Chapter 15
Gang Jo-hang and Jang Un-chu got out of bed.
Gang Gye pretended to be lazy and stayed under the blanket.
"Mother, I want to sleep a little longer."
"Go ahead."
Jang Un-chu smiled.
"Sleep well and get up when you're ready."
As soon as his parents left the room, Gang Gye quickly slid off the bed and began searching every corner.
In the original novel, two children had secretly stolen those letters.
That meant Jang Un-chu probably hadn't kept them in a locked box.
They were likely hidden somewhere easy enough to reach.
Still, she wouldn't have put something like that in a place Gang Jo-hang might casually see.
After searching the room once, Gang Gye finally found the letters inside a chest containing his parents' winter clothes.
Whenever the seasons changed, Jang Un-chu would take out the clothes they needed in advance, then place the out-of-season clothes back inside the chest.
Gang Jo-hang normally never touched that clothing chest.
Gang Gye pulled out the letters and checked them.
At first, he considered taking all of them away immediately.
But then he worried that Jang Un-chu might check them, so he carefully put everything back.
When Jang Un-chu eventually went out to test the heroine, Gang Gye could return and take the letters then.
In the original novel, the heroine's twin children came and stole the letters shortly afterward.
Gang Gye only needed to move faster than they did.
After confirming where the letters were hidden, Gang Gye restored everything exactly as it had been.
There was no point pretending to sleep any longer.
He put on the clothes beside the bed, washed up, and prepared for breakfast.
An unusually heavy silence hung over the dining table.
Nobody said much.
Normally, the adults would laugh, chat, or discuss something during meals.
Today, everyone was quiet.
Only the children occasionally spoke.
After breakfast, Gang Jo-hang asked his son before heading out,
"We're going to dig up huiyu today. Do you want to go play with Howa and the others, or come with your mother and me?"
Yesterday, Gang Jo-hang had bought the cord and other materials the children needed for their slingshots.
They had all finished making them and were completely obsessed.
The children had hurried through breakfast first thing in the morning and rushed outside in a group, ready to go "hunting."
By now, they were already gone.
Gang Gye had eaten too slowly to keep up with them.
"Huiyu?"
What was huiyu?
Gang Gye thought to himself that he had heard of moyu, konjac, but never huiyu.
Wait.
Didn't processed konjac turn gray?
Could huiyu actually be konjac?
The moment that possibility occurred to him, Gang Gye could no longer sit still.
"Father, I'll go with you and Mother."
If huiyu really was the konjac plant he knew, then perhaps he had finally found a way to make money.
Once he followed his parents to the field and saw the leaves, Gang Gye became certain.
It really was konjac.
He nearly jumped for joy.
If we have konjac, then we can make spicy konjac snacks!
Compared to latiao, the spicy wheat-gluten snack, spicy konjac was something a person could eat a whole bowl of without getting tired of it.
It also tasted excellent.
In modern times, it was usually sold in small packets.
The quantity was tiny, but the price was definitely not cheap.
Gang Gye knew how to cook.
Back in his previous life, he had often watched food videos that started from farming and followed the ingredients all the way to the finished dish.
Watching those videos helped him relax whenever he felt stressed.
Sometimes, when he became interested enough, he would even follow the recipes and make the food himself.
After all, he had lived alone.
He couldn't survive by ordering delivery for every meal.
He didn't know how to make an enormous variety of dishes, but spicy konjac was one of the things he had tried before.
Once, when he had gone to visit his maternal grandmother in the countryside, he lost his appetite and wanted something spicy.
His relatives happened to be harvesting konjac.
So he took some and made spicy konjac snacks.
The children there had liked them quite a bit.
Even Gang Gye himself thought they tasted almost the same as the packaged ones sold in stores.
If he made them in this era, people would probably like them too.
The only problem was that spicy konjac wasn't something you could simply boil and season.
If they did that, the taste would be much worse.
Proper spicy konjac required several steps.
The problem was...
How was a little child like him supposed to explain that?
Gang Gye thought carefully.
Then he decided to reuse an excuse that had already worked once.
He would bring back the fictional physician who had supposedly "given" him the massage prescription.
Gang Gye smiled innocently.
"Mother, don't you soak this huiyu in lye water before using it? Then it turns into a whole pot of gray stuff, right?"
Soaking the tuber in lye water was essentially soaking it in an alkaline solution.
People in this era already used lye water.
"That's right."
Jang Un-chu crouched down and brushed the dirt off the freshly dug huiyu.
"We'll eat some today."
Gang Gye asked,
"Can we make it a different way today?"
Gang Jo-hang laughed.
"How would a little thing like you know another way to prepare it?"
"Hmph."
Gang Gye puffed his cheeks as though deeply wronged.
"Of course I know. I've even eaten it before. It was fragrant and spicy and really delicious! That old grandpa also taught me how to make it. He said we could earn silver by selling it."
Gang Jo-hang raised an eyebrow.
"By 'that old grandpa,' do you mean the same person who taught you the massage method?"
"Yes, that grandpa!"
Gang Gye answered immediately.
He decided that if anything else happened in the future, he could continue blaming everything on this imaginary old man.
Gang Jo-hang thought over his son's words and asked again,
"That old man said you could make money by selling it?"
Selling the massage prescription last time had been something Gang Jo-hang never expected.
The situation had simply unfolded that way.
