Chapter 310: Roasting Sparrows, Zeroing Rifles
After Wang An returned home, his two younger sisters came running towards him.
Before they even reached Wang An, Wang Xiaoli shouted, "Big Bro, how many sparrows did you shoot?"
Wang An set the flour sack down on the ground, squatted down with a grin, and opened his arms. The two little sisters pounced into his embrace.
After each gave Wang An a kiss, he let them go. Then, holding the flour sack, he said to the two little sisters with a smile, "Look, I shot this many. Come on, Big Bro will roast sparrows for you to eat."
Upon hearing this, the two little sisters trotted along behind Wang An, cheering excitedly, "Roast sparrows! Haha!"
The whole family watched the two little girls, all breaking into smiles.
It was noon right now, so the stove kang was burning. However, you couldn't roast sparrows over an open flame, because sparrows roasted that way would have a smoky flavor.
But this problem wasn't the least bit difficult for Wang An.
Wang An casually picked up the fire basin and brought it to the stove mouth. He poked the fire poker into the firebox, stirred it left and right, and raked the burning wood chunks inside to the sides.
Immediately after, Wang An picked up the fire shovel next to the stove pit, scooped into the firebox, and shoveled out a shovelful of charcoal fire, along with the ash left in the firebox from the morning's burning.
He then dumped this mixture of charcoal and ash into the fire basin.
After shoveling two shovelfuls of the mixture, Wang An pulled out a few dead sparrows from the flour sack and laid them flat on top of the mixture.
After laying the sparrows, he continued shoveling the charcoal-ash mixture to cover the sparrows, flattened it, and laid a few more sparrows on top.
Just like that, Wang An buried a total of 30 sparrows in the fire basin.
Actually, Wang An wanted to bury all the sparrows, but the fire basin was full.
Wang An looked at the fire basin full of charcoal fire, and while waiting for the sparrows to cook, his thoughts began to drift.
In the Northeast of this era, every household had a fire basin. This fire basin was actually a clay pot, a very thick one, made from rice soup mixed with clay and pig hair.
The fire basin was essentially a stove. Usually used to hold charcoal fire on the kang, it would make the room warmer.
Of course, the uses of this fire basin were numerous. When hungry, you could roast a potato or sweet potato, just bury it inside and wait to eat.
Or heat up a steamed bun or a large flatbread, same thing, just bury it. When eating, the outside of the whole bun or flatbread would be *hugaba* (crispy/scorched crust).
And this layer of *hugaba* was the true essence. With that heat, break off a piece and put it in your mouth.
Oh my! That taste really has no cure, simply incomparable, a genuine human delicacy.
Besides these, using the fire basin to roast walnuts or hazelnuts was also proper good, the whole room filled with fragrance.
And roasting hawthorns or garlic, actually many people don't know hawthorns can be roasted and eaten.
The taste of roasted hawthorns, really, just two words can describe it: Perfect!
Seeing Wang An had buried the sparrows, the two little sisters crowded over and squatted by the fire basin, eyes shining, staring dead at the fire basin. Their eagerness looked like they wanted to swallow the fire basin whole.
You see, although sparrows are delicious, in this era, they weren't that easy to catch.
At this time, there weren't those special bird-catching sticky nets from a few years later. Besides using a slingshot, there wasn't any good method.
Even using a basket trap or clips, the harvest was meager, because sparrows aren't stupid, and they hop around nimbly.
Wang An did know another way to catch sparrows, but he lacked a crucial household appliance: a flashlight.
At night, shine a flashlight under the eaves, on haystacks, or woodpiles. If there were sparrows, they basically couldn't escape.
If buying a flashlight didn't require industrial coupons, Wang An would have brought one home long ago, and wouldn't have to carry a horse lantern when going outside at night.
One minute later, little sister Wang Xiaoli asked, "Big Bro, are the sparrows done?"
Wang An was pulled from his thoughts and smiled helplessly, "Just buried them, how could they be done that fast?"
