Carrying a Jurassic on me
Chapter 53 - 53 53 Buying Meat_1

53: Chapter 53 Buying Meat_1 53: Chapter 53 Buying Meat_1 Early the next morning, Yan Fei was on his way to the butcher.

It was just starting to get light, the meat stand was still being set up.

Yan Fei waited for the butcher to arrive with his cart and hurriedly stepped in to help hang the pig up on the hooks.

The meat he was buying this time wasn’t for his own family, but gifts for relatives.

Generally, the daughters of Sancha Town who are married off return to their maternal home on the second day of the Chinese New Year, bringing “gift strips” with them.

These are cuts of meat from the pig’s belly, fatty with two or three ribs.

They’re cut into long strips, the small ones weigh about 3 catty, the larger ones, five or six.

When it comes to giving gifts to relatives, options are rather limited at this time; usually, it’s two bags of fruits and two bags of sugar, topped off with a gift strip.

The “fruits” are deep-fried, pinky-thick noodles mixed with sugar.

They taste pretty good fresh from the pan, but after several days, they might as well be rocks if you’ve got bad teeth.

As for the sugar, it’s regular granulated sugar packaged in sturdy yellow paper.

Sometimes, families exchange the sugar packets among themselves so much that the paper tears and it ends up being an empty paper box by the time it reaches its final recipient.

Once the pig was hung up, Yan Fei started making his selections: “This one here, cut it a bit bigger from here, yes, right there.

You could cut one from here too, I’ll take it all, hurry up…”

Those who arrived later started to get irritated: “Xiao Fei, how many are you buying?

If you cut any more, there won’t be any left!”

Yan Fei didn’t bother to turn around: “If there isn’t any left, you should have come earlier.

Whose fault is it you came late!”

Someone joked: “These are all for your mother-in-law.

Besides Old Xu’s family, who else would you present it to if you buy so many?”

Unperturbed, Yan Fei continued, “This one needs to be big, it looks stingy if it’s small!

I’ll buy as many as I want.

My wife is good, I ought to give her family a few extra.

When I see people, I give – everywhere there is a mother-in-law.”

“Everywhere there is a mother-in-law” is a line from a comic dialogue program, well-known to most.

So everyone burst into laughter.

After the laughter, they frowned, watching as Yan Fei selected a good chunk of gift strips, almost finishing off all viable parts for gift-strip cutting on the pig.

At most, what’s left could yield a couple of small gift strips.”

Yan Fei picked up the gift strips ready to leave, but turned his head and felt a bit embarrassed.

Xu Xiaoyan’s father was there, standing right behind him.

No wonder the crowd was so enthusiastic with their teasing.

The old man’s visage was unpleasant from any angle.

To break the tension, Yan Fei blurted out, “Umm, this is all I bought, why don’t I give you a couple first?

You won’t be able to buy any!”

The surrounding crowd suddenly fell silent.

People even paused their buying, and the butcher, flustered, almost dropped his knife.

Then, a peal of laughter, with some voices cheering on: “Old Xu, here comes your son-in-law, just take it!”

Seeing Old Xu’s face darkening, Yan Fei knew he had misspoke.

He then turned to the crowd and blurted out: “What are you yelling for?

Can your family afford to give such large gift strips?

What’s wrong with being a big-spending son-in-law?

I’m just rich.”

Turning back to the butcher, Yan Fei instructed, “Also, weigh this one for me.

Don’t bother dividing it, it’ll be too small if split into two, can’t lose face!

I’ll be back for more tomorrow.

Put me down a reservation for tomorrow.

I’ll be waiting at your place when the pig gets slaughtered tonight…”

There are only about a dozen pairs of ribs per pig.

The remaining four were the smallest ones, which Yan originally didn’t deem good enough to buy.

But egged on by the crowd, he decided to buy them anyway.

During the New Year, nearly every household buys gift strips.

Normally, a family will only buy one to bring to their mother’s family.

This one pig would be enough for five or six families.

Yan Fei’s haul had everyone riled up, and they promptly began begrudging him.

However, the criticisms were rather mild.

A large portion of the locals employed in the Sancha Town police station were familiar with Yan Fei, and stories of him fighting cattle thieves had gradually surfaced.

None of them dared outright offend him in case he lost his cool and started a fight, a situation no one wanted to entertain.

Yan Fei ignored the ruckus, and the helpless meat seller had to comply.

After all, Yan Fei was front and center!

