The Spirited Daughter-in-law and the Mountain Man

Right now, it’s fine to have some rice to eat without being picky.

When she got home, she told them that she had sold half a basket of fish and bought eighteen jin of brown rice, and Aunt Zhang had given her an extra two jin.

The three men in the house had no objections and said they didn’t need to be informed of such matters.

Su Qingyue carried Xiao Qinghe from the master bedroom to the kitchen and let him sit on a desk, “Fourth brother, do you know how to gut fish?”

“I do, but I’m not very skilled…”

“You’ll get better with practice.” She found her second brother’s fish-scaling knife that he used to gut prey and handed it to him.

She first weighed the empty basket and then put all the mushrooms from the table and the pile on the floor into the basket. After deducting the weight of the basket, there were a hundred jin of mushrooms.

There were no shiitake mushrooms in the basket, just common varieties like oyster mushrooms.

She had picked out around eighty jin of shiitake mushrooms and had them sun-dried in the yard outside.

She figured that in ancient times, just like in modern times, shiitake mushrooms would be more expensive than oyster mushrooms, so she decided to sell them separately.

She harvested a total of about two hundred and twenty jin of mushrooms in two full loads. After deducting the twenty jin they’ve eaten and the eighty jin they’ve picked out and prepared to sell a hundred jin the next day, she gave ten jin to Aunt Zhang. The remaining ten-something jin were put in her own basket to be cooked as vegetables.

With two jin in a single stir-fry, now that they have rice, they didn’t need to depend on it as their staple, and they could prepare it for five meals.

After cleaning the table, Su Qingyue put a cutting board on it, “Fourth brother, after you’ve gutted the fish, pick out the fish roe and fish liver and throw the rest of the internal organs away. Put the gutted fish in the back basket. I’ll turn them into dried fish.”

She took the wooden basin used for washing dishes and put it on the table, “Put the fish roe and fish liver in the basin.” Then she pointed to the corner where a few wide banana leaves spread out beforehand for the mushrooms, now empty, “Throw the unwanted fish organs there for now, and I’ll throw them away later.”

“Okay.” Xiao Qinghe nodded.

Su Qingyue used iron clamps to extract the burning fire from the ash pile in the stove pit and picked up a few firewood and dried weeds from the yard, placed them on the fire, blew a few breaths, and ignited the weeds. The fire slowly burnt the firewood, “I don’t know how to use a flint, and it’s not good to carry you to the kitchen every day to help, so I’ll just keep the fire in the ash pile.”

In fact, she could easily survive in the wild, let alone using a simple flint, but she had lied to him earlier about not knowing how to use it and had not asked him to help her in the kitchen for a few days, so she had made up this excuse.

Xiao Qinghe was silent for a moment and said, “I’m also responsible for the housework, and wherever I’m needed, just let me know.”

She pointed to the pile of fish in the corner, “The whole load and a half, all these fishes are for you to handle?”

“Alright.” He had a slight trace of a smile on the corner of his mouth.

Su Qingyue looked at the smile on the corner of his mouth and inexplicably felt a little sad.

He was a sensitive young man.

She couldn’t help but feel that beneath his refined appearance he was somewhat insecure. Having him do these chores brought him so much happiness and satisfaction.

She snapped back to reality, seeing that it was completely dark outside.

She lit the only oil lamp in the kitchen.

There were too many things lacking in the house, such as only one wooden basin for washing dishes. There was no washbasin, and every time she washed her face with a bowl, she used boiling water to disinfect it again and again, but still felt it wasn’t clean enough.

There were barely enough bowls to use, and there was only one towel for washing the face, but there were four people in the house – three bath towels short.

There were two bath towels. She used one, and the three men shared one, which was not enough either..