Chapter 18: You Are Inquiring About Baoshan?Translator: Flying Lines
Proofread by Claire.KK
Xiao Baoshan came back soon. This time, he brought some pig offal back again. He said that one of his peers killed pigs at home. The extra pig offal can be sold to him cheaply.
He was still thinking about the flavour of it since he ate the pig offal Ye Xiaoxian cooked yesterday so he bought more today.
Once Ye Xiaoxian saw the pig offal, she came over, took and cleaned it.
“Sister-in-law, are you going to fry the pig offal again like you did last night?” Xiao Baofeng came over and sat on his heels beside Ye Xiaoxian.
Xiao Baofeng was only eight but he looked very smart and his features were quite similar to Xiao Baoshan. He must be a handsome guy when he grew up.
“Not really,” said Ye Xiaoxian smilingly, “How can we stick to the same flavour all day long? I’ make sauté pig offal with pickled cabbage. Baofeng, you go to the next door and ask auntie Zhao if they have any pickled cabbage. If they have some, we can exchange them with some of little dried fish.”
Baofeng ran out hurriedly and excitedly and came back in a minute. He went back with a handful pickled cabbage and then he started to help Ye Xiaoxian to cook dinner.
Ye Xiaoxian suddenly felt pity for Xiao Baofeng.
“Baofeng, you’re eight years old, aren’t you?” asked Ye Xiaoxian.
“Yes, I am!” answered Baofeng while washing the pickled cabbage.
“Don’t you want to go to private school?”
“I do, but Ma said that we don’t have money so I have to wait to go to private school,” said Xiao Baofeng with a sense of loss.
“What about your second brother? Did he ever go to private school?”
“Well…” Xiao Baofeng thought about it carefully and then shook his head, “I don’t know. Ma didn’t mention it. I only know that my second brother left home a long time ago and just came back recently.”
Ye Xiaoxian was still trying to say something and she didn’t notice that Li Hongmei came cover and chuckled. “Little Ye, are you inquiring about Baoshan? Why don’t you ask me?”
“Ma…” Ye Xiaoxian blushed, like being caught on the spot of doing sneaky things.
“Ha-ha-ha, Baoshan went to a private school, but only for two years. He knows how to read and that’s all. Later, the village forced young men to join the army and your elder brother…Alas, I don’t want to mention him. Baoshan was the only man in our family who could go. I hadn’t heard from Baoshan for so many years. I thought he was gone. Now he’s back. It’s so nice… ”
Tears shined in Li Hongmei’s eyes while she was telling the story.
Ye Xiaoxian felt warm in her heart.
In her previous life, she came from a single-parent family. She had hardly experienced the warmth of the family. She had never cared about anyone or being cared by anyone. Now she had a new family. This feeling was really good.
…
Tonight, there were three dishes; one was sautéed pig offal with pickles, the second was sautéed fish with wild vegetables. In addition, ye Xiaoxian also cooked a soup with pig liver and wild vegetables. Usually It was clearly the most disliked food among others, but because it was made by Ye Xiaoxian, the soup tasted delicious.
Before the meal, Xiao Baoshan asked Xiao Baofeng to bring half a bowl of sautéed pig intestine with pickles to old Mr. Xiao, so that he would not listen to the other two households’ slanderous talks and scolded Li Hongmei and her family again by saying the third household never cooked good food for him.
After that, the family gathered around the crude table and had their dinner contentedly. Although it seemed simple and common, everyone’s face was beaming with happiness.
Ye Xiaoxian felt happy when she saw others have their food happily,
As a chef, the happiest thing is to make the diners have a great time to enjoy the food she made.
When they had almost done their dinner, Ye Xiaoxian started to talk with everyone about her thoughts. “Ma, Baoshan, I’d like to talk about the matter about Baofeng.”