Chapter 44: Steamed Egg Custard
Deep in the night.
The candle flame was blown out.
Jiang Mianmian’s eyes were wide open; she couldn’t sleep.
There was no helping it; babies’ sleep schedules were just that unpredictable.
They sleep when they want and wake when they want.
She rolled back and forth on the bed.
She felt the bed was huge; rolling one way brought her into Mother’s embrace, and rolling the other brought her to Father’s chest. It was lovely.
Father and Mother were a bit sleepy, but she was still full of energy.
After rolling around for a while, she was finally pinned down by Mother, tucked into her arms, and held tight.
“Be good. Your Father has to go to work tomorrow, so let’s get some sleep, okay?”
Mother sang to her to coax her to sleep.
In the darkness, an unknown melody drifted through the air.
Jiang Mianmian thought that this was probably what Mother’s Mother had sung to her.
She listened intently.
“…Fishy~ silly cat~ fat~~ fishy~ silly cat~ fat~~… Feather~~ when~~ will~~ you~~ return~~”
Jiang Mianmian seemed to understand a little; it wasn’t ‘fish’,’silly cat’, or ‘fat’, but rather ‘feather’, ‘when will you’, ‘return’.
It sounded like someone calling out in the wilderness, heart-wrenching yet soft and melodic.
She thought Mother’s Mother’s lullaby was too sorrowful, and it had an accent too—’fat’ and ‘return’ didn’t sound the same at all…
But as she listened, she also began to drift off.
Mother’s voice made her feel at ease.
In her daze, she heard Mother ask Father: “Where do you think that Kidnapper’s hometown is?”
Father replied: “He County. Sleep now.”
Father’s arm also wrapped around her.
She drifted into a deep slumber.
…
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
The rooster crowing woke the sleeping Jiang Mianmian up.
Surprisingly, neither Father nor Mother were by her side.
When she woke up, she was still dazed, silly, and hadn’t quite processed things yet.
Should she drink milk first or pee first…
Forget it, cry first.
“Waaaah! Waaaah!”
She bawled at the top of her lungs.
Then her older brother came in.
He scooped her up.
“Don’t cry, don’t cry. Big brother is here, big brother is here.”
Jiang Feng held his younger sister and rocked her gently.
He had dashed in as soon as he heard his sister crying.
Jiang Mianmian stopped crying the moment she fell into her brother’s arms.
She had only cried to announce to the world, ‘I have awakened, come attend to me!’
She stopped crying, but her brother actually put her back on the bed, and then…
Her brother touched her from head to toe~!!
Her brother is a pervert!!
Jiang Mianmian really felt that way; her brother first touched her head, checked her scalp, then touched her face, then her neck, her arms, fingers, tummy, legs, ankles, and toes.
He checked every single spot.
Jiang Mianmian felt like a mechanical doll, and her brother was checking if all her parts were in working order.
Jiang Feng carefully checked his sister and found everything was fine; she was lively and showed no signs of poisoning, so he helped her put her clothes back on.
Mother’s voice came from outside: “How can it take so long just to hold a baby?”
“Coming, coming right away,” Jiang Feng replied.
Jiang Feng’s arm had swollen up from being hit yesterday; it felt like it was broken, but he could endure it and dared not make a sound, fearing that Father and Mother would worry.
He had applied medicine himself.
Father had told him to follow along and learn, and he actually had, but he couldn’t stand the way Father acted so timidly in front of others; his Father shouldn’t be like that.
Father was always mocked by that group of people, called a bookworm, someone without the fate of a scholar, yet still reading and writing every day—a total fool.
“Second Fool.”
That’s what they called his Father behind his back: Second Fool.
Even when they called him Mr. Jiang to his face, it was full of mockery.
He understood worldly ways, but he couldn’t stand these worldly ways being directed at his Father.
He always felt his Father was the best and deserved the best.
He didn’t want to go work with his Father, but in private, he had secretly worked hard to learn; he remembered everything Father taught him.
Jiang Feng knew a bit of medical knowledge.
He knew his injury this time was not light; The Peddler’s wife had immense strength, and when that stick hit his arm, he felt like he heard the sound of bone breaking.
But unexpectedly, after just eating wild vegetable meat soup and sleeping one night.
His arm actually felt better, as if the bones had set; really, holding Mianmian now took no effort at all, and the swelling seemed to have gone down.
He became more and more convinced that he had died once; what he saw was definitely not a dream, but his real experience.
