Chapter 12: Stealing Flour
She rolled up the sleeves of her padded jacket and walked to the well in the courtyard. From childhood, she washed all the clothes, the memories ingrained in her mind. Even after decades, she still remembered how cold the water was and how vast the clothes were.
She submerged her small hands into the icy water, numbly washing the clothes. Her hands were about to freeze, but there were still many clothes left. She washed the clothes of the household of six, especially Hu Li, who changed her outfit at least once daily, filling the whole tub with her garments.
She washed clothes all morning and even broke a sweat. She was very young, really young. Sometimes, she wished she could grow up in a blink—an instant transformation into an elder sister—so she could protect her elder brother.
It was only after she finished washing a large tub of clothes that she stood up and hung the clothes on the ropes in the courtyard. She still had to cook.
Opening the kitchen door, the kitchen still retained its old appearance, predominantly using bellows and firewood, with a small amount of coal, mostly burning cornstalks from their own fields and gathered branches.
Although this was the first time in three years she had lit such a fire, feeling a bit inexperienced, she eventually got the fire going. She added some firewood into the stove and, standing on a little stool, ladled water into the pot bit by bit.
The big stove generally consisted of a front and rear pot connected, with the front pot for cooking and the rear containing boiling water for standby use. Generally, by the time the food was ready, the water in the rear pot was also sufficiently hot.
The meals at a farm were usually simple; sometimes just a pot of noodle soup with noodles and vegetables all cooked together in one pot. The vegetables were homegrown, and the noodles homemade.
She walked over to a large vat, using her small hands to laboriously remove the lid, revealing a vat full of white flour.