Chapter 314 Blood Rice
It might be fine in other places, but it might not be a problem in Zhang An and his province.
Because the altitude in some places is relatively high, the national highway goes directly over the top of the mountain, and the road surface is still frozen.
“Can I not be in a hurry? It’s only the end of January and the weather will definitely change. What if there’s another snowfall?”
Lu Jun hasn’t forgotten that it’s only February now. Even if I don’t arrive, I am also worried about the weather.
“And there are only a few days until the Chinese New Year. If it gets later, we will be too busy. The employees below are still waiting for their holidays.”
Zhang An shook his head, but because of this, he can Make money, right?
“Oh, when did you do this thing?”
Walking into the backyard, Lu Jun was startled by a black-necked crane that was almost half the height of a man.
At the same time, the two black-necked cranes were also frightened by Lu Jun and his group. They flapped their wings and flew towards the river.
"Stop talking, I get a headache when I see these two things. These two guys came to my place once before, and then left again."
"It was snowed a few days ago and the mountains were closed. Maybe I couldn't find food. He was hungry, so he came to me.”
Speaking of these two black-necked cranes, Zhang An really had a headache.
When it snowed a few days ago, they didn't leave, so Zhang An asked them to stay.
But the snow has stopped for several days and has melted. The couple is still here.
They hold national ID cards and have relatively noble status. Zhang An has never thought of keeping them in captivity.
But it’s different now. The couple has become dependent on Zhang An and can’t even drive him away.
"If you can't drive it away, don't drive it away. Let's raise it. It's pretty good-looking anyway. I guess there will be a lot of people coming to see them in the future."
Lu Jun thinks so. It's good. He might not be able to see this thing when he goes to the zoo.
"Come on, these two are ancestors and cannot be touched." Zhang An shook his head as soon as he heard this.
Raising Yibao privately would lead to a jail term. He, Zhang An, was a good and law-abiding citizen, and there was no way he would do such a thing.
Zhang An planned to watch them for two more days. If they didn't leave, he would call Zhu Yuliang and ask them to get rid of them.
The couple of black-necked cranes were just a sideshow. After they flew away, Zhang An and his people prepared to catch fish.
After catching fish so many times, Zhang An and his son, as well as several masters brought by Lu Jun, have become very skilled.
It’s just that the temperature in winter is relatively low, and the snow has just melted, so the water in this pond is icier than usual.
Even if you wear thick clothes under the fish suit, you can still feel the cold feeling.
After several people splashed in the fish pond for two hours, Fatty Lu had caught enough fish.
The sorting, weighing, and loading were all done just before noon.
"Lao Lu, isn't this the right amount of money? It's too much."
The payment was still in cash. Zhang An didn't mention any bank transfer or anything like that, so Lu Jun just gave him cash. receive.
After all, he is a person who has experienced going to the bank to withdraw money and not being able to get it out. His money is still safe by his side.
After settling the bill, Zhang An took the cash from Fatty Lu and found something was wrong.
Looking carefully, the overall size is 20 to 30% larger than before.
“The number is correct. I forgot to tell you, the price of this car has gone up.”
Seeing Zhang An’s question, Fatty Lu opened his mouth to explain.
“This time the total price has increased by 50%. I will take 20% and the rest will go to you.”
This time the price of fish has increased because of the new year, but Lu Jun didn’t think about it. Take it all yourself.
Because he and Zhang An are relatively familiar with each other now, and this fish has now become one of his signatures.
So he didn't think that there would be any estrangement between him and Zhang An because of this little money.
After all, relying on the reputation of this fish, his sales of other aquatic products have also increased a lot.
"Aren't you afraid of losing customers next year if you raise the price like this?"
The fish in Zhang An's place would have been sold at a higher price when Lu Jun brought it back.
Now that the price has increased by 50%, I am afraid that even fewer people will be willing to buy it.
“You may not believe it, but it was the old customers who took the initiative to talk about the price increase.”
Lu Jun smiled and started to explain to Zhang An.
The fish he brought from Zhang An to the provincial capital were not sold to ordinary people.
Because the price of this fish is very high, even ordinary people in the city will feel pain after eating it.
Moreover, the amount of fish produced here in Zhang An is not large each time, and it is not suitable for selling to the public.
So the space fish he brought from Zhang An had always only been supplied to those important customers.
The people who can be valued by Fatty Lu are definitely not ordinary people, and they are not people who care about money.
Although when they ate Zhang An's space fish for the first time, they only felt that the taste and texture were superior to other fish.
