Lin Lan glanced at the two of them and didn’t recognize whose children they belonged to.
The village was too big. Her family lived in the southwest end and was not familiar with the rear and northeast corners.
Maisui also played with them during the Chinese New Year, so she immediately welcomed them, “Come with me to see them.”
Yanyan was a little reserved and shy, not daring to speak, but Caihua was open and straightforward.
The names sounded familiar to Lin Lan, but she didn’t think about it for a moment. Except for her own children, she didn’t care much about the children in the village.
She found a few remaining firecrackers and asked Erwang to set them off to celebrate.
For dinner, Lin Lan wanted to keep it simple. She stewed a pot of cabbage vermicelli, added some lard, put on a circle of mixed flour pancakes and sprinkled a few sesame seeds for decoration before stewing a soybean paste egg as a pickle.
She was thinking of doing something good for the Lantern Festival tomorrow.
The local custom was to make dumplings. No matter what festival it was, if you could make dumplings, then make dumplings. If the conditions were good, in addition to dumplings, stir-frying vegetables and stewing meat would call for a perfect occasion.
Lin Lan wanted to make some Lantern Festival-themed Yuanxiao/Tangyuan(3) for the children to try.
(T/N: Made from glutinous rice and flour. Usually, they can be eaten plainly after boiling in a soup mixture of ginger and brown sugar, but modern ones include fillings like red bean or sweetened black sesame. Some also add chocolate in it and replace the soup with warm milk, but it’s still delicious)
However, only people in the city would eat it. In a self-sufficient village like Shanzui, most people don’t even know what Yuanxiao was, including her several children in the family.
Lin Lan just wanted to make a few of them to show them.
The stuffing was easy to make since sesame seeds and peanuts were available at home. All she had to do was crush them herself.
There was no ready-made glutinous rice flour, but the remaining glutinous rice was less than three kilograms. She soaked it before going out in the morning, so it should be ready now. Then, she could grind it into a watery starch texture on a tofu grinding stone.
Lin Lan called Han Qingsong and asked him to grind the glutinous rice later.
Han Qingsong saw the black sesame on her face and reached out to remove it for her.
Lin Lan thought that there were both children and outsiders in their house, so she asked him to be more serious.
Han Qingsong held her head as his lips touched her face. He then took the sesame seeds into his mouth and ate them.
She glanced out of the corner of her eye and saw a pair of eyes looking over. When she turned to look, she found that Caihua was looking at her obediently and curiously.
Lin Lan hurriedly signalled to Han Qingsong to be more serious and stop teaching other people’s children bad things. Han Qingsong looked at her innocently, saying that he had done nothing.
Caihua secretly stared at Han Qingsong for a while before Yanyan came over to pull her away, “We should go.”
Adults have to be busy as well, so even they felt bad if they intruded another’s home for too long.
Caihua held her hand and said goodbye to Maisui. When she came out, she specifically said goodbye to Han Qingsong.