My village can't be like this

Chapter 718: Movement at Night

Feeling that Chen Wenwen and Zhou Dasaozi were unable to comfort the newborn Zhou Jiayan, Zhang An said to his son, "Qiqi, help your sister-in-law to comfort your little niece. I'll go back and buy you some delicious food later."

As the ancients said, there will always be brave men when there is a big reward. After hearing what his father said, little Siqi immediately perked up and continued to whimper to the person next to him, and really coaxed Zhou Jiayan who was crying so hard.

Zhang An himself didn't expect that bringing his son along today would actually have such an effect.

When Mrs. Zhou saw that little Siqi could actually coax her granddaughter and was much more effective than adults like them, she immediately liked the little girl even more.

Zhou Yang turned around and begged Xiao Siqi, "Qiqi, come and help coax your niece from now on, okay? Brother Yang will make delicious food for you every day."

During the few days in the hospital, Zhou Yang really felt how serious it was. Although his daughter was not making a fuss 24 hours a day, it was very troublesome every time she made a fuss.

Now that he discovered that his younger brother actually had such extraordinary powers, he naturally would not let him go easily.

Little Siqi is a foodie. When he heard what Zhou Yang said, his eyes lit up.

In this way, Zhou Yang, the eldest cousin, successfully abducted his younger brother.

Arriving at the village, Zhang An drove the car to Zhou Yang's yard.

Mrs. Zhou helped her daughter-in-law Chen Wenwen get out of the car and return to the house while holding the child.

After getting off the car, Zhou Yang took out a red envelope and handed it to Zhang An.

Zhang An stared at him and said, "What are you going to do?"

Zhou Yang grinned and explained, "Take it. There's not much money in it. It's just a courtesy. If there's more, I can't bear to give it away. I have to save it for my daughter."

He was not being polite when he said that. He had indeed stuffed only five dollars and twenty cents into the box, just to wish Zhang An good luck.

Because this is the rule in Hongyan Town. Even if they are discharged from the hospital and come back from the county bus, they will hand one to the driver.

Of course, the drivers who run shuttle buses in Hongyan Town are also very particular. Generally, when they encounter such a situation, they will directly waive the mother's travel expenses. After all, this is a happy event, and everyone wants good luck.

Seeing him say this, Zhang An did not refuse.

"Okay, drive the car back quickly and come over to help. Tell my uncle and grandmother not to cook in the evening and come here instead."

Zhou Yang didn't care whether Zhang An had any problems or not and just requisitioned him directly.

Today, Chen Wenwen took her child home from the hospital. It seemed that not only the villagers came to visit, but also people from her mother's family and relatives from the Zhou family. It was quite a big occasion.

Everyone in the village came over to take a look and then went back, but their relatives definitely couldn't leave, so even though it wasn't yet a full month, they were still busy for a while.

This kind of thing is definitely not something that their family can handle on their own, and it is even more inappropriate to let relatives do it. Mrs. Zhou also has to clean up the house and let her daughter-in-law prepare for confinement. Zhou Yang is even busier, so he doesn't bother to be polite to Zhang An at all.

After all, with this kind of thing, if you bother other people you don't know if they are free or not, and you still have to do them a favor.

But when it comes to Zhang An's family, Zhou Yang doesn't have any burden. With the relationship between the two families, there is no need to say much about whether it is human or not. Anyway, he will help if anything happens, and the same goes for Zhang An.

Otherwise, why would he be so at ease asking Zhang An to help send the person over and then pick him up again?

Zhang An didn't say anything, but just nodded to show that he understood. He had expected this when he came back and saw so many people from the Zhou family.

Moreover, Zhang An's parents were already here. At this moment, Wang Fang and Zhou's wife were in the house discussing the matter of letting Chen Wenwen take care of the confinement after childbirth. Zhang Jianguo and Zhou Yang's father were in the yard accompanying other relatives.

Not to mention little Siqi, he immediately ran to his grandmother.

Zhang An drove the car back home, changed his clothes and came over.

As soon as he came over, Zhou Yang threw a cage of live chickens to him.

"Uncle An, I'll leave it to you. I'll go clean up the other dishes."

Zhou Yang said this with a smile and ran away.

"You idiot, you didn't even give me a knife, how could I kill him? You didn't even boil water, I'm really convinced."

Zhang An looked at the nothingness in front of him except a cage of live chickens, and complained helplessly.

There are a total of four live chickens in the cage, all of which are local chickens raised by Zhou Yang's family. They are not big, weighing only about four pounds.

