Chapter 143: Having a Great Chat!
Jian Xingxia had originally planned to stay with Auntie Lu and the plump auntie for a while to make sure everything was fine before leaving them to their own devices.
However, the moment she returned to the old house, her steps were completely brought to a halt by the guests.
The guests who had previously gone to the greenhouse to pick fruit were currently strolling around everywhere holding their small fruit baskets, making the guests who hadn’t gone incredibly envious. They pestered Jian Xingxia, demanding to go picking as well.
Jian Xingxia could only soothe them, “The greenhouse yield is limited. To guarantee everyone’s picking and taste-testing experience, it can only open twice a day—once at ten in the morning, and once at two in the afternoon. If any guests wish to go picking, please gather in the central hall at that time.”
Looking at the tourists who were rubbing their hands in anticipation—some had even begun asking Lin Sanniang how much a bamboo basket cost—Jian Xingxia hurriedly emphasized, “The purchase limit is five catties per person, and the picking time is limited to half an hour. Any excess will be reclaimed by our manor to be used as complimentary fruit pairings for dinner.”
She absolutely wouldn’t let them exploit a loophole—things like harvesting everything anyway and then leaving her with no choice but to either let them buy it or let them eat it on the spot.
Sure enough, upon hearing this, the tourists felt a bit discouraged.
“Manor Owner, you’re truly being too stingy. Yesterday when you went to our residential complex to sell fruit, there weren’t any purchase limits. Now that we’ve come all the way into the mountains, you’re actually slapping a purchase limit on us!” a repeat customer complained half-jestingly.
Jian Xingxia smiled. “There’s simply no helping it; the greenhouse yield is limited. Doing this guarantees that whenever everyone comes to play in the future, there will definitely be fruit available to pick.”
“If we didn’t do this, and everyone arrived only to be told the fruit had been completely cleared out over the previous two days… wouldn’t that make people feel even more miserable?”
Everyone thought about it and realized she had a point. Although the purchase limit was annoying right now, it was still far better than having someone clear out everything all at once, leaving the subsequent guests completely empty-handed.
While Jian Xingxia was soothing the tourists here, she also had to arrange the lunchtime seating in batches, while working with Lin Sanniang to timely restock the snacks and beverages that had sold out.
Over on the other side, Auntie Lu had already ducked into the kitchen and crossed paths with the plump auntie.
Auntie Lu carried the two baskets of heavy bowls and plates into the kitchen.
There, she spotted the auntie currently busying herself before the hearth.
Auntie Lu’s eyes widened—You have to hand it to her, the person Xiaxia hired is truly excellent. Look at this attire, look at this posture; she’s a textbook image of a peasant cook straight out of a period drama!
The auntie turned her head and spotted Auntie Lu as well.
With this look, she was a bit dazed. “Elder Sister, how come you aren’t wearing a skirt?”
The attire in the auntie’s era was roughly identical to Lin Sanniang’s and the others—inside were chemises and trousers, and outside was a skirt. It was just that wealthy people’s skirts were long, enough to cover the tops of their feet or even hide them completely. But for poor households who had to work the fields and travel, and for whom frequent washing wasn’t convenient, making them reach below the knee, around the calf, or at the ankle was perfectly fine.
But no matter what, one standardly had to slip into a skirt. Otherwise, this posture would likely be equivalent to a modern person running around everywhere wearing only underwear.
However, Auntie Lu clearly didn’t comprehend the auntie’s meaning. As a modern person, never mind long trousers—even short pants were perfectly fine for her to wear whenever she wanted.
Thus, Auntie Lu answered honestly, “Wearing trousers makes it convenient to work; a skirt just gets in the way.”
These words landed in the auntie’s ears, prompting another round of deep thought.
True indeed. She noticed Owner Xiaxia standardly wore only trousers, and Mistress Lin sometimes wore a skirt and sometimes wore trousers. It really was convenient for working, and it was even cooler during the blistering heat.
The auntie looked down at her own skirt hem pinned to her waist. After a moment of thought, she decisively untied the skirt and set it aside.
“To hell with all these inner and outer layers! This old lady gets hot enough just cooking; the fewer layers I wear, the better!”
