Chapter 146: The Early Winter Skincare Trio
The next afternoon, Ning Xiyue received the food Chen Yechu had traded to her.
A bowl of tangy, spicy, and appetizing boneless chicken feet was placed in front of her.
Judging by how soft and tender they were, it was obvious Chen Yechu had used her “golden finger” to exchange for the chicken feet and then prepared them herself — they weren’t the overly processed, preservative-filled kind.
Sitting at the dining table, Ning Xiyue looked innocently at Chen Yechu and asked, as if she didn’t know, “What’s this called?”
“These are chicken feet with the bones removed. I call it ‘Spicy Boneless Chicken Feet.’ They’re super flavorful — try one.” Chen Yechu pushed the dish closer to her.
As Ning Xiyue picked one up with her chopsticks and took a bite, Chen continued,
“Don’t underestimate these chicken feet. I had to pull some strings in the county to get them. No one sells chicken feet specifically — I had to get them reserved one by one through connections. I only managed to collect a pound, and I picked them up yesterday.”
Ning Xiyue chewed quietly, listening to Chen Yechu’s obviously fabricated story.
These days, all chickens — whether from meat plants or the black market — were black-footed or silkie chickens collected from various teams. But the pale-yellowish-white chicken feet in front of her were clearly a different breed altogether.
Still, she had no intention of calling her out. Exposing the lie would ruin the fun.
Patting the stool beside her, Ning Xiyue smiled, “You’ve really gone to a lot of trouble, Yechu. Come, have some.”
She even picked up one and handed it to her.
Chen Yechu sat down and accepted it naturally. “One’s enough for me. I kept some for myself. These are all yours. Delicious, right? They’re my favorite food. To thank you, I wanted to share my favorite with you. I wouldn’t give these to anyone else — you’re the first.”
“Mm, it’s delicious. Thank you,” Ning Xiyue replied sincerely, then offered a small piece of advice: “Just don’t soak the chicken feet in sour brine for too long next time. See? They’ve turned too pale.”
Chen’s heart skipped a beat, but seeing that Ning Xiyue had just made a casual remark, she relaxed and nodded naturally. “Mm, I’ll keep that in mind next time.”
“The flavor’s really great. It’s my good fortune to have a roommate who can make such creative food.”
Ning Xiyue secretly chuckled — teasing Chen Yechu was quite fun. She had caught that brief flash of panic on Chen’s face.
After delivering the chicken feet, Chen Yechu left Ning Xiyue’s kitchen to learn woodworking from her master.
That left just Ning Xiyue and Little Ash, woman and wolf, comfortably eating chicken feet together in the kitchen. She even rinsed one with water to give Little Ash a treat.
Since she didn’t have to go to the clinic today, Ning Xiyue finished eating and entered her space to study the newly unlocked herbal totems related to beauty, skincare, and health.
The first plant she studied was aloe vera.
The weather had been dry lately, and Ning Xiyue’s hands had become so dry they were peeling, so she decided to make a hand cream.
Aloe vera contains natural moisturizing factors, and has whitening, metabolism-boosting, anti-aging, and skin-repairing properties — it’s a top choice for making skincare products.
Opening the aloe vera totem, Ning Xiyue selected three products she wanted to make:
A whitening and moisturizing aloe vera face mask, a nourishing aloe vera hand cream, and a repairing aloe vera balm for treating surface skin damage.
The repairing balm was different from the scar-removal ointment she had made before.
This balm targeted skin problems like enlarged pores and acne scars while also offering whitening effects.
Ning Xiyue liked all three and decided to make them all.
No matter the era, girls love beauty. They had to be made — and they’d work perfectly with the imperial moisturizing cream she’d created before.
Having made up her mind, Ning Xiyue wasted no time learning about aloe vera. She then started studying the first product: the whitening and moisturizing face mask.
She put her full focus into learning how to make the skincare products, determined to achieve high scores in one go and save time.
The three products would take a while to complete.
After finishing the first face mask lesson, she dove into the simulation lab to make the clay mask and completed it with a score of 80 — a decent result.
The higher the score, the better the effect. She pushed herself to reach 90 points before stopping.
She kept the 90-point face mask for herself and recycled the rest into the system for points.
With that done, Ning Xiyue immediately moved on to the next product: hand cream.
With the experience from the previous one, she learned it faster and successfully produced a 90-point hand cream in one go.
[Ding! First time achieving a perfect result in one attempt. Reward: 1 space material. Current upgrade materials: 8/10.]
A pleasant surprise — just two more materials and her space would level up.
Encouraged, Ning Xiyue eagerly learned how to make the final product: the aloe repair balm.
She completed it with another 90-point score.
Looking down at the results of her three projects, Ning Xiyue smiled in satisfaction.
The Early Winter Skincare Trio was complete.
She made an extra set of each product before leaving the simulation lab, then took them to the lab in her space to have them analyzed by the detector and robot.
As expected, they were all top-quality products. The 90-point skincare line worked wonders.
The whitening and moisturizing face mask could rescue even the darkest skin tone — with a month of consistent use, anyone could transform into a radiant “fair-skinned beauty.”
The nourishing hand cream, used daily for a month, could turn the rough, calloused hands of a laborer into the delicate, pampered hands of the wealthy.
And the repairing balm was a miracle cure for flawed skin — shrinking pores, treating acne, and fading scars.
Now that Ning Xiaoxiao had exited the stage of her life, Ning Xiyue was preparing to remove the scars on her face.
With the scar-removal ointment and the repair balm working together, even the most stubborn scars could be erased and her skin perfectly restored.
Looking at the repair balm in her hands, Ning Xiyue decided to bring out the scar-removal ointment too and apply them right away.
Sitting in the kitchen, she took out a small mirror, applied a layer of repair balm to her scars, and then a layer of scar-removal ointment.
Both contained mint leaves, giving her scars a cool, soothing sensation.
In a great mood, Ning Xiyue hummed a little tune. After writing a letter to her parents, she packed up a set of the three skincare products, hopped on her bicycle, and rode into town to mail them.
Of course, good things like these had to be shared — she wanted to send a set to her hardworking mother so that they could both become beautiful together.
