Chapter 42: Fried Eggs

Having his intentions seen through, the young lad felt a little embarrassed, but still dashed off outside in a flash. Left alone in the house, the village chief looked at the sunflower seed shells he had cracked and savored the lingering taste in his mouth.

Such was the terrifying power of sunflower seeds; otherwise, the chief wouldn’t have agreed to it.

His grandson had clearly observed the chief’s expression and knew those seeds were truly delicious. As a ghost, the grandson also genuinely wanted to taste what good food was like. This temptation was irresistible to these ghosts, which was why he dashed out so quickly to gather people, ready to start working.

Huang Wei returned home first, planning to prepare some lunch.

While washing vegetables, she spotted the chili peppers in the kitchen. It reminded her of the peppers she’d been in the middle of sun-drying during the last cycle. She shook the water off her hands and went to ask Cheng Luyun, “Where are the chili peppers I dried?”

Cheng Luyun instinctively wanted to play dumb again, but then recalled there didn’t seem much point in playing dumb with Huang Wei anymore, so she returned the peppers to her.

Wearing an expression that clearly said, I knew my peppers would survive into this cycle, Huang Wei said nothing and took the peppers to the courtyard. She made a few dishes for lunch. After eating, she squatted in the courtyard, getting ready to make chili sauce.

Huang Wei peeled a large pile of garlic cloves. After chopping the chili peppers, she added the minced garlic, then various seasonings, and packed it all into jars. Looking at the jar of chili sauce she’d filled, she felt it wasn’t enough. She told Cheng Luyun, “I’ll make more when I have time. Remember to hide it well for me—don’t let it get reset. Also, I’m going to build a house next to the guesthouse. Remember that too!”

Cheng Luyun truly didn’t know where Huang Wei got the nerve to speak to her like that. Yet she hesitated, her little hand that wanted to act clenching and unclenching, ultimately unable to strike Huang Wei down. She recalled the image of Huang Wei chopping peppers moments ago, wearing plastic gloves as she stirred the peppers ceaselessly, the minced garlic and seasonings mixing in, releasing an intensely appetizing chili aroma. Cheng Luyun decided to hold back for now.

If she refused now, she probably wouldn’t get any chili sauce later; Huang Wei certainly wouldn’t make any more.

Left with no choice, Cheng Luyun tilted her head, and nodded.

Not long after Huang Wei finished making the chili sauce, someone came to her door. The first to arrive was, unexpectedly, Sister Cui, their next-door neighbor. She was holding Big Ya’s hand in one hand and Little Ya’s in the other. Huang Wei was still a bit stunned when she heard Sister Cui ask, “Brother Wei, are you looking for people to build a house? I heard meals are provided. Could… could I come help? I won’t eat, just let my two little ones have a bite.”

Huang Wei lowered her head and looked at Big Ya and Little Ya, especially Big Ya. The scene of Big Ya handing her the fire tongs in the last cycle was still vivid in her mind. Huang Wei actually really wanted to say Big Ya could come help too.

But then she considered Big Ya’s young age. Hiring her would be child labor; it wasn’t appropriate. She turned back to Sister Cui, her eyes showing hesitation.

Sister Cui had helped look after Huang Chengcheng several times for their family. Logically, Huang Wei should have visited Sister Cui’s house to repay the kindness with some homemade food. But Huang Wei had been so busy trying to secure her footing in Cheng Luyun’s household that she’d completely forgotten. Now that Sister Cui was speaking like this, it actually made Huang Wei feel terribly ashamed.

But Sister Cui misinterpreted Huang Wei’s meaning. Seeing that expression, she thought Huang Wei doubted her ability to build a house. Sister Cui immediately panicked. She truly doted on her two girls. Whenever Huang Chengcheng came over to play with Big Ya and Little Ya, she loved to boast about how delicious the food at her house was. Big Ya and Little Ya didn’t say anything during meals, but chewing their utterly flavorless food, it would be a lie to say they weren’t envious.

Sister Cui saw this and felt it in her heart. If there was ever a chance, she really wanted Big Ya and Little Ya to taste the food from Huang Chengcheng’s house.

Now the chance had arrived. Sister Cui didn’t want to let it slip through her fingers for anything.

Besides, the village chief’s grandson had already said Brother Wei actually knew they were all ghosts. Sister Cui bit her lip, glanced at Cheng Luyun, and saw she showed no reaction at all. She took a deep breath, then faced Huang Wei and spoke. “Don’t think I’m weak just because I look thin—I can really work! I can lift anything, no matter how heavy! And I’m quick with my hands, my work speed is exceptionally fast.”

“Sister Cui, that’s not what I meant…”

Before Huang Wei could finish her sentence, she watched Sister Cui perform a transformation right before her eyes.

She was likely truly afraid Huang Wei wouldn’t hire her, so she transformed right there in front of Huang Wei—into that spider-human form from before. Huang Wei’s heart clenched. She saw Big Ya standing there saying, “Uncle, I can help too! I’m also very strong!” As she spoke, her entire body turned pitch-black, as if black ink might drip from her at any moment.

Little Ya looked at Big Ya and her own mother, hesitated, and then said in a crisp voice, “Uncle, actually, I can also…”

One inky black oil person, one spider-human. Seeing the two of them standing together nearly scared Huang Wei into fainting.

Huang Wei stopped Little Ya. “No, no need. Your mom and your sister are enough. Your sister too—she’s too young to work for me. Just Sister Cui helping me is fine.”

Only because she said this did Little Ya not give Huang Wei another heart-stopping surprise.

Hearing Huang Wei’s words, even the oily black humanoid’s face broke into a smile. Fortunately, Big Ya wasn’t currently equipped with her extra-long fire tongs, or else she’d have made Huang Wei recall even more vividly her previous actions and the image of Wang Ling’s death.

