Cultivation Reconstruction in the End Times

Chapter 11 Fresh Meat

When Zhang He returned to his residence, the village chief's family had already prepared the meal. The village chief had been waiting for him at the gate for a while. When he saw Zhang He walking over from the mountain path, he greeted him with a smile. As they walked, the village chief said with a laugh, "Your auntie has cooked a pot of tender corn today, along with potatoes and peanuts. We've been waiting for you to come back and have a taste."

Upon hearing this, Zhang He showed a rare sincere smile on his face and thanked the village chief. To avoid startling the people in the village chief's family and the cats and dogs in the village, he had already cast a power-dispersing talisman on the young panther and put it into the kraft paper bag. Before putting it in, he stroked the top of its head as a form of appeasement. However, the young panther didn't appreciate it at all and actually swiped at him with its paw. But since its power was dispersed and its movements were slow, it didn't cause any harm to Zhang He, so he didn't take it to heart.

The freshly harvested tender corn was extremely delicious, fragrant and sweet. Such a thing was a great luxury during the apocalypse. This was the first time he had eaten it since his rebirth. He even ate five of them before stopping. The village chief and his wife were very kind and treated people warmly. They kept smiling as they watched Zhang He eat. They even grabbed two handfuls of the fragrant tender peanuts and handed them to Zhang He, telling him to eat slowly. Zhang He peeled one and put it in his mouth, chewing it, and his mouth was filled with a lingering fragrance.

If it were someone else who had come from the apocalypse instead of Zhang He, upon seeing this table full of food, they would probably eat in a rather gluttonous manner, not much different from Zhu Bajie. Only when he was half full did he automatically stop, not wanting to waste any more food.

When enjoying the cool evening breeze, the widow from the village head brought a basket of native eggs. She said with some embarrassment that these were the eggs she had just saved and was giving them to Zhang He. Because in the past two days, the villagers had brought a lot of things to exchange for money, and each household had exchanged two or three thousand yuan. However, those were all dried goods that could be stored for a long time, but the things in the widow's house couldn't be stored for long.

Speaking of the damage caused by the broken road this time, the one who suffered the most in the village was probably her chickens. Pigs, sheep, and rabbits could all be killed and their skins sold or made into cured meat. Only her chickens couldn't be sold for anything. If the eggs were stored for too long, they would go bad, and eggs couldn't be pickled like salted duck eggs and stored for a long time. And among her chickens, there were only laying hens and broilers. The broilers were all fed with grains. Coincidentally, this batch of chickens were over a year old. Now each of them weighed thirteen or fourteen jin and was very fat. If they couldn't be sold, the meat would become tough and the price would drop.

She had originally planned to take them to the county town to sell in two months. In the past, she had always asked the Wang family's carriage to help transport the chickens. But now that the road was broken, the carriage couldn't pass through. The more than eighty broilers were suddenly trapped in the mountain valley. She couldn't possibly take them down the mountain one by one to sell. Moreover, she was a woman, and even if she had the intention, she didn't have the courage.

After Zhang He came, he directly agreed to buy all the broilers she raised and also bought all the eggs. The broilers were still being raised in her yard, but the village chief had already paid her the money. She received more than four thousand yuan. Although the price wasn't high, it was much better than not earning a single penny. To express her gratitude to Zhang He, she specially brought a basket of the eggs that had just been laid in the past two days.

After exchanging a few polite words, the village chief accepted them on Zhang He's behalf. After a while, the Li family, who raised pigs, also came and brought some pickled vegetables and prepared cured meat and cured fish for Zhang He to taste. Because the season was relatively humid now, the cured meat and cured fish were prone to spoilage. However, the Li family had been making and selling these for many years, so they had a way of pickling and preserving them. And they still had a lot in stock, which were all prepared to be sold in the county town. At this time, other families didn't have cured meat, so they sold it at a high price. It could originally be stored for a few more days, but since Zhang He offered a price similar to that in the county town, they sold it as well. On the one hand, it saved the transportation cost, and on the other hand, it saved effort. So they sold about a hundred jin at once and also prepared a plate for Zhang He to taste.

Zhang He looked at the few pieces of steamed pork with rice flour on the plate. They had an appetizing color, aroma, and taste. Both sides were slightly golden, and they smelled so good that it couldn't help but arouse one's appetite. After couldn't help but eating two pieces, he felt that the meat was soft and not greasy when it entered his mouth. There was a little chopped chili pepper grown by the family themselves on it, which gave it a different flavor. While eating, he kept nodding and praising it several times.

After eating the steamed pork with rice flour, someone from the Wang family also came and brought a bowl of freshly made stewed rabbit meat, and also put a handful of rice noodles in it. The village chief smiled and explained beside him that these rice noodles were all made from the rice grown in the village and tasted very delicious. Now the rice noodles in the county town all contained preservatives. In comparison, the rice noodles made in their village were the cleanest and were all dried in the sun.

Zhang He looked at the bowl of stewed meat. There was a layer of red chili oil on top. Besides the minced rabbit meat, there were also some green vegetables and eggs in it, and at the bottom were the rice noodles. It smelled even more authentic than the bone soup. Although Zhang He didn't want to eat anymore, he still picked up the chopsticks and took a few bites. He thought it tasted fragrant and delicious. With an appetite, he ate a few more bites.

Thanks to the delicious food and the simplicity of the villagers, Zhang He had a very pleasant time here. He even thought that if possible, it would be nice to stay here for a lifetime. But he knew that for the apocalypse, all of this was just a bubble, or perhaps the calm before the storm.

During the half month he stayed in the village, he kept drawing talismans and practicing the cultivation technique every day, not wasting a single minute. Even the more than two hundred empty buckets remaining in the peach pit space were all filled with mountain spring water.

