Chapter 1663 - 1079: Heroine of the Republic 53 (5000+)_4

Chapter 1663: Chapter 1079: Heroine of the Republic 53 (5000+)_4

After the New Year, the An Family completely shut their doors and started a path of study.

Now, An Yi and a few women sleep in the east room, and An Hu sleeps alone in the west room. This way, they can use one less heated bed, saving some firewood.

Because the snow kept falling intermittently without stopping, after it melted, the eaves were full of ice stalactites.

An Yi crushed the ice stalactites and mixed them with fruits, milk, red beans, and sugar, using molds to shape them into the look of ice cakes. She placed them outside to freeze solid before bringing them back in, turning them into natural ice cakes. Don’t get me wrong, they tasted pretty good, but you can’t eat too many; enjoying them once in a while is refreshing, but having them every day would be a bit silly.

Of course, you don’t necessarily have to use ice stalactites; you can also use water directly. She used ice stalactites because she felt they carried special significance from this era.

Even if she didn’t make ice cakes, the kids loved standing on tiptoe to grab the ice stalactites to play with. She feared these ice stalactites would fall and injure the kids at home, so she often had An Hu knock them down. An Hu often took the two younger sisters to lick the crushed bits for fun. They didn’t eat much; it was purely an indispensable childhood memory.

During the Lantern Festival, she used glutinous rice flour, black sesame, crushed peanuts, and other ingredients to make glutinous rice balls for the children. In the North, they are made by rolling Yuanxiao. The filling is shaped, dipped in water, and then rolled in glutinous rice flour, getting bigger and bigger until it becomes Yuanxiao.

The Tangyuan in the South is made completely differently. You first scald the dough with boiling water, and after it is ready, you pinch off a piece, fill it with stuffing, start to round it, and finally roll it in raw flour to prevent sticking.

In the North, Yuanxiao is rolled in layers of raw dough. If you ask which tastes better, she actually thinks they are the same.

Though her real name is Tangyuan, she doesn’t care much for such sweet and indigestible food. However, she can’t resist the children’s love for it!

So on the Lantern Festival day, she not only made Yuanxiao but also Tangyuan. It turns out, upon asking, that it was the first time in their lives for some of the group to eat them. An Yi then remembered that in previous years she completely forgot about it. To make up for it, she promised that as long as there is time in the future, she would make them.

In the Northeast, not all factories shut down for the winter. After the 15th day of the first lunar month, some factories start working again. However, compared to Central Plains, Southern, and even Northwest, there are very few factories here that reach a level of operation. Most people stay at home eating, sleeping.

Unless particularly restless, some will take the opportunity to go elsewhere for a few months of odd jobs. Now it’s the mid-50s, and with an introduction letter, it’s still possible. But come the 60s, it may be hard to wander around randomly.

In the first month, on New Year’s Day and the 15th, there were frequent firecracker sounds. However, after the New Year, hearing sounds similar to firecrackers becomes abnormal.

Moreover, it’s an explosion, unlike the blasting sounds from the coal mines but in a residential area. Over a dozen people died in that courtyard, and from rumors, there was a vague mention of something D-related?

This caused houses of twenty to thirty families in that area to be affected by the explosives. Either the doors and windows were destroyed, or the roof was punctured by the impact of the bomb.

She originally thought she was just a spectator. Who would have thought that the street office would actually invite her, the homeowner, to come and use nice official words to ask her to unconditionally accept those left homeless, even using her teacher’s title as a benchmark, and based on their home’s situation, ask her to take in at least four families.