But what Huang Wei hadn’t expected was that before the two ghosts could transform back, the players opened the door and walked into the courtyard. It was only then that Huang Wei remembered: she hadn’t made lunch for the players.

Upon entering and seeing two ghosts, the players’ faces changed. The captain immediately assumed an attack stance. Even Auntie Wang’s face was grim.

Huang Wei froze. She instinctively reached out a hand to stop the players. “Don’t panic! They’re on our side!”

At Huang Wei’s words, both sides lowered their offensive postures, and the situation, which had been on the verge of exploding, dissipated into nothing. Sister Cui and her daughter Big Ya looked at each other, then transformed back into human shapes. Seeing their true appearances made the players even more terrified.

Damn, they’d been out scouting for half a day and hadn’t gotten a single piece of intel. To think the monsters were right under their noses.

They didn’t dare go to the Back Mountain either, afraid of a total party wipe in a single careless moment, which would mean the 7200 points they’d just paid would instantly go down the drain. They’d only dared to ask around in the village, getting absolutely nowhere. The moment they returned to the guide’s house, they were greeted head-on by two plainly formidable monsters. Before they could even react, the two monsters reverted to their original forms, and the players immediately recognized them as the neighbors next door who had greeted them just that morning when they left.

At this moment, the players’ emotions were rather peculiar.

Before Huang Wei could even speak, Sister Cui felt rather embarrassed and was about to take her two little ones and leave, planning to head to the worksite that afternoon to help build the house. Seeing Sister Cui’s silhouette, Huang Wei called her back, telling her to bring Big Ya and Little Ya along to have a bite to eat.

As she said this, she also greeted the players, telling them to sit in the main hall for a moment while she went to prepare some food.

Since she’d been busy all afternoon, Huang Wei didn’t want to make anything too elaborate and decided to do something simple. The simplest thing was to boil noodles. The previous evening, while prepping veggies, Huang Wei had done a lot of prep work to make good food for this morning, including making some fresh noodles. She hadn’t cooked them for breakfast, but now they came in handy.

With the noodles already made, the rest was much simpler. Huang Wei grabbed four or five tomatoes, a string of lean pork, a bunch of scallions, and two heads of garlic. After washing them clean, she entered the kitchen. Huang Wei was going to make tomato and minced meat sauce noodles. The noodles themselves were easy: boil, scoop out, and rinse in cold water. The key was how to make the sauce.

She chopped the tomatoes into small pieces, minced the lean pork into a paste, sliced the scallions, and finely chopped the garlic into minced pieces. With the prep work done, she mixed the sauce beforehand. Since there were many people, Huang Wei used a correspondingly large bowl, adding suitable amounts of light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, salt, sugar, and then a bowl of water-and-starch slurry.

When the wok on the coal stove was hot, she added the minced meat, stir-frying until it changed color. Then she added the scallions and garlic to enhance the aroma. In moments, the scent of scallions and garlic mingled with the meaty aroma and surged upward. At this point, she added the tomato chunks. To make it delicious, she had to let the tomatoes release their juices, so she used the spatula to press down on the tomato chunks. Before long, the tomato chunks were crushed flat, mixing with the minced meat into a tomato and meat sauce.

Once it reached this stage, she poured in the prepared sauce mixture. Very quickly, the tomato and meat sauce was ready.

If there was tomato ketchup, adding it would make the tomato’s sourness more pronounced. But Huang Wei had checked the kitchen and found no ketchup, so she let it go. Fresh tomatoes were just as delicious.

The tomatoes Cheng Luyun had provided were excellent quality, looking dewy and fresh after being washed. Huang Wei was even tempted to engage in a little chef’s thievery and eat a tomato first to taste it.

With the tomato meat sauce stir-fried, she scooped it out and set it aside. After cleaning the wok, she poured in hot water. When the water boiled, she added the noodles. After three boils, once they were cooked, she placed them into the cold water she’d prepared beforehand. The heat dissipated, the cold water rinsed over them, and the noodles were done. Huang Wei placed nine bowls on the earthen stovetop and distributed the noodles in order.

One pot of noodles wasn’t enough. Huang Wei boiled two large pots before all nine bowls were filled with noodles. Fortunately, she’d made plenty of tomato meat sauce. Each bowl got a large spoonful, and everything was ready.

Huang Wei called for people to come serve themselves; she didn’t want to expend any more effort. Once the nine bowls were taken away, Cheng Luyun and Huang Chengcheng came into the kitchen. Huang Chengcheng gazed at Huang Wei eagerly, her big eyes silently screaming, “Hungry! Food!”

Cheng Luyun stood behind her, not saying a word, but clearly meaning the same thing.

“…” Huang Wei was speechless. Her first instinct was to ask if they hadn’t had enough at lunch. But then she thought—they were ghosts; they probably had no concept of “full” at all.

Huang Wei sighed and resigned herself to her fate. “You two go out for a bit. I’ll boil some more noodles for you.” Fortunately, there was still plenty of tomato meat sauce left. She only needed to cook more noodles.

Huang Wei boiled another two large bowls of noodles. She brought out two huge bowls of noodles for Huang Chengcheng and Cheng Luyun, and out of favoritism, she even slipped a soft-boiled fried egg into each of their bowls. This left the mother-daughter pair completely satisfied as they carried their noodles to the main hall.

Huang Chengcheng held her big bowl of noodles, the fried egg sitting right on top, her face brimming with happiness.

When eating the egg, she deliberately lifted it high with her chopsticks, her expression utterly smug, as if saying: You don’t have any! Only me and Mom do!

The players looked at their large bowls, then back at their own…

Life was becoming unbearable. They’d just paid their rent and meal fees, and already their treatment had dropped; they didn’t even get a fried egg.