He had crawled out of hell.
That was why his body was different.
His strength had increased, and he recovered extremely quickly; perhaps he was no longer human, maybe he was just a ghost with deep resentment, simply wearing human skin.
But even so, he felt it was fine.
Whether he was human or ghost, as long as he could protect his family, that was good.
He hurried to check on his sister.
He was worried that something might happen to her.
Seeing her staring at him helplessly, Jiang Feng chuckled.
He buried his head and kissed her soft little head.
Jiang Mianmian looked at the sky helplessly.
Her brother liked to kiss her head.
Her sister liked to kiss her tummy.
Mother liked to kiss her face.
Father~ liked to kiss her little feet.
Sigh~~ I, the center of the universe, am just so busy.
A new day.
Father had already gone to work.
Jiang Mianmian had her milk, changed her diaper, and was sunning her bottom in her wooden basin.
Jiang Yu had had diarrhea for half the night, but now she was actually full of energy.
But Mother thought she was very weak and even gave her a bowl of thick wild vegetable porridge with meat.
She was so happy.
She suddenly learned a new skill: it turned out that if you just pretended to be sick a little, you could get extra yummy food.
She held her bowl of porridge and ate it carefully all morning, unwilling to finish it in one go; she ate the porridge like it was ice cream, licking it spoon by spoon.
Jiang Mianmian looked at her older sister and felt that her sister was asking for a beating.
She was radiating an aura that said, ‘Mother, come hit me, Mother, come hit me quickly.’
Suddenly, voices came from down the mountain.
Jiang Mianmian saw her sister pour the remaining half bowl of porridge into her mouth in one go~~
Like a glutton.
In an instant, the bowl was empty and licked clean.
The empty bowl was placed on the stone stool.
Jiang Mianmian also heard the voices and suddenly realized.
Shame! She was sunning her bottom and couldn’t be seen by others.
She used all the strength she had built up from drinking milk, and with a ‘thump’… she successfully flipped onto her stomach.
Fortunately, her sister was helpful; knowing she was embarrassed, she put her clothes on for her.
“Sister-in-law Luo Xia, Sister-in-law Luo Xia!”
A familiar, sharp voice came.
The person who arrived was A-Cui’s Mother.
A-Cui’s Mother was carrying a basket with a bunch of wild vegetables, six eggs, and a piece of red cloth.
Qin Luoxia came out upon hearing the voice, and seeing who it was, greeted her warmly: “Auntie, why have you come?”
A-Cui’s Mother handed the basket to Qin Luoxia and said: “Sister-in-law, my A-Cui owes so much to your Jiang Feng. This is a small token of our appreciation; my husband insisted I bring it over.”
Qin Luoxia quickly refused: “No, no need. We are all from the same village; anyone would have saved her if they saw her.”
But A-Cui’s Mother insisted on giving it.
She glanced at Jiang Yu, who was sitting on a small stool nearby, looking full of energy. Seeing the bowl in front of her, she knew the little girl had been eating and must have finished it in one gulp when she saw her coming. Her own A-Cui wasn’t nearly as energetic and hadn’t even gotten up after sleeping all night.
She asked: “Sister Yu doing well? Her little face is so pale, she must have been frightened.”
“Indeed, she had diarrhea for half the night; she really suffered. Is your A-Cui doing well?” Qin Luoxia asked.
A-Cui’s Mother habitually boasted: “My A-Cui is doing well, she didn’t have diarrhea. She said she felt the water The Peddler gave was problematic and didn’t drink much. It was your Sister Yu who was greedy and drank it all; no wonder she suffered.”
Jiang Yu:…A-Cui clearly drank it all too…
After saying this, A-Cui’s Mother felt what she said was inappropriate, after all, she was here to thank them.
But there was no helping it, her mouth was just like that, offending people.
Her husband knew she was about to get scolded, so she hurriedly dropped the basket and ran off.
“I’m heading back, Sister-in-law. The things are for Jiang Feng to nourish his body. Heading back now.”
A-Cui’s Mother ran down the hill with a loud voice.
Jiang Mianmian looked at the wild vegetables, eggs, and red cloth in the basket before her, and inexplicably felt that the auntie wasn’t that hateful after all.
The steamed egg custard was delicious~
And so, Jiang Mianmian was knocked out by a serving of steamed egg custard and fell asleep…
Qin Luoxia tidied up, shouldered her basket alone, and went back into the mountains.
