462 Afraid of Eating!
“We’re done.” Jiang Yue replied.
“Okay, then I’ll carry it on my back.” Jinshan walked over with a big stride, and put a basket on his back. Because he has been told that the strawberry has a thin skin and can be bruised easily, his movements were quite light.
He carried the other basket of strawberries in his hand.
Jinshan carried back two shallow baskets of strawberries, put them on the ox cart, and covered the baskets with a piece of cloth to shade them from the sun, and then drove the ox cart to town.
Fortunately, the ox cart was slow and the road was not bumpy so the freshly picked strawberries will not be damaged in any way.
Jiang Yue was not in a hurry to go back down the mountain. She stopped by the cornfield with Xue Yan to have a look at the progress.
Yesterday, the family took more corn home again. They took some white, black and purple corn and gave them to Xue Da. Their grandpa had a bad tooth and felt that these three kinds of corn were soft and glutinous, and he was very happy to eat them. He liked them so much that Liu Guixia and the others were more determined to save these three kinds of corn seeds for their next year’s harvest.
There wasn’t enough to eat at home, but now that they were ripe, Jiang Yue and Xue Yan broke off some tender yellow corn and went back. Even the yellow corn tasted good.
If they don’t take it now, the yellow corn will get older and taste worse. At that time, they would have no choice but to grind it into corn flour and make them into cornbread.
There were still strawberries in Jiang Yue’s small bamboo baskets. She didn’t put the corn in her basket, but put it in Xue Yan’s basket instead.
“We didn’t get to eat that many pieces of strawberries at home, so I kept some for us.”
The strawberries in this small bamboo basket were for the family to eat.
When the two baskets of strawberries were delivered to the stall in the town, it was almost noon and there were already many people lining up to eat ice. The workers took this opportunity to promote the new item on the menu — strawberry ice.
They quickly made a bowl of strawberry ice for everyone to see.
“Just cut a few strawberries in half, put them on a bowl of crushed ice, and then sprinkle some white sugar on the strawberries. The white sugar will be sprinkled on top one by one.”
Even after showing the rest, no one still dared to eat it. However, there were all kinds of questions that spouted out.
“What kind of berry is that? A strawberry? I’ve never heard of it before. This one looks very similar to the round and bright red raspberry. The surface looks similar as well. Could it be a raspberry?”
“You can’t eat raspberries! Everyone knows this! How dare you sell them! Are you planning to kill us all?!”
“Yes, are you a murderer!”
Many people agreed and were filled with righteous indignation.
“Everyone, everyone, please, calm down,” Xue Sifu said with a smile on his face.
“This isn’t a raspberry. The raspberry painted in medical books does not look like this at all. I have asked Doctor Shen about it. Although it has the similarities of a raspberry, it isn’t a raspberry.
“My family actually thought it was a raspberry at first and ate a few to give it a try. As you can see, we are all alive. What we found was that this new berry, a strawberry, is exceptionally succulent.
“Also, why would I want to murder people? How would I go on with my business if everyone is dead? Isn’t that right?”
After everyone heard it, they thought it made sense.
“It’s not poisonous,” Xue Sifu continued, “Everyone in my family has eaten it, and no one got sick. I have eaten it too. If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you.” He picked up a strawberry and ate it, and showed everyone while eating it, “Look, how thin the skin is, and look at the flesh, it’s all pulp. You may not know it if you haven’t tasted it, but I for one can tell you how juicy it is. It’s sweet… yet sour… and when you sprinkle it with some sugar… Well you can imagine the taste!”