The stoves in Zhou Yang's house were all busy and could not be used to boil water. Zhang An could only build a simple stove in their yard and light another fire.

Zhou Yang's kettle was too small, and the water it produced was only enough to kill a chicken at most. Zhang An simply found a large iron pot in their kitchen, which was more than enough to boil a pot of water.

After a while, Huang Ming came here.

"I say, you two are really boring. You didn't even call me for this kind of thing. You treat me like an outsider."

When Damingzi came over, he took out cigarettes and dispersed everyone in the yard. He looked at the two of them and complained that although he knew that Zhou Yang's family would return from the hospital today, he didn't know when they would be able to get home.

I just went to the river to deliver some things to some fishermen, and when I saw how busy it was here, I realized what was going on.

"You are a big boss now, and you are very busy all day long. Today is not an important matter, so I am too lazy to bother you. Wait until the full moon day, and you can't escape even if you don't want to come."

Zhou Yang chuckled and said to Huang Ming.

What he said was not an exaggeration. Now that Huang Ming's fishing tackle shop is open, business is booming because this is the time when the most people come to fish.

However, this business can only be done for half a year, because there are not many people in winter and it is a fishing ban period after spring, so these six months are particularly important to Huang Ming.

He would feel embarrassed if he was delayed because of this.

Besides, Zhou Yang felt that only his own relatives were coming today, and the baby was not yet a month old, so there was no need to mobilize a large number of people. A few people helped to pick the vegetables, and he and Zhang An could handle the rest.

"You are a person who thinks too much. It's not necessary for me to look after the store at home. I can still have my dad to take care of it when I'm not around."

Huang Ming is not the only one looking after the store usually, otherwise if someone calls and says they need something, he wouldn't be able to deliver it.

"Alright, alright, stop bragging and do your own thing. Damingzi, come and help me kill the chicken."

Zhang An saw the water in the big iron pot boiling and interrupted the two of them.

He went into the house and found two kitchen knives, one for himself and one for Huang Ming next to him.

He also took a small pot, filled it with water and added some salt, which was used to collect the chicken blood.

After all, the four live chickens in the cage have to be killed, so there must be a lot of chicken blood, and it will definitely not fit in the cage if we just beat them.

Huang Ming looked at the kitchen knife in his hand and felt it was not sharp enough. After dipping it in some water, he took it to the whetstone in the corner of the yard and sharpened it a few times.

Zhang An grabbed a chicken from the chicken coop and handed it to Huang Ming, then caught another one for himself.

Pinch the chicken's wings and comb, remove the tuft of hair on the chicken's neck, and start cutting.

Zhang An’s skill in killing chickens has now reached perfection. He just needs to cut the chicken twice with the knife and then put the chicken’s blood in salt water.

The chicken was bled out and thrown into the basin beside it, without moving at all. Huang Ming, on the other hand, was a little rougher. Although he also killed the chicken quickly, it still struggled after being bled out and thrown into the basin.

"No, Damingzi, your chicken will still jump after you kill it."

When Zhang An saw the chicken that Huang Ming had thrown into the basin to be scalded with boiling water actually jumped out onto the ground, he couldn't help but joke.

"Let it jump if it wants to. It won't be able to jump after a while."

Huang Ming knew that his ability to kill chickens was just so-so, but that was enough, so he didn't care at all and said it without blushing or beating his heart.

After the chickens were killed and placed in the basin without moving, Zhang An poured some cold water into the iron pot, and finally used a ladle to pour the water over the chickens in the basin.

This is because if the water is too hot, the chicken skin will be easily cooked, and when you pluck the feathers, the meat will be pulled out along with it, which is not worth the effort.

After Zhang An scalded several chickens all over, Huang Ming found a discarded nylon bag, and the two of them squatted on the ground and began to pluck the chickens.

Nowadays, there are still people willing to buy wool from chickens, ducks, geese, pigs and cows. Of course, in these villages, it's usually just chicken, duck and goose feathers. There's also pig hair, but it's only available during the Chinese New Year period. As for wool from cows and sheep, it's very difficult to get it.

After plucking the chicken feathers, Zhang An grabbed half a bowl of rice and sprinkled it into the fire little by little, then picked up the plucked chicken and roasted it over the flames.

This is what people throughout the southwest do when they kill a chicken. The purpose is to roast the unplucked down on the chicken skin so that they don't eat the feathers when they eat the chicken.

Since there is no need for sacrificial offerings, the belly of the killed chicken can be directly cut open and the internal organs taken out and cleaned.

"Here, let you do this. I can't do it."

