Chapter 168: The Indifferent Manor Owner
Jian Xingxia didn’t have the time to care about how it tasted. She quickly gave Shang Yue the leftovers from lunch—mostly fatty meat and heavy oil and salt from the bottom of the pots—telling him to eat them as fast as possible.
She even added spoonful after spoonful of sugar directly onto the rice.
Whatever, she just needed to max out the caloric intake first, ensuring his body would have a supply of energy at the critical moment.
It was only when Shang Yue’s body began to turn translucent that Jian Xingxia turned around to go hide in the bamboo grove. If she remained present, the returning channel for temporary workers would not appear.
Da Hei stood guard, watching over Shang Yue for her.
When the time arrived, the ground beneath Shang Yue’s feet suddenly grew loose and soft, looking like quicksand or collapsing earth. In an instant, Shang Yue vanished.
Da Hei: !
How terrifying!
Hearing Da Hei’s short gasp, Jian Xingxia finally turned back around. Sure enough, Shang Yue was already gone.
Jian Xingxia let out a sigh of relief, but her heart still felt a bit heavy. Sometimes, she really didn’t like her own capacity for empathy. She felt her current state was somewhat like a doctor in a hospital, witnessing a great deal of agonizing helplessness every single day, yet having no choice but to brace herself and do what little she could within her power.
Most of the time, she could only suppress her emotions. Otherwise, she would be the first one to break down.
As Da Hei labored to the side, Jian Xingxia stared blankly at the chicken pen that had only been partially enclosed.
She seemed to suddenly understand something—why she had always felt her grandmother was a highly indifferent person when she was a child.
Her grandmother hadn’t actually been willing to take her in. Even after taking her in, she wasn’t like Grandma Huming or Auntie Lu, who were always nagging her and fussing over her health and comfort. Most of the time, as long as she didn’t get into trouble, ate her fill, and wore warm clothes, her grandmother left her completely to her own devices.
Even now, whenever the villagers spoke of her grandmother, they always said she was kind-hearted, carried immense benevolence toward them, and had helped them a great deal. But no one ever described her grandmother as warm or enthusiastic.
Her grandmother seemed to step forward only when it was most desperately needed. Later on, once the villagers could achieve self-sufficiency and sustain their livelihoods, she stopped spending too much thought on them.
That was why Lu’an Village hadn’t experienced the “icing on the cake” to become incredibly wealthy. It had merely been granted a “helping hand in times of need” to survive its most difficult era.
Previously, Jian Xingxia hadn’t understood. But now, she did.
If her grandmother hadn’t been “indifferent,” she would have been crushed by the agonizing suffering she could see but carried no power to change. Because a single person’s capability was, after all, limited.
Her grandmother was just like Jian Xingxia; when it came to the ancients, they could only provide help, but the ones who truly had to save their own lives were Shang Yue, Da Hei, Lin Sanniang… themselves.
At this moment, Jian Xingxia understood. Her grandmother wasn’t cold-hearted; she simply had to ensure she survived first.
Jian Xingxia instructed Da Hei to perform labor at the foot of the mountain and refrain from heading toward the old house unless necessary. If he truly had to go, he could only stop outside the overgrown weeds and shout for the “Owner” or “Lady Lin.”
Da Hei nodded his head. It didn’t matter; his master had assigned him labor, which meant she hadn’t abandoned him. He just needed to perform his labor honestly.
Jian Xingxia still liked Da Hei; he was efficient, and his mind was incredibly pure. Da Hei’s background counted as one of the absolute most tragic among the workers she had recruited. Yet Jian Xingxia couldn’t spot a trace of depression or restraint in him. Give him a sweet potato, or even a cob of corn, and Da Hei would be floating with pure joy.
Looking at Da Hei allowed Jian Xingxia’s mood to ease up slightly.
She praised Da Hei, “Great job! I’ll bring your meal down to you a bit later.”
Da Hei couldn’t help but lick his thick lips. “Master, I want to eat the kind of food from just now too.”
Jian Xingxia thought it over for a moment before catching on. “You mean the leftovers?”
Da Hei nodded his head vigorously.
Deep down, he didn’t actually agree with her choice of words. What did she mean by leftovers! That food contained so much salt and rich oil! There were even pork skins and bones! This was a delicacy a Kunlun slave couldn’t even dream of!