Wang Xiaoli let out an "Mm" without lifting her head and continued staring at the fire basin.
After about another minute, Wang Xiaomei asked, "Big Bro, are the sparrows done?"
Wang An glanced at his watch and answered casually, "Wait another 10 minutes or so, they'll be done."
Normally, roasting sparrows over charcoal takes about 15 minutes.
But children have no concept of time, so less than a minute later, Wang Xiaoli asked again.
Wang An answered, then Wang Xiaomei asked.
In short, these two little girls seemed to have coordinated, you ask, then I ask, never repeating the same question twice in a row.
Wang An could only answer the two sisters patiently, over and over again.
Finally, under the gaze of six eyes—Wang An's and the two sisters'—the sparrows were done.
Wang An finally didn't have to keep saying how much longer to wait.
Wang An upended the fire basin directly at the stove mouth, then used the fire poker to rake the soot-covered sparrows out of the charcoal.
Then he used the fire poker to gently tap each sparrow, and began the task of feeding the two sisters.
Roasted sparrows are easy to peel; one pull takes off a big piece of black skin.
And after roasting, the beak is basically gone, so the head can be eaten too, bones and all, chewed up together, very delicious.
As for innards, besides the intestines and gizzard, the rest can be eaten. The gallbladder is too small, hard to distinguish after roasting, just toss it in with the liver, basically no bitter taste.
Wang An peeled them one by one. The two little girls were greedy but sensible. After feeding Wang Dazhu and his wife, and Big Bro and Sister-in-law one each, they finally put the sparrow meat into their own mouths.
After chewing, the two little girls instantly revealed blissful smiles.
Watching the sisters' expressions, Wang An suddenly thought of the day after he was reborn, when the two sisters ate pork, wearing the exact same expressions.
Sparrows are tasty, but they're really too small.
So, after all the roasted sparrows were eaten up, the two little girls still hadn't had enough.
Actually, Wang An and his wife, and Wang Dazhu and his wife, only ate one each.
Meaning the two little girls ate 13 roasted sparrows each.
But let alone being full, the two little girls hadn't eaten their fill.
Just as Wang An wanted to roast more sparrows, Liu Guilan spoke up: "Don't roast those sparrows anymore. Wait for Xiao Yi to come back from school to eat."
Wang An froze for a moment. He, as the big brother, was really a bit lacking, having actually forgotten his younger brother.
This damn day-to-day life!
After lunch, with nothing to do, Wang An made two more slingshots, then maintained all the guns in the house.
But the Type 56 Semi-auto, because maintenance required disassembling all parts on the gun.
So after maintenance, the sights had to be re-zeroed, otherwise there would be accuracy issues.
So, Wang An carried three Type 56 Semi-autos on his back, took a slingshot and a big handful of mud pellets, and headed for the village outskirts.
Before leaving, Wang An conveniently packed a flour sack.
Because zeroing a rifle requires firing live rounds. If he fired in the village, Wang An was afraid of causing unnecessary trouble.
Arriving about 2 *li* (1 km) from the village, Wang An stopped. Because the normal propagation distance of a gunshot is about 400 meters.
2 *li* is a full kilometer; the gunshot definitely wouldn't reach the village.
Zeroing was very simple for Wang An. It was nothing more than making the gun achieve "three points in a line" (rear sight, front sight, target).
Aim at a spot on a big tree, fire a shot after aiming, then adjust bit by bit. As long as the three points line up, the gun is zeroed.
After zeroing the guns, Wang An crossed them on his back and started slingshot hunting again.
But this place was much better than near the village, because there were squirrels here.
So after a round of "swish," "swish," "swish" sounds, Wang An not only shot quite a few sparrows but also killed 4 squirrels.
Wang An was happily continuing to search for small animals in the trees when suddenly he smelled a stinky odor.
Sorry, sorry, just finished updating.
(End of Chapter)