Chapter 22

Ye Qingshui certainly couldn’t refuse, because she was currently worrying about meat. Although Liu Yiliang could occasionally slip her some bones or pig offal from his job at the livestock station, it was really not much—barely enough for her own consumption, let alone to sell to customers.

“Alright.” Ye Qingshui wasn’t too concerned about money. “If you can guarantee to get me enough chicken and duck, and you’re willing to run errands for me too.”

“What’s so hard about that! My name’s Qian Xiangdong,” the trader replied.

The next day, Qian Xiangdong actually brought her two chickens. Ye Qingshui took one look at them and immediately understood why his eggs didn’t sell well.

These chickens were light to lift, smaller than the average domesticated ones. Their eggs weren’t as big as the ones sold at the supply and marketing cooperative. No wonder he couldn’t sell them even at one cent apiece—while the cooperative sold theirs at two cents each.

Qian Xiangdong noticed her distaste and grinned. He said, “Don’t look down on these chickens just ‘cause they’re small. These are pure mountain chickens. The meat is firm, they run all over the hills. One pound of this is worth two pounds from the co-op! You better be careful, they’re feisty!”

Those last two sentences were practically boastful.

No matter how feisty a chicken is, it’s no match for Ye Qingshui’s hands—strong enough to flip woks and chop through bones. She examined the wings, then checked its rear—greasy and plump, a sign of a well-fed bird. The quality of the chicken was beyond reproach.

Ye Qingshui secretly went to the back of the mountain and slaughtered the chicken, carefully burying the feathers.

One chicken was used for making buns. The other was too small and bony—Ye Qingshui didn’t have the patience to debone it bit by bit. She decided to keep it for her own use.

Using chicken and duck meat to make buns wasn’t ideal. Their meat was firm and lean, lacking the fat needed to make juicy and flavorful buns. You’d have to add extra oil. Holding the chicken meat, Ye Qingshui had a better idea—glutinous rice chicken. Delicious. Wrap rice, chestnuts, chicken, and mountain mushrooms in lotus leaves and steam until tender. One bite and the glutinous rice oozes with oil, full of flavor with meat, rice, chestnuts, and mushrooms.

Glutinous rice is also hard to digest and very filling—great for curbing hunger.

She tied the chicken meat and hung it down the well to keep it fresh. The smaller chicken, which didn’t have much meat, she prepped while others were out working. She stacked some clay bricks, wrapped the marinated chicken in lotus leaves, and carefully went home to fetch firewood to roast it. Once it was roasted just right, she flattened the earthen oven, covered it with layers of sand for insulation, and used the residual heat to braise the chicken.

This cooking method is called “yao ji” (kiln chicken), also known as “beggar’s chicken” elsewhere. It really tests one’s skills in building the earthen oven and managing the fire.

The fragrant smell of roasted chicken made Ye Qingshui’s mouth water. After patiently waiting for about an hour, she sneakily carried the hot kiln chicken back home.

At that very moment, Xie Tingyu happened to return to grab something and headed to the woodshed for a bite—running straight into Ye Qingshui.

Seeing him, Ye Qingshui felt a bit guilty. She had just been thinking about taking advantage of Xie Tingyu being gone at noon to finish the chicken with Grandma and Mom. And just as that thought surfaced—bam, there he was.

Putting on a bright smile, she guiltily held out the wild chicken and said, “I just caught a wild chicken up on the mountain. Since you’re back, want to try some?”

The chicken didn’t even weigh three pounds—not big. Domesticated chickens usually weren’t slaughtered that young. So calling it a wild chicken didn’t raise any suspicion.

Xie Tingyu noticed the chicken in her hands, and saw her once-fair hands now blotched and stained, her clothes covered in ashes. She looked a bit disheveled, but her pair of bright, dark eyes were shining.

Her eyes were beautiful—like a mountain after rain, washed clean and sparkling, without the slightest impurity. Such a passionate and bold girl, and right now she was holding his favorite food.

Shen Weimin wasn’t wrong—Xie Tingyu was picky about food. As a kid, he was extremely fussy—never touched fatty meat, only liked lean chicken meat scraped clean.

Ye Qingshui’s enthusiasm was hard to turn down. Lately, certain signs had made Xie Tingyu think more deeply.

After a moment of silence, he finally said, “I’m not hungry. Just ate. You keep it.”

Though rejected, Ye Qingshui was still quite pleased. She politely insisted, “Really not hungry? It’s just a bit of chicken. You work hard—you must get tired.”

The chicken was small to begin with. After saving some for Grandma and Mom, she would only get a few bites anyway.

Seeing the growing expectation in her eyes, Xie Tingyu said against his true feelings, “I just had two buns before coming back—not hungry.”

Upon hearing that, Ye Qingshui started eating without hesitation. She peeled off the lotus leaves, used a small knife to slice open the mountain chicken with practiced skill, and evenly divided it into three portions. She grabbed the juicy drumstick and began gnawing on it.

The skin of the kiln chicken had been steamed soft and smooth, golden chicken fat oozing out. The meat was firm and tender, carrying a faint lotus leaf fragrance. Truly, mountain-raised chickens tasted even better than regular free-range ones.

Xie Tingyu turned and left the woodshed.

…

After returning to the construction site, Xie Tingyu worked another two hours before noon.

Could it be that by helping her with tutoring, he made her misunderstand something?

He still hoped, from the bottom of his heart, that she saw him as an older brother. He’d previously thought: divorce would greatly affect a woman’s reputation, and her future would likely be difficult. If she learned more knowledge, her life would improve. That’s why he offered to tutor her.