However, this alone can make them willing to pay.
After eating it several times, they gradually realized the benefits of eating this fish regularly.
After all, the richer people are, the more they care about their health, and they need to have regular physical examinations.
When it comes to purchasing new year’s goods during the Chinese New Year, this fish is definitely indispensable.
Because you can eat the same things every day, you can’t eat anything worse than those during the Chinese New Year.
Chinese people attach great importance to the Chinese New Year, especially in this era.
Such a good thing can be eaten every day, so it must be included in the New Year’s Eve dinner.
It’s okay to eat less in normal times, but not less during the Chinese New Year.
In the twelfth lunar month, they asked Lu Jun many times, but Lu Jun always said it was out of stock.
Because the weather was cold, he didn't want to bother, so he simply made an excuse and said that the pond owner wanted to take a break and closed the business.
But in the eyes of those people, there is no reason why they don’t want to open a business. If they don’t want to open a business, it’s because they don’t have enough money.
So they took the initiative to increase the price. As long as Lu Jun could get the goods, they were willing to increase the price.
And the price increase is acceptable to them. During the Chinese New Year, the prices of other things are increasing. What’s wrong with the price increase of such good fish?
There are also several big hotel owners who have told Lu Jun that as long as he can get the goods in the next few days.
When the hotel opens in the spring after the Chinese New Year, I will place a big order for him as a gift.
Now Fatty Lu couldn’t refuse. He had no choice but to give him too much.
These few orders are enough for his small aquatic products company for half a year.
So when this guy was killing pigs at Zhang An's house, he ran over and told Zhang An about pulling fish.
After hearing this, Zhang An stopped saying anything and handed the money to Su Ying next to him.
After eating, Lu Jun immediately took the people back to the provincial capital.
The weather is relatively short now, so if you leave early, you will get home earlier.
Zhang An’s family didn’t ask to stay. After all, there was a large car of fish in their car.
Zhang An wanted to pick rice in the afternoon, but when he went to Zhang Xinmin’s house, he found that he had to queue up to pick rice.
Zhang An didn't want to wait, so he simply left the millet at their house and came back later.
In the past, when there was no rice crushing machine in the village, rice was ground in a water mill.
The speed was very slow at that time, so everyone would grind the rice very early before anyone else.
Now that Zhang Xinmin has a rice crushing machine installed in his home, it only takes a while to produce two hundred kilograms of millet, so no one is in a hurry to crush the rice.
No, everyone who is not in a hurry bumps into each other, let’s all line up together.
Many people are still waiting to beat the rice and soak it, so that it can be used for grinding the rice the day after tomorrow. "Didn't you go to fetch rice? Why did you come back? Where is the rice?"
Wang Fang was cleaning at home and saw Zhang An coming back as soon as he went out, without even seeing the shadow of Mi.
"There are too many people beating rice today. Zhang Xinmin's house is full of people. I will go there in the evening."
Zhang An explained a few words and then joined the cleaning battlefield. .
Today is the Little New Year in the South. The house has to be cleaned and worship the Kitchen God Bodhisattva.
Zhang An's house is relatively large, with three floors. Cleaning it is a relatively large project.
So the whole family got started, Zhang Jianguo swept the floor with a broom, and Zhang An mopped the floor with a mop.
Wang Fang and Su Ying, the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, are responsible for wiping the furniture.
Zhang An doesn’t need to dust or remove cobwebs at home because there is no such thing.
When he moved in before, Zhang An made a lot of straw curtains and hung them on the wall.
All the dust was sucked away by the straw curtain. When he was free a few days ago, Zhang An took off the straw curtain and cleaned it.
It took me most of the day to clean up the whole house.
Fortunately, I don’t have to do this every day, otherwise it would be exhausting to death.
"Uncle An, my dad said there is no one to beat rice anymore, so let me call you."
As soon as Zhang An sat down, Zhang Baosheng ran over and called him.
"Okay, I'll come right away."
Zhang An first went to the pen to prepare the horse, and then went to Zhang Xinmin's house.
The grain he has to thresh today is only about two hundred kilograms, but it will be more when he counts the bags of rice bran later, and it will be more convenient to carry it on a horse.
After Zhang An arrived, he began to weigh the millet and finally poured it into the bucket.
Power on and start the machine, and blood-red rice grains spill out from the rice outlet.
"Hey, Zhang An, your family is going to harvest new rice."
That's right, the millet Zhang An brought over today is the blood rice that was just harvested this year.
In the entire village, only Zhang An’s family grew blood rice, and it was blood rice grown in all the fields.
