Chapter 221: This Bowl of Noodles Tastes So Good
The wheat fields of Gao Family Village yielded a bountiful harvest.
When the villagers finally weighed the reaped wheat, they discovered this year's yield was astonishingly high.
In previous years, an acre of wheat would barely yield one or two *shi*, and only in good seasons with favorable weather. This year, however, each acre produced a staggering two to three *shi*.
Families across the village gazed at their overflowing granaries, their faces split by grins of unbridled joy.
“This must be thanks to the ‘Celestial Fertilizer’ the Heavenly Lord bestowed upon us.”
“Yes, it’s certainly the Celestial Fertilizer’s doing; there’s no way it’s because I’ve gotten better at weeding.”
“Since we started using the Celestial Fertilizer this year, not only have the crops flourished, but even the weeds in the fields are growing more wildly than ever before. I’ve had to weed non-stop, otherwise, I simply couldn’t keep up with their furious growth.”
“May the Heavenly Lord bless us all!”
“Last year, I made a vow in the Dao Xuan Tian Zun cave, imploring the Heavenly Lord to grant us favorable weather and abundant harvests. And look, a splendid harvest indeed! I must now fulfill my pledge to him.”
“Everything we ate and used before was bestowed by the Heavenly Lord. We can’t very well use his own gifts to honor him, can we? But now that we’ve grown this grain ourselves, we can finally offer him something of our own making!”
“Excellent!”
Every villager who had cultivated wheat in their fields reached an immediate consensus.
“Since we’re making offerings with wheat, we must, of course, prepare our Chengcheng County’s signature traditional delicacy: hand-pulled noodles!”
The suggestion met with unanimous approval.
Hand-pulled noodles were a specialty of Chengcheng County, famously prepared without a rolling pin, a knife, or any other utensil—each strand was entirely handcrafted.
Only an offering crafted purely by hand could convey the utmost sincerity to the Heavenly Lord.
The Village Chief spoke up, “The Heavenly Lord is an immense deity; his open hand alone spans ten *zhang*. If our offering of hand-pulled noodles is too small, he won’t be able to savor them. We must prepare an enormous bowl of hand-pulled noodles.”
“At the very least, it must be as vast as that large red basin the Heavenly Lord set down when he graced us with ‘Happy Fat Water’.”
Gao Chuwu’s father suggested, “Each family can contribute a few *dou* of wheat. Together, we can create one colossal bowl of noodles.”
Zheng Daniu’s father interjected, “But for such an immense quantity of noodles, we have no pot large enough to cook them.”
“We’ll cook them separately! Every household will prepare an extra-large wooden bathing tub, and each tub will boil only a single, massive noodle. Then, when each family brings their colossal noodle together, it will form one grand bowl of hand-pulled noodles!”
“An ingenious solution!”
The villagers from Gao Family Village and Zhengjia Village immediately sprang into action.
Noon approached...
Li Daoxuan sat before his computer, contentedly slurping Guangxi *luosifen*. The aroma of pickled long beans was, quite frankly, an experience in itself.
Despite the unique fragrance, it was actually quite delicious.
As he slurped with relish, he suddenly noticed a peculiar flurry of activity in the village. Every single villager seemed to be engaged in the same task: setting up large wooden bathing tubs in their courtyards and bringing water to a boil.
“Why is everyone suddenly taking baths?”
Sensing an unusual undercurrent, Li Daoxuan moved away from his computer, settling in front of the diorama box to keenly observe the unfolding spectacle.
As the immense bathing tubs heated, the villagers began their dough-making. Great sacks of flour and vast basins of water were combined to form truly gargantuan dough balls. Kneading such colossal masses was an arduous task for the villagers.
The men of each household channeled every ounce of their strength into the kneading, standing on stools, leaping onto the dough, or dividing it to work separately before re-combining and kneading once more.
Once kneaded, this gigantic dough ball was then painstakingly stretched by hand, thinner and thinner and thinner... until it became a single noodle at least a dozen centimeters long.
Considering the villagers themselves were barely a centimeter tall, the fact that their noodles stretched a full dozen centimeters was astounding. A single person couldn’t even lift one. They had to summon several sturdy laborers from the Short-term Workers Village, who, together, hoisted the massive noodle onto their shoulders, like a collective carrying a colossal python.
Chanting in unison, the group carefully lowered the immense noodle into the bubbling water of the giant wooden tub.
This wasn’t a solitary effort by one household; every villager who had grown wheat was engaged in the task. They meticulously coordinated their progress, ensuring that each family’s noodle cooked to perfection at the exact same moment.
Li Daoxuan watched, a look of utter bewilderment on his face. “What in the world are they trying to achieve?”
The gigantic noodles tumbled within the wooden tubs. The Village Chief of Gao Family Village carefully timed their cooking, and after a good while, the old man’s white brows shot up. He bellowed, “Time’s up! Gather swiftly!”
Immediately, a large contingent of pre-hired Short-term Workers lifted the heavy wooden tubs, hurrying to converge upon the village center.
In the very heart of the village, a large red plastic basin had already been meticulously placed—yes, none other than a mineral water bottle cap.
One by one, the villagers carefully deposited their cooked noodles into the mineral water bottle cap: one strand, then another, and another...
Before long, dozens of noodles filled the cap. The Village Chief then picked up a vast basin of pre-prepared seasonings—salt, sugar, and various unidentifiable, peculiar plants—and poured them in. Following this, Gao Chuwu stepped forward, wielding an enormous wooden stick, and began to stir the contents of the mineral water bottle cap.
Only then did Li Daoxuan finally grasp what they were doing: concocting an immense basin of noodles.
“No... it can’t be, can it?”
“They aren’t doing what I think they’re doing, are they?”
He was right.
Once Gao Chuwu had thoroughly stirred the noodles, all the villagers from Gao Family Village and Zhengjia Village turned in unison to the sky and declared loudly, “We thank the Heavenly Lord for his blessings, for bestowing upon us this year of abundant harvest. We humbly offer these Chengcheng hand-pulled noodles to the Heavenly Lord.”
“The Heavenly Lord is benevolent!”
“Boundless blessings and longevity!”
The villagers roared in unison, then bowed as one.
In Li Daoxuan’s heart, something soft was profoundly stirred. These diminutive figures, so impossibly small, yet they struck directly at his tear ducts, moving him to such an unexpected depth.
He extended his hand, reaching towards the minuscule mineral water bottle cap.
Gao Yiye saw it and cried out, “The Heavenly Lord is reaching out for the hand-pulled noodles! He’s taking them!”
The villagers erupted in joy, cheering, “The Heavenly Lord has accepted our offering!”
They danced and roared in a frenzy, their eyes wide as they watched the large red basin ascend skyward, vanishing into the low-hanging clouds.
Li Daoxuan took the mineral water bottle cap out of the diorama box and gazed at it intently.
Though the diminutive figures had clearly put in immense effort, the noodles they’d crafted filled only a tiny half of the bottle cap.
How incredibly endearing!
A pang of reluctance struck him... yet he knew he had to taste it.
He tilted his head back, gently pouring the noodles from the bottle cap into his mouth. What the tiny villagers perceived as thick, python-like strands were, to Li Daoxuan, exquisitely fine noodles. He savored each bite, reluctant to swallow them too quickly, chewing deliberately. Though they lacked the complex seasonings of his modern world, this bowl of noodles was, without a doubt, truly delicious.
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