Chapter 121: Taking Lessons
The sky brightened. Jiang Mianmian finished watching the sunrise and went back to take a short nap. Father had gone to work again.
When Jiang Mianmian woke up again, it was broad daylight.
The nap was very comfortable and deep.
She dressed herself, climbed up, and followed the smell to the kitchen.
In the kitchen, The Eldest Miss was standing energetically in front of the stove. The scent of rice drifted from the stove, and Jiang Mianmian felt hungry just smelling it.
Great-Aunt sat in front of the fire, adding firewood.
“When making this kind of pastry, the heat is very important. First, use high heat, and once it boils, switch to low heat and let it simmer slowly.”
Jiang Yu nodded earnestly.
Jiang Mianmian greeted them: “Good morning, Great-Aunt. Good morning, Sister.”
She thought to herself that although Great-Aunt was old, she was truly in good health. They had both gotten up to watch the sunrise, and after she had taken a nap, Great-Aunt was already up early.
Aunt Yin turned to look at the little girl at the door, who was constantly yawning, with messy hair and clothes, and wearing small grass slippers. She got up and helped the little girl dress properly again.
Then she took her to wash up and comb her hair.
The little one was very protective of her teeth; even though her baby teeth hadn’t grown in neatly yet, she still insisted on brushing them carefully.
Well, the obsession with cleanliness and the laziness—in some aspects, it seemed hereditary.
Aunt Yin was unfazed and diligently served her.
Damn it, she was supposed to be a teacher; why was she serving her again? It was so undignified.
Aunt Yin knelt on the ground to comb her hair, trying hard to keep one knee up.
As soon as she finished, the little girl leaned over and actually kissed her old face.
“Mwah!”
“Thank you, Great-Aunt.”
Aunt Yin wiped the saliva off her forehead, stunned for a moment.
Then she casually picked the little girl up.
“Are you hungry?”
Jiang Mianmian nodded and then shook her head.
“I want to poop.”
Aunt Yin:…
She took the little girl to the latrine.
Seeing the wooden bucket with a round cover on it, the little girl’s small bottom fit perfectly.
“Great-Aunt, you watch, I can’t get it out.”
Aunt Yin got up and went outside, standing there saying: “Let me know when you’re done.”
Standing outside watching a string of ants, she thought this was a rare sight. This lazy yet indulgent manner—she deserved to be royalty. Who else had a special tray for their bottom when pooping?
Smelling a faint odor, she heard the little girl shyly say she was done.
Aunt Yin went in, carefully cleaned the little girl’s bottom, and then earnestly inspected the stool.
Experienced old nannies who had served masters all knew how to look at stool.
The shape of the stool, whether it was continuous, whether it was hard, soft, or runny, and whether the color was right—through the stool, one could judge whether the master had been eating well, whether they needed to drink more water, or if they should eat less meat or less sugar.
When Aunt Yin cleaned it up, she checked it carefully.
It was a perfect stool, coiled, with moderate firmness, indicating the little girl was eating well and digesting well. It was just that the color seemed a bit dark; she didn’t know what she had eaten.
Jiang Mianmian stood further away with some disgust.
Even though it was her own, she didn’t want to smell it; it was stinky.
She was curious to see Great-Aunt observing her stool…
This… Great-Aunt had peculiar hobbies.
After dealing with the stool, Aunt Yin stood up, feeling a bit dizzy from squatting too long.
Mainly because she hadn’t slept well last night.
Actually, she also paid great attention to health in her daily life.
In the palace, if you were in poor health and sickly, you would have been killed long ago.
Good health was the foundation of everything.
She needed to catch up on sleep today.
Aunt Yin washed her hands and saw the little girl coming over to hold her hand, feeling both angry and amused.
Returning to the kitchen, she saw The Eldest Miss digging sweet potatoes out of the fire.
Seeing them come in, she said excitedly: “Great-Aunt, Sister, the sweet potatoes are roasted, come quickly.”
Aunt Yin:…
Case solved.
Eating too many roasted sweet potatoes would cause the stool to turn black. Burnt things shouldn’t be eaten too much; it wasn’t good.
Jiang Mianmian said sweetly: “Thank you, Sister.”
Aunt Yin brought out the meal prepared for the little girl, then deliberately moved the roasted sweet potatoes away.
The little girl indeed didn’t notice and ate very happily. She didn’t speak while eating.
Instead, she ate it all obediently, rinsed her mouth, and only after rinsing, did she start talking.
Because she didn’t want to get cavities when her teeth were growing in; cavities would definitely be painful, and there were no dentists.
