I, the one in the heavens, am here to protect my bottom line in all realms.

Chapter 25 The First Year
  Zhao Lihua nodded: "It's all the same. This has only been like this in recent years. It's much better. Don't you know that the last grain collector was even more greedy than this? Every family pays about one or two hundred catties more every year." .”

Zhang Chengyuan pursed her lips so hard that she didn't need to ask why she didn't sue the officials. If there was a place to sue, she would have sued her long ago. After all, it's not just officials protecting each other.

She had no choice but to sigh, "It's so hard to live."

What's more, her work manual states that she cannot interfere with any process in the plane world, otherwise it will cause a chain reaction and lead to the complete collapse of the already unstable new world.

She is just an ordinary person, not so capable.

Zhang Chengyuan left Zhao Lihua's house and returned to his own home, feeling a little depressed for a while.

But not long after she was depressed, she became energetic. She was hungry.

This matter was forgotten by her, and she was busy with her land reclamation project.

The weather is getting colder and colder, but fortunately, the twenty acres of wasteland were finally cleared before the heavy snowfall.

She also moved back to the main house, burned the kang, and began to sleep in the winter.

However, she was not idle either. She went to buy a stone mill and ground the wheat into powder in the house.

The vegetable patch in the backyard also needs to be watched, not only for yourself but also for the sika deer to eat.

Throughout the winter, only Aunt Zhao Lihua and Xiao Xi occasionally came over to visit.

It seems that in the blink of an eye, pigs have been slaughtered in the village. The neighing of pigs can be heard early every morning, disturbing people's dreams.

The next day, Zhao Lihua came to see Zhang Chengyuan and chatted with Zhang Chengyuan in her room. She asked, "Daughter, are you going to buy meat this year? My family is going to kill a pig early tomorrow morning, so let's eat the butchered vegetables."

Zhang Chengyuan said while grinding the noodles: "I want it, why don't I want it? Auntie, what's the price?"

Zhao Lihua stopped the needlework in her hand, approached Zhang Chengyuan and said, "I know you like to eat lean meat. How about I give you 15 yuan per pound?"

Zhang Chengyuan nodded: "Okay, aunt, please give me fifty kilograms, and keep the big bones for me. I also want half of the pork suet. Give me thirty kilograms of fat and thin ones."

Zhao Lihua smiled happily when she heard this. Every household raised pigs, and they usually had to take them to the market or further away to sell them. Well, half of them were taken away at once, and there were other people who wanted them. A few kilograms, there is nothing left, and she can keep the leftovers for her own consumption.

At this time, a pig can weigh up to 300 kilograms, but it will be good if the pig can be raised to 250 kilograms. After removing the inedible pig intestines, it can weigh more than 200 kilograms. Meat.

At this point, Zhang Chengyuan remembered to ask how much the pig weighed. Zhao Lihua smiled and said, "I estimate it weighs more than two hundred kilograms."

Zhang Chengyuan said in surprise: "Don't pigs gain weight?"

She remembered that pigs usually weighed four to five hundred pounds.

"What's the point of growing fat? People can't grow without oil and water, let alone pigs. They just eat grass and grow wherever they go."

Zhang Chengyuan nodded in approval, it was indeed true, but for someone like her who loves to eat lean meat, it was quite good. There was a lot of lean meat.

Zhao Lihua went back after not sitting for long, and Zhang Chengyuan was also ready to have lunch.

The next day, Zhang Chengyuan got up early and prepared to watch the pig slaughter.

She wanted to see it before, but the adults in her family wouldn't let her, saying that children couldn't see it until they were 12 years old. When she asked why, the adults said they were afraid of scaring her, and the children were too young to be mentally unstable, so they didn't know if that was true.

Anyway, she studied science at that time and was an atheist. Now, that is not necessarily the case.

When Zhang Chengyuan went there, the Zhang family and his son had already entered the pig pen to catch pigs.

There are still many people watching, and it seems that many of them are here to watch the fun, but there should also be people who are here to help.

The pig swerved left and right as if it had a premonition of its next fate. It neighed and tried its best to avoid being caught.

This desire for life touched her a little. When she thought about people and those who tried their best to survive, she suddenly felt a little complicated. She smiled mockingly to herself. Could this be considered to be touching the scene?

It was really hypocritical. Zhang Chengyuan shook his head and stopped thinking about it. She should wait until the pig was killed.

Turning around and leaving, Zhang Chengyuan went to see Zhao Lihua and the others.

There were cheers, and she guessed she had caught it.

After a while, the pig's neighing became even more shrill. Zhang Chengyuan was still a little scared, but she couldn't help but want to see. She lifted her head against the door frame and looked around, just in time to see the butcher's knife being drawn out.

At the same time, there was blood spurting out.

Zhang Chengyuan was startled. Looking at the pig that gradually stopped twitching, a settled emotion emerged in his heart, and the fear seemed to fade away.

She looked at the cheerful crowd and seemed to be no different.

After a while, Zhang's father came to call Zhang Chengyuan and asked her to watch the meat being weighed.

She followed up and watched the people cutting the meat, her heart no longer wavering, and she was even thinking about getting that piece of meat.

The mood swing just now seemed to have never happened at all, and Zhang Chengyuan didn't know what was going on.

After returning with the meat, Zhang Chengyuan refused Zhao Lihua's invitation to eat. She always felt that none of that was exciting, so she fell asleep while lying down. In her dream, she seemed to have watched it again, but this time she seemed to have blended into the lively crowd. .

After waking up from the dream, Zhang Chengyuan couldn't recover for a while. It shouldn't be like this, and she couldn't explain what it was like.

She could only stop thinking about it and keep herself busy.

Fortunately, it's cold now, so the meat won't go bad if you don't handle it for a while.

At noon, Zhao Lihua brought a bowl of pig blood soup. Zhang Chengyuan was a little resistant at first, but it was difficult to refuse.

She put the bowl aside, but as the fragrance lingered and her stomach growled, she took a tentative bite and seemed not to be so resistant.

At this moment, she was even more confused. Why couldn't she bear to see the pig being killed, but it didn't stop her from eating the meat?

Maybe this is human nature. Being compassionate and intolerant is also mixed with animal nature.

Zhang Chengyuan finished eating, comforted himself, and life continued.

In a blink of an eye, it was the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, which was the Laba Festival. Although she was alone, she still cooked a lot of Laba porridge. She gave a bowl to each of the twenty-three households in the village, which was considered to inform everyone about her exist.

Perhaps due to the Laba porridge, she gradually began to have more contacts with the villagers, and the children in the village would come to her house from time to time.

Time flies and the Chinese New Year is coming soon. This is her first year here, so Zhang Chengyuan attaches great importance to it.

She made malt, boiled maltose, cut it into small pieces and put them away. She even went to a big market and bought a lot of things.

She was also lucky enough to buy a bucket of milk and she made nougat.

In order to have a new look in the new year, Zhang Chengyuan took the fabrics and asked Zhao Lihua to help him make some new clothes.

She only had three changes of clothes in such a long time, and those were bought from the bubble ball.

On the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month, Zhang Chengyuan got up early and started preparing croquettes, twists and other dishes in preparation for tomorrow.

On New Year's Eve, she had been busy since the morning, cleaning the house, posting couplets, worshiping ancestors, and then having New Year's Eve dinner.

Just after eating, he heard a knock on the door. Zhang Chengyuan was still wondering who was running to someone else's house on New Year's Eve.

(End of this chapter)