During famine years, I had a divination slip in hand, and my whole family ate chicken, duck, fish, a

Grasp the rabbit's body, and following the unfolded leg skin, insert your fingers between the skin and flesh. With a light twist and pull of your wrist, the entire rabbit skin peels off from the tender pink flesh as if you were taking off a sweater.

"This 'gada' is the rabbit's scent gland; the fishy smell comes from here, so you have to 'gada' it off."

Ye Youliang pulled a white lump of flesh from the rabbit's hind leg, cut it off, and then pulled a white line from the inner spine, patiently explaining...

"This is the meaty part, it needs to be cut off, otherwise the gamey smell will come out as soon as it goes into the pot, and it will be inedible."

Ye Qingqing nodded repeatedly.

Father was indeed an old hunter; his methods of killing, butchering, and skinning were quite skilled and experienced!

"Gulp"

"Second daughter, how do you want to eat it?"

Ye Youliang threw the rabbit meat into the wooden basin, and the muscles of the two hind legs were still trembling, like a large bullfrog with its skin peeled off.

In my own time and space, my master's Taoist temple was very popular, and the food was quite good.

She had eaten roasted rabbit, spicy cold rabbit, and rabbit jerky, but this was the first time she had ever seen such fresh rabbit meat.

Ye Qingqing was engrossed in the book and tilted her head, about to speak.

"Second Girl, these rabbits can be traded for a lot of millet and coarse grain flour, how about..."

Fearing that she might impulsively order everything to be stewed, Li Chunyan preemptively offered a conciliatory suggestion, "How about we switch to grain instead? We still have half a pheasant left, I'll stew it for you!"

"No way, I haven't had enough yet! Stew a small one, and use the rest to exchange for food."

Ye Qingqing waved her hand, "Sister-in-law, stew the leftover pheasant from yesterday too. There'll be plenty of meat later, why save it!"

I wonder what kind of prey the divination slip will reveal tomorrow. If it includes a roe deer, we'll never have to worry about not having meat at home again.

Ye Cuicui nodded in agreement, "Sister-in-law, I haven't had enough to eat either."

Huanhuan bit her little finger and said longingly, "Mommy, Huanhuan wants to eat rabbit too..."

"Okay, then I'll eat the smallest one."

Li Chunyan had no choice but to pick up the rabbit and take it out to the outer room to wash and chop it, all the while muttering under her breath.

"That sounds nice, but you manage to catch one every time you go up the mountain? Do you know that one rabbit, if converted into mixed grain flour, could feed you for several days?"

You greedy girl, will you die of hunger if you eat less meat? You don't know the cost of living until you're in charge of the household!

"What are you muttering about, sister-in-law?"

Ye Qingqing chuckled to herself inside the room, then deliberately asked a question with a stern face.

Li Chunyan immediately shrank her neck. "Ah? No, nothing... I was just saying, this rabbit, I wonder if it'll get any fatter!"

A pot of stewed rabbit meat was served, along with half a pheasant floating on a layer of butter, and a layer of crispy multigrain pancakes. The family gathered around the kang table to eat.

Ye Dali ate and drank, one pancake in one hand and a piece of meat in the other, until he was covered in sweat.

Li Chunyan and Cuicui ate with great satisfaction, their faces beaming with joy.

Even little Huanhuan ate until her belly was round and her little mouth was glistening with oil.

Rabbits have no fat, so they don't taste as good as chicken when cooked, but their tender and chewy texture is definitely better than some dry chicken.

Ye Qingqing ate several large pieces, filling her stomach, and felt an indescribable sense of peace.

The skinned rabbit was propped up horizontally and vertically by Father using branches and hung under the eaves to dry in the wind.

Li Chunyan put the three skinned rabbits into a basket, carried the four rabbit skins, and went to visit the family in the village who ran a business selling mountain products in the town.

When she came back, she rushed into the house, her breath steaming in the cold air, rubbing her ears and stamping her feet.

But his face was beaming with an indescribable joy.

"I'm freezing! Why is it so cold so early in winter?"

Father, Dali, sister... do you know how much grain we got in exchange for rabbit meat and rabbit skin?

"Fur goods are valuable in winter, and even with meat, they can only be exchanged for five or six hundred coins at most."

