Riding the wind of rebirth

"You don't need to worry about these things, do you?" Dad said, "How old is Elbow?"

"Elbow is mature, but Xiao Miao is not that big." Mom was confused: "Is Xiao Miao chasing after Elbow? Otherwise, why did she go to Liangshan with him? And they stay together every night..."

"Aren't we just doing business together?" The father said unimpressively, "I'm so tired of working on a business administration system. Do you really think they have time to talk about love at night?"

"That's a problem. I don't know if the American girl knows what it means for a boy to bring a girl home to meet relatives here..." Mom frowned again: "How about we give Elbow a hint and tell him that we like Xiao Miao very much. If they want to take it a step further, our family will be happy to agree?"

"Don't do that!" Dad was shocked: "Just believe that everything will work out."

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"It's fun to have a big family." In the Defender car, Mai Xiaomiao was also summarizing the new insights that the trip in recent days brought her.

"I'm worried that you can't stand their excessive enthusiasm." Zhou Zhi smiled and said, "Especially my mother and my eldest aunt with such personalities."

“Aunt and eldest aunt are both very nice.” Mai Xiaomiao was still playing with a panda stone in one hand. When he heard this, he remembered the name his eldest aunt gave Zhou Zhi and couldn’t help laughing: “Family heirloom, hahahaha…”

"Be careful not to drop the heirloom in your hand." Zhou Zhi hated being called aunt the most, but he had already accepted his fate.

"This is you, and this is me." Mai Xiaomiao placed the two panda stones on her knees, then brought her knees together. While Zhou Zhi was concentrating on driving, she let the two stones touch each other gently: "My godmother said that we should be good to each other for the rest of our lives."

"Are you interested in dinosaurs, Xiao Miao?"

"Dinosaur?"

"Ah, there is a dinosaur museum in Zigong, and there is also a well salt base to visit, and there are many delicious foods. By the way, the lantern festival should be set up soon, why don't we go there and ask?"

"Well, it's all up to you."

We avoided the highway under construction. Although a section of the road from Manzhou to Yanzhou was under construction, it was generally easy to travel.

Zhou Zhi and Mai Xiaomiao were not in a hurry, so they played as they walked.

When passing through some towns, it was market time and it was before the festival, so it was extremely lively. Moreover, the firecrackers in the countryside were set off earlier than in the city. Along the way, there were children throwing firecrackers from time to time, which scared Mai Xiaomiao and made her scream.

The Dinosaur Museum is actually not very big, but there are quite a few types of dinosaurs inside, basically covering all species. There is also a Mamenchisaurus, a type of Diplodocus, which is the largest dinosaur fossil discovered in China. Its neck is more than two stories high when it stands up.

There is no Salt Museum yet. Senhaijing is still a factory of Yanzhou Salt Company, but it has undertaken some tasks of opening to the public.

The wells here are more than one thousand meters deep, and the salt wells in Yanzhou were drilled as early as the Han Dynasty. Natural gas was first discovered in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Using natural gas to boil brine and produce salt has greatly saved the dependence on firewood. In that era, these two items were definitely black technology.

Until now, these wells still maintain traditional brine extraction operations and still use natural gas to boil brine, but the gas is now delivered from the natural gas company.

But these did not affect Mai Xiaomiao's shock and amazement at the wisdom of the ancients. Although she always heard Zhou Zhi praise the Chinese nation as the smartest, most hardworking, and the earliest civilized nation in the world, in her most exaggerated imagination, she could not imagine that the Han people thousands of years ago could dig wells thousands of meters deep and use natural gas to boil salt.

This salt also has a set of purification methods. The final salt obtained is snow-white and clean. Even though the traditional method is used, the result is almost the same as that extracted with modern technology.

The two bought some salt at the store at the exit of the tour. Zhou Zhi told Mai Xiaomiao that this was the best pickle salt, and the pickles made with it were particularly fresh and crisp. After asking around, the two learned that although the lantern festival had already begun to be set up, the lights had not been turned on at night, so they could only go to watch it during the day.

Since they were already there, the two of them went to the park to take a look. As expected, the daytime lantern show was not interesting at all. It was all paper-made animals and figures, some of which looked quite scary.

The only thing worth mentioning is a pair of porcelain dragons made of porcelain such as teacups, plates, bowls, and spoons. They are about the same size as the Mamenchisaurus fossils and are as tall as two stories.

However, the shape is the traditional Ming and Qing Dynasty dragon shape.

The porcelain used is all blue and white porcelain, so the two big dragons are also dressed in beautiful blue and white.

“Isn’t this also considered an intangible cultural heritage?” Mai Xiaomiao looked up at the only two bright spots in the lantern festival and expressed admiration again: “They have such skillful hands!”

"This really stumped me. Ancient porcelain is not cheap, and no one would use so much porcelain to make a big dragon for fun, so this practice must not have been around for too long."

"But there are indeed some particular ways to bundle porcelain. In the old days, when transporting porcelain, porters did not use baskets. Porcelain workers had a set of bundling methods that could bundle dozens of kilograms of scattered porcelain together, allowing porters to carry it for dozens of miles without it falling apart."

"It seems that the first Yanzhou Lantern Festival was in 1964. At that time, there was an old employee of the daily necessities company who was good at bundling porcelain. The company leaders chose to use porcelain to bundle lamps. After careful design, the old employee chose bowls with flower patterns and bundled them into porcelain lamps according to the pattern. Small light bulbs were installed in the bowls. After the power was turned on, the whole pattern was shining, which was well received by the audience. After the exhibition, these porcelains can be taken back to the company for further sale, which is also very economical."

"After that, the porcelain lamps were preserved every year, and they became bigger and bigger. But it is hard to say whether it can be considered as intangible cultural heritage."

"Of course it counts. It's been thirty years!"

Thirty years of intangible cultural heritage... Zhou Zhi decided to skip this one: "But there is one skill that must be counted. Let's go now."

"what?"

"There are three factions in Sichuan cuisine. The Xiaohe faction originated from Yanzhou, also known as 'Yanbang cuisine'. The boiled beef and rabbit with ginger and fresh peppers that I've made for you were first made here."

"Then where shall we eat?" The two had tofu rice in Fushun at noon. Although the seasoning was quite different from that in Jiachuan, Mai Xiaomiao still thought it tasted pretty good.

It’s just that I ate too early. Now that I’ve visited so many places, I’m really hungry.

"This place is like Jiazhou, it's a city of gourmet food. Any restaurant you pick up will taste good." Zhou Zhi suggested, "But we can go around the city and find a restaurant that seems to be doing a lot of business."

After getting in the car and driving around the outskirts of the city, Zhou Zhi suddenly found a restaurant with the words "Qiaotou Sannen" written on the sign. He slapped his thigh and said, "That's it!"

"Is it famous?"

"Very famous." Zhou Zhi said with a smile: "Today I'll show you what 'cooked on the table' means!"

When Zhou Zhi arrived at the store, he sat down. The waiter came up to greet him, and Zhou Zhi asked the waiter which son of Old Xie opened the store.

The answer I got was the second one. (End of this chapter)