"My goodness, Uncle Liang, how did your Xiaoman get her brain? She's done such a great job in the kitchen! She's even more thoughtful than us women who cook every day!"
The village housewives marveled at the sight, holding up their phones as if they wanted to capture every corner of Jiang Xiaoman's kitchen.
The traditional practice here is to put a cupboard in the kitchen. A cupboard can't hold much, takes up space, and is expensive! Unlike Jiang Xiaoman's cutting board, which has several times the storage capacity of a cupboard, and the cost is probably only one-third of a cupboard.
And that wall cabinet, if you have wood at home, it wouldn't cost much to build a row of them, but it's so practical! It can hold a lot of things!
Jiang Xiaoman replaced the space-consuming cupboard with a wall cabinet, and on the other side of the empty kitchen, he built a fireplace.
The common fire pit in Langshan is a large fire basin made of several pieces of wood or stones. It has hooks on top so that pots can be hung up to cook rice or stir-fry vegetables. The fire underneath is covered with wire mesh so that vegetables can be stewed or potatoes can be roasted. Almost every house is built this way here.
But Jiang Xiaoman changed this old rule.
He and the designer revised the design several times, and the final plan was to build a Western-style fireplace on one side of the wall, with two rows of booths on both sides of the wall. The booths had a fire wall underneath them, so it would be warm to sit there in winter. The booths were designed to be slightly wider than regular seats, so even adults could lie down and rest on them.
Below the fireplace is a uniquely shaped "fire pit," but it's more like a stove than a fire pit.
Jiang Xiaoman had a large stainless steel stove, about half a person's height, built. The square stove contained a hearth with an opening at the bottom for adding firewood. There was a movable latch at the bottom; once opened, the ashes left after the firewood burned in the stove could fall down easily, and a winnowing basket could be placed underneath to catch them, making it much easier to clean up the ashes.
The stove has a 20-centimeter-wide rim, so you can put dishes, bowls, chopsticks, etc. on all four sides. In winter, you can put a hot pot in the middle and stir-fry some dishes on it, and the dishes won't get cold.
"I saw this when I went to Banligou last time. They've started using this new type of hearth there now. It's just that it's a bit expensive to have it custom-made. This one cost me more than 800 yuan," Jiang Xiaoman explained.
Upon hearing that this new-style hearth cost over 800 yuan, the village housewives couldn't help but gasp. However, only two people came to Jiang Xiaoman to ask for the phone number to order one, since the price was too high; 800 yuan was enough for an average family's monthly living expenses.
There are three long benches next to the hearth, which is convenient for families with few members to eat their meals here.
Next to the kitchen was a large partitioned room on the south side, about forty square meters in size. Four large tables had already been set up there, where the men were playing cards, chatting, and drinking tea, while the children ran around, making it very lively.
"Xiaoman, why do you keep a room here in your kitchen? Are you going to have guests eat here from now on, instead of going to the main room?" a villager couldn't help but ask.
“Yes, my house won’t have a main room anymore. This is how houses are built in the countryside outside the mountains now. This is called living space.” Jiang Xiaoman pointed to the roof and walls. “I installed a ceiling fan in this room. It’s not hot at all when we have guests here in the summer. This wall is also a partition wall. It’s usually blocked off, but in the winter, when we open it up, the stove and fireplace are lit, and the heat can be transferred to this room through the partition wall. It’s very warm to eat in here in the winter, and we don’t need to burn charcoal braziers.”
"Wow, that's a great idea! But only your family, living in the mountains, with a large plot of land, can afford to build it. It wouldn't work down below the mountain; the plots are too small, and they won't approve it anymore. Sigh..."
The villagers may envy them, but they also know that it's difficult to get approval for residential land down the mountain these days.
However, Jiang Xiaoman's mention that his family didn't have a main house with a hall really piqued the curiosity of these people. Originally, they thought that Jiang's new house was similar to their own, so they sat down and started playing cards. Now, since they still had three days to play cards, they decided to take advantage of the break to visit Jiang's new house.
When Jiang Xiaoman designed his house, he considered that he could take advantage of the popularity of the nearby homestays. He also reserved a few guest rooms for his house. To ensure the quietness of the guest rooms, unlike the common rural villas, his living room was built on the east side.
The three-and-a-half-story main house faces south, with a large bamboo forest to the west offering the best view, so all the rooms are located on the west side. The first floor is divided into three and a half rooms, with the eastern half serving as the living room. In one corner of the living room is an indoor staircase, ensuring that the staircase won't get wet or slippery even in the rain.
The living room is small, only a dozen square meters, but it is designed to be very cozy. By the window is a bamboo tatami mat with a tea set and several cushions on it. The tatami mat is very cleverly designed, with cabinet doors woven from bamboo strips underneath. When you open the cabinet doors, the inside is empty. In winter, you can put a brazier inside to keep the whole tatami warm.
