Chapter 23
◎Soy Sauce Eggs◎
If nothing else, this bowl of brown sugar and fermented rice dumplings was absolutely sincere.
In the large white porcelain bowl, the round, glutinous rice balls were crowded together. The unique mellow aroma of the fermented rice wine was present, and they were very generous with the brown sugar. The large bowl looked reddish and tasted particularly sweet. Each glutinous rice ball was coated with fermented rice wine, and it felt so delicious it could reach the heart.
When it was late and quiet, and Su Juesheng and the others were all asleep, Tangtang finally dared to tell her parents about the gold she had found in the pit. She crawled out from under the quilt. “Dad, Mom, when my brother and I were passing by the old landlord’s house today, I accidentally fell into a pit and found something inside. It was a gold bar.”
Tangtang took the gold bar out of her pocket and handed it to her parents.
“Found in a pit… a gold bar?” Yu Juanfang was startled. She took the gold bar and looked at it. It shone with a golden light under the dim oil lamp.
Su Huimin was also no longer calm when he heard this. He immediately put down what he was doing and came over. “Tangtang, did anyone see you when you found this gold bar?”
“No, I was the only one in the pit at that time. Third Brother was on the ground. I didn’t even tell him.”
Tangtang subconsciously felt that the fewer people who knew about this matter, the better, so she only dared to tell her parents.
Yu Juanfang glanced out the window, lowered her voice, the joy on her face unconcealable. “This is really great luck. This probably weighs more than fifty grams. It might be worth two or three hundred yuan.”
Her eyes shone. “Maybe it’s a reward from heaven for the good deed the child did by saving someone during the day.”
“Mom, does this mean our family can build a new house?” she blinked.
Tangtang knew that building a house had always been her mother’s wish.
Yu Juanfang picked up Tangtang and kissed her fiercely on the cheek twice. “We can, we definitely can. Next spring, we’ll find someone to make adobe bricks and build a house. Next year, our whole family can live in a new house. Tangtang, you’re really our family’s little lucky star. Ever since you came to our family, a series of good things have happened…”
First, she found a large carp on the way to her parents’ home in Wangxiang Village, then she came up with the idea of selling tofu, and she also found wild ginseng. The family was successfully divided, and she accompanied her to the black market to sell braised meat and earn money. Her husband, Su Huimin, was even promoted. Life was now becoming more and more comfortable and pleasant.
She thought of Su Yandi’s jinx remarks. That Su Yandi was truly blind and short-sighted. This girl was not a jinx at all, but a lucky star sent to their family by heaven.
Hongqi Commune was too small. After considering it, Yu Juanfang and Su Huimin went to the county town.
Coming out of a grocery store in the market of Yuanlin County, Yu Juanfang and Su Huimin walked one after the other, looking normal on the surface. But only Yu Juanfang herself knew that her hand, holding the basket, was trembling so much it could beat a drum. Her legs were so excited that she almost lost her strength and fell to the ground. Fortunately, Su Huimin took a step forward and supported her in time.
“Let’s go.” Su Huimin didn’t care about avoiding suspicion on the street now and took a step forward to support his wife’s arm.
Fortunately, the market was bustling with people coming and going, all in a hurry. No one paid special attention to them, only thinking that they were an ordinary couple who had come to the city for the market.
When they finally reached a quiet place, Yu Juanfang could no longer control her excitement. “One thousand yuan, it sold for a whole one thousand yuan!”
The immense joy almost made the couple’s heads spin. They had never seen such a large sum of money in their entire lives.
“Next spring, we’ll find a craftsman to build a house. Our family can finally build a new house.”
She had earned nearly two hundred yuan from selling braised meat in the past two months. She had spent more than fifty yuan on grain before winter, leaving her with more than one hundred and fifty yuan. Adding the one thousand yuan from selling the gold bar, it was enough for their family to build a spacious enough adobe house and add some furniture.
“Let’s wait until the second half of next year. Our family has just been divided. Suddenly taking out such a large sum of money to build a house will easily attract attention.”
Yu Juanfang thought about it and felt that what Su Huimin said made sense, so she agreed to his proposal. Anyway, it was only a matter of a few months.
