Chapter 11: Steamed Egg with Yam
Before long, a fragrant aroma wafted in through the door. Lin Shuang entered the room carrying the food.
Seeing this, Jiang Huaizhen put down the bamboo strip in her hand and got up to move the table from against the wall and set it up by the bed.
She had made some adjustments to the frame from yesterday. Although it was a bit rough, it was much better than the small stool. It was stable on the bed, and the tabletop was large enough to hold two or three bowls with ease.
Seeing that the small frame was already set up, Lin Shuang placed the steamed egg with yam and chicken from the tray onto it.
“Steamed egg with yam. Grandma, see if you like it.”
Old Madam Jiang glanced at her. “Just one serving for me?”
Lin Shuang said, “Your teeth aren’t good. This is easy to chew.”
Jiang Huaizhen lowered her head and went out to bring in the other dishes without a word.
The family was in dire straits now. The old woman finally had some appetite, but she couldn’t afford to buy good food to be filial to her. She felt a pang in her heart.
She hoped that the five heads she had to take tomorrow would go smoothly. When the reward money came in, she could set aside some for emergencies and use some to nourish her grandmother.
Dinner was porridge again, but there was also a flatbread, leftover from the coarse flour that was about to go moldy this morning.
Jiang Huaizhen looked at the flatbread placed in front of her, her eyes lowered. She put down her chopsticks, broke the flatbread in two, and placed half in Lin Shuang’s bowl.
“You do heavy work, and your body consumes a lot of energy. You eat it,” Lin Shuang said, pushing it back.
She had eaten breakfast in the morning and yam and chicken bone porridge for lunch. It was much better than at the Lin residence, not to mention it had meat, which was good for her digestion.
“I didn’t do any heavy work today,” Jiang Huaizhen said succinctly, with no intention of accepting it.
Lin Shuang didn’t insist and picked up her chopsticks to eat.
Old Madam Jiang sat up in bed, watching the two of them. She resisted the urge to comment on everything and took a spoonful of the steamed egg with minced yam and meat.
The moment the food entered her mouth, all words vanished.
It was simply too delicious.
Even if the old woman cooked herself, she could never make anything this tasty. Her cooking was better than Jiang Huaizhen’s, but it was just ordinary home cooking. But this steamed egg, she could never have imagined the combination of ingredients, let alone go out and buy yams specifically to make it.
In a small bowl next to it was stir-fried chicken with mushrooms and sweet bamboo shoots. The bamboo shoots were sweet, crisp, and tender, and the thick juices mixed with the porridge on her tongue, making it truly delicious.
Seeing Jiang Huaizhen look up at her, she muttered, “…It’s alright. A little better than your messy stew.”
Having lived two lives, how could Lin Shuang not see through the old woman’s sharp tongue? She just smiled.
Jiang Huaizhen, on the other hand, was much more honest. She ate the coarse flatbread with her porridge, taking large mouthfuls of the stir-fry, one after another.
It had been a long time since the grandmother and granddaughter had had such a warm and satisfying meal. The sharp-tongued Old Madam Jiang ate half of the steamed egg and wanted to save the rest for her granddaughter to try, but seeing her eating with her head down, she gave up.
Her health was poor, and she had a small appetite. After finishing the steamed egg, she couldn’t eat anything else. The remaining two of them polished off the rest.
After eating her fill, Jiang Huaizhen got up to clear the bowls and wash them.
That night, they went to bed early.
Lin Shuang remembered what she had said during the day, that five people were to be executed together tomorrow. She could imagine the immense pressure she must be under. A seventeen-year-old girl, no matter how strong she was mentally, was just starting in this profession. How could she remain calm when she had to behead five people at once?
The Jiang Huaizhen she had seen later in her past life, who knows what she had gone through to become so cold, taciturn, and expressionless.
Facing the still-vulnerable Jiang Huaizhen now, Lin Shuang couldn’t help but feel a sense of pity, wanting to protect her as much as she could.
The late autumn night was very cold.
Lin Shuang stretched her warm feet over to Jiang Huaizhen’s side and wrapped her arms around her. “It’s not even that cold yet, and you’re already like a big block of ice.”
This was the first time Jiang Huaizhen had experienced such a soft and fragrant embrace between girls. Now, with the other holding her without any reservations, she wasn’t as stiff as before, but she hadn’t completely accepted it either. She just lay flat on her side of the bed, her eyes closed, without answering.
Her body had always been like this. In the past, when she slept with her grandmother, the old woman was unwilling to be near her. The two of them would sleep in the same bed with separate quilts.
It was rare for the other to take the initiative to come close to her today.
If she got her reward money tomorrow, should she buy another quilt first, so that when winter came, the person beside her wouldn’t freeze?
