Chapter 199 Uninvited Guest

It's been half a month since I picked up Mancang. He's been eating with me for half a month, and his cheeks have gotten a little fuller, but he's still thin overall. I still need to keep working on it.

There wasn't much work to do at home, and with Mancang here, I had a lot more free time.

Every morning, I would get up early to light the kang (a heated brick bed), and the task of tending the stove fell to Mancang. By the time I got up, the room was already warm and cozy.

These are things I never asked him to do; it's just that the child is quite self-disciplined.

However, there is one thing that bothers me: Mancang insists on going up the mountain to chop firewood every day, and I don't feel comfortable leaving him alone. So every day I have to add an extra activity: he has to wear thick clothes to go out and chop firewood.

I woke up this morning to the crackling sound of firewood burning in the stove, and the room was warm and cozy as soon as I got out of bed.

It feels so good to have a child; I'm finally free from that dreary, endless work of burning firewood.

Mancang was sitting on the sofa reading a comic book. He couldn't read, he just looked at the little figures inside.

Seeing that I was awake, he was very happy: "Aunt Cheng is awake! What's for breakfast?"

Yeah, what should we eat for breakfast?

I had just woken up, and my brain was still a little sluggish, so I couldn't react for a while.

I picked up Tiedan and stroked its fur. It seemed that since Mancang came to my house, it hadn't eaten a single sweet treat.

Kids definitely love sweets, so why not have some dessert for breakfast?

After getting dressed, I went to the kitchen. The water in the large iron pot was already boiling hot. I used half of it to cook feed for the livestock and scooped out the rest to make dough.

Using hot water to knead the dough will make the dough exceptionally soft.

Place rose petal jam, honey, or white sugar in the center of the rolled-out dough, and then gently roll it out with a rolling pin.

Make three of each flavor of sugar pancake, and you can eat them as a snack when you're feeling peckish.

The remaining dough will be used to make regular soft pancakes.

Take out a frying pan and place it on the stove. One by one, fragrant sugar pancakes are taken out of the pan. Mancang stands next to him and watches curiously, praising the aroma of the sugar pancakes as both fragrant and unique.

The stove in the east room couldn't be left idle either, so I cooked a radish soup to keep the pancakes from getting too dry later.

A large stack of pancakes came out of the pan, and the radish soup was also just cooked.

The two sat down at the table, eager to start their meal.

"This is a honey cake, you should try it."

When making pancakes, honey pancakes smell the sweetest, and I've been craving them for a long time.

One bite of the honey pancake reveals a soft, oily crust filled with piping hot honey syrup—hot, fragrant, and sweet, making it both delicious and stimulating.

Mancang winced as he was burned, but he was clearly overjoyed: "So sweet! Did they put sugar in it? Why does this sugar smell so good?"

"This is called honey. It's more fragrant than plain white sugar, and honey is good for your stomach."

I patiently explained things to Mancang, but the kid was like a wild man, not knowing what many things were.

"Honey?"

Mancang muttered the two words to himself as he ate the honey cake in small bites, savoring the taste.

After Mancang finished eating the honey cake, I gave him a sugar cake: "This is the real sugar cake. Try it and see if you can tell the difference."

He clearly liked the sugar cakes too. After taking a few bites, he thought for a moment and said in a very serious tone, "The sugar cakes are just sweet, and the honey cakes are fragrant, but both are delicious. The sugar cakes have the aroma of flour, and the honey cakes have the aroma of honey."

Mancang's serious demeanor made me think he had never eaten white sugar before: "Have you ever eaten it before?"

As expected, Mancang shook his head: "I've never eaten it. My third uncle said that sugar is a rare commodity that ordinary people can't afford. As for sweet things, I've only ever eaten crabapples and pears."

"I'll make you more desserts in the future, and you can try them all."

Upon hearing this, Mancang was even more delighted: "That's wonderful! Thank you, Aunt Cheng!"

I didn't dare let Mancang eat too many sugar cakes at once. I wrapped the rest in plastic wrap and put them in the kitchen, so we could eat them when we were craving something sweet.

We didn't even get to eat the regular fried pancakes; we were filled up with radish soup.

I tore three fried dough sticks into small pieces, mixed them with the rabbit blood I steamed yesterday, and then fed this culinary disaster to the dog.

Fortunately, neither the cats nor the dogs disliked its appearance and ate it with relish.

After breakfast, it's time to do something that makes me feel utterly hopeless—going out to chop wood.

Mancang felt that the woodpile at home was too small and worried all day that there wouldn't be enough firewood to burn, so he had to go up the mountain to chop firewood every day.

But I didn't feel comfortable letting him go alone, so I had to work with him.

Fortunately, the weather was nice today, even a bit sunny, which was some consolation.

Over the past few days, Mancang has become quite familiar with the dogs at home, and Xiaogua, Xiaosan, and Xiaosi especially enjoy playing with Mancang.

As soon as he leaves the yard, Mancang goes crazy with the dogs, running around in a chaotic mess.

Even when he was chopping wood on the mountain, several dogs would stick to Mancang and hinder him from working.

Fortunately, Mancang was quick and efficient. By the time I finished chopping a bundle of firewood, he had just finished his bundle as well.

They were playfully walking home when, just as they stepped off the earthen slope next to the vegetable garden, they saw an uninvited guest at their doorstep.

He subconsciously touched the crossbow and small silver pistol on his lower back; they were both there.

Feeling a little relieved, I turned to look at Mancang. Seeing that Mancang's face was deathly pale, I knew the identities of the people in front of me. They must be Mancang's third uncle's gang.

We're outside right now, and those guys are standing at the gate. The terrain isn't very advantageous for me, but we have firearms, so we don't need to worry too much.

The man in the lead was wearing a tattered black cotton-padded jacket, with his arms crossed over his chest and tucked into his sleeves, looking at me with an unfriendly expression.

Two men followed behind him, also dressed in tattered clothes and not particularly burly, both looking at me with displeasure.

The man in the lead spoke first: "So it was you who kidnapped our child?"

Upon hearing this, Mancang shrank back and quickly hid behind me.

Before I could speak, the man saw Mancang hiding behind me and immediately started yelling, "You good-for-nothing, hurry up and come over here!"

I scoffed, "What are you going there for? To let me beat him up?"

The man flew into a rage the moment he heard me speak: "You bitch, mind your own business! You kidnapped our child, and I haven't even settled accounts with you yet. How dare you open your mouth!"

Mancang's voice came from behind me: "Aunt Cheng, please, don't let him take me away, he'll beat me to death!"

I put my hand behind his back and patted his arm reassuringly: "Don't be afraid."

Seeing that we hadn't made a move, the man started walking towards us, still cursing: "You son of a bitch, I fed you, clothed you, raised you all these years, and now you've run away as soon as your wings have grown up. I'll break your legs when I get back!"

I didn't really want to pull out my gun. After all, he was Mancang's relative. It would be unacceptable to kill his uncle in front of Mancang.

"Calm down. Are you sure you want to take him back? Life is already so hard, do you really have enough food to feed another mouth?"