NOVEL NEXT Chapter 75 – Start of the Winter Season
Chapter 75 - Pickles are a big dill
🙞❤︎🙜
Once the harvest was done, I gave my apprentices a few days off so they could rest, since they had collapsed from exhaustion on the last day. Then I sent them off to the city for the last shopping trip of the year with Fengying and Deming along with some junior members of the household staff. Even though we were moving south for the winter, Fengying still thought it best that she buy proper winter clothing for everyone.
Everyone except for me, that is. I had plenty of warm clothes from the Cash Shop.
The Demon Chef also wanted to buy a few things for the kitchen and some miscellaneous ingredients that the farm didn’t have like tofu, wine, eggs, etc. When I asked him about the black rice, he said it had been taken to the temple. I was rather taken aback since it seemed that there had been a miscommunication since I hadn’t meant for Shuye to take all of the black rice there. However, Deming clarified that he had been the one who sent the rice to be blessed by the Temple. Legend had it that the rice was not fit for human consumption until it was blessed by the Fox goddess. We’d get it back.
That was fine with me.
I stayed at home to rest, too. Although I hadn’t collapsed like the others, I still felt rather tired.
When they returned, laden with dozens and dozens of packages, the kitchen staff started their own project. I was aware that in Korea, back on Earth, kimchi making was a big thing in local communities during the colder months. Pao chai, or Chinese pickles, were also popular in Sichuan. I didn’t realize that it was also a tradition in this world.
It totally made sense, of course. Most people weren’t cultivators, so they didn’t have a soul space like I did, which meant that they needed old-school preservation methods to store vegetables during the peak season to have food available during the winter months. Besides, even if we didn’t technically need this type of food, Deming said that the taste of fermented pickled vegetables was very different from that of fresh ones. I also knew that fermented food had “good bacteria” in it.
Everyone helped out in preparing the vegetables which were washed, cut, and dried before being packed in special jars and immersed in salt brine. The pickle jars had a wide shoulder and narrow mouth. It also had a channel or moat around the opening that was filled with water and then covered by a bowl-shaped lid. The water served to seal the vegetables inside.
In addition, they were making ham.
“Ham? I love ham!” I said.
“This won’t be ready until next year,” said Fengying.
“I can’t wait until next year!” I said.
Chuckling, I took a bite out of the apple I was eating and got out of her hair.
It was almost the end of the planting season, and we had already sowed the winter cover crop everywhere there was bare soil. I gestured to my apprentices to follow me, and we walked to the farthest field, the one that had been the rice paddy during the autumn season. Now it was empty except for the seeds we had planted.
“They’ll grow for a few weeks then die at the first frost and break down into nutrients that will improve the soil,” I said.
“Then we’re going to use this field during the spring planting?” asked Kharli.
“No. We’ll use the other parts of the farm that we cleared,” I said. “Examine the soil.”
We knelt down and looked at the condition of the field.
“Why does the soil seem dry?” asked Mo.
“It looks the same to me,” said Lari.
“No, I think it is drier than the soil in the other parts of the farm,” said Kharli.
I got up and said, “Well, maybe we can’t see the difference with our eyes, but when we grow crops, they take nutrients from the soil which have to be replenished. The cover crops will help with that, and also we won’t sow the same fields every season. We’ll let them rest and recover.”
“Teacher, can we pick the edible flowers that grew from the [Wild Seed Mix]?” asked Mo.
“Mmm.” I wasn’t sure about that. Players couldn’t interact with the cover crops in Adventure Incarnate. Would it be okay to eat the edible wildflowers?
“But the soil needs the flowers, right?” asked Kharli. “They’re supposed to nourish the soil, not us.”
“It probably wouldn’t hurt to pick them, though I’d rather leave them alone,” I said.
We moved on to check the cover crops that I had planted in the spring. They were now waist-high and the flowers were just starting to wilt. In contrast to the grass in the forest that had turned brown, the plants grown from the [Wild Seed Mix] were still bright green. I suppose that was because they were spiritual plants. Though the System only identified them as cover crops, I had asked the others about it, and we had been able to identify some of them such as vetch, mustard, clover, pea, sunflowers, rapeseed, and star lilies. My favorite purple flower, the violet, also grew there.
“Everything looks okay. Tomorrow we’ll pack everything up and the day after that, we’ll go south.”
***
For me, of course, packing was dead easy. All I had to do was think about it, and my items went into my inventory. The rest of my household dashed around here and there, putting things in boxes and crates to be loaded onto the carts that were waiting right outside the gate.
I offered to put everything in my inventory, but Fengying politely refused. I’m not sure whether it was because she didn’t want to bother me, or whether she just preferred to have everything on hand where she could see it.
“This is so exciting! We’re moving south for the winter, just like the birds,” I said. “Is everybody ready? Okay. Let’s go.”
Since it was a lot more comfortable than the ox cart, I had offered Fengying and Deming the use of the carriage, and she had accepted with the condition that I leave first.
This morning at dawn I had demolished the mill and greenhouse. The main house would automatically disappear after seven days unless I returned to it. Player-owned houses had to be periodically occupied, or else the game would remove them to make space for new players. The System information about the house confirmed that this was also true in this world.
The driver that Prince Baiyu had provided helped us load our personal belongings into the carriage, then my apprentices and I hopped inside.
The four of us were dressed in old work clothes and secondhand boots. The problem of the [Lizardwing] poop that coated our footwear had been on my mind, so I had asked Fengying to buy a few more pairs of boots for all of us. That way, we would have plenty that we could use while the maids were cleaning the dirty ones.
“You didn’t see it last time, did you? The house Teacher built there was three times bigger than the house we have here,” said Kharli.
“That’s because there’s more space there,” I said.
“It’s nothing but space,” said Lari.
“I like it,” said Mo.
“How were the animals the last time you saw them?” I asked Kharli.
She was the last one who had been assigned to look after them.
“Stinky! Extremely stinky!” said Kharli.
“And healthy, I assume?”
She nodded.
“How was the grass?”
“Much healthier.”
“Mmm.” I had forgotten to ask her this earlier since I had been busy with the harvest. I’m sure she would’ve told me without asking if there had been any problem.
“The trees looked the same, and the people there said that the swales were working.”
“Good, though I think that might’ve been your imagination. It’s only been a few weeks, and I doubt there’s much difference.”
“Well, there was just a very slight improvement…”
“I hope so. Just remember that this is a long-term project. Don’t expect results right away.”
We talked a little more about the project then rested until we arrived at our destination where I found an unexpected surprise waiting for me.
“Prairie Elk? Really?” I exclaimed.
The System popup confirmed it for me.
[Side Quest: Hunt Prairie Elk
Prairie Elk: 0/3
Reward: Hunting Exp]
- I think the making of preserved food to store for the winter is an important part of farming. Like drying, salting, fermenting, pickling, etc.
- Also, ham and jerky making. Ham is nice, but the good, old school handmade ham is so expensive unless you make it yourself. Fresh pork is actually cheaper!
- Where did the Prairie Elk come from?
- Advanced chapters on my Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/linmeili
- Thank you very much for reading.
- Did you spot an error? Please leave a comment so I can fix it!