Several rows of shoe racks were installed under the stairs, tucked away in the stairwell, taking up very little space. It's also convenient for guests to change their shoes here. On the other side, a row of booths was built from bamboo, and in front of the booths was a long wooden table. Against the wall, a tea table was built with bricks, tiled inside and out, with a frosted, non-slip surface, making it easy to clean and convenient for making tea for guests.
The tea station also has several partitions underneath, without cabinet doors. Inside, there are tea canisters, snack jars, teapots, teacups, and the like, all clearly visible. It's much more convenient than the old-fashioned cabinets they use in the main room now.
Next to the living room are three rooms. The entire room next to the living room is a storage room. Items that are frequently used in the family, such as rice, flour, and cooking oil, are stored here for easy access, so that they don't have to be carried up and down the stairs. This was specially designed by Jiang Xiaoman for her father's retirement.
The two rooms next to it are Jiang Xiaoman's and his father's rooms. Jiang Xiaoman spent a lot of money on these two rooms, making them both suites. Rural rooms are generally very large, so he simply made two independent suites.
His dad's room has a separate bathroom with a shower, and it's equipped with a toilet grab bar for the elderly and a shower stool for sitting while showering. On the other side of the bathroom is an open walk-in closet—his dad has always been clumsy and can't fold clothes at all. In the past, he would just collect the clothes, roll them up, and stuff them into a box. He would have to rummage around for ages to find his clothes.
This time, Jiang Xiaoman simply made all of them into hanging rods for him, with cabinets on top for storing seasonal bedding and clothes, and hanging areas all below for easy access.
Opposite the bed, a cabinet-style TV wall was also built, with space reserved for the TV. The rest of the room was filled with cabinets, so his dad's things can be stored in the cabinets, keeping the room very tidy. A tabletop was also embedded along the wall near the window, with space underneath to easily fit a chair. The tabletop is also very convenient for drinking tea or placing things.
His own room is roughly the same layout, but he has partitioned off a small study of a few square meters near the window. He plans to buy some cheap fabric to make a partition and use it as his live streaming room in the future. He also installed an entire wall of open shelves to make it convenient to use as a product display area in the future.
"Wow~ Xiaoman, your new house is big enough to get you a wife!" The villagers couldn't help but gasp when they saw the rooms on the first floor.
The second and third floors are still empty. One reason is that Jiang Xiaoman has been busy accompanying Jiang Cancan to her competitions and hasn't had time for renovations. The other, and more important reason, is that he doesn't have the money for renovations. o(╥﹏╥)o
He and his father originally planned to build a two-story house first, lay a good foundation, and then add more floors later when they had more money.
After being persuaded by the designer and the contractor, they realized that if they didn't build the main building at once and then added more later, it would cause some safety problems over time, and it would also mean doing two projects and having to hold another housewarming party, which would mean spending money twice.
Upon hearing that it would cost money twice, the father and son exchanged a glance and immediately changed their minds: they'd grit their teeth and build the main building all at once! As for the guest rooms, they could build the houses first and then decorate them later when they had more money.
Therefore, now only the first floor of the Jiang family's three-and-a-half-story villa is worth looking at; the second and third floors, plus the attic used for storing grain, are completely unfinished...
"Dinner's ready!" The auntie cooking next door called out to them as she cooked.
As soon as everyone heard that dinner was served, they scattered and quickly occupied the four tables next door. The children were easy to manage; they were all seated in the living room booths, and their food was brought over separately.
"Food's here!" With that shout from the person in charge, the kitchen helpers started carrying trays back and forth serving the dishes. Jiang Xiaoman wasn't idle either; he skillfully took out a gimbal, attached his phone, and started filming—
"Hello everyone, I'm Xiaoman from the countryside. Today is the first day of my family's housewarming party in our new house. Let me show you the first meal we have at this grand rural banquet!"
Chapter 70
The first day was mainly for entertaining the people who came to help, not the actual day, so the banquet wasn't very formal, but the dishes were still plentiful.
"In Langshan, both men and women can drink alcohol, so there must be plenty of snacks on the table. This is fried peanuts, in two flavors: sweet with white sugar and salty with chili paste and salt. There's also this cold seaweed salad, braised duck feet and necks, and preserved egg tofu. These are all cold dishes."
"The stir-fries include celery stir-fried with shredded pork, dried bamboo shoots with sliced pork, and cabbage with pork cracklings. The main dishes are the most numerous. Over here is braised pork with kelp knots and shredded radish with meatballs. Over here is braised duck with konjac tofu, braised chicken wings, braised chicken thighs with dried bamboo shoots, poached chicken, and braised pork with preserved mustard greens. And here is braised prawns and braised fish chunks with tofu."
