Chapter 146 Making Soap
After reading the letter, Qin Yao sneered, threw the letter on the table, blew out the light and went to sleep.
However, Liu Ji actually saw her going to the county town?
The letter contained various tentative statements, just to confirm whether she had discovered that he was eating, drinking, and having fun in the city.
Qin Yao felt no wavering in her heart. It was no use trying to test him. Now Liu Ji was just a useless person in her eyes.
There are four small accounts at home, and the result of any one she recharges will be better than his useless account.
It's just a few years late, and life is getting better and better now, so she is not in a hurry.
As for the money Liu Ji owed, if he couldn't pay it back, he would pay with his life.
Qin Yao didn't want to think about this person anymore and affect her mood, so she closed her eyes, emptied her mind, and fell into a deep sleep.
Qin Yao hadn't gotten a good sleep for many days since entering the mountains, so she made up for it all at once and slept until noon.
The four brothers and sisters of Dalang knew her temper and did not disturb her.
She makes her own breakfast and leaves her portion warm on the stove after eating. Then whoever has the turn to do housework will wash the pots and dishes.
Dalang and Erlang are responsible for washing the dirty clothes, but the twins don't know how to do it.
The two of them wanted to join in the fun, but Erlang disdained them and drove them away, telling them to feed the chickens and horses.
Dalang and Erlang also washed Qin Yao's clothes and hung them neatly on the bamboo poles in the yard to dry.
After finishing all the housework, some practiced martial arts, and some read books. Knowing that such opportunities are rare, they are very self-disciplined.
Especially after Dalang told them that Qin Yao had given each of them a name, Erlang wanted to eat the book directly.
Si Niang held the brush, dipped it in water and wrote her name on the table. The characters were found by Erlang from a book. One was flat and the other was diamond. The strokes were not difficult, but for Si Niang, it was already a very complicated character.
The crooked strokes were repeated over and over on the wooden table, and the little girl giggled as she wrote.
Sanlang also wanted to write, but unfortunately, the four brothers and sisters had not learned the word "Ming" yet. Erlang couldn't find a corresponding one, so he had to follow his second brother and write the two simple words "Zi Shu".
When Qin Yao got up, the only sound in the yard was the rustling of writing and drawing, and her heart naturally calmed down.
She stretched and walked past the window of the four brothers and sisters. Four pairs of eyes looked over immediately. Si Niang dropped her brush, slid off the chair, ran out of the house and rushed into Qin Yao's arms.
"Mother, how do you write the names of my younger and older brothers?" she asked.
Qin Yao glanced into the room in surprise. She thought they were practicing calligraphy, but she didn't expect that they were writing their own names.
Dalang said a little embarrassedly: "I told them the name you gave them, Auntie."
Qin Yao raised the corner of her mouth slightly, walked in holding Si Niang, put the little girl back on the chair, picked up the brush, and wrote down the names of all four people.
Her handwriting is nothing special, but it is neat.
"Here, practice it. You'll need it in school." Qin Yao put down her pen, touched everyone's head, clapped her hands, and went to the kitchen to find something to eat.
The four Dalangs looked at each other, giggled, and gathered together to look at each other's names. When each word was read out by Erlang, they would respond loudly and acknowledge their own names.
A name that belongs to them alone, not someone's rank in a family. It's like Jinbao Jinhua, you know whose name it is when you call it.
For breakfast, Dalang cooked white rice porridge, chopped half a pound of meat into minced meat, and fried it with a large bowl of chopped sauerkraut as a side dish.
Qin Yao poured all the minced meat and sauerkraut into the porridge pot, which tasted appetizing and refreshing.
He finished all the porridge and vegetables in one go, washed them, lit a fire, set up a pot, and boiled lard.
Cut the fat into small pieces, brush a layer of oil in the hot iron pan, and then pour all the fat pieces in. There is a sizzling sound, and then an enticing aroma bursts out, which is so fragrant that all four children in the room run over and gather at the kitchen door, watching curiously.
"Mother, why are you shoveling the dust?" Sanlang asked.
Si Niang said to herself, "Do we need to give Lao Huang another treat?"
She had seen Qin Yao use wood ash to alkalize rice straw before, and thought it was still the same.
Qin Yao shook her head, "I want to make soap today."
"What is soap?" Erlang asked in confusion, and took a deep breath of the aroma of meat wafting from the pot.
It was just time for lunch, and even though he had eaten late in the morning, he should be able to hold on until the evening, but he was already hungry.
Qin Yao replied: "It's for washing clothes and taking a bath. You'll know when it's done."
Dalang remembered the soap powder he had asked about at the grocery store yesterday, and asked uncertainly, "Auntie, are you going to make soap powder? The kind that costs 20 cents per ounce?"
"Almost." Qin Yao nodded and asked Dalang to find two basins and gauze for her.
He also told Erlang to bring the clam shells they had found by the river in the summer.
"By the way, Sanlang and Si Niang, go to Liu the peddler's house and buy me three taels of coarse salt." Qin Yao placed the half bucket of wood ash at the kitchen door, went back to the house, got six cents and handed them to the twins.
The two took the money and immediately ran towards Liu the peddler's house, very happy to be able to participate.
Erlang quickly brought over half a bag of clam shells. Qin Yao threw all the leftover charcoal from last winter into the stove hole, burned it, put it in the stove separately, and poured the clam shells in to heat them at high temperature.
By the time the lard in the pot is boiled out, the clam shells are almost cooked.
First, take out half a can of lard and let it cool, then fill a small bowl with the residue from the cooking oil. The five mother and children ate while they worked.
The fried oil residue is crispy and crunchy, leaving a lingering fragrance in your mouth.
Qin Yao took out the stone bowl used for pounding sesame seeds from the kitchen, poured the roasted clam shells into the bowl and pounded them into fine powder for later use.
Then pour the wood ash prepared earlier into a ceramic pot, add water to boil it on the stove, and filter it layer by layer with gauze to get alkaline water.
Pour the clam shell powder into alkaline water and stir. After filtering again, place it under the eaves to let it settle overnight.
The coarse salt that Sanlang and Si Niang bought was also crushed into powder and kept for later use.
The next day, Qin Yao took out the cooled lard, poured the precipitated alkaline water into the lard, and then poured in the ground coarse salt powder, stirring it with wood chips to cause a saponification reaction.
Watching the liquid turn into solid little by little with their own eyes, the three brothers and sisters of Dalang thought that Qin Yao was casting a spell.
Qin Yao also gave them a brief introduction to what saponification reaction is.
But the four brothers and sisters firmly believed that this must be a spell!
It's not calcium oxide or salt washing.
The white paste after saponification was still soft. Qin Yao packed it into bamboo tubes. When she opened them three days later, they became two white cylinders.
Use cotton thread to cut the paste into twelve small pieces, put them in a flat bamboo basket and hang it in a ventilated place in the storage room. After drying for a month, it can be used for washing clothes and hands.
"We have to wait another month." Si Niang pouted and asked Qin Yao, "Mother, can't we use it now?"
"Yes, but it's not easy to use. It's like shit." Qin Yao hung the basket on the beam, jumped off the stool, and waved her hand to drive the four brothers and sisters out.
"Wait and see after a month. Now no one is allowed to play tricks and secretly take it down for me." Qin Yao instructed seriously.
Si Niang could only sigh, "Okay."