With these random thoughts, she fell asleep.
When she woke up the next morning, the sky was just beginning to lighten, and the only remaining rooster behind the house was crowing.
She opened her eyes and suddenly remembered that she hadn’t gone to the west room to check on her grandmother in the middle of the night. She didn’t know if the old woman had gotten up.
With this thought, she had already lifted the quilt and sat up. Lin Shuang, who was lying on her side, also opened her eyes.
“Did I wake you?” she asked softly.
Lin Shuang rubbed her eyes. “We went to bed at the Hour of the Dog last night. I should have had enough sleep. Since I’m awake, let’s get up.”
Sleeping for four or five hours was something she couldn’t even have imagined in her past life at the Qin residence.
“I’ll go check on Grandma,” Jiang Huaizhen said, already out of bed.
In the dim morning light, her tall and slender figure walked toward the door. Lin Shuang sat up, clutching the quilt. Then she lay down again, rolling over to Jiang Huaizhen’s side.
It was warm.
So that cold body did have some warmth after all.
She got up, washed her face, and started a fire to make breakfast.
Other than a bag of rice in the cabinet, there was nothing else to eat in the house. Lin Shuang peeled half a yam and made porridge.
Jiang Huaizhen would have a hard day today. She had to eat her fill to have strength.
The fire in the stove was burning. She turned to leave the kitchen but almost bumped into the fully dressed Jiang Huaizhen.
The person before her stood tall and straight. Her waist was wrapped with a cloth strip, making it look less slender, and her jacket concealed the slight curve of her chest. Her hair was tied up neatly, and the coarse linen clothes gave her a noble air.
“What do you need?”
Lin Shuang’s eyes roamed over her from top to bottom. “I’m going to the vegetable garden to pick some vegetables to stir-fry with the porridge.”
“What kind of vegetables? I’ll go pick them.”
“Mustard greens. One is enough.”
Jiang Huaizhen agreed and strode toward the vegetable garden.
Lin Shuang returned to the kitchen, watching the steam from the pot and the cooking smoke curl up along the eaves. Her grandmother’s cough seemed to have lessened since yesterday.
It was an ordinary morning, but in her past life, she had never had the time to notice these things. Every day, before going to bed and after waking up, she was always worried, afraid that she wasn’t working efficiently enough, afraid that she wasn’t taking good care of the two Qin children, afraid that Old Madam Qin would have that matron make things difficult for her, punishing her by not letting her eat, or sending a bowl of dark, thick medicinal soup for her to test…
Now, here, they also had no grain or rice, but her heart was at ease, because as long as she didn’t leave, Jiang Huaizhen would never drive her away.
She was registered in the household now, a part of the family.
Just as she was thinking, she heard footsteps outside the house. Jiang Huaizhen was back.
She was holding a handful of vegetables. She walked to the water vat, ladled out some water, and bent down to wash the vegetables.
Seeing that she was done, Lin Shuang got up to chop the vegetables.
The porridge in the pot was boiling and about to overflow. With quick eyes and hands, Jiang Huaizhen lifted the lid, leaving it half-covered.
Lin Shuang said, “Start another stove.”
Jiang Huaizhen grunted in agreement, took a few burning logs from the lit stove, and put them in the adjacent one. She then added new firewood, and the flames quickly leaped up.
Other than not being able to cook, she was quite good at lighting fires.
A smile touched Lin Shuang’s lips. She took the pot and scraped the bottom of the oil jar, managing to get a tiny bit of oil, the size of her little finger. She placed the spoon in the hot pot, and the heat melted the congealed lard.
It was barely enough to grease the bottom of the pot.
Jiang Huaizhen looked at the thin layer of oil in the pot, her eyes flickered, and she lowered her head without a word.
The chopped vegetables were thrown into the pot, and the spoon quickly stir-fried them, releasing a fragrant aroma.
The food was ready soon. Lin Shuang ladled out a bowl for the old woman and took it to her first. Jiang Huaizhen had a task today and was in a somber mood, so she ate in the kitchen.
Lin Shuang fished out a large piece of yam from the porridge, placed it in a bowl to cool, then wrapped it in a piece of oiled paper and placed it on the table. “The execution is usually at the third quarter of the Hour of the Horse. You’re eating breakfast now, so you’ll definitely be hungry by then. Take this to tide you over, so you’ll have strength when you work.”
She didn’t know if Jiang Huaizhen had any money on her, or if she was willing to spend it on food outside.
Jiang Huaizhen didn’t know what she was thinking. Seeing the food she had prepared for her, her eyes swept over the oiled paper. She swallowed a mouthful of porridge and said, “Alright.”
