The Farm Girl and the Executioner (Rebirth) 17

Chapter 17: Pork Bone Soup

Hearing Lin Shuang mention the two eggs, Jiang Huaizhen replied flatly, “I didn’t collect yesterday’s.”

Lin Shuang was quite disappointed to hear that.

She carried the vegetables into the kitchen and asked Old Madam Jiang, “Grandma, do you prefer the pork bones stewed with radish or with yam?”

Old Madam Jiang said grumpily, “It’s all just food that goes into the stomach. What’s the difference?”

“It’s not the same,” Lin Shuang said, peeling a radish. “Radish is sweet and refreshing, while yam is soft, glutinous, and crisp. The textures are different, and the effects are different too.”

Her words seemed to calm the old woman’s rising temper. She lowered her eyelids and said, “Put them both in.”

A smile touched the corner of Lin Shuang’s lips. “That’s what I was thinking too. We thought of the same thing.”

The old woman, coaxed by her, turned her head awkwardly to look at the stove. “The fire is too big. The oil will burn.”

Lin Shuang turned to look. The fire was a little too high, but not to the point of burning as she had said. Still, she went over and pulled out a log, putting it into the adjacent stove where the bones were simmering.

“That’s just right.”

It took over half an hour to render the pork suet. The entire kitchen was filled with the smell of grease, but to country folk, it was a sweet and delicious aroma.

Lin Shuang scooped the lard residue into a bowl, took out half, and mixed it with a few grains of salt. She took a piece for herself and then handed the bowl to Jiang Huaizhen.

Jiang Huaizhen had expended a lot of energy today, but after the few steamed buns in the city, she wasn’t very hungry. She was looking forward to the main meal, so she only took two pieces and stopped.

Old Madam Jiang wanted to try a piece, but Lin Shuang didn’t offer it to her. She just smiled and said, “Grandma, your body can’t handle this. One piece will make you cough all night. Let’s wait until dinner is ready.”

Since she had fallen ill, Old Madam Jiang hadn’t craved anything for a long time, especially her granddaughter’s “pig slop.” As a result, she had no expectations for her three daily meals. But since this little girl had arrived, after a few meals, her once-stagnant interest in food seemed to be rekindling.

Of course, she knew this wasn’t suitable for her to eat, but it smelled so good.

Wanting to eat but being unable to, her face instantly darkened.

The older people get, the more they become like children, especially some with peculiar tempers. Having lived for so many years, Lin Shuang understood this. She smiled and comforted her, “It’s getting late. The bones are almost done cooking. I’ll prepare dinner now.”

With that, she washed the rice to cook and then took out the bag of coarse flour to make some flatbreads, so the two of them wouldn’t go hungry from just eating porridge at night.

Seeing this, Old Madam Jiang said, “Just cook dry rice. I can eat it with the soup.”

She had been drinking porridge for so long, partly to save grain, but mainly to accommodate her old age. When you’re old, dry rice is not easy to swallow.

But today was her granddaughter’s last day on the execution platform for the year. She didn’t know if she could handle it mentally. She looked much thinner, and her face was very pale. She had to have a good meal.

Hearing her say this, Lin Shuang subconsciously turned to look at Jiang Huaizhen.

Jiang Huaizhen said, “Porridge with flatbread is also good.”

Old Madam Jiang’s face darkened. “Do my words not count anymore? You insist on doing what I tell you not to do, and now you even argue with me about cooking a meal.”

Jiang Huaizhen immediately shut up.

Lin Shuang quickly smoothed things over with a smile. “Alright, alright, we’ll cook dry rice. We have meat tonight, I couldn’t be happier.”

With that, she turned and ladled out another bowl of rice, washed it again, added water, and put it on the stove.

She scooped the gradually cooling lard into a jar, chatting idly with the old woman. When the aroma of rice began to waft out, she squatted down to rummage for the pickled vegetables at the bottom of the cabinet.

This jar was pickled separately yesterday and not mixed with the others. She took it out, looked at it, and said with satisfaction, “Although it’s not that yellow, it’s already sour. It’ll be perfect to stir-fry with the meat later. It’ll definitely be appetizing.”

The grandmother and granddaughter had just had a tiff, so neither of them spoke.

After finishing chopping the firewood, Jiang Huaizhen sat down at the door and continued to weave the unfinished winnowing basket.

Lin Shuang washed the pickled vegetables and, while chopping them, asked, “Are we building the kang tomorrow? Winter is coming soon, and it will need to dry for a few days before we can use it.”

Jiang Huaizhen didn’t look up. “We’ll build it tomorrow.”

Old Madam Jiang didn’t know what they had discussed earlier and asked, “What kang?”

Lin Shuang deliberately remained silent.

Jiang Huaizhen patiently explained, “It’s an earthen bed that can be heated by a fire underneath in the winter.”

“Wouldn’t sleeping on that be like being fried like a pancake?” Old Madam Jiang said in surprise.

Only then did Lin Shuang interject, “No, it won’t. The surface of the kang is very thick, and the fire isn’t that strong. If you add some firewood before you go to sleep, it will stay warm all night.”

Old Madam Jiang clicked her tongue. “This old woman has slept on a wooden bed all her life and has been very comfortable. I’m not sleeping on that pancake griddle.”