"I'm embarrassed. It's the first day of entertaining guests, and I bought the food rather late, so I didn't have time to cook anything fancy. I'll prepare two big meals for the villagers tomorrow!" Jiang Xiaoman said while filming a video and toasting her uncles and neighbors at each table.
Neither he nor Jiang Youliang had an alcohol addiction and rarely drank at home. However, since they both grew up in Langshan, they had a good tolerance for alcohol. Today, they would definitely have to drink a little while entertaining guests. Jiang Xiaoman took a bottle of beer and went around to each table to offer toasts, without changing his expression at all. Looking at Jiang Youliang, after downing two small glasses of baijiu, his face turned bright red.
After drinking, the room immediately became lively. Jiang Xiaoman ate with them for a while, then stood up and filmed some videos. She then made an excuse to go to the kitchen to check on the dishes, and went to the kitchen to film the preparation area.
They didn't hire a professional chef to prepare large rural banquets; instead, several aunties from their village with good cooking skills helped with the cooking, and even the pots and pans were borrowed from other households.
At this point, the enamel and stainless steel basins of different colors on the cutting board were already piled high with the processed semi-finished ingredients.
The large pieces of frozen beef shank have been thawed and are being soaked in clean water. After the blood is removed, they will be washed clean and ready to be cooked into braised beef for tomorrow.
All kinds of duck parts, such as duck feet, duck necks, duck wings, duck heads, and duck gizzards, were washed and soaked in clean water with some cooking wine and various spices to remove the fishy smell. Duck parts that are soaked in cold water before being braised are more flavorful than those that are braised directly, and they don't have that lingering ducky smell.
Several large basins next to it contained soaked and chopped kelp strips, dried plum vegetables, dried bamboo shoots, white fungus, lotus seeds, longan, and the like. These side dishes would be cooked until half-cooked with the other dishes tonight, so that when guests arrived tomorrow, they could be cooked again. The white fungus and lotus seeds were prepared for making sweet soup.
In Langshan, this sweet soup is an essential part of weddings. It is also known as the farewell soup. After drinking the host's sweet soup, your mouth will feel sweet and you will speak well of the host after you leave.
The two large pots on the stove were also busy. The larger one was simmering a whole cured pig's head in the wood-fired pot—it was to be offered to the ancestors early tomorrow morning. The smaller one was stewing two large pig's trotters, also cured, to be made into pig's trotter noodles for tomorrow morning.
After the meal, some villagers took their children and hurried back to rest. Those who had come to help would be sleeping here tonight, because they would have to get up before dawn tomorrow to help the host family prepare offerings for the ancestors. They would also need to prepare refreshments for guests who arrived early, usually sweet soup with eggs and a spoonful of cooked sesame dumplings.
"This is homemade konjac tofu and konjac powder. The mountains and forests around here are perfect for growing konjac. My dad is like that; he can't stand seeing even a tiny bit of empty space in the house. If he sees any empty space, he'll cut down a section of konjac and plant it. Tomorrow morning, I'll take you to see the area near my house; there are huge fields of konjac there!"
"However, this thing is troublesome to make. We used to dig it up and carry it to the market to sell to the workshops. This time, because we had a happy occasion in our family, we dug up a lot and made it to eat. We don't usually have time to make it."
"And these glutinous rice balls come in two sizes. The smaller ones are filled with sesame filling and are boiled before eating. The larger ones are filled with sugar, deep-fried, and then sprinkled with soybean powder. They're absolutely delicious!"
What Jiang Xiaoman didn't know was that after he uploaded the 18-minute video to his personal account that night, he gained nearly 300,000 followers overnight!
Countless netizens who grew up in the countryside reminisced in the comments section about the lavish rural feasts they ate as children. Back then, their hometowns, like Langshan, might not have seen such a sumptuous meal all year round. Thinking about it carefully, the dishes on the table might not have been anything fancy, just common farm fare like chicken, duck, fish, meat, peanuts, and melon seeds. But it was precisely these simple yet abundant rural feasts that remain unforgettable even after a decade or two…
However, some viewers who stumbled upon the video raised questions in the comments section, wondering if Jiang Xiaoman and his team had deliberately created this persona of a poor mountain village farmer. But their long-time fans quickly started recommending Langshan Elementary School's video account to them.
The funny thing is, these long-time fans even deliberately said things like "Xiaoman does have a team, refer to @LangshanElementarySchool" in order to drive traffic to Langshan Elementary School's account.
Good heavens! This fraudulent promotion actually brought over 100,000 new followers to the official account of Langshan Primary School in just one day.
Those who initially suspected Jiang Xiaoman of having a team promoting her were now coming back to believe her after watching the videos previously posted by the official Langshan Elementary School account: "I checked, they really do have a team! Go @LangshanElementarySchool!"
