That voice sounded somewhat familiar!
In the pitch black, under the faint moonlight, Jiang Jingyi, standing beside his stepmother, secretly glanced at her and felt a chill in his heart.
My stepmother's smile is so creepy!
Liu Tianming and Uncle Liu also heard the noise from the kitchen, and tiptoed out of the inner room and headed towards the kitchen.
Jiang Hua had somehow managed to grab a stick as thick as an arm and swung it down.
"Ouch—! It hurts so much!"
A shrill scream rang out, but it was too late; the sticks had already fallen on them simultaneously.
The kitchen was pitch black, and it was unclear where the blow was coming from, but even so, Jiang Hua showed no mercy.
"Stop hitting him! That voice sounds so familiar!" Uncle Liu shouted.
Liu Tianming also felt the name was familiar, so he took out a tinderbox and lit the candle.
"Grandma Xu, Aunt Xu, what are you doing here!" Liu Tianming exclaimed in disbelief, then noticed that they were holding bamboo shoots in their arms.
"Grandma Xu, Aunt Xu, could you be the thieves who stole the bamboo shoots?"
At this moment, Madam Xu and Madam Xu had been beaten black and blue and had not yet recovered from the pain.
"Oh my god, how dare they hit an old woman like this! This is outrageous!" After regaining her senses, Madam Xu immediately started acting like a spoiled child on the ground.
"Big Xu, you were the one who stole the bamboo shoots first, weren't you?" Aunt Liu said, somewhat speechless, looking at Big Xu's shameless behavior.
"Stepmother, should I go to the village chief's house and call him over?" Jiang Jingyi asked considerately as he walked over, holding a lantern with a lit candle.
"No, don't go to the village chief!" Madam Xu immediately stopped her act of being unreasonable and stopped her.
“My bamboo shoots cost two coins each at the market. If you don’t want to see the village chief, then you’ll have to pay for them. Today, twenty bamboo shoots were lost from my yard, which is forty coins,” Jiang Hua said coldly to Da Xu Shi and Xu Shi.
"Are you robbing me?" Xu dropped the bamboo shoots in her hand, stood up, and was about to point her finger at Jiang Hua and start cursing.
When he met Jiang Hua's eyes, he withdrew his hand.
"What evidence do you have to prove that we took your twenty bamboo shoots?" Xu asked rhetorically, her eyes darting around.
"If you don't admit it, then make a big fuss about it. Anyway, it's not me who will be affected. What if the teachers of Shifang Academy find out?"
"Xu Yaozu's family steals chickens and dogs in the village, doing petty theft. I wonder if Shifang Academy will still accept him as a student," Jiang Hua kindly reminded him.
"Jiang Hua, are you threatening your family with your brother's career?" Madam Xu also dropped the bamboo shoots she was holding and asked with a dark face.
"As expected, you're an ungrateful wretch. It's just a matter of a few bamboo shoots; we'll give you the money."
"Huahua, Madam Xu has already given the money, so let's just let this matter go. Besides, the village chief is also..." Aunt Liu didn't finish her sentence, but everyone present understood what she meant.
"Liu family, there's no need for you to pretend to be nice here." With that, Madam Xu took out a worn-out money bag from her waist, counted out forty coins, and forcefully placed them on the stove.
"Once my son Yaozu becomes the top scholar in the imperial examination, he will definitely not let you off the hook."
After uttering those harsh words, Madam Xu didn't forget to take the basket she had brought to carry the bamboo shoots with her as she left.
"Aren't you leaving yet?" Jiang Hua asked, looking at Xu Shi who still hadn't reacted.
Seeing that Madam Xu had left, Madam Xu dared not linger any longer and fled in panic as well.
"Huahua, what if Xu Yaozu really becomes the top scholar in the imperial examination? Will he really be the first to not let us go, just like what Madam Xu said?" Aunt Liu asked with some worry.
She knew the Xu family well, and even understood their personalities; they were all vengeful.
"Auntie, why think so much? Do you really think the top scholar is like a vegetable, something they can just pick from their own garden?" Jiang Hua said casually.
Xu Yaozu was truly talented in this area; otherwise, he wouldn't have remained a mere student for three years after passing the preliminary examination.
"Huahua is right." Uncle Liu agreed with Jiang Hua. He knew perfectly well what the Xu family had done, even if they didn't say it outright.
We usually feel that we are all neighbors, and it would be bad to fall out. We often help each other out, after all, a close neighbor is worse than a distant relative.
However, he later witnessed firsthand the shamelessness of the Xu family, who took everyone's kindness towards them for granted.
They even had their family driven away when they set up a stall at the market. He also told his wife and son not to tell Huahua about this, so as not to cause her any trouble. That young master Ye was no ordinary person, and they couldn't fight against him.
He just didn't expect that Lin Shuyan, this girl, would be so cunning. Uncle Liu has lived half his life, how could he not see that Lin Shuyan and that Young Master Ye were playing good cop and bad cop respectively?
It was getting late, so Aunt Liu and her family didn't keep Jiang Hua any longer, only telling her to close the doors and windows before going to sleep.
After seeing Aunt Liu and the others off, Jiang Jingyi asked while taking off his coat:
"Stepmother, why don't we buy a dog to guard the house?"
“Your idea is good. We’ll go to town tomorrow,” Jiang Hua agreed.
In the morning, after finishing her training, Jiang Hua took out three preserved eggs from her spatial storage to make preserved egg and lean pork congee.
"Stepmother, what is this?" As soon as Jiang Jingyi walked in, he saw an egg on the chopping board that he had never seen before. It was neither a chicken egg nor a duck egg, and its color was strange.
“These are preserved eggs I made before, something new, of course you’ve never seen them before,” Jiang Hua said calmly.
Without stopping rinsing the rice, Jiang Hua put the rice into a clay pot to cook, and then pulled up the fresh pork hanging in the well.
Cut the pork into thin slices, add cornstarch, salt, rice wine, and shredded ginger, and mix well. The rice wine and shredded ginger can help remove the fishy smell. Finally, drizzle a little peanut oil to lock in the moisture.
Meat slices marinated this way won't be dry when cooked; they'll be tender and smooth.
After the pork was marinated, Jiang Hua started peeling the preserved eggs. After peeling the preserved eggs, she went home and found a clean thread to cut them into small pieces.
This method of cutting preserved eggs is cleaner and more efficient than cutting them directly with a kitchen knife, and the eggs won't stick to the knife.
After Jiang Hua finished processing, the rice in the pot had also started to bloom. She used hot water to cook it. Jiang Hua poured in the preserved eggs and marinated pork together and stirred it with a spoon.
After the meat slices were cooked, Jiang Hua added the pepper powder she had taken out from her space earlier. After stirring, the aroma was released. Finally, she added the chopped green onions and took it out of the pot.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
