly with kindness; that would be foolish.

"Take all three rabbits with you. Leave one when we pass by my mother's house, and we'll take the other two to sell," Xiu Hong said.

"Okay, I'll do whatever my wife says."

……

"Have you heard? Sixi hunted a rabbit last night and specially sent one to Yongjin's house. Yongjin and Bamei were so happy, they couldn't stop smiling!"

After breakfast, Liu came to visit the third branch of the family. Yang Ruoqing happened to be there as well. Everyone was eating sweet potato porridge, which was sweet and sticky.

"Ah? This sweet potato porridge looks so delicious, it's no worse than that rabbit!" Liu was immediately captivated by the sweet potato porridge.

"Fourth sister-in-law, have a bowl!" said Madam Sun.

"Alright, alright, then I won't stand on ceremony with you, Third Sister-in-law." Liu immediately sat down and took the bowl and chopsticks that Xiaohua handed over.

"Fourth Aunt, you just said that Sixi hunted a rabbit?" Yang Ruoqing asked, looking up.

Liu nodded: "Yes, the eldest rabbit, with shiny fur, was hunted by Sixi last night. He hunted a total of three, and took two more to town to sell for money!"

"Wow, Sixi has really made something of himself! He caught three rabbits in one go, that's really rare!" Mrs. Sun's eyes lit up when she heard this.

Xiao Hua and He Lian'er were both full of curiosity. He Lian'er asked Liu Shi, "What price can a rabbit fetch in the market now?"

Liu shook her head: "I don't know either. I haven't eaten rabbit meat in eight or ten years. I don't even remember the taste anymore, so how could I possibly know the price of rabbits?"

Xiao Hua laughed, "Fourth Aunt, what you're saying doesn't quite make sense. You came to our house during the first month of the lunar year, and you also went to my sister's house. Didn't you eat rabbit then?"

Last December, my brother-in-law Luo Fengtang got some rabbits and sent them to the Sun family, the third branch of the family, and the pasture, two rabbits to each family.

Xiao Hua clearly remembers that on New Year's Eve, they braised a rabbit, and then during the first month of the lunar calendar, they invited people from all branches of the Yang family over for dinner, and they braised another rabbit.

“And also, Fourth Aunt,” He Lian’er added, “a few days ago, before my sister and brother-in-law went to the county town, they also brought a rabbit. That night, everyone was eating here, and you were there too. Have you forgotten that you ate the spicy rabbit head?”

Yang Ruoqing slowly sipped her sweet potato porridge and joked, "Our fourth aunt is the kind of person who forgets everything as soon as she eats it! Oh well, we gave her that food for nothing!"

Hearing the three of them chatting away, going straight from the first month of the lunar calendar to just two days ago, Liu slapped her forehead, looking as if she had been enlightened after her memories had been broken.

"Oh dear, look at my brain, it's like a donkey's brain, I forgot what I ate right after I ate it, hahaha..." Liu symbolically slapped her head twice as a form of punishment.

"By the way, Qing'er, what price did you pay for the rabbits during the New Year? You should know that, right?" Liu asked Yang Ruoqing.

Yang Ruoqing put down her chopsticks and thought carefully for a moment. "This... I do have a vague recollection of it. Let me think about it first."

"No rush, no rush, take your time to think it over, and we'll talk about it when you've thought it through." Liu picked up the bowl and gulped down the sweet potato porridge. The longer Yang Ruoqing thought about it, the more sweet potato porridge she could drink. Why not?

"Oh, I remember now." Yang Ruoqing turned her gaze back and continued, "When Tang Yazi bought the rabbit, it was around the end of the year in December. Prices for all kinds of things in Washi had gone up, so we can only use it as a reference."

"Just for reference. What were the prices around the end of the year?" Liu asked vaguely.

"Back then, the rabbit was cleaned and gutted, and it sold for 25 wen per jin!" Yang Ruoqing said.

"If it's a rabbit with fur, it'll be cheaper, 18 yuan per jin, but you'll have to come back and collect it yourself," Yang Ruoqing added.

Sun exclaimed in surprise: "Even in the twelfth lunar month, pork only rose to 20 wen per catty, and rabbits are more expensive than pork?"

“Mom, of course! Pigs aren’t anything special; many families raise them. My aunt and uncle even raise them on a large scale!” Xiaohua said. “But rabbits are different. They’re wild game, and wild game is quite rare.”

It's not something you can just get to eat whenever you want; it depends on chance.

Yang Ruoqing nodded, "Xiaohua is right, that's exactly right."

Rabbits are a type of wild game that you can prepare for the Lunar New Year by having a couple of them. It's a more impressive way to entertain relatives and friends during the first month of the lunar calendar.

Moreover, Yang Ruoqing herself really likes to eat rabbit meat. Although rabbits are cute as they hop around, rabbit meat is almost entirely lean with no fat.

The lean meat doesn't have the strong fishy smell of wild boar meat, especially the meat from uncastrated adult male wild boars, which is inedible.

