Chapter 118: Sheng Wanyan Takes Everyone to Have Supper
“Sister Jiaxiu, hop on,” Wanyan said.
Wu Jiaxiu settled onto the back rack, and the two rode over to their usual, quiet meeting spot.
Once they arrived, Wanyan turned to her. “Sister Jiaxiu, what’s on your mind?”
Wu Jiaxiu glanced around cautiously. Seeing that the lane was completely deserted, she leaned in and whispered, “Wanyan, I’m pregnant.”
“Really? Congratulations, Sister Jiaxiu! You’re going to be a mother.”
A joyful smile broke across Wu Jiaxiu’s face as she gently touched her abdomen. She had been married for over a year now. If she didn’t conceive soon, she knew her mother-in-law would start dropping hints and questioning if there was something wrong with her body.
“That’s why I came to find you,” Wu Jiaxiu explained. “I want to buy some fabric from you ahead of time to start making clothes and diapers for the baby. It’s probably best to get something in a darker color so it won’t show stains too easily. Sorry to trouble you with this.”
Wanyan nodded readily. It had been quite a while since she last did business with Wu Jiaxiu. Since she was scheduled to resign from the mill in four months, this stream of black-market income would soon come to an end anyway. However, maintaining a strong, friendly relationship with Wu Jiaxiu was highly beneficial. Wanyan’s family would remain in Chengdu after she left; if they ever ran into trouble, it was always good to have reliable friends nearby who could look out for them.
Furthermore, Wu Jiaxiu’s husband worked at the local coal yard. Come winter, the Sheng household required a massive supply of coal briquettes, which were notoriously hard to secure without connections. Ultimately, maintaining a thriving social network required a bit of deliberate effort and mutual favor.
“Sister Jiaxiu, don’t stand on ceremony with me,” Wanyan replied warmly. “I’ll look into it for you first thing tomorrow and try to source some of the softer cloth blends.”
“Wanyan, thank you so much.” Wu Jiaxiu was incredibly grateful she had cultivated such a close bond with her. She knew the other clerks in the Propaganda Department desperately wanted a piece of Wanyan’s supply, but Wanyan strictly refused to do business with them. Wu Jiaxiu had simply lucked out by leveraging their shared age to secure an exclusive channel early on.
“I’ll head home first, then. Please be careful on your way back, Sister Jiaxiu.”
“Don’t worry, I’m nearly three months along now. The doctor confirmed the pregnancy is perfectly stable.” Wu Jiaxiu offered a warm wave, walking with slow, careful steps back toward her house after they agreed to execute the trade at the same spot the following morning.
Once they parted ways, Wanyan pedaled her bicycle back toward the tube building. Before crossing into the residential courtyard, she discreetly reached into her spatial warehouse and pulled out two massive, plump pig’s trotters.
She had been hit with an intense craving for braised trotters, so she intended to slow-cook them tonight. The rich meat would make a spectacular topping to ladle over fresh noodles later on. To prevent any nosy neighborhood women from spotting the raw meat and raising a public fuss, Wanyan meticulously wrapped the trotters in thick sheets of old newspaper before walking upstairs.
The moment Grandma Sheng unwrapped the bundle back in the apartment, her eyes lit up. The trotters were exceptionally meaty and fat; they could easily stretch the meat across several meals.
“These trotters are wonderfully plump,” the old matriarch beamed. “I’m certain your grandfather will be absolutely thrilled to have them as a snack to accompany his evening drink.”
“Let’s make braised trotters tonight,” Wanyan suggested eagerly. “It’ll pair perfectly with Grandfather’s new wine.”
Hearing the plan, Grandpa Sheng looked up from his seat, his eyes fixed on the newspaper bundle. He couldn’t help but smile proudly; his granddaughter truly was the absolute best, always intuitive enough to understand exactly what he craved.
“Excellent,” Grandma Sheng agreed, pulling one out. “We’ll slow-braise this one tonight, and I’ll hang the second one up on the kitchen line to preserve it for a few days.”
Grandma Sheng was a deeply disciplined homemaker; she would never allow two premium cuts of meat to be consumed in a single sitting. Premium fats had to be rationed and enjoyed slowly over time.
“Alright, whatever you say, Grandma.” Wanyan readily caved to her grandmother’s wisdom. Saving the second trotter to build a rich soup baseline down the road was an excellent alternative.
“I’ll handle the braising process myself,” Grandma Sheng added quickly, snatching the designated trotter before Wanyan could touch it. She scurried toward the kitchen with small, rapid steps. Preparing authentic braised trotters was a highly complex, delicate culinary endeavor, and in her estimation, her granddaughter’s baseline skills weren’t quite advanced enough to pull off the correct texture.
Wanyan stood frozen in the corridor, utterly speechless. “…” It seems Grandma still vastly underestimates my capabilities in the kitchen, she thought with amusement.
“The braised trotters your grandmother cooks are a literal masterpiece,” Grandpa Sheng chimed in from the table, practically drooling at the mere thought of the upcoming meal. His wife’s culinary instincts truly were unmatched.
Wanyan was well aware that Grandma Sheng possessed a spectacular talent for traditional recipes, and she always preferred eating her elders’ cooking over her own anyway. Still, she followed her grandmother into the kitchen to offer basic assistance. She figured she could at least handle the heavy physical labor of chopping the bones so the older woman wouldn’t strain herself.