So Zhang Xinmin knew at a glance that Zhang An was shooting Xinmi.
“Last year’s millet has been used up, so we can only eat new rice.”
Zhang An’s family received a lot of millet last year, and Li Hongbin’s family bought more than a thousand kilograms on the spot to eat by themselves.
Chen Ze and the others also followed suit and bought a lot of mila and returned to the city.
Ding Yi went even further. He even persuaded Zhang An to sell his rice in the supermarket.
Of course, Zhang An ignored what he said.
But even so, nearly half of the millet was sold.
Later, Zhang An also used a lot of it when he got married, so the millet from last year is almost gone now.
But it’s good this way. You can eat the new millet harvested every year, so you don’t have to let it go stale and eat the old millet every year.
"Dad, why is this rice red?"
My family specializes in breaking rice, so Zhang Baosheng has naturally seen a lot of rice that has just come out of the machine.
But this red blood rice has never been seen in their generation. This is the first time for Zhang Baosheng to see it.
“This is a type of rice. Because it is red, it is called blood rice.”
“Does our family have such red rice?”
“Before We also have it at home, but we stopped growing it later.”
“Then why don’t we grow it? This rice is so beautiful.”
“Haha, it’s not only beautiful, it’s also very delicious. Well, if we grow it, we won’t have enough to eat.”
Zhang Xinmin answered Zhang Baosheng's questions tirelessly.
“But why do we plant red rice so that we don’t have enough to eat?”
“You will naturally know this when you grow up, but you won’t understand it even if I tell you now. ."
For this question, Zhang An and Zhang Xinmin both smiled and did not answer directly.
After the three bags of millet were crushed and the machine was powered off, Zhang Xinmin and Zhang An loaded the rice together.
While pinching the rice, he smelled the fragrance of rice, so he grabbed a few and chewed them.
“No, this rice wasn’t so fragrant before, was it?”
But the more you chewed it, the more something was wrong. Zhang An’s rice smelled fragrant and became even fragrant when chewed, with a hint of sweetness.
When Zhang Xinmin was a child, he grew up eating this rice.
Although at that time it was not just rice, but also some corn grits.
But whether it was school rice or blood rice, he had secretly eaten it, and it was definitely not as fragrant.
"Really? Let me try."
Zhang An grabbed a handful and brought it to his nose and smelled it. He could indeed smell the strong fragrance of rice.
Then I put it in my mouth and chewed it. As soon as I chewed it, I felt an obvious sweetness on the tip of my tongue.
In fact, ordinary rice can also be chewed to produce sweetness, but you need to chew it for a while.
Because it is rich in starch, the sweetness comes out after the saliva dissolves the starch.
As for this blood rice, it is estimated that the starch content is much higher than that of ordinary rice, so you can taste it without chewing much.
"It's really delicious. Maybe I haven't eaten it for a long time, so I feel like this."
Zhang An estimates that this is because he uses space spring water to breed them, which makes them starchy. content increased.
Because last year’s millet was bred with space spring water, the cooked rice is much more delicious.
After the blood rice was bred this year, he went out to water it with space spring water several times.
Not to mention the blood rice, even other grasses in the field are growing much better.
"Brother Xinmin, just pretend and take it back and cook it for Baosheng. Children of their generation have not eaten our local blood rice."
Don't talk about Zhang Baosheng. Well, even Zhang An hasn't had it for a few years in total.
Later, for the sake of yield, all the crops were planted with national hybrid rice.
Zhang Xinmin originally wanted to be polite, but Zhang An said so, so he found a big bowl and filled it.
It is true that children like Zhang Baosheng have never eaten it, so it would be good for them to have a taste.
However, after picking up the blood rice from Zhang An’s family, Zhang Xinmin did not accept Zhang An’s rice money.
After packing the blood rice, Zhang An found a pocket and packed the rice bran on the ground.
Not only does the rice produced by this blood rice be blood red, even the bran is the same red.
It is different now. After threshing the rice, every family will take the rice bran home and cook it with corn flour to feed the pigs.
Zhang An naturally wanted to take it home, because they had a lot of livestock and poultry.
And Zhang Xinmin hasn’t started harvesting rice bran yet.
In the future, many people will not raise livestock at home, and when threshing rice, the rice bran will be sold to the place where the rice is threshed.
But the price is cheaper because the place where rice is threshed has to be resold to pig farms or feed mills.
There are some places where it is even darker and the rice bran can only be worth the price of the rice.
(End of this chapter)