Aunt Yin added another evaluation in her heart: fastidious. This was carved into her bones; it wasn’t strange, haha.
Intelligent, but without schemes. She had moved the sweet potatoes away, and she hadn’t even noticed.
Sigh, this little appearance—if she were really in the imperial palace, with this silly look, she probably wouldn’t live long.
After Mianmian finished eating, her sister’s pastry seemed ready to eat too.
Her sister was quite patient. Great-Aunt said not to open the lid, or the steam would escape, so she really didn’t open it.
Only when Great-Aunt said it was ready did she open it.
A pot of white, plump rice cakes.
Each one was grinning; they looked really good.
Aunt Yin took one, broke off a piece to taste, and it was quite good.
Over there, Sister Yu had already devoured six.
Jiang Mianmian thought it was too hot and was still blowing on it.
Aunt Yin watched The Eldest Miss’s actions, her eyebrows twitching slightly. This temperament still needed to be polished; she was too impatient.
Aunt Yin assigned a new task to The Eldest Miss, telling her to beat eggs.
“Use chopsticks to stir continuously until the egg becomes dense foam. Do not be greedy for speed, and do not stir back and forth; stir in one direction,” Great-Aunt instructed earnestly.
Jiang Mianmian was curious; wasn’t this a human eggbeater?
Many ancient pastries were said to be delicious; it was truly not a wasted trip.
Sister Yu trusted Great-Aunt very much. Currently, Great-Aunt’s position in her eyes was second only to Father; she was too amazing.
She obediently started beating the eggs.
Aunt Yin reckoned this would keep The Eldest Miss quiet for a while.
She started holding the little one to go out and sunbathe for a while.
The little master needed to be sunned so her bones would be strong.
After settling the little girl, Aunt Yin had a slight sweat on her forehead.
Jiang Mianmian also felt it was strange. Before, when there wasn’t an extra person at home, she played by herself just fine.
Now that Great-Aunt had come, it seemed like Great-Aunt was very busy, and suddenly she felt her little life had become more comfortable.
She inexplicably felt the sensation of being served.
No, no, this was a teacher.
She had to respect her teacher.
Jiang Mianmian said in a milky voice: “Great-Aunt, I’ll play by myself, you go look at Sister.”
If she wanted to teach, she should teach Sister; she was still small, she didn’t need it yet.
Sure enough, inside, Sister Yu was already shouting: “Great-Aunt, Great-Aunt, I succeeded! Look, look, it’s all foam, it’s rising up! One egg can actually turn into so much!”
Aunt Yin turned her old waist around. Impossible, how could it be that fast?
As a result, in the kitchen, Sister Yu had already beaten three bowls of foamy eggs, looking at the afterimages of her hands…
Aunt Yin’s eyebrows twitched. She wasn’t doing well lately; her emotions were too visible. She was doomed.
“Have you practiced swordplay?”
“Older brother taught me, but it wasn’t fun, so I didn’t continue learning,” Sister Yu said embarrassedly.
“But older brother was worried about me being abducted again and said I shouldn’t learn too many moves, just one move—stab, stab, stab, stab—as long as I can stab someone to death, it’s fine. Great-Aunt, you are so amazing, you saw it at a glance. That’s what I was thinking when I was beating the eggs—stab, stab, stab, stab—and it was very fast.”
Sister Yu’s eyes were sparkling, and the words ‘please praise me’ were clearly written on her face.
Aunt Yin nodded: “Not bad, very good, let’s do it again.”
Outside the courtyard, under the big tree, Jiang Mianmian was playing with Little Tree.
She discovered that the small ants called over by Little Tree could be arranged and combined, and could be written into characters.
In ancient times, it was always about digging up stones with characters carved on the back, or catching fish with characters carved on their bellies.
Jiang Mianmian thought this was a bit troublesome.
If it were in a crowd, a group of ants crawling over by themselves to write a line of words would also be very awesome, though it seemed that had happened before.
You just had to smear honey on the ground to attract the ants.
Jiang Mianmian thought that scene was quite fun; it felt like all the rebellion prophecies were artificially designed.
She tried to let Little Tree lead the small ants to form a few characters.
Finally having managed The Eldest Miss again, Aunt Yin came out to prepare to manage the little one, but as she walked over, she saw a pile of black ants in front of the little girl. Those ants obediently formed a sentence: “Though the Jiangs are but one household, the one to destroy Chu must be the Jiangs.”
Aunt Yin’s vision went black, and her body staggered…
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