Chapter 247: Is Stinky Mandarin Fish Actually Good to Eat?

“No rush, let’s rest a bit first. These past few days of busy tree planting have been exhausting.”

Lin Heng waved his hand and said while looking at the sky.

Judging by the sky, it might rain in the next couple of days, so it wouldn’t be good to start work either.

“That’s true. Let’s wait and pick an auspicious day to start work later, to bring good luck.” Lin Yue said with a smile.

“Right, let’s have a good rest. My back’s been aching from all that digging these past two days.”

Father Lin also nodded in agreement.

Returning to the house, Xiulan was grating radishes. These radishes would be air-dried until semi-dry, then pickled in jars to become sour radish shreds, perfect for stir-frying with cured meat to go with rice.

Xiao Xia was playing with her rubber ball inside the house, with the two little dogs chasing each other nearby.

“Meow~”

Lin Heng reached out to stroke the big cat Jinbao. This fellow’s meow was sounding more and more like a domestic cat now.

“Is the cattle shed finished?” Xiulan asked while busy with her work.

“Yes, it’s done.” Lin Heng nodded.

“Then how do you plan to plant those medicinal herbs?” Xiulan asked again.

“Let’s wait until the solar calendar March. We’ll plant them around the Awakening of Insects. For these seeds to have a high germination rate, they need to be raised as seedlings first. We can’t just scatter them directly in the ground.”

Lin Heng sat down, took a sip of milk tea, and said. There was quite a bit of milk left from the morning’s cow, so Lin Heng had taught Xiulan how to make milk tea. There was still plenty left now.

The house wasn’t short on charcoal. The ceramic stove was kept burning all the time, which could provide warmth and also heat up some things.

“Do you plan to plant them all in Dad’s field?” Xiulan finished grating the last radish, looked up, and asked.

Lin Heng shook his head: “That definitely won’t work. The field can only grow some turmeric and astragalus. Forsythia is a shrub, and its medicinal part is its seeds. It can only be planted on slopes. Ginseng is a shade-loving plant and needs to be planted under the forest. I think Red Maple Mountain is quite good. We can plant forsythia along the edge of the woods and ginseng inside the forest.”

It’s worth mentioning that the flowers of this small forsythia shrub are a beautiful golden color, very pretty, and it is often planted as an ornamental plant. Its vitality is also exceptionally tenacious. It can take root in rock crevices and rubble piles, with no strict requirements for the environment.

Planting it on Red Maple Mountain would make the spring scenery there very beautiful. Spring would gain golden forsythia flowers, and autumn would offer red maple leaves.

“As long as you’ve planned it out, it’s fine.” Xiulan nodded.

“Can that stinky mandarin fish be eaten yet?” Lin Heng asked.

“The weather is cold in winter. It’ll need another five or six days.”

Xiulan hung the radish shreds under the eaves and walked over to say.

“Alright, I thought it might be ready. If it tastes good, I’ll go catch some more in a few days.”

Lin Heng nodded and said. In his previous life, he had only heard of stinky mandarin fish but never eaten it, but he was very keen to try it.

“You can trust my cooking.” Xiulan said with certainty.

After chatting for a couple more sentences, Lin Heng didn’t feel like talking anymore and sat on the stool spacing out. Xiao Xia got tired of playing with her ball and wanted Xiulan to play paper-cutting with her.

The toy rubber ball Lin Heng bought for her was the simplest, followed by the paper-cutting pictures, and lastly, that 2×2 Rubik’s cube.

Even Xiulan couldn’t figure out the 2×2 Rubik’s cube, so she could only play paper-cutting pictures with Xiao Xia.

Lin Heng didn’t expect Xiao Xia to figure it out either. He just left it there for her to fiddle with when she had nothing to do, and he would demonstrate it for her from time to time.

Not long after, wind started blowing outside, and the three of them retreated to the bedroom.

Lin Heng leisurely sipped his tea, watching Xiao Xia play.

When he got tired of watching, it was almost time for dinner. After finishing dinner and reading for a while, it was time to sleep again.

Another wonderful day passed like this, feeling very fulfilling for Lin Heng.

The next day, he tidied up the machines and saplings at home.