Lin Shuang had seen the benefits of the kang and was amused by her stubbornness. A smile touched the corner of her lips. “You just wait and see.”

The old woman looked unimpressed.

She had bought two catties of pork belly at the market today. Lin Shuang didn’t plan to cook it all at once. She saved half, lightly fried it in oil, and buried it in the lard jar to make preserved meat, which wouldn’t spoil.

She sliced the remaining half and dry-fried it in the lard pan to render the fat, then added the pickled vegetables.

There was plenty of oil, and the fire was strong. A lick of flame from the sputtering oil ignited in the pan, and the pork slices sizzled.

The entire kitchen was filled with the aroma of meat. She added two cloves of garlic, and the fragrance was so strong it felt like her nose would explode.

While stir-frying, Lin Shuang asked, “The smoke is a bit thick. Does Great-grandmother want to go outside and sit?”

But the old woman was unwilling. She liked the smell of smoke and fire. It had been over two years since she had experienced a kitchen filled with such a lively atmosphere. When it came to cooking, she couldn’t rely on her own granddaughter at all.

The pickled vegetables had been blanched in boiling water before being pickled, so they just needed to be stir-fried briefly to release their flavor before being taken out of the pot.

After the pickled vegetables were done, the pork bone soup with radish and yam was also served. Jiang Huaizhen got a shorter chair for the old woman and then helped to serve the rice.

The old woman’s bowl was filled with bone broth, milky white.

The pork belly stir-fried with pickled vegetables was glistening with oil and looked very appetizing.

“Let’s eat,” Old Madam Jiang said.

The three of them began to eat.

Old Madam Jiang seemed to be in better spirits today, and her appetite was better than yesterday. The radish from the pork bone soup was very sweet, and she ate three pieces in a row. She didn’t eat much of the stir-fried pork with pickled vegetables, but the two young girls piled the pickled vegetables and stir-fried meat on top of their fragrant rice and ate with great relish.

Seeing them eat so quickly, she couldn’t help but nag, “Eat slowly, no one is going to snatch it from you—”

Lin Shuang looked up from her bowl. “When you’re willing to use enough oil in your stir-fry, it’s really delicious. Mixed with rice, I can eat three big bowls.”

She didn’t eat three big bowls, but after two bowls of rice and two bowls of soup, she was full.

The two of them had finished all the stir-fried pork with pickled vegetables, but half a pot of soup was left, which would be used to make dough drop soup the next morning.

Jiang Huaizhen conscientiously went to wash the dishes.

Lin Shuang helped the old woman back to her room to rest, then sat at the kitchen door and watched her clean up.

This person had been emotionally stable since she had returned. It was impossible to tell if today’s execution had affected her.

Lin Shuang guessed that it must have had some effect, but at least for now, Jiang Huaizhen was normal. She could eat well, and she was still emotionally stable no matter what the old woman said, showing no signs of talking back.

So what had happened later to make Jiang Huaizhen become as lifeless as a dead person?

She couldn’t figure it out, so she had to put it aside for now.

“Jiang Huaizhen, do I have some good qualities?” she asked.

Hearing this, Jiang Huaizhen’s hands paused slightly, and she replied with a “yes.”

Lin Shuang was very satisfied with this answer. She stretched her arms, yawned, and turned to look at the sky, which was shrouded in twilight, with a sliver of sunset tearing through the gray mist.

She had lived two lives. The first sixteen years were at the Lin residence, where she was disliked by her aunt and uncle and never had enough to eat. The next eleven years were at the Qin residence, where she lived in constant fear, as if walking on thin ice, with year after year of endless labor and a body ravaged by various drugs. She had never been as relaxed as she was now.

The old woman’s mouth was sharp and unforgiving, but she had still given her two copper coins to take a cart to the city when she went out. As for Jiang Huaizhen, there was even less to say. She was the one who had pulled her out of the abyss.

Her actual age was older than Jiang Huaizhen’s, but in front of this foolish girl, she was the one being taken care of.

But she felt that both the grandmother and granddaughter needed her.

She looked at the streak of red in the sky and, for the first time, thought the sky was so beautiful.

Jiang Huaizhen had appeared beside her at some point, wiping the water from her hands with a cloth.

“Didn’t you say you had a pair of shoe soles to get? It’s not dark yet. I’ll go and take a look.”

Lin Shuang hadn’t expected her to remember this. She was happy and interested. “Are we going now?”

“Not we, I’m going,” Jiang Huaizhen corrected her. “Where did you put them?”

“Under the mat. If they haven’t changed the mat, they might not have found it,” Lin Shuang said hopefully.

The shoe soles were a perfect fit for Jiang Huaizhen’s current feet. She couldn’t bear to leave them for the Lin family.

“How are you going to get them?” she asked.

“The window in that room has a large gap. You can just use a stick to push up the latch. It’s not difficult to get in.”

Seeing that the other was about to leave, Lin Shuang quickly grabbed her arm. “I’ll go with you. I’ll just wait for you under the window. I won’t go in, okay?”

Jiang Huaizhen thought for a moment. “Alright. If we’re discovered, we’ll just take it openly.”

Lin Shuang winked at her. “Don’t worry. They’re usually eating dinner in the other room at this time. It’s the perfect time to go now.”