After Lu Zhanguo finished preparing the meat, he entered the house and saw Gu Xiaobei already dozing off on the quilt.
He walked over and patted Gu Xiaobei, saying, "Get up and lie down properly, cover yourself with the quilt when you sleep, otherwise you'll catch a cold."
Gu Xiaobei rubbed her eyes and got up, saying, "I won't sleep anymore, I'll start cleaning up and cooking slowly. The meat tastes better when stewed slowly."
"Okay, take your time. If you don't feel well, just lie down, and I'll take care of it when I'm back from the office. Or should we ask Fenghua to come over and help you cook?" Lu Zhanguo suggested.
"No need, I like to do it slowly by myself. If someone helps, I won't even know what to do first and what to do next. You go ahead with your work, I can manage," she said, while inwardly cursing what a shitty suggestion it was and how it was just adding to her troubles.
Lu Zhanguo didn't say much more, replaced the coal briquette in the stove, and left.
Gu Xiaobei sat up to wake up a bit, then started preparing dinner.
Lu Zhanguo had already washed the chicken and chopped it into small pieces, placed in a basin. The rooster was very big, about eight or nine pounds, almost filling half the basin. Each fish was also not small, weighing about three or four pounds. However, they were silver carp, which had thick flesh but many bones and weren't particularly tasty. But in the 1980s in a Northwest village, it was still considered a good dish.
Gu Xiaobei scored the two fish with criss-cross cuts, rubbed them with salt and Sichuan pepper powder, including inside the belly. Then she found a branch, cut it into five or six centimeter lengths, propped open the belly of one fish with a stick, and threaded a string through the fish's mouth to hang it outside the window. This way, the fish could air dry without spoiling. The other fish was marinated in a dish, set aside.
She also cut about a pound of pork belly and hung it outdoors in a cloth bag. Luckily, the weather was quite cold now and the window faced north, so the meat could hang for a couple of days.
Gu Xiaobei had decided on the dinner menu: red-cooked pork, dry-braised fish, chicken and potato stew, sweet and sour Chinese cabbage, spicy and sour glass noodle salad, spicy potato strips, and scrambled eggs with leeks. Although there were only six dishes, they were all hearty portions, and the meat dishes were mostly served in basins.
She originally intended to steam rice as the staple food but then remembered the large plate chicken with belt noodles she had eaten on a trip to Xinjiang in her past life. To recreate the authentic dish after returning home, she stubbornly stayed at the owner's home for several days, learning how to make the noodles before leaving Xinjiang.
So, she immediately started kneading the dough with warm salt water, saving herself about fifteen minutes. She then rubbed some oil on the surface, waiting until the red-cooked pork was stewing in a pot. She cut the dough into large strips, then rolled them into pieces slightly thicker than a thumb. She greased the basin, coiled the long dough pieces one by one, rubbed them with oil again, and then continued to coil the dough. Once all of it was coiled and greased once more, she covered it with a pot lid and set it aside to rest.
The aroma of the pork stewing outside was tantalizing. Then she brought the pot inside and let it simmer on low heat.
She set up another pot to fry sugar colors, ready to stew the chicken.
Guo Huaqiang's family lived to the right of Lu Zhanguo's house, and inside, there were two women, Xiangmin and Li Juan, who were sewing shoe soles. Li Juan sniffed, smelling the fragrant meat, and felt a bit of saliva forming in her mouth, "Look at the neighbors next door, took a tumble and completely changed. Haven't heard any quarreling these past few days, and now they're even cooking."
"That's true. Didn't hear the door slamming loudly either, and today I even saw the couple go to the town together and buy quite a few things. Seems like their relationship is not bad," Xiangmin agreed.
"What's so good about Gu Xiaobei? She's so short and skinny. I think Chi Xiaoyue and Lu Zhanguo are a better match," Li Juan sneered.
"I think so too. Just watch, it won't be long before they'll be fighting again. I heard that Gu Xiaobei doesn't really understand Lu Zhanguo, and there's a childhood sweetheart in the city," Xiangmin said in a hushed voice.
"Really? Why didn't it work out with that guy? Marrying Lu Zhanguo, just look at her; she doesn't seem like someone who's good at settling down, so restless. Poor Lu Zhanguo really is unlucky," Li Juan was evidently very interested in gossip.
The two chattered away like wives in the house. Outside in the corridor, Gu Xiaobei had already stewed the chicken in the pot and then started washing and chopping vegetables.
In his office, Lu Zhanguo, with a cigarette in his mouth, had a face as stern as if chiseled from stone. He was analyzing the words Gu Xiaobei had spoken that day, thinking if there really were two people conversing in Italian, the lurkers must be a pair, a man and a woman.
If what Gu Xiaobei said was a lie, then it was an attempt to confuse him, something he dared not contemplate too deeply. Picking up the phone, he dialed out, "Shen Heng, come over if you have a holiday; I need your help with a family matter."
Shen Heng on the other end understood immediately that there was a situation with Lu Zhanguo that needed a face-to-face talk, "Alright, I happen to have a long vacation coming up, I'll come to see you."
Not long after hanging up the phone, Guo Huaqiang and Zhang Lijun came in. Lu Zhanguo raised an eyebrow to signal the two to sit down, and extinguishing the cigarette in his hand, he said, "Let's all have dinner at my place tonight."
Guo Huaqiang was surprised, "Your sister-in-law doesn't mind? I've heard you two have been getting along well these past few days, that's good news."
"Mm, she hasn't really been losing her temper these last few days, maybe she's come to her senses because she's pregnant," Lu Zhanguo said, a vision of Gu Xiaobei's smiling eyes brimming with laughter filling his mind.
"Being married, it all comes down to the basics like firewood, rice, oil, and salt. Love and affection, can you eat them?" Guo Huaqiang offered his counsel while Zhang Lijun nodded in agreement beside him.
Lu Zhanguo ruffled his short hair, yes, his relationship with Gu Xiaobei had improved. There was responsibility, attraction, but not yet love. He believed that love should be like a husband and wife moving in harmony, a perfect blend of interests, able to discuss life's ideals together.
"Let's not talk about this anymore; let's all go to my place for dinner after work. By the way, Lijun, how many military coats have we received this time?" he turned to ask Zhang Lijun.
"Our squadron is equivalent to the size of a battalion, with all personnel adding up to over three thousand. This time we received two thousand coats," Zhang Lijun confidently stated.
At that time, the military staff structure was still quite bloated and cumbersome. It wasn't until the major downsizing in 1985 that it was streamlined.
Lu Zhanguo's expression darkened, "They really have big appetites. Just our squadron alone received two thousand coats, how many would an entire military district need? I reckon other places must have noticed too; perhaps they're just too angry to speak up."
"Indeed, it's such a large-scale operation, it couldn't have been managed by just anybody," Guo Huaqiang also lamented.
By the time the group returned to the family housing, Gu Xiaobei had already prepared all the dishes, leaving only the stewed fish in the pot.
As they entered the building, Guo Huaqiang exclaimed, "That smells amazing, it seems the sister-in-law is quite skilled."
Lu Zhanguo, catching the scent of the food, felt his gloomy face warm up a bit, and his mood lifted as he said to those around him, "Hurry up and call your families over, let's all eat together."
Guo Huaqiang chuckled, "Then we won't be polite."