Chapter 168 My Fate Is Up to Me, Not the Heavens

Naturally, Madam Fang disapproved of this, feeling that the children's bad habit needed to be broken. Therefore, she strictly controlled their spending and practically never gave the younger ones a single penny.

It was only after Tang Xin married into the Li family that the situation changed slightly.

Tang Xin, on the other hand, believed that children shouldn't be reined in too tightly, especially the girls. Because they had seen so little of the world growing up, if a man showed them the slightest bit of attention later on, they were very likely to just run off with him.

That was why she smiled and said, "Mother, the younger siblings are growing up now. Once they earn money and hand a portion over to you for safekeeping, I think we can give them a little bit of pocket money."

In private, Tang Xin had also explained this to her parents-in-law, calling it distribution according to work. They had only been willing to do small-scale trading because they knew it could make money. Similarly, the younger siblings were doing extra work on top of their regular farm labor. If they saw no benefits whatsoever, would they put their hearts into working the next time?

Because of this reasoning, Madam Fang reluctantly agreed, generously promising that the children could receive one to five yuan in pocket money from each venture going forward.

Thus, with this financial incentive, even Li Xiyue—who usually found all sorts of excuses to slack off during chores—worked exceptionally hard.

In this way, the whole family worked hard together for nearly half a month and actually earned over a hundred yuan.

Normally, Tang Xin was now managing the household finances, but she refused to accept this money, saying that it wasn't daily living expense money and that her mother-in-law should save it for a rainy day.

Madam Fang understood the implications behind her daughter-in-law's words, and the family indeed wasn't well-off yet, so she locked the money away deep inside the cabinet again.

To celebrate selling out of the dried sweet potatoes, Li Sheng went to buy some more pork. Madam Fang pulled out all the stops and made a dish of braised pork belly.

The alternating layers of fat and lean pork belly were washed, cut into chunks, blanched in boiling water, and then marinated with soy sauce and rice wine. She heated oil in the wok, added rock sugar to melt and caramelize, and immediately tossed in the marinated pork, stirring and frying until the meat changed color. She added star anise and other spices, stewed it with boiling water for half an hour, and then added potatoes to simmer together. A fragrant, mouth-watering plate of braised pork was complete.

Aside from that, there was also tomato scrambled eggs, tofu and napa cabbage soup, and blanched baby bok choy drizzled with oil.

Since there were many family members, the portions for every dish were very generous. As a result, before the people returning from the fields had even stepped through the door, they caught the alluring aroma of the food. One by one, they felt their hunger pangs strike with unusual speed.

The large platter of braised pork with potatoes was still steaming, brightly colored, sweet, soft, and so delicious it made one question reality. Even the potatoes were cooked until extremely tender, and paired with rice, they were exceptionally appetizing.

Tang Xin ate with tear-filled eyes, saying, "Mother, this is so delicious. I honestly wonder how I managed to get through the first dozen or so years of my life without you."

This little girl simply had a sweet mouth; a single sentence made Madam Fang beam with delight. She picked up another piece of braised pork and placed it in Tang Xin's bowl, "If you like it, eat more. I'll make it for you again next time."

Moreover, Madam Fang was very considerate. Knowing that Tang Xin didn't particularly like fatty meat, she purposely picked pieces that had more lean meat for her daughter-in-law.

Because everyone had their own tasks to keep them busy, the days passed exceptionally fast, and in the blink of an eye, it was approaching May and the Dragon Boat Festival was drawing near.

Once the Dragon Boat Festival passed, it would be the wheat harvest season, which was a major event of utmost importance to country folk. Therefore, taking advantage of the free time, available sources, and sufficient labor force beforehand, the entire Li family mobilized and stealthily did a few more rounds of business.

After earning some money, Tang Xin intended to temporarily call it a halt. Firstly, the political climate remained unclear, and continuing to frequent the black market still carried significant risks. Secondly, those goods were not daily necessities, so it wasn't suitable to sell them constantly, day after day. Furthermore, everyone would soon be busy with the rush harvest, working the fields day and night; who would have the time or state of mind to dabble in anything else?

Consequently, they temporarily suspended the small business, and even Tang Xin went down to the fields to work alongside the others. Although most of the time she merely weeded or helped tie wheat bundles, it still counted as contributing her share.

The wheat matured day by day, and everyone looked forward to the arrival of the wheat harvest together. Although the weather was gradually turning hot and working in the fields at this time was perhaps the most grueling part of the year, joy hung on the faces of most people. Gazing at the mountain-like piles of harvested wheat, everyone in their hearts anticipated the days of eating white flour steamed buns, noodles, dumplings, and pancakes.

Cough, cough—although most people could only imagine it; ordinary families usually couldn't bear to eat fine flour themselves.

On the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, the weather wasn't particularly hot yet. Trees in the countryside were lush, providing shade everywhere. To reward the family for their recent hard work, Madam Fang discussed with her daughter-in-law about making some delicious food to celebrate the festival.

Early in the morning, Madam Fang had already boiled a pot of zongzi (glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves). The zongzi had been wrapped the day before, with several of the children also participating in the making process. Because Tang Xin had improvised an idea allowing everyone to freely express their creativity, this year—aside from plain zongzi, meat zongzi, and egg yolk zongzi—there were various other messy and creative flavors.

Aside from zongzi, there were also salted duck eggs in the pot. In addition, Li Xihua had prepared two large basins of dough.

Looking on in surprise, Tang Xin asked, "What are we planning to make with these?"

"Frying some oil dumplings, oil cakes, and the like," Madam Fang told her daughter-in-law. "The candies and pastries you buy from outside aren't necessarily as delicious as what you make at home."

However, frying food was troublesome and consumed a lot of cooking oil; previously, their family only fried such pastries during the Chinese New Year. This year was her daughter-in-law's first time spending the Dragon Boat Festival at their home, and Madam Fang felt a pang of sympathy, knowing that Tang Xin's parents were far away and she hadn't been able to go back to visit them for quite a while. That was why she thought of making a few treats for her daughter-in-law and the children to enjoy.

The oil dumplings were made with scalded dough wrappers, stuffed with a filling of eggs, chives, and dried shrimp, making them exceptionally fragrant after being fried. Meanwhile, the oil cakes consisted of scalded dough wrapping around white sugar and sesame seeds. Taking a bite revealed a crispy outer crust, while the filling was sweet, soft, and delicious—far superior to the pastries sold at the supply and marketing cooperative.

While the women were busy in the kitchen, the men swept the courtyard clean and inserted mugwort leaves at the top of the door frames. Combined with the special delicacies prepared for the holiday, it truly made people feel the true meaning of the Dragon Boat Festival.

As one of the three major traditional festivals, everyone attached great importance to it. On this day, the production team rested uniformly, and nobody went to work in the fields.

Thus, after finishing breakfast, Li Sheng specially took Tang Xin up the mountain behind their house, partly for a stroll and partly to gather some commonly used medicinal herbs.

Now that their feelings for each other were growing deeper and deeper and they had almost no secrets between them, Tang Xin had learned how Li Sheng learned to drive and how he came to recognize medicinal herbs.

What filled her with guilt was that her own grand secret would probably never be told to anyone for the rest of her life. There was simply no helping it; speaking of such things would frighten others out of their wits. Should she tell people that they were all living inside a book, mere marionettes dangling from an author's strings?

Moreover, Tang Xin never believed that the destinies of the living people around her were predetermined. My fate is in my own hands, not the heavens. She had been constantly striving and struggling—why shouldn't she have hope of success?