In the blink of an eye, the agricultural products such as peanuts and corn in the village had almost been harvested. The village chief had been weighing and packing them at the gate of the yard these days. Two days later, the tender corn and the newly harvested peanuts were finally all collected.

Each household sold all the products they had, except for some for their own use, to Zhang He. On average, each household earned more than two thousand yuan again. The entire yard of the village chief's house was filled with goods.

The next day, the village chief and Zhang He went to take inventory of the goods. All the tender corn was packed in sacks. Then there were nearly two thousand jin of wet peanuts, and some newly harvested vegetables such as tomatoes. The dried vegetables were also packed in five full sacks, which contained dried cabbages and dried string beans. Zhang He hadn't eaten much dried vegetables before. The village chief explained to him that the dried string beans were all dried in the sun. When cooking them, they needed to be soaked in water first, then fried in oil, and then some streaky pork, star anise, old ginger, and fennel should be added. After stewing them until they were tender, they would be very delicious.

There were also small bamboo shoots, all of which were the tenderest small bamboo shoots dug by the villagers in the mountains. They hadn't been smoked with sulfur and didn't contain any additives. They were all naturally dried in the sun. To facilitate preservation, they were dried very thoroughly and were safe to eat.

Next were the native eggs. Not only those from the widow's family, but each villager's family raised a dozen or twenty chickens. During the time when the road was broken, except for the eggs they ate themselves, the village had accumulated more than four thousand eggs in total, all packed in cartons. There were also more than two hundred jin of homemade vegetable oil in the village, and a carton of chopped small red chili peppers, which Zhang He had specifically requested.

Then there were some dried fruits and some Chinese herbal medicines that the villagers had dug in the mountains themselves, which had the effects of cooling and detoxifying, such as honeysuckle and houttuynia cordata. They were all dried thoroughly. Originally, they were prepared to be sold in the county town. When they saw that Zhang He was buying them, they all sold them to him. The price was a bit lower, but the good thing was that they could get the money immediately.

The one hundred thousand yuan wasn't enough in the end. Zhang He took out another twenty thousand yuan, and there was still three thousand yuan left. When the village chief returned the money, he discussed with Zhang He and said, "Xiao Zhang, most of the things have been collected. Although it's cool in the mountains, we're afraid that the things will be damaged by mice. When do you think you can call a truck to come and pick them up? The villagers in our village will definitely help you."

Zhang He thought for a while and said, "Well, other things are easy to handle, but the pigs, rabbits, and chickens are live animals and not easy to deal with. Do you think it's possible to just give me the meat? It will be more convenient for me to take it away."

The village chief said, "You mean you want them to be killed and take the clean meat away?"

Zhang He nodded and then handed the three thousand yuan to the village chief again. "This money can be regarded as the hard work fee for the village's help. I won't take the rabbit skins, sheep skins, and pig skins. You can keep the internal organs. I just want the meat, and the price will still be calculated according to the original price."

The village chief was immediately taken aback. During these days, he had also been a bit unable to figure out this young man. He said he was a purchaser, but he didn't seem to care much about the weight of the goods. He didn't check the quantity of the goods every day either, but he would definitely go into the mountains every day. If he wasn't a purchaser, he wouldn't have bought so many mountain specialties at once, and he talked about purchasing goods and the company in a very knowledgeable way.

Now he only wanted the meat and didn't want the internal organs, which made the village chief even more puzzled. However, what to accept was the other person's business, and he didn't feel it was appropriate to ask. Moreover, if the pig offal wasn't taken, it could be distributed to the people in the village and made into delicious dishes to go with wine.

"But these dried goods can be stored for a while, but if the pigs and chickens are killed, the meat probably won't be able to be stored for long. This is a rural mountainous area, and there aren't any freezers available."

Zhang He thought for a while and said, "How long can it be stored?"

"The temperature in the mountains is low, and if it's cooled with well water, it can probably be stored for a day and a night."

Zhang He said, "Then let the villagers help process them tomorrow. Keep them in the well water at night, and I'll call someone to pick them up early tomorrow morning. Then they can be put into the insulated boxes with ice."

Seeing Zhang He speak so casually, the village chief swallowed the words that were on the tip of his tongue. In the end, he followed Zhang He's request. In the evening, he distributed more than a hundred yuan to each household, asking them to help process the broiler meat, pork, and rabbit meat that Zhang He had bought. The villagers naturally agreed happily. Even the widow in the village came to help. By working for a day, each person could not only get more than one hundred and thirty yuan but also a lot of pig offal.

These pig offal were really good things. If the wives at home processed them well, they could stir-fry a few delicious dishes to go with wine. The next morning, without the village chief's instructions, everyone got up early to help.

When everyone had arrived, they started to get busy. There were men and women, old and young. The men slaughtered the chickens and sheep, and the women plucked the chicken feathers, stuffed the sausages, and cut the meat. They worked from morning until night before they finished processing all the meat. And according to Zhang He's request, they cleaned out all the internal organs of the chickens, washed the outside clean, cut the pork into pieces, chopped the spare ribs, and put the bones separately. The chicken meat, pork, and rabbit meat were all packed in medium-sized plastic bags one by one, tied tightly, and put into several large vats. Then they filled the vats with the freshly drawn cool well water to keep the meat cool.

After Zhang He took a look, he nodded and was very satisfied. The villagers were also happy to get their share of the pig offal. They went back, prepared a meal with it, and had a delicious dinner. They were all a bit tired after a day's work. The more than twenty households in the village all lay down on their quilts and fell asleep soundly, and the village chief's family was no exception.