…
Yu Juanfang had wanted to make soy sauce eggs for a while. She finally found some free time these past two days. She went to the supply and marketing cooperative and bought two catties of fresh eggs, a total of twenty.
As Yu Juanfang was humming a little tune and carrying the eggs back, she happened to run into Yu Yahong and the others making dinner in the kitchen. Yu Yahong saw the basket of eggs in her hand. “Oh, Third Sister-in-law, are you giving a gift or are you planning to go to your parents’ house?”
Yu Juanfang smiled. “No, I’m planning to make soy sauce eggs. Juesheng and Tangtang have been studying hard recently. They should eat something good to replenish their bodies!”
“Replenish their bodies? Do you need to buy so many eggs?” Zhang Guixiang clicked her tongue and couldn’t help but curl her lip in disdain. This Third Sister-in-law really didn’t know how to live. If these were made into egg drop soup or steamed egg custard, twenty would be enough for a family to eat for half a month.
Yu Juanfang smiled and said nothing, putting the eggs she had bought into a basin of clean water.
Zhang Guixiang couldn’t help but remind her, “Third Sister-in-law, if these eggs get wet, they won’t last long!”
“It’s fine, I’m not keeping these eggs. I’m using all of them to make soy sauce eggs.”
In those days, even eating one egg was a luxury. Yet, Yu Juanfang was using a full twenty eggs to make soy sauce eggs.
The three sisters-in-law watched as Yu Juanfang put all twenty eggs into the pot to boil. While the eggs were boiling, Yu Juanfang took a clean basin and prepared the marinade.
She first chopped an onion and put it in the basin, then added chopped scallions, cilantro, millet peppers, sesame oil, white sesame seeds, and a small handful of rock sugar. Then she poured in an appropriate amount of clean water, and finally, she poured in the soy sauce she had gotten from the supply and marketing cooperative. The kitchen was filled with a rich, soy sauce aroma.
“Third Brother’s job is settled now. His monthly salary is thirty yuan. I heard that besides grain coupons and meat coupons, he also gets cloth coupons every month. It’s respectable and stable. Third Sister-in-law’s life must be so comfortable.” Yu Yahong said with envy.
However, Yu Yahong’s life was also quite comfortable now. She and her husband were both hardworking people. Although they used to benefit from Su Huimin’s presence, not a single cent fell into her hands. It was better now that she and her husband, the second son, Su, worked, and their work points were all recorded under their own names. They held the grain and money in their own hands and could decide what to eat. They no longer had to look at others’ faces when they wanted to eat something, nor did they have to be sneaky about it.
Today, she had a craving, so she took a handful of white flour from their small supply of fine grain and made a fragrant meal of chive and egg dumplings. When her children made progress in their studies, Yu Yahong would beat all the eggs collected from the chicken coop to make steamed egg custard, add a couple of drops of sesame oil, and their family would have a delicious meal.
The more Zhang Guixiang listened to Yu Yahong, the more she felt a sour taste in her heart.
Who would have thought that when Su Laosan’s job was suspended, with the hat of reactionary propaganda and incitement on his head, and the risk of being thrown into prison at any time, and his leg broken, the third branch was in a state of gloom and despair. She had thought that the third branch’s family would never be able to get back on their feet. But in less than three months, not only was Su Laosan not thrown into prison, but he was also reassigned to the position of education specialist, and his salary had increased from the original 18 yuan a month to 30 yuan.
If she hadn’t been in such a hurry to divide the family back then, their eldest branch could also have benefited from Third Brother’s monthly salary, grain coupons, meat coupons, and cloth coupons. If nothing else, the cloth coupons were enough to make one envious. In the past two years, the cloth coupons allocated by the production team were only six inches per person. The whole year’s cloth coupons, when saved up, might not even be enough to make a pair of trousers. Sometimes, there weren’t even six inches.