There were still quite a few sugar orange and pear saplings left, about thirty or forty of each type.

The other types like apricot and peach trees weren’t many.

The total added up to over two hundred saplings.

Lin Heng went to Red Maple Mountain and planted about ten of them. As for the rest, he didn’t waste them either. He directly spread the word in the village: fifty cents per sapling, with replacement guaranteed if they died.

Although the price was relatively high, after all, they were bought from the Provincial Agricultural Science Institute and carried significant prestige. With so many households in the village, if each bought two saplings, they would be sold out.

Selling two hundred saplings earned him a hundred yuan, giving Lin Heng a net profit of over seventy yuan.

He didn’t sell all of them. To some with good relations, he gave them away directly.

This created a distinction. Those he gifted saplings to would be grateful to him, while those who bought them would only think about maintaining good relations with him, hoping he might gift them next time.

Actually, giving them all away wouldn’t matter, but that would make the saplings seem worthless.

The weather remained very overcast, with cold winds howling, giving a feeling that a mountain storm was about to arrive.

“Am I not very good at making money?” After selling the saplings, Lin Heng looked at Xiulan counting the money and said.

Xiulan happily finished counting the money, reached out and patted Lin Heng’s shoulder, smiling as she said, “You’re the best, you’re good at everything. But I’m taking this money, since you probably don’t care about this little amount anyway.”

“You keep it, I’m going to start sprouting the seedlings.”

Lin Heng smiled, taking out the watermelon and honeydew melon seeds he had bought.

“Isn’t it a bit too early to do that at noon?”

Xiulan looked at him and asked.

Lin Heng shook his head. “Not at all, not at all. I’ll set up a small greenhouse now and plant them. By the time the weather warms up around Jingzhe, the seedlings will have grown nicely. Then we can transplant them, and by June or July we’ll be able to eat watermelon and honeydew melon.”

“Should I also plant some early chili and cucumber seedlings for you?” Lin Heng added after a pause.

Generally, native rural seeds aren’t sprouted into seedlings. With so many seeds, they’re just scattered randomly, following the principle of survival of the fittest—only the strongest seedlings emerge.

Since he had bought these seedlings, naturally they needed to be carefully cultivated.

“Then you scatter some for me.” Xiulan thought for a moment and nodded.

Lin Heng went back inside and brought out a packet of green pepper seeds and a packet of cucumber seeds.

He wasn’t in a hurry to plant them just yet. He poured all the seeds into a bowl and soaked them in water. This would help the seeds quickly transition from dormancy to a growth state.

After soaking them, he took a hoe and loosened and softened the remaining half of the plot where the strawberries had been planted.

By the afternoon, when the seeds had soaked sufficiently, they could be planted in the ground.

The chili seedlings were simply scattered and lightly covered with soil. For the watermelon, cucumber, and honeydew melon seeds, he used a small stick to poke little holes and dropped the seeds in one by one.

After watering them once, he arched bamboo strips over the area, covered the surface with plastic film, and sealed the edges with soil. A small breeding shed was now formed.

In the afternoon, Father Lin came over. Looking at Lin Heng, he said, “Son, that grinder you bought—can it grind corn? We’re out of cornmeal at home, and we don’t have enough to feed the cows.”

“Yes, it can. Let’s move the machine over tomorrow morning, and I’ll show you how to grind corn.”

Lin Heng nodded. As the name suggested, the grinder could pulverize all kinds of grains.

“Sounds good.”

Father Lin nodded, sat down and drank two cups of tea before heading back.

However, the next morning, as soon as Lin Heng opened his eyes, he heard a faint, rustling sound outside the window.

“Is it raining?”

He threw off the covers and went to open the window. Sure enough, a light drizzle was falling outside.

The wintersweet blossoms still blooming in the small courtyard swayed gently in the rain, like a girl caught in a shower.

The buzzing of bees was very faint, and only occasionally could he spot two flying out.

“It’s raining!”

The wind from outside also woke Xiulan, who was still in bed. Listening to the first light rain of the year, she said sleepily, “Yes, it’s raining. He’ll have to wait a few days to grind the corn.”

