I was reborn after my cousin stole my life.

Chapter 51: Fermented Rice Wine

"Do we still have programs to watch on New Year's Day?" Yuan Xiu asked curiously upon hearing this.

"have."

Sister-in-law Xiulan said, "As long as there's nothing else, it happens every year. Besides the cultural troupe, anyone in the army with this talent can sign up to participate. The canteen staff, the logistics staff, and even our military dependents can organize programs to perform. It can be lively all day long, and it's very interesting. The cultural troupe will also organize programs to entertain the troops on 'August 1st Army Day,' and we can go watch those too."

"Xiao Yuan, you're only just arriving. If our military dependents can appear on the show this year, the parents' committee will definitely be looking for you."

Yuan Xiu smiled, recalling Wu Yufen's words of support for the work of the Parents' Committee when she approached her.

If she says she won't participate, Wu Yufen will definitely use that to shut her up.

After buying groceries, Yuan Xiu packed a bowl of pickled vegetables for Chunmei and Xiulan, and after seeing them off, she also sent a bowl to the neighbor next door.

As usual, Dr. Liu did not go out, but sat in the recliner in the yard, basking in the sun.

Upon seeing Yuan Xiu, he asked, "How's your reading going these past few days? Have you finished it yet?"

Yuan Xiu shook her head, "I can only finish one chapter a day. It would probably take more than five months to finish the whole book."

Hearing her say that, Dr. Liu stroked his goatee and smiled. "Okay, take your time. This can't be rushed. If you finish reading it in a few days, I won't lend you any more books. Just reading the original text without understanding it is just swallowing it whole, which is not the attitude of studying medicine. The fact that you spend time reading one article every day shows that you are really reading it carefully and understanding the contents of the book."

He paused for a moment, then continued, "However, to truly understand it and use the medical techniques within, it takes at least a year of dedicated study. Even an old traditional Chinese medicine practitioner like myself wouldn't dare say that I've thoroughly studied this medical book. Each time I read it repeatedly, I find new insights into the medical techniques within its pages. Traditional Chinese medicine is profound and ever-changing, using people as a mirror, evidence as the standard, and people as the foundation, with prescriptions adapting to individual needs... It's unconventional."

He looked at Yuan Xiu with kind eyes, "You're still young, take your time, there's no rush."

Yuan Xiu nodded seriously.

"If you don't understand, just ask me."

Yuan Xiu nodded again, and after returning home, she took the notes she had made over the past few days to the neighbor's to ask about anything she didn't understand.

When Dr. Liu talks about medicine, his eyes are bright and his words flow like a river. Even obscure medical principles become remarkably easy to understand when he speaks them.

Yuan Xiu, who had previously found the parts obscure and difficult to understand, suddenly had a clear understanding after listening to his explanation.

Yuan Xiu sat beside him, pen in hand, her eyes shining as she quickly jotted down every word and annotation he wrote.

"Dr. Liu, it would be great if you could translate your collection of medical books into plain language. That would make them much easier to understand."

Dr. Liu frowned: "How can that be?"

Yuan Xiu smiled and said, "Don't be angry. I was just saying. I was thinking that the country invented simplified characters to make it easier for us ordinary people to learn to read. Medical books can be the same way. That way, people who are interested in traditional Chinese medicine won't be discouraged by these obscure and difficult characters."

Dr. Liu paused for a moment, then slowly nodded. "What you're saying makes sense."

Yuan Xiu smiled, closed the notebook, and silently took her leave.

……

The next day, Yuan Xiu saw that Guiying's sister-in-law had gone to the service store and bought a lot of notebooks.

"I don't know what my father-in-law is thinking. He asked me to buy him so many notebooks so that he could use the ones that Lao Liu's army issued first. He even said it wasn't enough," Guiying's sister-in-law complained softly.

Yuan Xiu smiled. It seemed that Doctor Liu had already made up his mind and started to take action. After she finished reading this book, would she be able to read the vernacular medical book he had translated?

"Sister-in-law, I've noticed that Dr. Liu often airs out his medicine. He doesn't treat patients anymore, so what about all that medicine..."

"It's been donated."

Sister-in-law Guiying said, "It's not just the little we grow at home. Every spring, he asks the children to help him collect herbs in the mountains, giving them a few cents or dimes. The children are very happy. You'll see when the new year starts. My family has children visiting every day."

So that's how it is. She found it strange that there were so many kinds of medicinal herbs at home, even though she didn't see many kinds growing there.

That afternoon, Yuan Xiu uncovered the cotton-padded coat and white cotton cloth covering the enamel basin.

A sweet aroma of wine wafts through the air!

Yuan Xiu took a clean little spoon, scooped up a spoonful, tasted it, and nodded as she tasted it, no different from what she had done before.

Instead of eating it all by herself, she took out several empty jars that she had prepared over the past two days and slowly divided the fermented rice from the basin into the jars.

After filling the three jars, she carried the basket out the door, first going next door to deliver a bottle to Sister Guiying's house, and then going to Sister Chunmei's and Sister Xiulan's houses.

When she returned, her basket was even fuller than when she left, and Sister Xiulan even gave her a salted fish that she had made herself.

When a pair of large hands appeared on her waist, Yuan Xiu knew that Jiangzhou had returned.

"Don't move, I have something to give you to eat."

"What? Eat you?" Jiang Zhou's mouth came close to her ear, and his warm, moist breath made her ear itch.

With her two alluringly red ears, Yuan Xiu pried his hands away, turned around, and glared at him. "Where did you learn all these things?"

Lying in bed at night, if she had an extra hand, she would want to pinch his mouth shut.

Jiang Zhou touched the tip of his nose, feeling embarrassed to say this.

Should I tell my wife that he read it in a forbidden book when he was young?

"Didn't you say you were going to give me something to eat? What is it?"

"The fermented rice wine I made a couple of days ago is ready." Yuan Xiu had already prepared bowls and ladled a bowl for her and Jiang Zhou each. "Try it."

Jiangzhou had drunk rice wine and eaten sweet rice balls in fermented rice wine, but he had never eaten a bowl of it like this before, two days after the fermented rice wine was ready, just like a regular meal.

"Is this fermented glutinous rice?" he asked after taking a bite.

Yuan Xiu nodded: "More or less."

"So this is what it tastes like freshly fermented—sweet with a hint of sourness, and a subtle alcoholic flavor. It's even better than when it's made into sweet fermented rice balls!"

Yuan Xiu was extremely satisfied. "Even if it's delicious, you can't eat too much, or you'll get drunk."

"This little bit of alcohol wouldn't get me drunk even if I ate a whole bowl," Jiang Zhou said shamelessly.

"I can't give you a whole bowl of it. I'll have to save the rest for making poached eggs and glutinous rice balls later."

Yuan Xiu then told him that she had packed the food in jars and given one jar to each of her sisters-in-law.

"The sisters-in-law were very polite and gave us many return gifts."

"You're in charge of things at home."

After finishing one bowl, Jiang Zhou seemed a little unsatisfied. "How about another bowl?"

Are you going to eat dinner tonight?