The auntie was perfectly carefree, and Auntie Lu instantly cheered up inside—This sister isn’t as difficult to get along with as Xiaxia said at all! Xiaxia had claimed she had a fierce temper, but Auntie Lu felt it wasn’t fierce in the slightest.
Auntie Lu placed the bowls and plates into a large stainless steel basin, preparing to start washing dishes. Xiaxia had told her that the bowls borrowed from the village needed to be sanitized with boiling water.
So Auntie Lu asked the auntie, “Sister, do you have hot water? It’s best if it’s freshly boiled.”
The auntie told her generously, “The fire under the hearth hasn’t stopped, so there’s plenty of hot water. Use as much as you like!” With that, she even helped Auntie Lu scoop the water.
Before long, Auntie Lu sat before the large steel basin and began washing dishes.
Running a guesthouse was truly no light chore. Only a dozen or so people had eaten breakfast this morning, yet they had somehow generated over a hundred bowls.
A single look prompted Auntie Lu to remark, “If I hadn’t come today, with just this amount of bowls alone, how long would it have taken Xiaxia to wash them all!” Auntie Lu actually felt she had arrived too late.
She casually asked the auntie next, “You still arrived earlier than me, Sister.”
The auntie shook her head. “I didn’t arrive early either. I was still working the fields this morning. By the time I received the word, the sun was already high in the sky. I rushed over here as fast as I could and have only just arrived myself, getting the soup simmering and whipping up two dishes.”
Hearing this, Auntie Lu harbored even fewer suspicions.
See? She knew the villagers hadn’t spotted when the auntie and A-Feng had come up. They hadn’t arrived early in the morning; since they arrived so late, they had likely ridden in the car of one of those repeat customers.
Particularly when the auntie mentioned she had been working the fields this morning, Auntie Lu felt an even deeper sense of kinship.
“Sister, you’re from the countryside too?”
“Indeed, it isn’t far, just over in those mountains.” The auntie nodded.
That made it even more understandable. The mountains were like that—there was only one highway passing through Lu’an Village to get to town. But in reality, where couldn’t one walk in the massive mountains? The narrow mountain paths were all trodden out by human feet; although vehicles couldn’t pass, it was perfectly normal for a person or two to walk through.
Xiaxia’s grandmother had leased so many mountain peaks, and sometimes she would hire people to tend to them. Some people who couldn’t be bothered to detour around the main road would simply cut through the mountains to get here.
Auntie Lu didn’t suspect a thing, but she was a bit concerned. She asked the auntie carefully, “Sister, aren’t you afraid of walking the mountain paths alone?”
The auntie thought for a moment and said, “I was scared at first. The mountains make a lot of noise—the trees, the grass—sometimes it makes a person feel a bit creeped out, not knowing what on earth is causing the racket.”
“But later on, I felt it was nothing. My old mother passed away, and whenever I occasionally hear some noises, I just treat it as my mother.” For instance, this time—wasn’t it her mother who had guided her, letting her come to work in the mountains? The auntie felt rather pensive.
She was over fifty, and Uncle Lu was sixty; the parents of both had long since passed away.
Hearing the auntie say that whenever she encountered strange noises, she just treated it as her parents, Auntie Lu felt an immense resonance in her heart.
“My mom… uh, my mother,” Auntie Lu corrected her phrasing, mimicking the auntie’s vocabulary in an effort not to cause trouble for Xiaxia’s manor. “The second year after my mother passed away, I went to visit her grave. That joss paper just kept drifting toward my hands, exactly like when my old mother was still alive. Sigh… a mother can never truly let go of her children.”
The auntie twitched her nose. “I often dream of my mother too.”
The two of them, well into their years and both having lost their mothers, felt a trace of heartache whenever the topic of mothers was raised.
As they chatted, the two worked at full tilt—there were only forty minutes left before mealtime, so Auntie Lu had to hurry and get the bowls washed. Over on her side, the auntie was also making her spatula fly.
The kitchen was buzzing with bustling heat, and the two exchanged a few words every now and then, looking perfectly harmonious and wonderful.