Lin Heng replied with a touch of emotion. Still, this rain had come at just the right time, greatly increasing the survival chances of the saplings they had planted.

The rain wasn’t heavy, and by the time the two of them went to milk the cows, it had almost stopped.

Nowadays, when milking, Lin Heng only took enough for the three of them to drink. His parents or Elder Brother would milk however much they needed for themselves.

Just as they finished drinking the milk and were about to make breakfast, the rain suddenly picked up again. By the afternoon, it had lightened once more.

For two or three days straight, the weather kept flip-flopping between raining and not raining.

During this period, there wasn’t much to do. Lin Heng spent his days at home drinking tea, reading books, and staring blankly at the rain outside.

When he got truly bored, they would play some little games of going in and out at night to deepen their bond.

Lin Heng took out the two sacks of books he had bought in Ancheng, organized them properly, and placed them on the bookshelves in the study.

The ones he wanted to read himself, he brought back to the bedroom. At night, when bored, he would pick up a book to pass the time.

School had started, and Tian Yan still came over once a day. She would play with Xiulan while also teaching Xiao Xia, fulfilling her promise.

However, these past few days, Xiao Xia hadn’t been feeling well. First, she had drunk too much milk and had a bit of diarrhea, then she started running a nose and coughing nonstop.

Lin Heng had bought a thermometer. After taking her temperature, he found she didn’t have a fever, so it wasn’t too serious.

Lin Heng picked some loquat leaves, boiled them into a tea, added some brown sugar, and gave it to Xiao Xia to drink. The next day, her coughing had noticeably lessened a lot, so there was no need to go to the hospital.

On the twenty-second day of the first lunar month, the sun came out again.

After breakfast, Lin Heng went to uncover the plastic film and take a look. Immediately, he called out, “Xiulan, come see! This batch of seedlings I sprouted turned out really well!”

He ran over and brought both his wife and daughter to see his achievement. Under the shed, all the vegetable and fruit seeds had sprouted their cotyledons.

“Very good.” Xiulan smiled and nodded, reaching out to tie Lin Heng’s untied shoelace.

“Daddy is so amazing~”

Xiao Xia jumped up and down with praise. In her eyes, anything her father did was amazing.

Having shared his success with his wife and child, Lin Heng felt deeply satisfied.

Xiulan glanced at the strawberries nearby. They didn’t seem to have changed much, only having grown a few more leaves.

After checking the seedlings, Lin Heng went to find his father and elder brother to help carry the grinder.

The three of them worked together to carry the grinder to the old house. Lin Heng took the power cord, connected it, and then flipped the switch to test it.

Immediately, a rumbling roar filled the air. Confirming the machine was working fine, Lin Heng turned it off first.

“Dad, do you need more coarse cornmeal or more fine corn flour?” Lin Heng asked, looking at his father.

“More fine corn flour, mainly to feed the cattle and the forest musk deer,” Father Lin thought for a moment and replied.

Lin Heng nodded, went over, turned the machine on, and swapped in a finer sieve.

“Now, you just need to pay attention and catch the fine corn flour.”

Lin Heng pointed at the discharge outlet, then turned to reconnect the power. The electric motor drove the belt with a rumbling spin. As Lin Heng poured shovelful after shovelful of corn into the feed hopper, the noise became even louder.

Everyone stuffed their ears with tissue paper. Otherwise, by the time the corn flour was finished grinding, their ears would be ringing incessantly, causing very serious damage to their hearing.

Soon, the ground corn flour began to pour out from the discharge outlet, accompanied by a large amount of dust.

Many villagers, hearing the roar of the machine, came over to watch the commotion, gathering at the courtyard gate as if they didn’t mind the noise at all.

The grinder was very fast, capable of processing two hundred kilograms of corn in an hour.

Father Lin had only prepared a little over two hundred jin of corn, which was finished grinding in less than half an hour.

“Nothing else left, right?”

Lin Heng stopped the machine, removed the tissue paper from his ears, and asked.

“So fast! Then let’s grind the remaining two hundred jin in the house too.”

Father Lin said, mainly surprised that such a small machine could be so speedy.

The villagers standing at the courtyard gate saw the machine stop, and someone curiously asked, “Lin Heng, how much did this machine cost?”

