County Magistrate Jiang and his party left the village with great pomp and circumstance.
Along the way, many villagers ran to the village paths to watch the excitent, seeing County Magistrate Jiang and his n riding on tall, stately horses, followed by five mule carts, looking very imposing.
After County Magistrate Jiang and his group left, several families gathered in the courtyard, with Third Grandma taking charge, dividing up the remaining at from the cattle, sheep, and rabbits, as well as the received congratulatory gifts among the families.
Today, the workshop’s opening received quite a number of congratulatory gifts. Just in eggs alone, they received more than three hundred, ten pieces of at, ten bolts of cotton cloth, ten bolts of gourd cloth, twenty bundles of coarse hemp cloth, along with four baskets of rice, flour, soybeans, sweet potatoes, cabbages, radishes, and newly grown spring vegetables.
These four baskets of farm produce were gifts from villagers who were not well off; they wished to work at Gu’s Workshop but had no money to buy gifts, so they brought a few eggs from each family and a basket of farm produce as their congrats.
The families, coming from poor farming backgrounds themselves, would not disdain these gifts.
The gift from Scholar Shang’s Family was prepared by Ms. Jiang, which included rice, flour, at, sweet and sour wine, along with seven bolts of cotton cloth, seven bolts of gourd cloth—the majority of cotton and gourd fabrics received by Gu’s Workshop today were from the Shang Family.
Aside from that, Ms. Jiang also gave a bolt of brocade, a pack of embroidery threads, and a full set of embroidery needles to Gu Jinxiu.
Ms. Jiang was fond of embroidery and knew Gu Jinxiu was adept at it, but the Gu Family could not afford such expensive brocades, so she brought one as a gift for Gu Jinxiu.
Gu Jinxiu was thrilled to receive these items.
Gu Yui, however, was extrely upset, nearly tearing the cotton cloth handkerchief she was holding into pieces while standing in the yard waiting to collect her share of the family’s items.
And the gifts from the Jiang Family were just as generous and lavish as the persons from County Magistrate Jiang.
County Magistrate Jiang, knowing that Gu’s Workshop intended to make tofu and spices, sent a cartload of dicinal herbs and twenty bundles of coarse hemp cloth.
"These coarse hemp cloths must be kept for lining the wooden mold covers for making tofu. One bundle per family will do," said Third Grandma, who managed the distribution with Mrs. Cui and Ms. Chu for half an hour until all the congratulatory gifts were divided and everyone took their share ho.
The Qin family, grandfather and grandsons, hardly endured until the distribution was over. As soon as they got their share, they imdiately excused themselves to go ho.
As soon as they entered their house, Qin Er Lang didn’t wait for Elder Qin to scold him but kneeled down on his own: "This place is too remote, no news can get through, I must go to the Military Office to use its resources to gather intelligence, please grant your consent!"
As he spoke, he thudded his head heavily on the floor of the main hall.
Elder Qin stepped aside a few paces and did not accept his grand gesture.
Qin San Lang walked to the door, closed the main hall door slightly to prevent passersby from seeing inside.
After closing the door, he turned back to look at the kneeling Qin Er Lang and said with a sneer: "That Ah Ji has already noticed us, he will surely return tonight, and surround us. By then, you don’t even have to enter the Military Office, you’ll be able to go straight to the Death Prison."
He spoke in a low voice, yet with an extrely cold tone.
This whole journey, he had never lashed out at this so-called elder brother, but today, he truly couldn’t hold back.
Did his brother think that only their family mbers would die? When entire clans are wiped out, who could be luckier than whom?
Qin Er Lang saw that Qin San Lang was truly angry and felt sowhat guilty, knowing he shouldn’t have been so impulsive, but he had had enough. He hated this place, this rundown countryside where a trip to the town took four hours and where he could never get any useful news.
Even the news of Duke Xing leading troops to quell the rebellion was known to them only because Elder Lei Wu had told them.
