Ronan's Moonlit Journey Chapter 5

Chang Zhen's family is the third household in the village from west to east. Although he is married, he has never been separated from the old man. At this time, Chang Zhen is already the head of the family. There are three Chang Zhen brothers, and he is the second eldest. The eldest brother works in the county, and the third child, Chang Hao, is my classmate. Chang Zhen is the militia platoon leader. In the production team, she is second only to the captain and accountant, but she is more powerful than the accountant and is almost on an equal footing with the deputy captain. Chang Zhen looks like Peking Man: protruding mouth, wide face, high cheekbones, and brown-black skin. I remember that on the night of my devolution, I saw Chang Zhen for the first time in the cow house. Someone introduced him as the militia platoon leader. His father came up to shake hands and talk to him. Under the oil lamp, Chang Zhen was wearing a blue coat and grinning with bared teeth. I ran over, saluted him, and said loudly: "Report to the platoon leader!"

Chang Zhen has a son named Suo Miaozi. Because he is younger than me, we have never played with him. I often go to their home with my mother as a guest. On a large table, a kerosene lamp made of an inkwell swayed. Chang Zhen's woman was holding the soles of her shoes under the lamp, and she was sharpening needles in her hair from time to time. The shelled peanuts were fried in a big pot. Chang Zhen used a dustpan to scoop them up and treat us to eat them. There was no sand when frying the peanuts, and the firewood at the bottom of the pot was strong. There were black spots on the peanut shells. Because they were newly harvested peanuts, they were not completely sun-dried. Although the shells were burnt, water vapor was still coming out from the inside after being peeled off. There were also burnt spots on the peanut kernels. Such peanuts are not crispy. It has a raw and cooked taste (different from half-cooked), which is very special, but delicious. There is no sand in Wangji's area, and the peanuts cannot be dried, so they eat peanuts as is, or eat them raw.

On the night of the devolution, we later went to Cheng Yuying's house. Before dinner, someone peeled a handful of peanuts and handed them to me. There were many people in the small room and the light was dark. I only saw the hands stretched out, which were full of cracks. The color of the palms and backs was very different. The hands formed a hemisphere with peanut kernels inside...

When I was in Nanjing, my father also liked to eat peanuts. He took me out in the evening and bought a bag of peanuts from a stall. After opening it, I held it with both hands together like this. He poured the peanuts from his left hand into his right hand, and then poured the peanuts from his right hand into his left hand. He poured the peanuts from his right hand into his left hand over and over again, pouting and blowing in the wind. The peanut skins flew away, and in the end only the snow-white peanut kernels remained. Only then did my father let me eat. The peanuts are very crispy, and even though my mouth is closed, a scent pours out of my nose. While playing peanuts, my father had been squatting on the side of the road. I watched eagerly, greedy to death.

When I took the peanuts from those unfamiliar hands, I could already feel the fragrance of the peanuts in my mouth. I stuffed a few peanuts into my mouth, chewed them, and spit them out immediately. The peanuts were raw and had a strange smell that I had never tasted before. The peanut kernels were crushed by the molars and spit into the palm of the hand, full of white pulp.

I found that the person who handed me the peanuts was Chang Zhen. He must be a peanut lover, so he served peanuts to his guests. Knowing that I don't like eating raw peanuts, so when I visited his house later, he fried peanuts and served them to me.

It didn’t take long for me to get used to the taste of raw peanuts, and I often ate them while drying them at home. I heard that raw peanuts nourish people, so I enjoyed eating them even more. Peanuts are high in fat, so they don't taste bad.