“Bought it for a hundred kuai at the Ancheng Machinery Market. They probably don’t sell these around here,” Lin Heng said with a smile. The area around Ancheng was relatively developed, and this machine was sold to nearby farmers.

A small city like Changbai didn’t really have a market for it. Farmers here usually went to the grain station for milling, where they had large-scale machines.

“That’s so expensive. Might as well just go to the grain station.”

Hearing the price, most people were deterred, secretly sighing that it was good to have money, and that the Lin family was getting richer by the day.

“I bought it for raising shrimp,” Lin Heng chuckled. In this era, an ordinary family buying one to mill grain for fellow villagers could actually earn a decent amount.

But he wasn’t interested. It simply wasn’t worth it for such a small sum of money. When asked, he also stated it was for his own use and that he wouldn’t mill grain for others.

Soon, Father Lin brought over two more sacks of corn. Lin Heng stuffed his ears with tissue paper and continued working, grinding the remaining corn flour all at once.

During the process, he also let his father and elder brother try their hand at operating it. The machine was very simple to use. Once they learned, they could do it themselves next time, allowing him to be lazy.

Once finished, the machine was temporarily left at his father’s house. It would be moved over once the warehouse on Red Maple Mountain was built.

“Dad, Elder Brother, come over for dinner tonight for the fermented mandarin fish. Xiulan made it, it’s a famous Anhui dish,” Lin Heng said, patting the corn flour dust from his hair.

“Alright!”

Lin Heng cleaned himself off and went back inside. Xiulan had already taken out the fermented mandarin fish. The smell was different from that of fermented tofu; it felt rather strange.

“Very successful,” Xiulan examined it, then cleaned it and set it aside for later use.

She only started cooking it in the evening. The method for fermented mandarin fish was simple: fry it in oil until both sides were golden brown, then remove it. Next, stir-fry some pork belly to render out the fat and aroma. Add dried chili peppers, ginger, and garlic, stir-fry for a while, then add the mandarin fish. Pour in baijiu, soy sauce, and boiling water, and simmer over medium heat for half an hour.

After simmering, turn up the heat to reduce the sauce, thicken it with a cornstarch slurry, pour it over the fish, add a bit of cilantro, and it’s done.

Besides the mandarin fish, Xiulan also stir-fried five or six other dishes. Once everything was on the table, Lin Heng was the first to pick up his chopsticks.

Although this fermented mandarin fish had been fermenting for over ten days, the fish meat was still very firm and flaky, resembling garlic cloves.

Putting it in his mouth, the texture was also very firm. The saltiness was the strongest note. Its inherent flavor felt both fragrant and foul, very strange, but it was incredibly addictive. After one bite, he wanted to keep eating.

“Not bad. I think it’s quite tasty. It’s different from fermented tofu. You should try it yourselves.”

Lin Heng said after taking a couple of bites. He felt eating it together with the cilantro provided a richer flavor.

Father Lin took a bite and exclaimed in surprise, “Huh, it doesn’t taste foul in the mouth at all. It’s quite delicious.”

“It’s really not bad,” Caiyun also nodded, feeling quite novel about it.

Everyone nodded in agreement, only Mother Lin and Liu Juan took one bite and stopped eating, seemingly unaccustomed to it.

This was just like stinky river snail rice noodles, some people found them delicious, while others felt nauseous and wanted to vomit.

“Next time I catch two more, Xiulan, you can make this dish again,” Lin Heng said with a smile.

“Alright,” Xiulan nodded and said, eating two pieces herself.

Lin Heng went to scoop a bowl of rice, feeling it went very well with the meal, except that like with stinky river snail rice noodles, he would have to brush his teeth after eating, and open the windows, as the smell was too strong.

“Son, the auspicious day we picked for you is the day after tomorrow. Do you plan to start work here at Red Maple Mountain?”

After the meal, Father Lin inquired.

“It’s time to start.”

Lin Heng nodded. Starting now, he estimated it could be finished by the end of March on the solar calendar.

By then, he could go deep into Mount Taibai to hunt black bears, as they would be out of hibernation and catching fish to eat during that period.

(End of Chapter)