The Farm Girl and the Executioner (Rebirth) 10

Chapter 10: She Won’t Leave

After returning home, Jiang Huaizhen grabbed an axe and went up the mountain.

There was a patch of bamboo halfway up the mountain. The winnowing baskets and bamboo containers used at home were all sourced from here.

Lin Shuang had nothing to do, so she went with her.

While Jiang Huaizhen was cutting bamboo, Lin Shuang poked around and found a few bamboo shoots.

“Jiang Huaizhen, let’s have bamboo shoots for dinner tonight.”

Jiang Huaizhen stopped what she was doing and turned to look at her.

The orange-yellow outer garment her father had bought for her, which she had found too bright and had only worn once, was now on Lin Shuang. Paired with her smiling face, it seemed to brighten the gloomy weather.

“How should we cook them?” In the past, she would have at most grunted in response. But now, looking at the other’s bright eyes, she couldn’t bear to let her talk to herself and continued the conversation.

Seeing her interest, Lin Shuang became enthusiastic. “I used the chicken bones to make porridge this morning, but there’s still some chicken meat left. We can stir-fry it with the bamboo shoots.”

Hearing this, Jiang Huaizhen stood under the bamboo and thought for a moment. An image of stir-fried chicken with bamboo shoots, fragrant and steaming, quickly formed in her mind.

It seemed quite good.

“Alright,” she replied.

She cut down a total of five large bamboo stalks, which she could handle by herself. Lin Shuang followed behind her down the mountain, carrying a few bamboo shoots.

The jiaogulan was drying in the main hall, and the long bamboo stalks were difficult to bring inside. Jiang Huaizhen sat by the back door of the kitchen, splitting the bamboo into strips. She would occasionally turn to glance at Lin Shuang, who was busy at the stove, answering her questions in monosyllables.

Lin Shuang had already peeled the bamboo shoots on the mountain. When she got home, she sliced them and blanched them in cold water to remove the bitterness.

Old Madam Jiang was lying in her room, bored. Hearing the two of them talking in the kitchen, she said unhappily, “Can’t you do your work in here? Are you trying to bore me to death by leaving an old woman like me in here all alone?”

Lin Shuang was just scooping out the blanched bamboo shoots to rinse in cold water. Hearing this, she couldn’t help but smile. She looked at Jiang Huaizhen, who was busy with her head down. “Why don’t you go in and talk to Grandma? I’ll be in after I’m done with this.”

Jiang Huaizhen didn’t look up. “The bamboo strips aren’t finished yet. How can I bring them inside?”

Old Madam Jiang’s room wasn’t small, but it was filled with various jars and containers. It would be difficult to split the large bamboo stalks inside.

Despite her words, she quickened her pace, splitting the remaining large bamboo stalks and thinning the strips. She then dragged them into the old woman’s room, pulled up a stool, and began to weave a winnowing basket.

After blanching the bamboo shoots, Lin Shuang saw that the stove was hot, so she went out to the vegetable garden to pick some vegetables to pickle.

Jiang Huaizhen couldn’t cook. Vegetables were always boiled, and even meat was just stewed in one pot. Seeing the old woman’s temper, she had probably been annoyed by this pig-like way of feeding for the past two years. Now that she was here, she could make some different dishes to change their palates.

She dug up a dozen mustard greens and simply pickled two of them first. They would be ready to eat tomorrow.

The rest would be left out for a few hours to dry a little before pickling, which would make them crispier and allow them to be stored for longer.

By the time she finished, the sky was gradually darkening. She ladled out some rice and began to cook.

While the water was still coming to a boil, she went into the old woman’s room to check on the two of them.

Jiang Huaizhen was busy with her head down. She had already changed out of her dusty work clothes and was now wearing a gray-white skirt and trousers with a thick jacket over them. Her hair was down, falling naturally over her back.

Her arms were long and slender, revealing a pair of beautiful wrists.

Her fingers were long but covered in various scars and calluses, a stark contrast to her fair face. The long bamboo strips swayed with her movements.

To be able to do that job at the execution grounds, one would need at least eight or ten years of training, Lin Shuang thought to herself. Her gaze unconsciously rested on her, her mind carefully comparing the person before her to the one from her past life.

Perhaps her gaze was too direct, for even the composed Jiang Huaizhen couldn’t help but turn to look at her.

Lin Shuang nonchalantly averted her eyes.

Just a moment ago, Old Madam Jiang had been complaining that the two of them were talking without her. Now that Jiang Huaizhen was in the room, she found her to be as quiet as a clam, only answering when asked and saying nothing otherwise.

Seeing Lin Shuang enter, she said grumpily, “What are you so busy with? All that clattering, one would think we had some grand feast waiting for you to prepare.”

Lin Shuang smiled. “There’s no grand feast, but there are a few vegetables in the garden. I’ve pickled some, and they’ll be ready to eat tomorrow.”

Hearing this, Old Madam Jiang grumbled, “I thought it was some delicacy from the mountains and seas, but it’s just a few pickled vegetables.”