Jiang Baichuan is truly a man who sits at school and has fans falling from the sky.
Those innocent netizens who were tricked into clicking in, eager to participate in exposing the fraud, unknowingly watched every video previously released by Langshan Primary School.
From Jiang Xiaoman filling in for the principal and cooking, to the uncle and nephew bickering over a few free-range eggs or adding a couple more spoonfuls of pork lard to their dishes, to everyone working together to make some down-to-earth videos to earn money to improve the children's meals...
This was a team they hadn't expected, and many netizens couldn't help but come back after watching it, hurling insults at Jiang Xiaoman in the comments section of her latest video.
"That's it? Brother Xiaoman, please fire this trash team right away! It's been so long, and they still haven't broken a million followers? The kids at school still haven't moved into their new dorms? What's the point of having this trash team?"
Many short video bloggers who came across the video even left comments saying they were willing to provide Jiang Xiaoman and Langshan Primary School's team with free technical guidance and interactive traffic generation.
After all, no one expected that there would still be such an impoverished mountain school like Langshan Primary School in China.
They don't even have enough teachers for all subjects, so the children have to hire college students from the city to teach during winter and summer vacations to help them with subjects like physical education, music, and art.
The local education bureau was once again caught in the crossfire. However, this time they responded quickly—
Given the severe student attrition within the Langshan Primary School's jurisdiction, and the fact that one of the school's only three teachers has resigned, the county has decided that starting next semester, students in grades four through six will be transferred to the nearest township primary school. The remaining lower-grade students, who are too young to board at school and whose families cannot pick them up and drop them off every day, will remain at Langshan Primary School.
In this way, the county will not need to provide new teachers for Langshan Primary School—nor can it provide them, as physical education, music, and art teachers are in high demand right now. Many township-level schools in the county are already short of teachers, let alone those in the mountains.
Unexpectedly, the official explanation only made netizens feel more sorry for Langshan Primary School. Many teacher-training students even went to the school's video account to leave messages or sent private messages to Jiang Xiaoman, expressing their willingness to sign up for Langshan Primary School's winter and summer vacation extracurricular classes...
"Xiaoman, come on! Let me toast you! I never expected this! Hundreds of teacher trainees have already registered with me, from all over the country and even abroad. They all say they're willing to come and tutor us for free during their winter and summer vacations. It's all thanks to your idea!"
Jiang Baichuan raised his glass, and when the villagers heard him say that, they couldn't help but raise their glasses and stand up to toast Jiang Xiaoman.
After all, which family doesn't have children who need to go to school?
Even if it doesn't exist now, it will exist in the future.
The school's teaching staff is becoming increasingly strong, which is a tremendous benefit to the entire village!
Worried that everyone would bring up the fortune-telling he received from the old shaman, Jiang Xiaoman quickly downed a full glass of beer in one gulp, picked up the gimbal beside him, and said, "Everyone, eat and drink well. I just promised my fans yesterday that I would livestream our family's banquet. I'm going to get busy now!"
"Speaking of which, do you still remember what the old shaman said when he told Xiaoman's fortune back then?"
"How could I not remember? The old shaman said that although Xiaoman was picked up by Brother Liang, she is indeed our Langshan's little lucky star!"
"Absolutely! I saw it when I went up the mountain just now. They've built a huge building over there! I heard that Xiaoman came here to invest in some kind of hotel."
"What hotel? They call that a homestay! It's really popular now! When I go to the market in the township, I hear the township officials talking about it. If our township can develop this homestay industry, it might become even richer than Banligou in a few years."
"Is it true? What did the township officials say?"
...
Hearing the gossip behind him, Jiang Xiaoman couldn't help but slip. Sure enough! Luckily, he ran fast...
The offering table in the courtyard had not yet been removed. A huge cured pig's head was placed in the center, with a whole golden roast chicken on the left and a whole oily braised fish on the right. There were also six kinds of fruits and snacks. Although the culture of shamanism has gradually declined in this civilized era, the villagers have not forgotten the old customs passed down from their ancestors. They set up an offering table to worship the mountain god and their ancestors and lit incense and candles.
Upon closer inspection, Jiang Xiaoman discovered a paper replica of a new mobile phone and tablet computer on the offering table, complete with chargers and earphones. She was speechless.
The fans watching the live stream were practically bursting with laughter.
The screen was filled with "hahahahaha", and fans were "reprimanding" Jiang Xiaoman on behalf of the gods in the barrage, asking why she didn't burn some smart home appliances such as vacuum cleaners and mops for the gods and ancestors. Didn't the cave dwelling need to be cleaned?
However, fans with even more unconventional ideas quickly corrected them: "Shouldn't we just burn a few housekeeping supplies over there?"
What the hell is this "burning a few housekeeping supplies" nonsense!
Should we burn a few more security guards and drivers over there?