Reborn as the Blissful Wife in the countryside-Chapter 119: Producing Oil

After roasting the beans, Gu Jinli immediately extinguished the fire and said to Gu Jinxiu, who was tending the kitchen fire: "Sister, where is the small cloth bag I asked you to make?"

The small cloth bag is used to hold the roasted soybeans to make the cake base.

Gu Jinxiu replied: "It’s hanging behind the door of our room, you can go get it yourself."

After hearing this, Gu Jinli ran to their room and took out a bundle of the small cloth bags hanging behind the door.

The small cloth bags were only as big as a clay basin and made of two layers of coarse linen, very sturdy, able to withstand pounding.

Gu Jinli returned to the kitchen veranda, took a wooden bowl, filled a small cloth bag with the roasted broken soybeans, then tied the bag shut with a strip of coarse cloth, and placed it on the straw mat set aside for later use.

Brother Cheng was very sensible; he had moved the straw mats there and was now staring with wide-open eyes, unblinking, watching Gu Jinli fill the bags with broken soybeans.

He poked the small cloth bag full of broken soybeans on the straw mat and asked Gu Jinli: "Second Sister, can we make oil after filling the beans?"

Gu Jinli nodded and said: "Yes, once the soybeans are packed, we can start extracting oil." While talking, she filled another small cloth bag, tied it up, and placed it on the straw mat.

"Extract?" Brother Cheng was confused and asked: "Second Sister, what does extract mean? Is it like frying meatballs during New Year’s?"

Gu Jinli smiled, pinched his cheek, and said: "No, you’ll find out soon enough."

This ’extract’ is not that ’fry’; this extraction involves pounding.

Brother Cheng was a well-behaved child. Hearing this, he didn’t continue to ask but quietly watched, waiting for his Second Sister to extract oil.

Mrs. Cui was used to Gu Jinli liking to do some strange and eccentric things and, busy scooping tofu pudding to make tofu, she glanced over and then looked away.

Before long, Gu Jinli finished packing twenty jin of broken soybeans into a total of eighteen small cloth bags.

After packing, she ran out to the yard, moved a large wooden box made by Gu Dashan to the kitchen veranda, then took the custom-made iron cakes, alternating one iron cake with two bean cakes, until all eighteen bean cakes were placed, topped with another iron cake.

Then she ran out to the yard again and brought over a wooden frame.

The wooden frame had been made to match the size of the iron cakes as instructed by Gu Dashan.

The wooden frame could be taken apart, and after splitting it in two, she fitted it over the stacked iron cakes and bean cakes. She aligned the six tenon joints on either side of the frame and gave it a hard slap.

With several snap sounds, the separated wooden frame was tenoned together, trapping the iron cakes in place.

Worried that the tenon joints of the wooden frame weren’t strong enough, she took a bundle of coarse linen, cut it into finger-wide strips, and tightly wound the strips around the frame, circling more than a dozen times, before finally stopping.

Lastly, she took a large wooden bowl, dug a small hole, placed the wooden bowl into it, and, with both hands, swung the iron hammer, fiercely pounding the topmost iron cake.

Clang, clang, clang!

The iron hammer repeatedly struck the iron cake.

The commotion was not insignificant; Brother Cheng, startled, quickly covered his ears, watching his Second Sister with a stunned face.

"Se, Second Sister..."

Why is she pounding the iron cake?

Third Grandma, Mrs. Cui, and Gu Jinxiu, upon hearing the noise, all ran out to see. Watching her swinging the hammer to pound the iron cake, they all looked bewildered.

Third Grandma asked, "Xiao Yu, what are you doing? What’s the purpose of hammering the iron cake?"

Gu Jinli chuckled, "Third Grandma, I’m making oil. Just wait a little longer, and soon we’ll be able to press out some oil."

"Making oil again?" Third Grandma shook her head, "Well, go ahead with it. If it doesn’t work out, you’d better give up."

The fact that Xiao Yu was making oil was known to them, but they thought she was just messing around pointlessly. Historically, only fat meat had been rendered for oil, and they had never heard of oil being made from beans.

However, Xiao Yu was a significant contributor to the families, having made tofu and providing a livelihood. Therefore, Third Grandma let her continue with her experimenting.

Mrs. Cui watched her swinging the hammer at the iron cake, very worried, and cautioned, "Take it easy, be careful not to hurt your hand."

"Eh, I know, Mother. You just wait and see, your daughter will make oil for you," said Gu Jinli, continuing to hammer the iron cake with the iron hammer.

Mrs. Cui, still concerned, stood by and watched for a while. Seeing that Gu Jinli was striking accurately without injuring her hand, she then went back to the kitchen to continue making tofu.

Gu Jinli, in the meantime, kept hammering the iron cake. As a result of the hammering, the iron cake was compressed and started to sink down, and the pressure squeezed the soybean cake sandwiched in between.

After a short while, oil began to seep from the cake enclosed in the small cloth bag, slowly moving towards the bottom of the box and gathering there.

Within fifteen minutes, the bottom of the wooden box had accumulated a thin layer of soy oil.

Gu Dashan had fashioned a long, downward-sloping groove in the wooden box, allowing the oil to flow out along the groove and drop into a wooden bowl, quickly filling it up.

Brother Cheng’s eyes widened as he pointed at the wooden bowl, "Second Sister, Second Sister, the oil, it’s really producing oil!"

Second Sister hadn’t deceived them; soybeans could indeed turn into oil.

Gu Jinli smiled at Brother Cheng, "Quickly fetch a ceramic basin to collect the oil."

"Oh, I’ll get it now," replied Brother Cheng, scurrying into the kitchen and bringing out a ceramic basin.

He placed the basin on the ground, carefully poured the soy oil from the wooden bowl into it, and then returned the bowl to its place.

Looking at the golden-yellow soy oil, Brother Cheng asked Gu Jinli, "Second Sister, can you eat this soy oil?"

Gu Jinli replied, "Of course you can eat it. Soy oil is similar to meat oil; it can be used for cooking, frying, and even lighting lamps."

The Great Chu kingdom had only been established for three generations, and the preceding dynasty had suffered many years of warfare, so the people of Great Chu were extremely poor, with many unable to afford lighting.

That was the case for their families too. When they first arrived at Da Feng Village, they couldn’t afford any oil to light lamps at night and had to rely on bonfires for illumination.

With this soy oil, her family could light lamps every night from now on, without needing to use bonfires for light.

Brother Cheng was surprised and delighted, "It can light lamps?" As a child who was afraid of the dark, he was very pleased to hear that soy oil could be used for lighting.

Gu Jinli continued to swing the hammer, clanging away at the iron cake to press the oil, stopping every fifteen minutes to rest a while.

Qin San Lang didn’t set up his stall today; instead, he went into the mountains to collect firewood. When he returned and heard the clanging sounds of oil pressing, he saw little Gu Jinli swinging the hammer at the iron cake and frowned before coming to her yard and saying, "This looks like hard work, let me do it."

Having been through hard times together, Gu Jinli was very familiar with Qin San Lang and didn’t stand on ceremony with him. She handed over the two hammers to him, "Here you go."

Qin San Lang took the hammers and quickly went to work on the iron cake. He had been practicing martial arts since childhood, was bigger than others his age, and had quite a bit of strength. After a bout of hammering, he managed to press out a considerable amount of oil.

After half an hour, the cake had been hammered quite thin, and the amount of oil being pressed out diminished. Gu Jinli said, "Brother Qin, stop for now."

By now, they had managed to press out a basin’s worth of soy oil.