Of course, Li Xiang couldn’t possibly be the only one working to support the entire company. Yao Yao was just joking to liven things up.
It was mainly that when it ca to farm work, Li Xiang was the best at it. So, he was basically the one doing it. The girls wanted to help, but Li Xiang shooed them away for being clumsy and in the way, leaving them to act as cheerleaders on the sidelines.
In truth, the three girls were a huge help to Li Xiang. He had offloaded all sorts of miscellaneous tasks onto them.
For instance, for the business from their several shops, Li Xiang would just check the books, giving them full authority to manage everything else.
They also handled the daily tasks of shipping, tracking packages, and custor service.
To help the three of them lead more fulfilling lives, Li Xiang offered them another perk: he would pay for them to enroll in any online courses they were interested in. These could be managent classes or even online programs for an adult undergraduate degree. The goals were twofold: first, to earn a diploma, and second, to improve their skills and "recharge their batteries."
’A diploma is really more about prestige, isn’t it?’ For instance, being able to say, "I graduated from such-and-such university," or "I have a bachelor’s degree," enhances one’s image. It definitely sounds better than saying you’re just a high school graduate.
Besides, you could still learn a great deal from distance learning if you took it seriously.
The three girls were all quite pragmatic. Li Xiang’s offer to pay their tuition moved them so deeply that it made them want to devote themselves to him body and soul.
They hadn’t been able to attend university due to their families’ financial situations, forcing them to enter the workforce early. Now that they had a chance to fulfill their dream of earning a degree, all three cherished the opportunity.
Rapeseed is actually divided into spring and winter varieties. In places with harsh, cold climates, like the Northeast and Northwest, it’s often sown from April to May and harvested from October to November. But in warr regions, such as the south, the Middle and Lower Yangtze River areas, and provinces like Sichuan, Hubei, and Hunan, farrs typically plant winter rapeseed. It’s sown from October to November and harvested from May to June of the following year.
Li Xiang was from Sichuan Province, so he was growing winter rapeseed.
The varieties also differ due to their distinct growing seasons and life cycles. Winter rapeseed is mostly the cabbage-type, while spring rapeseed is often the bok choy or mustard-type.
And because winter rapeseed has a longer growing cycle, its oil content is higher—between 35% and 50%—while spring rapeseed’s is typically between 25% and 30%.
Li Xiang harvested the rapeseed, dried and threshed it, then used a winnowing machine to remove the chaff and dust, leaving him with clean seeds.
He planned to record a video on traditional oil pressing, so he invited Li Jinyu, Li Yucheng, Jiang Jianguo, and others to help. In addition, Granny Li Xiang, Third Granny, and a few other older villagers who had experience with oil pressing also ca over to watch, join in the fun, and offer technical support and advice.
They chose a corner of Li Xiang’s backyard as the location and built a large canopy.
Jiang Jianguo and Li Yucheng helped build the wooden fra for the oil press. Since Li Xiang was incredibly strong and knew so simple carpentry, he pitched in as well.
The main structure was made from thick pine logs.
Many parts needed to be bound with steel bands to make it sturdy enough to withstand the impacts. Jiang Jianguo was in charge of Forging these iron hoops and fasteners.
Li Jinyu and the other elders were in charge of providing technical guidance.
After two days, a traditional wood-and-iron oil press, five ters long and seventy to eighty centiters in diater, was successfully constructed.
They also prepared clean rice straw, which would be used to wrap the rapeseed.
The first step of oil pressing: preparing the seed cakes.
This process contained a Profound Mystery.
The ground rapeseeds were stead in a stear basket and then roasted. Controlling the moisture and temperature was a delicate art; if the seeds were too dry or too wet, you couldn’t press any oil out. It all ca down to experience.
It had been many years since anyone in Li Family Village had pressed oil using this traditional thod. Normally, people just transported their seeds to a specialized workshop in town to have them machine-pressed. That was far more efficient.
Li Xiang was doing this mainly for the online traffic, though one could also consider it a way of preserving an intangible cultural heritage.
Besides, rapeseed oil pressed this way was more aromatic and of higher quality.
The roasted rapeseed al was poured onto a bed of rice straw, contained by an outer iron ring, and then stomped on by foot to form a wrapped cake.