The moment Shang Yue took a bite just now, his dead, ash-like eyes had lit up with a sudden spark. His master simply couldn’t comprehend the absolute adoration people like them possessed for high-oil, high-salt scrap trimmings.
Jian Xingxia smiled and said, “Well, that’s easy to handle. Now that the manor has opened a guesthouse, there are plenty of guests dining every day.” They also cooked a lot of food.
Jian Xingxia hadn’t let the scraps the guests left behind go to waste either, taking them to the greenhouse’s ecological waste pit to ferment and replenish nutrients for the fruits and vegetables. As for the unsold portions, the workers ate some, and the rest was carried away by Lin Sanniang and the plump auntie—the two employees who enjoyed the “long-term worker benefit” of taking food home. When they packed their food, they naturally selected what was mostly prime ingredients and whole items.
That left quite an abundance of scrap trimmings. For instance, chicken heads and duck tails, fish heads and fish tails, as well as the soup bones used for stewing. Sanniang and the auntie could only carry away a double portion of “bento boxes” based on their daily working hours. Even if they wanted these trimmings, they simply lacked any extra quota to take them.
Previously, Jian Xingxia would always give some to Auntie Chunhui and Auntie Lu to carry back to feed their chickens and dogs. The rest still went into the composting pit. Now that Da Hei had arrived, he could easily sweep the lot clean.
As it happened, lunchtime had also passed. Jian Xingxia told Da Hei to wait. “I’ll go back and scoop up a meal for you right now.”
Da Hei swung his hoe with even more frantic effort.
Jian Xingxia rode her small tricycle back to the old house.
Catching sight of the guests laughing and taking photos, along with the children chasing butterflies and the big white geese, the heavy weight in her heart finally dissipated a bit.
She had already done everything she could. The rest was entirely up to Shang Yue himself. She couldn’t, and had no way to, bear the destinies of others. Just like her grandmother, she had to ensure she lived safely and healthily first.
Sorting out her emotions, Jian Xingxia cheerfully scooped up a meal for Da Hei.
Da Hei had his own dedicated tableware. Aside from standard bowls, chopsticks, plates, and spoons, there was also a large stainless steel basin. Jian Xingxia had originally purchased this basin to wash vegetables. But since Da Hei’s appetite was staggering, this vegetable basin had subsequently transformed into Da Hei’s rice bowl.
Jian Xingxia first checked inside the electric rice cooker—there was still half a pot of rice left! Jian Xingxia scooped out a massive amount, piling Da Hei’s basin high, and then used Da Hei’s dedicated rice paddle to press the rice inside the basin firmly down.
Then she went to the kitchen to check the unsold dishes. The plump auntie had already departed early, leaving only Lin Sanniang at the manor right now.
Jian Xingxia asked Lin Sanniang, “Have you packed your food yet?”
Lin Sanniang smiled as she held out a bamboo food container—the container had been sourced from A-Feng. “It’s all packed. The auntie said she tried it out; as long as you can cram it into a container this size, you can carry it away.”
A square container measuring roughly twenty by twenty centimeters and eight centimeters deep was currently packed to the absolute brim. Sanniang felt a bit self-conscious. “The auntie and I jammed it together…”
Jian Xingxia carried a rule—the unsold dishes from lunch had to be dealt with on the spot and could not continue to be sold for dinner. Therefore, the auntie and Lin Sanniang hadn’t stood on ceremony when packing. Since it would go to waste otherwise, they had used absolute force to frantically pack the food container tight.
At this moment, the bottom of the container held rice pressed entirely flat, topped with the leftover fried eggs and oil cakes from the morning, packed solid with all kinds of dishes without a single trace of an opening. Even the two chicken carcasses the guests hadn’t wanted to eat had been pressed completely into flat crackers.
Jian Xingxia was amused. “Incredible!”
She felt she possessed a bit of an old brooding hen personality, simply loving to watch others eat their fill. Previously, when she had no money, she still worried she wouldn’t be able to afford to keep the workers. Look at how things stood now; to a greater or lesser degree, the guesthouse was bringing in money. Even if other benefits couldn’t keep up, she had to at least ensure they ate their fill, striving to provide high quality!
Seeing that Lin Sanniang and the auntie had already packed their portions, Jian Xingxia set her mind at ease. The rest belonged entirely to Da Hei.
