Going home to cook

Her face turned cold as she told Li Sanjie, the driver up front, "Hurry up and go. We still have to cook when we get back."

Li Sanjie cursed at Liu Xiaobo, "You ungrateful dog who can't recognize kindness! Giving your Wenxiu a ride was already more than generous. What else do you want?"

After scolding him, she turned to Su Yuhe. "Men are shortsighted and don't know a favor when they see one. Don't be angry, young lady. His daughter is a good girl. Why not take her along and leave him to reap what he's sown and walk home?"

"No need. I don't think he needs a ride at all." Su Yuhe spat at Liu Xiaobo's face. "Who do you think you are? Your hands reach so far they're meddling in my household. You ask for a favor without a shred of humility. Do you really think you carry that much weight? I took pity on you and let you ride, and you're still whining."

Liu Xiaobo was so angry he began to stammer. "Y-you little bastard, born to a mother but never raised by one! You're an outsider living in our village, and you dare talk to me like that?"

Now even Li Sanjie could no longer smooth things over. She drove the ox cart toward the village and said indignantly, "You really don't know good from bad. We've no time for your nonsense. We're going home to eat."

At first, Liu Xiaobo followed the ox cart. While it was starting off slowly, he could keep up, but once he began running, he soon tired. As he chased after them, his mouth spewed filth, every word unbearably foul.

She didn't care at all about his attacks on her parents. Her mom and dad would still be alive and well even after these people had crumbled to dust.

Lu Mingyi and Meng Zhixian stole glances at her, while Lu Mingxi looked at her openly, his eyes full of worry. He offered her the candied hawthorn skewer in his hand. "Wife, have some."

"No." Su Yuhe held it straight to his lips. "Don't eat too much, or your teeth will hurt."

He bit off a hawthorn and said indistinctly, "Give some to my brothers."

Neither Lu Mingyi nor Meng Zhixian ate any, so the entire skewer ended up in his stomach.

It was dark by the time the ox cart reached their door. After everything bought at the market had been carried inside, Su Yuhe lit a candle and prepared to make a simple meal.

Lu Mingyi rinsed the rice, and Meng Zhixian lit the fire to steam it. The two had actually developed some unspoken coordination.

Su Yuhe took four eggs and handed one to each person.

"Tap the middle of the egg gently against the rim of the bowl twice. Once there's a crack, pull the shell apart."

Lu Mingyi and Meng Zhixian were careful. Though unpracticed, they made no major mistakes. Lu Mingxi used too much force, and both the egg and its shell fell into the bowl.

Meng Zhixian's face darkened, and he scolded him mercilessly. "You can't even do this much. What use are you?"

His features were strikingly fierce. In the flickering candlelight, he looked like a male ghost steeped in resentment.

"I'm sorry." Lu Mingxi lowered his head and apologized softly.

Meng Zhixian swallowed his anger. Since Lu Mingxi had apologized, he couldn't very well keep scolding, for fear of leaving a bad impression on his wife.

Su Yuhe picked out the eggshell with chopsticks. Luckily, she had wiped every egg clean. Otherwise, with chicken droppings on the shell, it really would have been inedible.

"It's no big deal. Just pick it out." She set down the chopsticks and picked up the little earthenware salt jar. "It's hard to judge how much salt to add. Better too little than too much."

She added a little salt to her bowl, and the other three followed her example. Meng Zhixian, in particular, didn't dare add too much.

"After the salt, add a little oil." She opened the oil jar, which held snow-white lard, and scooped a tiny bit into her bowl.

Nothing had gone wrong so far. Next came beating the eggs, and she could already foresee the disastrous scene.

"Tilt your hand a little."

Su Yuhe first showed them how she held her hand when beating an egg, quickly beating hers until smooth, then guided them one by one.

She went around behind Meng Zhixian, held his hand, and guided him as he beat the egg. "Tilt it a little. Make circles at an angle."

He had never been so close to a woman before, and his movements stiffened for a moment. With her guiding him, he gradually learned to control his strength and direction.

Su Yuhe let go and praised him. "Very good. Beat it a little longer, and it'll be smoother."

Meng Zhixian stirred rapidly, bubbles forming on the surface of the beaten egg.

With Lu Mingyi's help, Lu Mingxi managed to beat his egg without mishap.

She picked up her bowl and tried pinching some of the egg between her chopsticks. "If you can pick up any egg white, it needs more beating. If you can't pick anything up, it's ready."

Su Yuhe checked each bowl. Once she confirmed they were all ready, she moved on to the next step. "Add three eggshells' worth of water."

Everyone except Lu Mingxi managed it. She handed him her eggshell, and once he was done too, she continued to the next step. She set the steamer over the pot of rice, put all four bowls of egg custard inside, then covered them with plates to finish.

After teaching them how to steam eggs, she went on to teach them how to tend the fire.

"Two big pieces of firewood in there should be enough. Don't add any more. This firewood costs fifteen wen a bundle, so go easy on it."

That made Meng Zhixian even angrier. Lu Mingxi had used a great deal of firewood that morning. After using up the pile in the kitchen, he had even gone outside and brought in another bundle.

Using so much firewood was one thing, but he had burned the food too. The rice at the bottom hadn't been edible at all.

Dinner was just egg custard with rice. After eating, they went to wash up.

Su Yuhe brushed her teeth, washed her face, wiped her feet, and sat on the kang. A wooden table had been made especially for it, and in winter, books were copied on the kang.

She opened the stationery box and looked over the original she was to copy this time. There weren't many words; she could finish it in half a month at most.

Before transmigrating, she had been in her first year of high school. She had written a great deal with pens and could write quickly. Now that she copied books for a living, her writing speed far surpassed that of the natives, and her quality control was excellent too.

Lu Mingxi came up beside her. "Wife, it's late. Go to sleep first."

Meng Zhixian happened to come in and squeezed him aside. "Go to sleep. Don't cause Wife more trouble."

Lu Mingxi also felt that he was a troublemaker. He climbed onto the kang, looking back three times with every step. "Then I'll go to sleep first. I'll steam egg custard for everyone tomorrow morning."

"All right."

Meng Zhixian inwardly rolled his eyes, but silently helped Su Yuhe grind ink.

She handed him the copying job she had taken for half a tael of silver. "The pay is low this time. Only half a tael for copying the whole book."

"Even a mosquito's leg is meat. Half a tael of silver will last us a while."

Lu Mingyi was the last to finish washing up. He sat on Su Yuhe's other side and worked on the accounts by the candlelight on the table.

That evening, his wife had given him another two taels of silver for this month's household expenses. He had to budget carefully.

The household water jar had bottomed out. Water cost four wen a bucket, and he didn't know how long one bucket would last.

The five chickens in the coop also needed feeding. The family had no farmland, so they fed them vegetable leaves and wild grass. He would also have to spare some attention for cutting grass.

The candle suddenly went out, and Meng Zhixian's startled cry pulled him from his thoughts.

Su Yuhe reassured them, "The candlewick's burned out. Let's rest for tonight."

The moon in ancient times was very bright. Once her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she got down and opened the window, then tidied the little table by moonlight. She left everything else alone and only put the copied booklet and the original into the stationery box. Those two were the most important things of all.

She set the little table on the floor, closed the window, and went to sleep too.