Of course, it wouldn’t be the grown n doing the stomping. It was just like with Maotai liquor, which is famously said to have its ferntation starter stomped by young won.
But the female workers at the Maotai distillery definitely couldn’t compare in looks to the three beauties on Li Xiang’s team.
The three beautiful girls, Yao Yao, Zhao Xueqing, and Lei Xiaohui, appeared on cara. They had washed their lovely feet and were now stomping the cakes barefoot. As they worked, their laughter, like silver bells, rang out constantly. All of them were innocent young won in their early twenties, and it was undeniably a beautiful sight to behold.
Li Xiang took the "rapeseed cakes" they had prepared and loaded them into the press chamber, then began the oil extraction phase.
This was where Li Xiang truly shone.
He was shirtless, his sinewy muscles clearly defined, each one looking as if it had been sculpted for a work of art. He wielded a massive stone Heavy Hamr weighing over 600 kilograms, swinging it again and again to strike a wooden wedge.
In a typical traditional oil-pressing workshop, a battering ram of one or two hundred kilograms was already considered formidable. It would have to be suspended from a roof beam to conserve energy and provide leverage. So workshops even used just a thick wooden log, similar to what you’d see striking a temple bell. But Li Xiang was using a massive stone of over 600 kilograms directly, which was far more efficient.
What would take others three hours of striking, he could likely finish in just over an hour.
Normally, this was grueling manual labor—you could say it took two drops of sweat to produce one drop of oil. But for Li Xiang, it was practically child’s play.
In truth, Li Xiang could have handled sothing even heavier without breaking a sweat, but the equipnt wouldn’t have been able to withstand that much force. What if he smashed it to pieces? All that work would have been for nothing.
Besides, using sothing too heavy would be just too sensational.
This raw power exerted imnse pressure on the seed cakes inside the press. Under this physical force, a bright yellow rapeseed oil, almost like liquid gold, began to gush out.
The three girls jumped about barefoot on a clean stone slab nearby, cheering, "There’s oil! There’s oil!"
"We did it!"
Li Xiang felt a sense of relief and satisfaction. They had successfully extracted oil on their very first attempt.
Seeing this, everyone else involved also began to applaud and celebrate.
Li Xiang continued to swing the massive stone, striking the wedge. The process required repeated blows and would last for at least an hour to ensure all the rapeseed oil was thoroughly extracted.
The THUD, THUD, THUD of the impacts echoed throughout the backyard. A number of tourists, drawn by the earth-shaking yet rhythmic noise, followed the sound into Li Xiang’s yard to watch, comnt, and record videos.
So of the tourists were skeptical. "Is that a movie prop? Is it actually made of foam?"
Li Xiang set down the massive stone and gestured invitingly. "Here, why don’t you give it a try?"
The skeptical tourist stepped forward, then his jaw dropped. "Holy crap, this thing is heavy! It’s the real deal! I can’t move it, I can’t move it at all!"
"I’m impressed, truly impressed!"
The tourists’ doubts completely vanished. When Li Xiang resud his work, they all cheered and applauded him.
"This kid is incredible! A real strongman!"
"That thing must weigh several hundred pounds, right? Three or four hundred pounds, I’d say?"
It was actually over 600 kilograms, but Li Xiang didn’t correct them, just smiled.
A tourist who already followed Li Xiang explained, "That’s Brother Xiang, the strongest rural-life influencer on the whole internet! He’s a guy admired by people in the martial arts and weightlifting worlds. If you don’t believe , search for his old video where he killed a wild boar with one slash. Man, that was sothing else! Pure Violent Aesthetics!"
"You really can’t tell. To think such an astonishing amount of strength is hidden in such a well-proportioned physique."
The clip of the skeptical tourists was also included in the final video, which only added to its authenticity and believability.
Of course, after the video was uploaded, there were inevitably so haters who claid the tourists must have been paid actors and that it was all just video effects.
One fan explained, "Look at the way the wooden wedge and the whole press shakes, and how the bright yellow oil seeps out. You can tell those impacts are real."
But they still wouldn’t believe it, saying, "The shaking could just be special effects. Even a fifty-cent effect can look more dramatic than that. What’s there to brag about?"
There’s no arguing with trolls.