Xie Tingyu thought he ought to refuse the boxed lunches she delivered and reminded himself to bring extra water each morning—but unfortunately, Shen Weimin had already arranged for her to bring meals for the whole week.

His brow furrowed. He pulled money from his wallet and handed it to Shen Weimin.

“Here. I’m paying you back.”

Shen Weimin took the money, confused.

Xie Tingyu said, “Don’t trouble Shuiya to bring you food anymore. It’s too hot—she won’t be able to handle it.”

Shen Weimin had worked extra hard that day and had been looking forward to Ye Qingshui’s delicious food. But now he was being doused with cold water: no more boxed meals?

His first thought was that Xie Tingyu minded—he didn’t want Shen Weimin eating the food Ye Qingshui made with her own hands.

Shen Weimin said, “Yu-ge, you can’t be so stingy—eating and drinking well yourself while watching your brother gnaw on dry rations.”

Xie Tingyu replied, “I’m not eating anything either. I bring my own.”

After several rounds of probing, Shen Weimin finally caught Xie Tingyu slipping up.

Shen Weimin snorted through his nose, gritting his teeth. “Yu-ge, now you know how to protect someone. Not long ago, you wouldn’t let me say a word against her, and now even food delivery has to avoid suspicion. Alright, I get it.”

Xie Tingyu’s face darkened. “What nonsense are you spouting?”

“Xie Zhiqing, the truck has brought the reinforced concrete. Come over and inspect it,” a man called out.

Xie Tingyu said nothing more, responding briefly before going to check the delivery.

Meanwhile, Ye Qingshui had finished preparing lunch and rushed over on her bicycle. She handed the warm lunchbox to Shen Weimin.

Shen Weimin accepted it and teased, “Shui-ya, if Yu-ge divorces you one day, would you resent him—?”

Ye Qingshui answered firmly and decisively, “Of course not.”

She wanted him gone as soon as possible. She was sick of having him linger around her every day. He always managed to stir up things she was trying hard to forget. It was truly exhausting. Every time she remembered something else, Ye Qingshui felt her teeth itch with frustration, not knowing how to face Xie Tingyu anymore.

She had been heartless, and he hadn’t been kind either. Back then, she had been the one who lowered herself in the marriage, but he had left without a word—and even published a divorce notice in the newspaper.

In those days, in remote mountain villages, hardly anyone actually got a marriage certificate. Holding a wedding banquet and inviting relatives and friends counted as being married. Sharing a bed, raising kids, working from sunrise to sunset—that’s how a lifetime passed.

Later, when official red marriage booklets became a thing, most older couples still didn’t go get one. The law later called this a “de facto marriage.” Without a marriage certificate, how did one divorce? Back then, very few people divorced. It usually meant splitting up and dividing the household, with a meal shared with the wedding witnesses to make things official.

When Xie Tingyu left, he had specifically said: Shui-ya, you should go take the college entrance exam too. Education will make things better. I’ll wait for you.

And she had believed in that wait—believed that the two of them would go to university together. Full of sweet dreams, Ye Qingshui even thought that for Xie Tingyu’s sake, she would give it her all and study hard to be worthy of him.

But what she got instead was a letter from him with a newspaper clipping inside. A thin piece of paper, pulled out specially, where in a tiny, obscure column was a printed statement of his divorce from her.

Her beautiful dream shattered. Ye Qingshui never wanted to take the exam again.

Ye Qingshui, holding the warm lunchbox in her hands, searched for Xie Tingyu’s figure.

On the other side, a zhiqing who was unloading concrete pipes had to step away briefly and asked Xie Tingyu, who had just finished verifying the count, to help out. Xie agreed and walked to the back of the truck. The bumpy mountain road had caused the vehicle to slam into the rock walls multiple times, and the city workers hadn’t inspected it properly before loading. The container was overloaded with round pipes.

At that moment, the hidden latch on the container slipped.

With his back to the truck, Xie Tingyu was pointing at his notebook and telling the zhiqing, “This batch probably has about…”

“Xie Tingyu—watch out!”

In that split second, Ye Qingshui dropped the lunchbox and rushed forward, grabbing Xie Tingyu and pushing him aside.

She was so scared she closed her eyes.

Ye Qingshui remembered something—this was a reflex, one deeply ingrained from long ago. When she was young, she couldn’t bear for Xie Tingyu to suffer even the slightest injury. She thought he was pitiful—his mother had left him very early. Once he had someone who cared, and then he didn’t. After his stepmother arrived, he lost his father too. He was left to grow up all alone, sick or hurt with no one to care for him.

When he cautiously told her these things, young Ye Qingshui had felt so sorry for him that tears welled in her eyes. She swore to herself that she would never let him suffer again.

Now, pushed aside by her, Xie Tingyu stared in shock as the hundreds-of-pounds concrete pipe came crashing down—and Ye Qingshui was still standing right where she had pushed him from. There was no time to think. In that instant, instead of stepping away, he grabbed her and turned, using his back to shield her from the falling concrete.

He bent over and held her head tightly in his arms. First, he let out a deep grunt, then hoarsely murmured, “Are you… out of your mind?”

From a distance, Shen Weimin had seen everything, his mouth so wide open he could’ve stuffed two eggs in it.

Author’s Note:

Shen Weimin, dumbfounded: I give up—I really do. What kind of fairy-tale love is this?

Still want to argue with me?

Where’s the sound of that slap to the face, huh?

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