“Pickled vegetables are delicious when cooked with kidney beans. If we could catch some fish, pickled fish would be delicious too. Just sprinkle some scallions on top after it’s cooked and drizzle with hot oil, it’s so fragrant…”

As soon as Lin Shuang finished speaking, she clearly saw both grandmother and granddaughter swallow.

Not just them, she herself was craving it. This body had never had a full meal in its life; it was truly hungry.

Old Madam Jiang looked at Jiang Huaizhen. “Are there any fish in the river at the village entrance? Look at how greedy this girl is. Go catch a couple when you have time and let her see for herself.”

In these times, there wasn’t enough grain to eat, let alone meat. The half-grown children in the village were always by the river, setting traps and nets one after another. There was no way they would get a chance to catch any fish.

How could Jiang Huaizhen not know this? But she still agreed.

Lin Shuang sat beside her, watching her weave the bamboo sieve for a while and chatting with the old woman about the trivial matters of the village. It wasn’t until the aroma of rice wafted from the kitchen that she stood up. “I’ll go make the food.”

Perhaps because she had mentioned the pickled fish, Old Madam Jiang’s appetite was piqued. She muttered, “The same stew every day, the same stew every day. My mouth is about to grow a bird…”

“It won’t be the same stew today. I dug up some bamboo shoots on the mountain, so I can make something different,” Lin Shuang said, pausing at the door.

The old woman was dismissive. “What’s so good about bamboo shoots? It’s not like I’ve never had them before.”

“Just you wait.”

The old woman was clearly a picky eater, but she had been stuck with a block of wood like Jiang Huaizhen who couldn’t cook. No wonder she was so full of resentment.

It didn’t matter. She knew how to cook.

In the kitchen, she peeled the remaining half of the yam from the morning, placed it in a bowl, and mashed it with a spoon. She picked out a few lean pieces of the remaining chicken, minced them, and added them to the bowl with the mashed yam. Finally, she took an egg from the chicken coop, cracked it on top, and steamed it.

She stir-fried vegetables on the other stove.

She dry-fried the blanched bamboo shoots in the pot to remove the moisture, then scooped them out. She added a large piece of chicken fat and rendered it, then stir-fried the remaining chicken until it was about seventy to eighty percent cooked. She then added the mushrooms she had picked yesterday and the fried bamboo shoots, seasoned with salt, and tossed in a few wild scallions before taking it off the heat.

The fragrant aroma wafted into the old woman’s room.

Old Madam Jiang’s eyes darted to the door from time to time. She said to Jiang Huaizhen, “After doing so many stupid things, you’ve finally done one thing right.”

Bringing home a little cook who knew how to cook meant she no longer had to face those pig-slop-like meals with despair, nor did she have to worry that after she was gone, this block-of-wood-like granddaughter would die alone in the valley with no one to bury her.

“Sigh, she’s capable, hardworking, and not bad-looking. I wonder how long she’ll stay.”

Looking at the old woman’s cloudy eyes, the usually quiet Jiang Huaizhen finally spoke. “She won’t leave.”

Old Madam Jiang snorted. “You’re not her. How do you know she won’t leave? If you were a man, you could use your kindness to pressure her into marrying you. But you’re a woman. What do you have to make her stay?”

“I’ve already had the village chief go to the yamen to register her under our household. She won’t leave.”

Old Madam Jiang was surprised. “Really?”

Jiang Huaizhen hummed in agreement.

A faint light seemed to reappear in Old Madam Jiang’s once dull eyes. She hesitated. “She doesn’t mind the profession you and your father do… Sigh, I’m telling you, what’s so bad about other jobs that you had to do this? If your father knew in the underworld, I don’t know how he would blame me.”

At this, she couldn’t help but raise a withered hand to wipe her eyes.

Seeing her cry, Jiang Huaizhen clenched her jaw, and her hands stopped moving. It took her a long time to speak. “Father won’t blame you. When he taught me how to use a saber, he might have already foreseen that I might take this path in the future. But he still let me wield a saber, so he won’t blame you.”

Old Madam Jiang cursed, “He won’t blame me, but I blame myself. A perfectly fine girl, delayed because of an old woman like me who’s already halfway in the grave. How can I face him?”

“You live a good life. When I go down in the future, I will explain it to him properly,” Jiang Huaizhen replied.

Hearing this, the old woman was somewhat exasperated and couldn’t be bothered to complain anymore, swallowing her words.

She wanted to be unreasonable, but this granddaughter was very serious and would respond to her words one by one. She had figured out her personality over the past dozen years and was too lazy to use her last breath to argue with her.

It would be one thing if she died of anger, but she was afraid of having a stroke, ending up with a crooked head and mouth, unable to move. She would suffer, and her granddaughter would not have an easy time either.

Forget it. She would put the matter of death aside for now. First, she would help her granddaughter test the little girl surnamed Lin in the kitchen. If she was truly reliable, then she could die in peace.