But rabbit meat is different; it tastes really good, especially when you add the classic combination of ginger, garlic, and dried chili peppers and braise it over a wood-fired stove. It's incredibly delicious with rice!
“It sold for 25 yuan a pound during the Lunar New Year period. The price will definitely drop now, but it still needs to be 20 yuan a pound.” Yang Ruoqing swallowed her saliva quietly and continued, “Even if it doesn’t sell for 20 yuan, it must be 18 yuan a pound to keep up with the price of pork. And from what I’ve observed, 20 yuan a pound should sell very well, provided that you help customers clean it, take out the internal organs and tidy it up, and put the edible parts back in. It will definitely be a hot commodity.”

Even if it doesn't sell well in Washi, there aren't many people willing to spend so much. If you just take it to a restaurant or even a food stall in town, you can sell it.

If they can't sell it for 18 coins a pound, they'll sell it for 16 coins, which is cheaper than pork, and a bunch of restaurants will be scrambling to buy it.

"Tsk tsk, so this Sixi really has some skills," Liu said. "When I went to the second room earlier, I saw that rabbit. It was still alive. It weighed almost 11 jin (5 catties). After skinning it and removing its internal organs, there would be about 7 or 8 jin (3.5-4 catties) of clean meat!"

"I heard they gave the biggest rabbit to the second wife, and took the other two smaller ones with them."

"Tsk tsk, even if they're small, two of them together can weigh almost 20 jin, right? They can also peel 10 jin of meat. If they're sold at 18 wen per jin, this trip will net us 180 wen in pure cash!"

"This is much more profitable than Xiu Hong selling rice balls!"

Hearing Liu's repeated exclamations, Yang Ruoqing and the others nodded silently, agreeing that it was indeed true!

Selling rice balls is exhausting, and you only earn enough to make ends meet, or even barely enough, because it takes two people's manpower.

Selling rabbits can be a quick way to make money, but you can't be that lucky every day. If you were lucky every day, then people from all around would probably drop their hoes and go out to catch rabbits all over the mountains. In that case, there wouldn't be as many rabbits left in Sixi's hands.

"In short, this is a good thing. No matter what happens in the future, at least for now, it shows that the young couple is smart and willing to work hard to come up with ideas. Just based on this, they have already surpassed most people."

“Qing’er is right. I’m full from the sweet potato porridge. I’ll go to the second room and ask when they’re going to skin the rabbit. I’ve hardly ever seen anyone skin a rabbit…”

After finishing her meal, Liu left the third house with a grumbling, burping contentedly, without giving Sun and the others a chance to stop her.

Xiao Hua said, "This fourth aunt is really energetic; she's everywhere."

He Lian'er frowned slightly and said, "What's so interesting about skinning a rabbit? It's bloody and disgusting."

Yang Ruoqing turned her gaze away from Liu's disappearing figure, glanced at the two of them, and said with a smile, "Don't you understand our fourth aunt? Her real intention is not what it seems!"

Watching others skin a rabbit is secondary; the main thing is finding out when the rabbit will be cooked, so she can "coincidentally" come over and get some rabbit meat!
The words weren't explicitly stated, but Xiaohua and He Lian'er instantly understood. They looked at each other, then laughed.

Even Mrs. Sun couldn't help but laugh helplessly, "Your fourth aunt isn't a bad person, but she's really greedy."

“I feel that there should be a limit to being greedy. Look at what you’re craving,” He Lian’er said.

“If it’s something like sweet potato porridge, steamed buns, or mantou, it’s not a big problem. But if it’s rare ingredients that the elderly and children in the family don’t even have enough to eat, and you’re craving them too, then that’s a bit reckless and not good.” She analyzed logically.

"Take today's matter for example. I know that the second wife has a rabbit. To be honest, I will deliberately avoid visiting the second wife's house all day today, so as not to cause misunderstandings and to avoid putting both parties in a difficult position."

If you go visiting someone's place and see a rabbit, even if you don't intend to eat it, they might feel bad and politely invite you over for some rabbit meat.

If you decline and say you can't come, but then they feel obliged and insist on bringing you a bowl, wouldn't that put everyone in a difficult position?

So it's better to avoid suspicion; it's not like you can't survive without a few bites of rabbit meat.

He Lian'er's analysis today was so thorough; it can be said that she directly exposed the truth behind this.

Xiao Hua smiled awkwardly and went to look at Yang Ruoqing and Madam Sun.

Mrs. Sun smiled awkwardly, not wanting to criticize anything, because she was a pushover and would rather not eat than be called stingy or petty.

Yang Ruoqing stretched and gave He Lian'er a thumbs up.

"Lian'er is absolutely right. Fourth Aunt is indeed a bit reckless. However, I believe Second Sister-in-law is not like Mother and Fifth Aunt. She won't always go along with Fourth Aunt's wishes. When it's time to refuse, Second Sister-in-law won't hesitate!"

"That can't be right, can it? Your second sister-in-law might be too embarrassed to ask, and your second brother too. They can't just let your fourth aunt stay at their house without inviting her out, can they?" Sun said with some doubt.

One really good thing about my fourth sister-in-law is that if you dare to invite her, whether you're just being polite or genuinely sincere, she will never let your invitation fall flat. She will absolutely, without a doubt, accept your invitation and sit down at the table with your whole family, pick up her chopsticks, and not stand on ceremony with you at all!