There's an old saying: among all trades under heaven, three are the hardest, poling boats, hammering iron, and…
There's an old saying: among all trades under heaven, three are the hardest, poling boats, hammering iron, and making tofu.
Hu Sanli still remembered how it used to be, back when his father was alive. At early-afternoon, his father would already be preparing the next day's tofu. Making tofu wasn't brute labor, but a careful, fussy work, ten steps from start to finish. The first step alone took patience: picking through mounds of soybeans, choosing only the full, glossy ones. His father was an honest man who never padded the batch with bad beans. A full pile would pass through his hands, and barely half a basket would remain. Even then, the beans had to soak for more than ten hours in cold spring water drawn at dawn. Only after that could he stop and take a break.
At midnight, when the house had fallen into deep sleep, Hu Sanli would hear his father get up to grind the beans. The timing could not be wrong, not even slightly. Miss it, and the tofu would lose its true taste. In those days, grinding a single tub of beans took twelve full hours.
Now, at twenty, Hu Sanli straightened his aching back, drew a breath, and wiped the sweat from his brow. This was his second batch of the night. His father could make four before dawn. He could only manage two. Just where was he lacking in skill compared to his father?