"That Ah Ji is from the Ning Family. The Ning Family has always been friendly with us; they won’t betray us," said Qin Er Lang. "Moreover, that Ah Ji has never seen you or , even if he suspects sothing, we can just deny it to death. Without evidence, he can’t do anything to us."
"Do they need evidence to kill us?" Qin San Lang laughed angrily, "That person would rather kill the wrong person than let anyone go."
Elder Qin also had a worried expression. Today was indeed a miscalculation; they thought only County Captain Jiang would co, but unexpectedly, a person from the Ning Family showed up.
"What do you suggest we do then? We’ve already made contact," Qin Er Lang said irritably, his temper growing more violent due to the prolonged pressure. "If it really cos down to it, we can just escape now."
Upon hearing this, Qin San Lang narrowed his eyes, looking at Qin Er Lang disappointingly, "Second brother, do you even know what you’re saying? If we run away, what about Third Grandpa and the others? That’s over thirty people!"
Although in their eyes, the death of dozens of people wasn’t a big deal, those few families had helped them, and after such a long ti together, everyone was connected by human sentint; they couldn’t be so selfish.
Qin Er Lang didn’t say anything, but he had indeed thought about abandoning the other families.
Both Elder Qin and Qin San Lang knew this; it was just that nobody had spoken about it explicitly.
"For now, we can only gamble," Elder Qin said after a long silence, "Gamble that the Ning Family doesn’t intend to harm us."
With Elder Qin’s final decision, the three generations of the Qin ancestors began to prepare.
The other families didn’t know about the Qin Family’s predicant. After receiving their portion of the gifts, they cheerfully went ho.
Upon returning ho, the families didn’t rest but headed to the workshop instead.
Old Guo and the others had already ground quite a lot of soybeans. After filtering the soy milk, they brought barrels of it into the workshop’s kitchen.
This kitchen used to have only three stoves, but when they repaired the room, Third Grandpa and Gu Dashan built five more. Now, there are eight stoves with eight iron pots, and this is where they would make tofu from now on.
Third Grandpa led the n from the various families into the kitchen, where Gu Dashan taught them how to make tofu with the brine.
The thod was simple: boil the soy milk until cooked, let it cool down by about 10%, uncover a few layers of tofu skin, then add the prepared brine to the soy milk to separate the soybeans from the water, forming tofu pudding. Once the tofu pudding ford larger curds, they scooped it into wooden boxes lined with coarse hemp cloth, closed it with the cloth, covered it with wooden lids, and placed stones on top to shape and press it.
Although the thod was simple, the vinegar water for the tofu recipe was prepared at Gu Jinli’s house and brought to the workshop, so there was no need to worry about the recipe being leaked.
This arrangent was also sothing the families had agreed upon early on.
The tofu recipe was in the hands of Gu Jinli’s house; they would deliver the brine to the workshop every day so that the families could make tofu.
After learning the process, Father Luo, Gu Damu and Gu Dalin brothers, as well as Gu Dafu and Gu Dagui brothers, including Gu Qingtian and Gu Qingliang, began making tofu in the kitchen.
In less than two hours, they had made nearly a thousand pounds of tofu, almost using up all the soy milk that Old Guo and others had ground.
Gu Jinli, however, ran to the workshop’s main room to monitor Mrs. He Yang and the others grinding spices.
Mrs. Chen had already woken up, and she was now sitting in the main room, with her legs crossed, chewing on a piece of Fried Crispy Pork, pointing at He Tugou’s daughter-in-law, "That’s not good, you have to grind it so more."
Then pointing at He Wa’s widow mother, "That’s not good either. Cardamom is hard to grind; you have to put so strength into it, crush the cardamom thoroughly, then take it to the copper pestle and mortar to grind."
"And you, Shengzi’s sister, cinnamon leaves are light, you can’t crush them to grind the cinnamon leaves, you have to use grinding, slowly grinding them properly."
Mrs. Chen, with the air of a landlady directing long-term workers, was beyond irritating. Upon seeing Gu Jinli co in, she even put on airs to say, "What brings Xiao Yu here? Your Aunt Gui is here, nothing will go wrong, you don’t need to watch over here."
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