As the vendor fronted the meat, someone quickly changed tactics: “Xiao Fei, you can’t finish all these even if you tried, leave the rest alone!

For the New Year, my old aunt’s place grew some spinach, I will send you some later!”

While no one could claim to be wealthy at this point, circumstances were gradually improving, the increment of which is countless compared to before.

Every family could afford to buy meat for the New Year, but there were only so many pigs; if a family couldn’t buy a gift strip, it basically meant an early end to their New Year celebrations.

This kid can be crafty; no one knows whether, in the dead of the night, he’ll actually go to wait for someone to slaughter a pig.

On the off chance he does, it’ll be a pain.

After all, no one wants to go to the countryside to inquire which village is slaughtering pigs, much less wind up in a group purchase of a pig only to wait for the meat to rot while trying to consume it all.

Such habit has it that, a five catty gift strip gets more attention than ten catty of meat.

So, whatever the case, under these circumstances, you’ve to bear with it.

Enduring it now is always better than dealing with a quarrelsome wife at home.

On the other side, Xu Xiaoyan’s dad left with a grim face.

Several made peace speeches, Yan Fei also dismissed the issue, proudly taking his own things and leaving.

There were no more jeers.

Envy, jealousy, and resentment flashed in the eyes of the others.

In these times, anyone who could afford to be a spendthrift, well, even though they would cursed of it, in truth, they’re all secretly envious—only wishing their own circumstances could afford such extravagance.

As soon as Yan Fei got home, Xu Xiaoyan strolled in, pouting.

Seeing her normally soft eyebrows knitted together, Yan Fei laughed and quickly offered her a gift strip,”Here, quickly take it home in secret or you’ll be scolded.”

Xu Xiaoyan blushed, she didn’t say a word for a long time, finally sighed and took the gift strip silently before leaving.

She came back after a while, all sighs and lamentations.

That is until Yan Fei lifted the lid of the pot to reveal a great heap of scrambled eggs.

Then she finally perked up.

No wonder Old Xu wasn’t well liked!

Whenever he was insulted outside, he took it out on his daughter when he got home.

Also, his audacity to demand gift strips from children was off-putting.

No surprise that their business has completely died since the establishment of the mall in the small town.

Now that everyone is living a better life, the town has many small shops that are thriving, except for his that isn’t.

The scrambled eggs Yan Fei made were meant to be chopped up for dumpling fillings.

Having only meat isn’t sufficient, and too much of it could get cloying.

As he chopped up the dumpling fillings, Yan Fei still had to listen to the voices outside.

Just as expected, soon the voice of Yan Fei’s Uncle Lin Xiuqing echoed from outside.

This was not the uncle from the police station, but his real uncle who’d brought his whole family to the gathering.

The uncle brought tofu and bean curd sheets along with some cabbage and radishes.

Once he left the stuff, he took his family to the gathering to shop.

Bean curd sheets are produced when making tofu.

After filtering the soymilk, it is boiled in a large pot.

Once it comes to a boil, the flame is turned down to a low simmer.

When the soy milk begins to calm down, it will gradually produce a layer of yellow stuff on the surface, which can be lifted by simply picking it up by the center, and using a rod to pick it up from below, thus removing the skin.

Then it’s hung up to dry.

When eating, it is soaked in water and stir-fried, providing a unique taste and texture.

At first glance, it looks like present-day tofu skin, but the taste is absolutely different.

It’s a slow process to make it, and if you make too much, the tofu is less refined and not as delicious, so it was slowly phased out by the market.

Although it’s still available, it’s priced higher than meat.

Soon after, Yan Fei received a visit from the family he had recently exchanged kindnesses with, the one whose lost cow he had helped return.

This family’s last name was Guan, they lived in the same village as Yan Fei’s class teacher Guan Yue.

Knowing that a common combination of radishes and cabbage were unlikely to run out at home, they brought lotus vegetables and vermicelli.

Relatives came in one after the other, bringing leeks, garlic, and whatnot that they grew themselves.

Yan Fei graciously accepted everything.

It was the norm every year, they’d exchange their produce for New Year’s.

If you refused, it would mean that you were truly unappreciative.

It wasn’t that they were asking you to help them with anything, it was just a regular exchange.

In a short while, everything for the New Year was ready.

At most, they would buy a few more items like seaweed, melon seeds, and sugar cubes.

Now is the time when people are becoming increasingly wealthy and have a bit of spare change, but there’s only so much variety to buy.

Inevitably, they would find themselves undecided, limited to the same few choices.

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