Xia Minmin was living a very comfortable life at her maternal grandparents' house, spending her days teasing cats and dogs, either eating pork stew at one house or roasted glutinous rice cakes at another.

Xia Minmin has a sweet tongue and a good memory; she greets acquaintances from a distance.

These days, during the Lunar New Year, whether it's slaughtering pigs, making glutinous rice cakes, or steaming buns, everyone helps each other out. Today they're at one house, tomorrow at another, and the host family is responsible for preparing lunch.

Xia Minmin enjoyed many delicious meals with her maternal grandmother; each family had a different level of skill in cooking, and each dish had its own unique flavor.

These past few years have been relatively good; almost every household has been able to slaughter a pig for their own consumption, and any extra pork has generally been preserved.

There were two large stoves in the backyard of Xia's maternal grandfather's house, which were specially built. The lids of the steamers on the stoves were made using the lever principle, which allowed them to be pulled up and down. Although Xia's maternal grandfather and his family had never been to school, they had a wealth of life experience.

As the Lunar New Year approached, many people came to borrow the stove every day to steam rice cakes or steamed buns. They could steam them all at once using Grandpa Xia's stove, whereas at home they might not be able to finish steaming them all in a day.

They all brought their own firewood to steam the rice cakes and would give some to Grandpa Xia afterward. The freshly steamed rice cakes were incredibly fragrant when dipped in brown sugar, and Xia Minmin loved to eat them.

When they get free meals, they inevitably have to perform reciting poems, and Xia Minmin uses this as a way to entertain her parents.

My cousin Li Qing was sent back home after only two days of helping out with Grandma Xia.

That day, Li Qing planned to go to a friend's house to do her winter vacation homework, but Xia Minmin, who had sharp eyes, saw her and insisted on going out with her.

Li Qing was unwilling; teenagers are most impatient with playing with other children. Grandma Xia had no choice but to let Li Qing take her to her friend's house.

On the way, Li Qing made a three-point agreement with Xia Minmin: no arguing and she had to walk by herself.

Xia Minmin obediently replied, "Okay."

Xia Minmin stood anxiously in front of Li Qing and her classmate's table. They had reached the last step, and they still had to use a pen to calculate such a simple multiplication. Xia Minmin blurted out the answer.

This shocked Li Qing and her classmate. As a result, Xia Minmin became their personal calculator, and they would tell her the answer whenever they needed to do a calculation.

Xia Minmin kept pushing Li Qing's limits.

Li Qing finished her math homework ahead of schedule. When she got home, Li Qing carried Xia Minmin on her back, ostensibly to reward Xia Minmin.

Xia Minmin could only helplessly accept her cousin Li Qing's treat, hoping that she wouldn't drop her, since she had gained quite a bit of weight at her maternal grandmother's house.

When Li Qing got home, she told Xia's maternal grandparents, "Xiao Min, your mental arithmetic ability is amazing."

Grandpa and Grandma Xia were illiterate. "Xiao Qing, what is mental arithmetic ability?"

Li Qing explained, "Simply put, it means calculating in your mind without using paper and pen. I tested Xiaomin and she can calculate three-digit addition, subtraction and multiplication."

"Xiaomin, you're so amazing! I only heard your aunt talk about two-digit numbers before, I didn't expect you could do three-digit numbers too," Grandma Xia replied.

Grandma Xia and Li Qing explained, "Some time ago, customers discovered that Xiaomin was very good at calculations, which attracted a lot of people to watch and buy goods. After that, your uncle and your father pooled their money to go to the wholesale market in the city to bring back a truckload of goods to sell. Everyone wanted to test Xiaomin's calculation ability."

After that, Li Qing became a little teacher and even dug out all of her elementary school textbooks to start teaching Xia Minmin.

Xia Minmin, perhaps due to some kind of cheat code, has a very clear mind and understands things very quickly. She can even help Li Qing with her math homework.

Time passed amidst the eating and drinking until the day when Grandpa Xia slaughtered the New Year's pig. Grandpa Xia got up before dawn to make preparations, as many people were coming to help out that day, and he had to treat them well.

It has to be said that Xia Minmin has been a reckless and bold person since she was a child, and she would always watch closely every time a pig was slaughtered for the New Year.

Listening to the boar's roar, the pig's blood slowly dripped into the prepared bucket. Xia Minmin loved to eat fresh pig's blood stewed with tofu mixed with rice; just thinking about it made her mouth water.

Today, we're not only slaughtering the pig for the New Year, but also making fried meatballs, fried meat slices, and fried sweet potato balls. All of these need to be prepared and fried in advance, which will make things much easier when guests arrive.

Xia Minmin also ran over to help make dumplings, but unfortunately her hands were too small, and the dumplings she made were also small. The old lady in charge of making dumplings thought Xia Minmin was causing trouble and chased her away.

Unemployed, Xia Minmin could only squat by the stove and wait for her grandfather to feed her. Every time the food was cooked, he would give it to Xia Minmin to eat, saying that he wanted her to taste it.

After finishing her homework, Li Qing also ran over and squatted down next to Xia Minmin, waiting for Xia's maternal grandfather to feed her.

Xia Minmin took two sweet potatoes and put them in the stove, preparing to roast them. She hadn't eaten roasted sweet potatoes like this for many years.

Li Qing laughed at her for being so small yet having such a big belly, saying she still wanted to eat more after eating so much.

Xia Minmin and Li Qing ate until their mouths were covered in oil and they kept burping. Seeing this, Xia's grandfather quickly found some hawthorn pills for them to eat.

Grandpa Xia thought to himself, "These two children are suddenly eating so much oily food, they might have stomach aches tonight, especially since Xia Minmin is only a little over two years old."

Grandpa Xia sent the two of them upstairs to do their homework.

Having eaten and drunk her fill, Xia Minmin just wanted to sleep. She instructed Li Qing to take off her clothes, then snuggled into the blankets and fell asleep soon after.

Li Qing glanced at Xia Minmin as she tucked the blanket around her, then turned around and started doing her homework. She couldn't let someone so young surpass her. Although things weren't that far off now, she still had to work hard and compare herself to her past self.

Grandma Xia came up to check on the two little ones, and finding that they weren't being naughty, she went back down to continue her work.

It was already past noon when they ate the pork stew. Grandma Xia came upstairs to help Xia Minmin get dressed.

Li Qing mocked Xia Minmin for not knowing how to dress herself at her age, and Xia Minmin immediately retorted, "You're so old and you still can't do mental arithmetic."

Xia Minmin made a funny face at Li Qing, which made Li Qing so angry that she wanted to hit her.

Grandma Xia grabbed one of them by the hand and said, "Alright, alright, you two, hurry up and go downstairs, or all the good food will be eaten up."

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