When Father Sheng finally walked through the front door after finishing his shift at the steel plant, the heavy labor naturally devolved onto his shoulders. He skillfully raised the heavy kitchen cleaver, executing a rapid series of clean chops that swiftly reduced the dense trotter into uniform, bite-sized pieces.
With the heavy prep completed, Grandma Sheng assumed total command of the stove, while Mother Sheng operated beside her to finalize the baseline family dinner. Within an hour, the rich, deeply savory aroma of simmering braised pork began to drift out of the kitchen window, rapidly permeating the corridors of the entire residential building.
“Who on earth is cooking meat at this hour?!” a neighbor grumbled into the hallway.
“The scent is absolutely magnificent. Living next to them is a literal sin!” another resident sighed.
“It’s drifting out of the Sheng family’s unit again,” a third neighbor noted bitterly. “Why is their luck so fundamentally different from ours?”
“Alas…”
Upstairs on the floor above, the children of the Chen family began to whimper. “Grandma, I want to eat meat too.”
“Me too! I want meat! I want meat!” the youngest cried.
Mother Chen’s face contorted with rage, and she sharply slapped her granddaughter’s hand away. “What are you crying for, you useless, money-losing thing?! Eat your sweet potatoes and shut your mouth! You must be having a sweet dream if you think you’re worthy of eating meat!”
She glared down through the floorboards, cursing beneath her breath. “The Sheng family spends every single day eating and drinking like royalty, while my youngest son is marooned in the desolate countryside breaking his back! I hope that fat chokes them to death! Bah! A whole household of absolute wolves!”
Hearing their mother-in-law unleash another furious tirade against the Sheng family, the Chen daughters-in-law exchanged a long, quiet look. They immediately lowered their heads, focus-shifting back to their domestic chores in absolute silence. They had long since grown accustomed to the routine; the literal second any good fortune or premium food entered the Sheng household, their mother-in-law would launch into a bitter critique. The woman simply could not tolerate witnessing the Sheng family prosper.
The immediate neighbors could hear Mother Chen’s screeching clearly through the thin walls of the tube building. The consensus among the residents was that the Chen family was utterly foolish; they continuously kept a hostile, jealous eye anchored on the Shengs. The Sheng family’s trajectory was incredibly bright nowadays—both their son and daughter had managed to secure highly influential, elite partners. Traditional wisdom dictated that the neighbors should be doing everything in their power to cultivate a harmonious relationship with them. If the Chens continued to alienate the Sheng family with their toxic behavior, they would face absolute ruin the day they inevitably needed to beg the Shengs for an institutional favor. The neighbors shook their heads, concluding that the Chen household was bound to face an incredibly difficult, miserable existence down the line.
Back in the apartment, Wanyan was entirely oblivious to the drama brewing upstairs. Having just washed up and changed into clean clothes, she sat contentedly in the living room, waiting for the trotters to finish simmering.
Observing her intensely greedy, expectant expression, Grandma Sheng poked her forehead playfully. “It won’t be ready anytime soon, child. Go eat a piece of pastry to tide yourself over. You’ll have to wait at least another two hours.”
“That long?” Wanyan pouted.
“Authentic braised trotters must be slow-cooked until the collagen completely breaks down and the marrow absorbs the spices,” Grandma Sheng explained strictly. “If you want to experience a true delicacy, you must possess the patience to wait.”
Hearing the timeline, Wanyan realized her willpower wouldn’t hold out if she remained sitting in the living room inhaling the rich aroma. To prevent herself from sneaking into the kitchen to steal a premature bite, she retreated to her private quarters to focus on her translation manuscripts.
She retrieved the thick envelope of royalties she had received that afternoon and carefully counted the bills. It totaled exactly six hundred yuan. Shifting the cash safely into her spatial vault, she organized the manuscript books she had compiled over the past few weeks, intending to mail them to the central publishing house the following morning.
Furthermore, she noted that before she officially resigned to join the army, she would need to submit a formal change-of-address request to the newspaper editors. If she failed to update her registry, shipping her translation bundles and royalty envelopes once she relocated away from Chengdu would become an administrative nightmare.
“Wanyan, come to the table. It’s time to eat,” Grandma Sheng called out, knocking softly on her door.
Wanyan instantly cleared her desk and threw the door open, her eyes bright. “Coming!”
She had been fantasizing about the dish for hours. Grandma Sheng, well aware that her granddaughter disliked overly greasy or gelatinous textures, had meticulously selected a premium cut that balanced tender lean meat with perfectly rendered fat.
Grandpa Sheng had already unsealed his special bottle of wine, sitting at attention as he waited for the feast to begin.
Mother Sheng looked at the pair of them, thoroughly amused. “Look at this grandfather and granddaughter duo. Their greedy expressions are an absolute carbon copy of each other.”
“Hmph! We are bound by blood; how could we possibly look different?” Grandpa Sheng countered arrogantly. He filled his small glass to the brim, snatched a rich piece of meat with his chopsticks, and took a joyful bite.
Wanyan didn’t wait a second longer, immediately digging into her own portion. Prompted by her initial craving, the entire household found themselves mysteriously gathered around the table in the middle of the night, happily indulging in a late-night supper.
Mother Sheng looked at her family, a wave of disbelief washing over her. Never in her wildest dreams did she think a day would come where their household could casually enjoy a midnight banquet. Years ago, during the harshest winters, she used to quietly weep with gratitude if she merely managed to secure enough wild grain to ensure everyone went to bed with a full stomach.
Yet tonight, they were completely wide awake past midnight, gathered beneath the warm light of the living room lamp, secretly sharing a magnificent feast of premium braised meat.