As for Wu Fangmei, she regretted dividing the family more than anyone. When the family was divided, her mother-in-law, Old Madam Zhu, wanted to live with their fourth branch. At that time, she thought that Old Madam Zhu’s legs were still steady, and there would be someone to share the housework she was unwilling to do. Moreover, Wu Fangmei knew that Old Madam Zhu had money, maybe one or two hundred yuan. If she lived with their fourth branch, wouldn’t this money sooner or later be subsidized to their fourth branch? So, she had happily agreed at that time.
Who knew that after the family was divided, Old Madam Zhu would just order her around all day. Old Madam Zhu was either displeased with this or that. Before, Old Madam Zhu could order the four daughters-in-law in turn. Now that the family was divided, she only ordered her around. If anything was not to her liking, Old Madam Zhu would point at Wu Fangmei’s nose and scold her. Although the fourth son, Su, listened to his wife, he listened to his old mother even more. Wu Fangmei felt incredibly aggrieved.
Wu Fangmei was shredding radishes, her heart full of resentment. If she had known, she shouldn’t have listened to her eldest sister-in-law’s instigation to divide the family.
“Third Brother leaves early and comes back late every day. My children and I still have to scrape a living from the soil.” Yu Juanfang smiled faintly, pretending not to see the envious and sour looks from Zhang Guixiang and Wu Fangmei.
Just then, the eggs in the pot were cooked. She picked up a strainer, scooped out the boiled eggs, and soaked them in cold water. Tangtang ran in. “Mom, is there anything I can help you with?”
“Then you can help me peel the eggs.”
“Okay.” Hearing this, Tangtang picked up a cooled egg and began to carefully peel the shell.
The mother and daughter peeled for ten minutes before they finished peeling all twenty eggs and soaked them in the prepared soy sauce. The white, plump eggs looked very tempting. Tangtang couldn’t help but swallow her saliva.
“They’ll be delicious when the flavor of the soy sauce has soaked into the eggs.” Yu Juanfang tapped Tangtang’s nose.
After soaking overnight, the eggs turned an alluring dark brown. The mellow soy sauce aroma was wrapped in the fragrance of the eggs. Yu Juanfang boiled some water, and after it came to a boil, she added a handful of alkaline noodles. When they were almost cooked, she blanched two crisp cabbage leaves and scooped them into the noodle bowl.
Then she brought out the large basin of soy sauce eggs and placed three soy sauce eggs in each bowl of noodles.
Tangtang loved to eat alkaline noodles. They had a refreshing and soft texture.
Tangtang picked up a soy sauce egg. After taking a bite, she found that it was a soft-boiled egg with a sandy, glutinous texture. The soy sauce egg was particularly flavorful, savory, and mellow. Every bite was full of the aroma of soy sauce.
She picked up another mouthful of noodles and slurped them into her stomach. The noodles were cooked soft and had absorbed the soy sauce from the soy sauce eggs. They were so delicious that she wanted to swallow her tongue along with them.
“Mom, this is the first time I’ve eaten your soy sauce eggs. They’re really so delicious.” Su Juexiao swallowed the noodles in his mouth.
Yu Juanfang looked at Su Juesheng and Tangtang, who were burying their heads and eating with gusto, her eyes crinkling with a smile. “If you like them, I’ll make them for you often in the future. You can have as much as you want.”
One catty of meat coupons for three catties of eggs, fifty cents a catty for eggs. Su Huimin’s monthly salary was thirty yuan, and the commune issued 1.5 catties of meat coupons every month. If nothing else, they could still afford to eat eggs.
Zhang Guixiang was pickling salted vegetables by the well when she saw her younger son, Gousheng, run over, his face covered in tears and snot. “Wuwu, Mom, I want to eat soy sauce eggs too!”
Zhang Guixiang glanced towards the south room and saw Yu Juanfang breaking the remaining two soy sauce eggs in the basin into four pieces and distributing them into Tangtang’s and the others’ bowls. “Eat more.”
“Making twenty soy sauce eggs at once, aren’t you afraid of choking!” Zhang Guixiang sneered. She was already annoyed. It would have been better if Gousheng hadn’t mentioned the soy sauce eggs. The moment he did, her anger flared up. She picked him up and gave him two slaps. “What are you crying for! All you know is how to eat. Where does the family have the spare money to buy you soy sauce eggs? Look at your worthless self!”