...
The video upload was a story for another ti. Right now, Li Xiang was still pressing oil. An hour and a half later, he finished this session of labor (Cultivation) and went to inspect the rapeseed oil.
He scooped so up with a ladle and let it slowly trickle down. It was a translucent golden-yellow and gave off the rich, unique aroma of rapeseed oil. The quality looked excellent.
A final weigh-in showed a total yield of just over 53 pounds of oil.
Zhao Xueqing tapped on her calculator. "We started with 133 pounds of rapeseed," she said. "So that’s about two and a half pounds of seed for every pound of oil."
Li Xiang nodded. He had consulted Li Jinyu and the others beforehand, and this was roughly the ratio they had told him to expect.
The 133 pounds he had harvested was a relatively small amount and was used up in one session. So, Li Xiang went and bought more rapeseed from the villagers, pressing enough to supply his own household for a full year.
In total, he pressed over 330 pounds of rapeseed oil and stored it in his cellar.
Then Yao Yao, Zhao Xueqing, and Lei Xiaohui also brought rapeseed from their own hos for Li Xiang to press.
Rapeseed oil handmade by Brother Xiang was, of course, healthier than anything store-bought. Besides, watching Brother Xiang work shirtless—the visual spectacle of his rippling muscles—was an aesthetic pleasure. The three girls found it particularly easy on the eyes.
Yao Yao was especially bold. She would occasionally sidle up with a grin and seize the chance to cop a feel, just to satisfy her hands and have a little fun.
Not to be outdone, Lei Xiaohui also went up and got a few touches in herself. Li Xiang chided them, telling them to stand further back so they wouldn’t accidentally get hit.
With a massive stone of over 600 kilograms swinging around, a re graze could cause a serious injury, and a direct hit would an broken bones.
Zhao Xueqing wanted to touch him too, but she was too shy and didn’t dare make a move. She felt like she was seriously missing out.
Of course, Li Xiang didn’t charge them a processing fee, since they had participated in the video and helped stomp the cakes.
He also gave them back the leftover press cakes, which they could take ho to fernt and use as fertilizer. It was excellent for growing vegetables and flowers.
The rapeseed grown by Li Xiang and the villagers was truly pesticide-free—none were used at any point. It was completely green and non-polluting. No additives were used during the pressing, either. It was a purely physical extraction thod, and even the rice straw was washed and thoroughly dried. This was a truly all-natural, green, edible oil that you could eat without any worries.
In contrast, many comrcially available oils produced in factories use the solvent extraction thod—extracting the oil with an organic solvent like n-hexane. This is common for soybean oil, corn germ oil, and rice bran oil, as these raw materials have low oil content and aren’t suitable for direct pressing.
The pressing thod is typically used for things like peanuts and rapeseed.
However, to conserve resources and maximize profits, modern corporations will often take the cakes left over from pressing and put them through a solvent extraction process.
This is because the cakes still contain a good amount of residual oil, and companies won’t simply use them as fertilizer the way people in the countryside do.
You could say they exploit it to the absolute limit.
So, so low-quality rapeseed and peanut oils on the market are actually produced by using organic solvents to extract the last bits of oil from the already-pressed cake residue.
And these organic solvents themselves have different grades. "No. 6 solvent oil" (which mainly contains n-hexane, cyclohexane, and other more complex hydrocarbons) is definitely cheaper than using high-purity n-hexane.
In the solvent extraction process, so solvent residue is unavoidable; it’s practically impossible to remove it completely.
This is why there’s a certain "industrial logic" to tanker trucks carrying kerosene or gasoline one day and then edible oil the next.
Their tankers are used to haul solvents to the factories in the first place. They deliver the solvent, unload, and then load up with edible oil for the return trip. It’s a seamless transition.
National standards set an upper limit for solvent residue. As long as a product doesn’t exceed that standard and complies with all laws and regulations, it can be sold legally.
To look at it from another perspective, there’s a reason this system exists. The demand for edible oil is massive. If we relied solely on the pressing thod to produce only high-quality oil, many people wouldn’t be able to get any oil at all, or simply wouldn’t be able to afford it.
But even if the oil itself isn’t over the limit, the mont it gets loaded into one of those tanker trucks, it will be.
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