The first watch, seeking pink.

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Now planting soybeans, it’s estimated that they’ll only be harvested in late autumn. By then, fresh soybeans will naturally be a rare thing. Saltwater boiled soybeans are a very popular dish here in Liaodong Prefecture, also a favorite snack for children.

For example, at this time now, the soybean pods are already full, just the right moment to sell fresh soybeans. With a little calculation, it’s clear that selling fresh soybeans yields higher profits than selling dried soybeans later, yet few tenant farmers are willing to pick the young pods for sale, let alone pick them for their own consumption.

This is not because tenant farmers can’t do the math, but because a certain ingrained mindset in their brains restricts their actions. Growing crops is for harvesting grain to fill stomachs. In their view, picking them before full maturity amounts to squandering the crops.

In the farmers’ beliefs, there’s nothing more unforgivable than squandering crops.

Simply put, tenant farmers lack this commercial mindset and awareness. In their minds, crops are directly related to food and survival, even to life itself.

For instance, at the time of autumn harvest, a pound of sorghum harvested from one or two sorghum stalks would be worth no more than ten Wen Money. But if someone’s field corner had one or two sorghum stalks spoiled, it would be a huge issue. Tenant farmers aren’t afraid of having no cash, they’re afraid of having no grain.

Under current conditions, if Lian Manman’s family wants to eat fresh soybeans or boiled tender peanuts, it should be totally feasible. But in reality, it’s not. Lian Shouxin would rather have Lian Manman take money to the market to buy them. He’s not stingy with money, but the crops in the field must remain untouched.

Lady Zhou places a lot of importance on Lian Lanlan, naturally greeting Jin Suo and Yin Suo differently, almost acceding to all their requests. Yet before the family division, when Jin Suo and Yin Suo accompanied Lian Lanlan to Thirty Mile Camp to see Old Master Lian and Lady Zhou, they requested to eat boiled fresh soybeans and peanuts, Lady Zhou dared not agree, for she knew she couldn’t get past Old Master Lian.

It’s unrelated to being stingy or stubborn. It’s an established convention among tenant farmers, and no one will violate it. It’s as if, before the harvest, touching the crops would leak the field’s energy, anger the gods, thereby affecting the year’s harvest and being forsaken by the land in the future, never to yield a bountiful harvest again.

Lian Manman’s understanding is that this represents a kind of heartfelt reverence that tenant farmers have for the land and their year’s labor, elevated to a societal moral standard in the agrarian society.

Lian Manman also respects this. In spring, she, Wu Lang, Lian Zhizhi, and Xiao Qi planted some peanuts and soybeans in the empty spaces between the orchard trees on the farm, saying these were intended for them to enjoy. Lian Shouxin and Lady Zhang not only didn’t object, but felt the children were sensible. The couple even willingly helped out with the work.

This second round of harvested soybeans can be sold as fresh ones. After much discussion between Lian Manman and Lian Shouxin, he finally agreed.

On this end, cabbages and soybeans for several acres have been planted, the wheat in the yard is dried, and it’s time to thresh.

The threshing of the wheat can employ two methods. One is similar to the way millet is threshed, where dried wheat ears are spread on a firm ground and stone rollers are used to press them in circles. There’s a yellow ox and two mules at home to pull the stone rollers, making this process much quicker than the manual pulling of stone rollers before.

The other method is manual beating, akin to handling sorghum ears. After beating, some wheat remains on the ears, which needs to be scraped clean with hands pressed against a shovel. Of course, stone rollers are still used thereafter.

The two methods complement each other.

After the wheat grains are repeatedly pressed by stone rollers, they separate from the husks. Another procedure is needed to completely separate the grains from the husks, called winnowing.

Following winnowing, a sieve is used to lift and shake to remove remaining husks and some other impurities, like small stones and clumps of earth, leaving only clean, de-husked grains. These can then be loaded into bags and stored in the granary.

Lian Manman’s family harvested the first bag of wheat, weighed it, and sent it to the mill for grinding into flour. The family eagerly anticipates tasting the "fine grain" produced from their own field.