Chapter 23: Bamboo Slip Three

“How long do we have to smoke this for?” Yan Yu, her cheeks flushed, leaned in and gazed at the meat hanging above the charcoal stove.

“We need to dry out all the moisture and turn it into jerky. That way, it’ll keep for a long time,” Yan Lao’er replied.

A spark of inspiration flashed in Yan Yu’s eyes. She turned to the ox that had just set her down.

She asked, “Hey, Ox, if you can compress and dry grass feed, can you do the same with strips of meat?”

Yan Lao’er and Li Xuemei both turned to look at the ox.

The ox, living up to expectations, nodded its head.

Yan Yu cheered and clapped her hands in delight. “Come on, let’s try! Can you open up your belly? We can put the meat inside!”

The ox ambled over unhurriedly, shook its head, then opened its mouth.

Yan Lao’er: …

Li Xuemei: …

Yan Yu: …

Yan Lao’er voiced the question on everyone’s mind: “If you process the meat in your stomach, where does the jerky come out?”

Please, don’t let it be what we’re all thinking!

The ox’s tail pointed, with perfect accuracy, to exactly where they’d feared.

The three of them felt as if thunder had struck them on the head!

Then the ox’s mouth opened and closed.

Thank goodness.

They all breathed a collective sigh of relief.

In and out the same way—actually, when you think about it, it’s fine. It’s not a real ox, after all; it just has two “mouths” for authenticity’s sake.

Still, it was hard to get over that mental hurdle. A bit awkward, to say the least.

Yan Lao’er tentatively fed a long strip of meat into the ox’s mouth. After a few breaths, the ox spat out a piece of jerky…

“Hahahahahaha…” Yan Yu was practically in hysterics.

“We’re rich! We can make jerky for people and earn money!

We could do five-spice jerky, spicy jerky… Oh, right, what if you don’t spit it out right away and just store it inside your belly?”

She looked at the ox, who nodded again.

Yan Yu burst into another fit of wild laughter and kept questioning the ox: “If you can turn meat into jerky, can you do the same with veggies or fruit?” She ran a circle around the ox, asking, “There’s a lot of space in your belly, right? Can you store other things? Can you sort them into categories?”

The ox just kept nodding and nodding.

Li Xuemei asked, “But what about when it eats grass feed? It can’t go without eating or drinking, or people will notice.”

“If it can sort things, eating and drinking shouldn’t interfere, right, Ox?”

The ox’s tail pointed once more to the rear exit.

Yan Yu understood. “So you mean, as long as you go to the bathroom normally, it won’t affect what’s stored in your belly. But if you can’t go, then it will?”

The ox nodded again.

Yan Lao’er grumbled, “Tell me, with all this high-tech stuff, why can’t this ox just talk? We have to play guessing games every time. Next time we see that guy, we need to ask for an upgrade.”

“I’d rather it didn’t talk. That’s what makes it feel like a real ox,” Li Xuemei said. “A moo or two is fine, but if it suddenly started calling me Princess Iron Fan, I’d die of fright!”

“Ox, can you refrigerate things?” Yan Yu’s imagination was running wild.

“Can you cook? Braise? Stew? Why can’t you steam? You can dry things, so if we give you some water, can you steam? No? Okay, fine.”

“Can you breathe fire? Like to light a pile of firewood or something?”

“Can you give off heat? Like a radiator—do you know what a radiator is? No? It’s a heating device, makes it so we’re not so cold. Can you do that? Hahaha!”

“That’s all I can think of for now. If I come up with anything else, I’ll ask you, Ox! Oh, I should give you a name—let me think about it.” Yan Yu reached out, and the ox naturally lowered its head. She patted it, then turned to her dazed father. “Come on, Dad, let’s get this jerky going!”

Yan Lao’er: “Oh, right, right!”

Salted raw meat went in; fragrant, salty jerky came out.

Human and ox, working in perfect harmony.

“It’s a shame we didn’t bring any Sichuan pepper, chili powder, or cumin. Otherwise, we could’ve made all sorts of flavors,” Yan Yu lamented.

The jerky weighed a lot less than the raw meat, so they decided not to store it. Instead, they each took a few pieces to carry with them, ready to snack on whenever they got hungry.

After tidying up, they set off on the road again.

When they reached town, they headed straight for the fabric shop.

No use crying over spilled milk—they’d been happy enough selling off those leftover scraps, but only later realized how useful they could have been.

They could have sewn all sorts of bags from them.

They still needed some wrapping cloth to cover up the fact that they didn’t have much in the way of belongings.

Li Xuemei, trying not to wince at the cost, bargained with the shopkeeper and managed to get six feet of cloth for two copper coins less, spending a total of 118 wen.

“Never buying fabric from outside again!” Li Xuemei regretted it bitterly. “It’s so much cheaper on the platform. From now on, we’ll only buy from there.”

Yan Yu muttered under her breath, “Live and learn. We’re still figuring things out, so of course we’ll pay some tuition along the way.”

“Let’s buy a few more bamboo tubes,” Yan Lao’er said, heading over to the bamboo goods stall. “They’re a lot cheaper than water skins.”

For things like oil, soy sauce, and vinegar, bamboo tubes were much better than bulky jars—they could stand upright and didn’t take up much space.

“Dad, look at the wheels on those carts,” Yan Yu said, sharp-eyed. She noticed that the wheels of an ox cart coming toward them were wrapped round and round with hemp rope.

Yan Lao’er gave a little “heh” and went off to buy some hemp rope. He tried wrapping their own wheels the same way, and sure enough, with two layers, none of the wood showed through.

The rope was cheap, so Yan Lao’er bought a whole bundle and tossed it onto the cart. Now those two iron wheels might finally come in handy.

“Dad, how much money do we have left?” Yan Yu asked.

Yan Lao’er counted. “Just a small piece of silver, plus these seven copper coins.”

“Then let’s not buy anything else. We should save a little for emergencies,” Yan Yu said.

Can’t have empty pockets—wouldn’t do to have to beg Uncle for money if they needed something.

With no more shopping to do, the family started heading home.

Li Xuemei pulled out the bamboo slips she hadn’t had time to read yesterday, and began to decipher them character by character.

They weren’t in traditional script, but in seal script!

She read very slowly.

Yan Yu glanced over and immediately felt dizzy. “Mom, what does it say?”

“It says… Charcoal Making Method,” Li Xuemei replied, looking back at the first column. “Bonfire Charcoal Burning Method.”

“Look, there are pictures in the middle, too.”

Yan Yu skipped the text and went straight for the illustrations. Each one told the story of someone making charcoal using nothing but wood and mud.

Impressive!

“It looks simple enough, but we have no use for it!” Yan Yu wanted to cry. “Mom, I made the wrong choice. I shouldn’t have picked Bamboo Slip Three—I should have picked Bamboo Slip One.”

“Those bamboo slips must correspond to different skills, and I picked the most useless one.”

“How is it useless?” Yan Lao’er interjected. “Girl, it’s plenty useful! Did you forget we’re heading north, where it’s freezing? This charcoal-making method will come in handy. Even if we don’t sell it, just knowing how to make charcoal will be so convenient for us!

No need to be stingy—burn it day and night. Just think how warm our home will be!”

Li Xuemei agreed, “Your father’s right. Once we get to the north, having this skill means we’ll have a way to make a living, even better than selling jerky.”

“Spicy jerky smells so good…” Yan Yu muttered.

“Only if you have enough chili!” Li Xuemei shot back.

Yan Yu: Mom’s right! We barely have enough chili powder for ourselves.
(End of this chapter)