Huang Ming cut open a chicken and handed the intestines to Zhang An.

This thing tastes delicious, but it is very troublesome to clean, and it will have a strong smell if you are not careful.

In the past, when his family killed chickens themselves, he was reluctant to clean up the mess, and basically just threw it away, or his father would do it himself.

But now he was helping Zhou Yang's family kill a chicken, he wouldn't just throw it away, so he gave it directly to Zhang An.

Zhang An glared at him in dissatisfaction: "You are so lazy. You find it troublesome to clean up and complain about the lack of food when you eat."

"Hey, just clean it up. Otherwise, I won't be able to clean it up, and then everyone will suffer. Don't worry, leave the rest to me, and you just need to clean this thing up."

Huang Ming chuckled and took over the rest of the tasks on his own initiative.

In the end, it took half a day for the two of them to clean the chickens thoroughly from inside to outside.

The chicken was sent to the kitchen, where Zhou Yang was processing the bacon.

"Uncle An, please go to your house and help me catch two more fish."

Seeing that the chickens had been cleaned up, Zhou Yang spoke again.

"Okay, how do you plan to do it and how big do you need it to be?"

Zhang An nodded to show that he understood, and asked Zhou Yang what kind of fish he was going to catch so that he could watch and catch it.

"Grass carp is enough, let's make pickled fish."

Because I didn’t have time to go to the street to buy vegetables today, I can only make what I have at home.

However, there are not many dishes that can be prepared at home, so Zhou Yang plans to add some pickled fish, after all, this is also a hard dish.

Zhang An took off his apron and prepared to go home to catch fish.

Huang Ming originally wanted to follow along, but was stopped by Zhang An.

"Don't go there. Stay here and chop the chicken."

Now that he's here, Zhang An won't give him the chance to be lazy. It will take a lot of time to feed four chickens.

After a while, Zhang An caught two big grass carps from home.

He also had black carp and other fish that could be used to make sauerkraut fish, but he still listened to Zhou Yang and caught grass carp.

Because this thing is much easier to clean up than other types of fish.

We were busy until four or five o'clock before all the ingredients were prepared.

During this time, the sound of little Jiayan crying was heard several times in the room, and at this time Zhou Yang's voice calling little Siqi could be heard.

And little Siqi did not disappoint everyone's expectations. He was able to comfort the crying little ones every time, which surprised others around him.

In the kitchen, Zhang An and Zhou Yang were cooking together. After all, the dishes were only for a few tables of people and were far inferior to the kitchen for a banquet, but he could still manage it.

When Zhou Yang was frying the chicken, he separated the chicken legs out to reward Xiao Siqi, the great contributor.

When it was time to eat, there were three tables set up. If we had waited until the full moon day, the occasion would probably not be big enough.

After dinner, in the evening, Chen Wenwen's family members prepared to go back. After all, their village was not far from Changqing, so they didn't have to stay here. If they wanted to visit their daughter and granddaughter later, they could come anytime.

Zhou Yang originally wanted Zhang An to help take them back, but the Chen family directly refused. The journey of more than half an hour was not far at all, and they could just walk back by themselves.

The same goes for Zhou's relatives who live nearby. Only those who live far away stay here for one night.

Zhou Yang's family has no shortage of living space, as both their old and new houses are relatively spacious.

“Woo~~~Woo~~~~~~~~~”

At night, Zhang An, who was sleeping soundly, was suddenly awakened by the noise coming from outside.

As soon as Zhang An heard it, he knew it was Xiaohu and the other dogs barking. The other dogs in the village did not bark like that.

This time he immediately came to his senses, thinking that just like last time, another thief had come to his house, so he quickly got up to check.

But when he went downstairs, he found that the barking of dogs was not coming from the yard, but from the orchard behind. Moreover, the barking of dogs was getting louder and louder, and even other dogs in the village were barking.

In the past, the dogs raised by other families in the village, whether they were local dogs or wolfhounds, were very afraid of the several big dogs in their family and never dared to approach them.

But later, maybe because everyone lived in the same village and saw each other every day, over time, Xiaohu and the other dogs were not so aggressive towards other dogs in the village, so now they can get together.

Normally, they would help patrol the village at night with Xiaohu and the others.

Don't underestimate this team. Almost every household in Changqing Village has a dog, and few of them keep their dogs on leashes at night.

When these dozens of dogs gather together, no one can stop them, even the wild boars in the mountains.

So he found a stick, then went out with a flashlight to follow the sound.

With such a loud commotion, they must have caught something incredible.

(End of this chapter)