The medical hall offered to buy it, his son agreed to sell it, and the matter ended there.
Fortunately, the prescription hadn't been some secret technique passed down through generations.
And even if they had refused to sell it, the physician had already seen the formula, so keeping it completely secret would have been impossible anyway.
But now that silver had come up again, Gang Jo-hang naturally paid close attention.
Jang Un-chu also asked,
"Do you mean we could actually make a business out of this?"
Ah...
Gang Gye blinked.
He suddenly realized that his imaginary old man couldn't be infinitely generous.
Knowing his parents' personalities, the more money they earned from these "gifts," the guiltier they would eventually feel toward that mysterious benefactor.
Next time, he should probably invent a different excuse.
Gang Gye quickly said,
"Yes. That grandpa liked me very much."
"I said something without thinking, and Grandpa repeated it twice. Then he suddenly laughed really hard and said I had helped him a lot."
"He even wanted to take me as a disciple and teach me medicine, but I told him I wanted to study instead."
"So he taught me how to make huiyu and told me to use it to do business and earn money."
Joy visibly appeared on both his parents' faces.
Gang Jo-hang hurriedly asked,
"Then do you still remember the method he taught you?"
"Yes!"
Gang Gye nodded vigorously.
Gang Jo-hang smiled and placed two freshly dug huiyu tubers into the basket on his back.
Then he lifted Gang Gye with one arm and said to his wife,
"Let's head back. First, we'll go home and see what this food Little Six is talking about actually tastes like. We can come back later for the rest."
If the old physician had given this recipe to her son as repayment, then Jang Un-chu felt no psychological burden accepting it.
The family was already worried because they didn't have enough silver to educate two children.
If this recipe truly worked and could bring in money, nothing could be better.
The family of three hurried home.
Nobody else was there.
Gang Gye went straight to the kitchen and began telling his parents what they needed to do.
Spicy konjac couldn't be made immediately.
There were many preparations.
For example, the konjac first needed to be ground into powder.
They also needed starch.
And seasonings similar to MSG would be useful as well.
The konjac had to be sliced thin, dried in the sun, ground into powder, and then sifted.
Using powdered konjac prepared this way produced a finer, smoother texture than simply grinding the fresh tuber directly.
It also stored much better.
Ordinary villagers sometimes preserved konjac this way too.
However, Gang Gye added one extra step.
First, he soaked the thin slices in salt water.
This prevented them from oxidizing and turning black.
After soaking for a while, they could be spread outside and dried beneath the sun.
When Gang Jo-hang and Jang Un-chu realized they wouldn't be able to make the delicious konjac dish today, they decided to dig up all the huiyu in the field and dry it first.
The next few days were expected to be sunny, so it was best to handle everything at once.
Once the temperature dropped, drying would become more difficult.
After spreading the konjac slices in the sun, the next thing they needed was starch.
People in this era didn't yet have the concept of starch as a separate cooking ingredient.
But making it was simple.
Potatoes and sweet potatoes could both be used.
They only needed to peel them, grind them together with water using a millstone until they became a thick slurry, then strain the mixture through cloth.
After letting the filtered liquid sit for several hours, a layer of white starch would settle at the bottom.
Repeating the washing process two or three times, scooping out the starch, and drying it in the sun would finish the job.
The work itself wasn't difficult.
But it took time.
By the time they had spread trays all over the courtyard, the other members of the Gang family began returning one after another.
Old Master Gang looked around curiously.
"What is all this?"
Huiyu wasn't something people ate often.
They didn't deliberately plant much of it.
Every year, they would simply dig some up once or twice when it was in season.
Only families that particularly liked it would intentionally dry and store it.
The Gang family had never done that before.
Gang Jo-hang answered while vigorously rubbing his hands in water.
"Little Six says he learned a recipe from that physician he met before."
"He says it's very delicious, so we're going to try making it."
"If it turns out well, perhaps we can sell it outside."
Old Master Gang couldn't imagine what kind of food could be made from huiyu that was worth selling for silver.
Still, he was someone who could think ahead.
Now that they had decided to educate two children, they had no choice but to try different things.
If they could truly discover a way to earn money, educating the children would become much easier.
Even if they had to spend some silver at first, that was fine.
If they never tried anything, how could they ever find a path forward?
"Then give it a try."
"If you need silver, ask your mother for it."
Madam Sun, the wife of the second son, went straight to the kitchen after returning.
Today was her turn to cook.
Several used pots and bowls were still sitting there unwashed.
Without saying anything, Madam Sun immediately began cleaning them.
She felt that competing with the third branch over the opportunity to educate her son wasn't something she could feel proud about.
After all, Gang Gye's talent was simply too outstanding.
Because of that, she now felt guilty toward Jang Un-chu and wanted to make things a little easier for her.
She still didn't know whether Munsaeng would actually get to study.
But that uncertainty didn't lessen her embarrassment.
Jang Un-chu glanced at Madam Sun but didn't say anything.
She simply turned toward the stove and started the fire.
Once the flames caught, she called to her husband.
"Come warm your hands over the fire for a while. It'll help with the itching."
Huiyu was troublesome to handle.
Touching it with bare hands caused intense itching.
Usually, the irritation lasted for several hours and only disappeared by the next day.
There were no rubber gloves in this era.
So they had no choice but to prepare it with their bare hands.