Ye Youliang paused in his hand-twirling the hemp rope, a glint of light appearing in his cloudy eyes. "The Sun family are honest business people; they shouldn't cheat us."

"Five hundred and sixty coins, Father!"

Li Chunyan pulled a heavy cloth bag from the basket and slammed it onto the kang table with a thud.

"Millet is 15 coins a pound, and mixed grain flour is 10 coins a pound. I heard from the Sun family that the price of grain is going to rise, so I decided to buy 500 coins, which is 25 pounds in total!"

If you're careful, it'll be enough to last for more than half a month. Here's the sixty coins left... Father, here you go.

This was the first time she had ever bought food and still had some left over; she couldn't suppress the smile on her face.

This year, when the crops were growing, there was a two-month drought, resulting in a 20-30% reduction in grain production and a significant price increase.

Otherwise, I could have bought even more.

Ye Youliang raised his eyelids slightly, then continued twisting the hemp rope with his head down. "Give it to Er Yatou. I don't need it as I'm lying at home all day."

Ye Qingqing didn't reach for the silver, but instead asked,

"Sister-in-law, how much is pork per pound?"

"I'd estimate around thirty or forty... What, Second Sister, you want to eat pork?"

Li Chunyan widened her eyes. "We just ate meat these past two days!"

Ye Qingqing pushed the money bag in front of her.

"It's not that I want to eat meat. I just noticed we don't have any lard at home. Rabbit meat isn't very fragrant when stewed without oil."

Sister-in-law, buy some lard and render it into pork fat for cooking.

Upon hearing the word "lard," Ye Cuicui's eyes lit up, and she couldn't help but swallow.

Although we ate wild game for two days, nothing beats the aroma of pork fat.

Li Chunyan's lips twitched with heartache. "Being able to eat meat is already a blessing, why do you want to eat lard?"

What do you need a bicycle for!

Ye Qingqing raised her eyebrows arrogantly, "I want to eat it, so what!"

Sometimes you can't be too easy to talk to people.

You need to rely on roe deer to buy wound medicine.

Sixty coins can be used to buy lard to lubricate the intestines. It's a good deal, you won't lose out.

"No, no, not really."

Li Chunyan dared not provoke her, and secretly grumbled in her heart.

Everyone knows that it's more fragrant when you fry it with lard and then stew it with water, but you need to have that kind of equipment at home!

Second Sister is really something, she's gotten so cocky after only two days of good food.

Ye Qingqing was thinking about the roe deer, so she went back to her room to sleep early after dinner.

The roe deer was almost half the height of a person and weighed over 100 kilograms. Let alone carrying it, even she and Cuicui might not be able to drag it.

Just then, Ye Dali carried a bundle of firewood into the house to heat the kang (a traditional heated brick bed) for the two of them, and said with a simple and honest smile,

"Er Ya and San Ya, we gathered a lot of firewood today, so your big brother will heat the kang (heated brick bed) for you all tonight!"

Isn't this just readily available labor?

Ye Qingqing rolled over and lay face down on the edge of the kang (heated brick bed), her eyes shining as she said,

"Brother, come with me to the mountain tomorrow!"

Ye Dali squatted on the ground, huffing and puffing as he added firewood to the stove. "Okay, sure."

He was simple-minded and had been used to doing whatever his second younger sister asked him to do since he was a child, without ever asking her any questions.

The elder brother heated the earthen bed, making it cozy and warm, and Ye Qingqing slept soundly through the night without any dreams.

The first thing she did upon opening her eyes was to bring out three divination sticks she carried with her.

"Clang..."

The shimmering divination sticks appeared before my eyes, and after a few shakes, golden characters appeared:

[Xiao Ji: Hidden in the dense forest beneath the North Peak of Qiushan Mountain is a wild ginseng. Climbing it is dangerous, but the harvest is plentiful.]

[Xiao Ji: Wild badgers roam the shady side of Qiushan Mountain. Badger oil can be extracted and sold for profit, but badgers are cunning and difficult to hunt, so you may return empty-handed.]

[A major misfortune has occurred: A lone wolf has appeared nearby; going there is extremely unlucky. However, if a change in circumstances occurs, the crisis can be averted, and great gains can be achieved.]

Ye Qingqing rubbed her chin. The two minor auspicious fortune slips were fine, but this major inauspicious fortune slip had taken an unexpected turn, which was quite intriguing.