Chapter 78

Chapter 78: Stir-Fried Sauce

Lunch had been so fragrant and satisfying that, while working that afternoon, the men kept talking about Qin Hui Yin’s cooking. The ones who’d gone home to eat heard it and licked their lips, resentful of their own bowls of thin gruel.

Tang Yi Chen and Tang Da Fu heard the gossip too. Before anyone could start dreaming about another noon feast, they made it clear: lunch had been special because it was the first meal. The Tang household couldn’t afford to eat like that every day.

At dinner, Qin Hui Yin served coarse-grain buns, pickles stir-fried with minced meat, and a hearty bowl of fish-slice porridge.

The dishes were simple, but the scent still made grown men inhale like wolves.

“Smells amazing,” one of the young workers said, almost reverent.

After the first bite, there were no complaints—only more praise.

“If my wife cooked like this,” one man said, chewing with satisfaction, “I’d eat these buns every meal.”

“Keep dreaming,” another laughed. “Even if it’s pickles, look how much meat she fried into them. Would your wife be willing to eat like that?”

A third pointed at the porridge, eyes bright. “Hui Yin, how did you make this fish-slice porridge? Teach my auntie so she can cook it for me.”

The fish came from the river. Tang Yi Chen could catch them, and so could anyone else. It wasn’t that fish were rare—it was that most people couldn’t be bothered. They thought fish weren’t oily enough and smelled too strong, so they avoided the trouble.

If they’d known fish could become food like this, that river would’ve been fished clean long ago.

Qin Hui Yin smiled. “Sure. Tell your auntie to come find me tomorrow. I’ll make it in front of her.”

“Hui Yin really has seen the world,” someone said with a grin. “Generous and proper.”

Li Tao Hua, sitting a little aside, rolled her eyes so hard it nearly hurt.

Men were as snobbish as women. When they benefited, a girl was “generous and proper.” When they didn’t, she was a “dead weight.”

Before the men left for the night, Tang Yi Chen paid out the day’s wages and asked who planned to eat there tomorrow.

At noon, the men went home to discuss it with their families. In the end, only two managed to get their wives to agree. The other four still had to go home obediently and drink wild-vegetable corn gruel.

After work ended, Qin Hui Yin didn’t rest. She went straight back into the kitchen.

The rest of the Tang household went to Tang Yi Chen’s room to learn characters, their steps dragging like prisoners.

Li Tao Hua came in, looking around in confusion. “Daughter, we already ate. What are you making now?”

Qin Hui Yin stirred a pot, the fragrance growing deeper as it cooked down. “Sauce. It’s good mixed into rice, and you can toss noodles with it.”

Li Tao Hua didn’t ask twice. She sat and took over the fire, feeding it steadily.

An hour later, Qin Hui Yin poured the cooked sauce into an empty wine jar that had been washed and dried in the sun. She filled it partway, then ladled more into bamboo buckets.

Li Tao Hua frowned. “There’s still space in the jar. Why aren’t you filling it? Why put some into buckets?”

“These are gifts.”

“Gifts for who?”

“Secret.”

Li Tao Hua stared at the sauce—thick, glossy, rich with the smell of meat and mushrooms, with chopped green peppers and diced pickles stirred through it. Her voice sharpened with indignation. “There’s so much good stuff in here. Even if you sold it, ten wen a bucket would be cheap. And you’re giving it away? Who’s worth you being this generous?”

“You know them too,” Qin Hui Yin said lightly. “Don’t worry, Mom. I know what I’m doing.”

Li Tao Hua huffed, but she couldn’t pry a secret out of her daughter when Qin Hui Yin didn’t want to speak.

After a moment, Li Tao Hua said, “This time I won’t go with you. If you can’t handle it, find someone to help. How about Third Sister Tang?”

Qin Hui Yin didn’t answer immediately. Hiring help would make their business impossible to hide, and gossip traveled faster than feet. Besides, Third Grandpa had been helping them as well. No matter how busy it got, it wouldn’t last long. If they were short one person, they’d simply move slower and sell a little longer.

She sealed the sauce, cleaned up the kitchen, and then made small fermented rice dumplings—sweet and warm—to reward the Tang household for using up their brains.

Li Tao Hua took a sip, then blinked in surprise. “This flavor… is it from that ‘spoiled’ rice in the basin?”

“It wasn’t spoiled,” Qin Hui Yin said, amused. “That’s the taste I wanted. It’s a kind of rice wine—sweet, a little tangy. It suits women, and if you drink too much, you’ll get drunk.”

When Qin Hui Yin had first made the fermented rice, Li Tao Hua had nearly dumped it out, thinking it had gone bad. Qin Hui Yin had caught her in time, saving the whole batch.

Li Tao Hua stared at her daughter as if seeing her anew. “Where did you learn all these things? I never imagined my daughter was a genius.”

Qin Hui Yin smiled. “As long as you like it, Mom. I’ll make it for you often.”

Li Tao Hua carried a bowl to Tang Yi Chen’s door and knocked. “Hui Yin made something. Come out and have a bit before you study more.”

The Tang household emerged one by one, all dusty and dejected like they’d been digging pits instead of learning characters.

Tang Yi Chen’s face was stern. His eyes cut sharply toward Tang Yi Xiao and Tang Lu Wu. “From three characters down to two, and you’re still not satisfied?”

His voice stayed controlled, but the words struck hard. “If you can’t endure this little hardship, then don’t follow us out to do business. Farm your whole life like everyone else. The farthest you’ll ever go is the town. The most you’ll ever see is yellow dirt.”

Tang Yi Xiao and Tang Lu Wu froze, looking as though their palms still remembered the sting of his ruler.

“Elder brother,” Qin Hui Yin said, stepping in before the air cracked, “you’re too fierce. Eat first.”

She handed him a bowl, her tone teasing to soften the edges. “Calm down, Tutor Tang.”

Tang Yi Chen frowned. “Aren’t you tired? You worked all day, and at night you still have to clean up their mess. Are they going to live off you for the rest of their lives?”

Qin Hui Yin’s smile faltered for a heartbeat.

She didn’t want them to depend on her forever. She only thought—quietly—that perhaps her methods might fit them better than his relentless drilling.

Tang Yi Chen took the bowl in the end. Seeing that, the others finally breathed.

“Delicious,” Tang Da Fu said, the first to praise it.

He liked alcohol, and the dumplings carried a faint rice-wine fragrance—sweet but not cloying. He ate one bowl, then another.

Li Tao Hua looked at him with utter disgust. In the end, she grabbed him by the arm. “Come. If you have energy to eat like a pig, you have energy to learn.”

Tang Da Fu dragged his feet. “Wife, my head hurts. I really can’t learn anymore.”

Li Tao Hua leaned close, eyes narrowing with a wicked kind of tenderness. “Learn one character,” she whispered, “and I’ll let you kiss me.”

Tang Da Fu blinked once. Then, with the solemnity of a man facing a mountain, he straightened his back. “…Wife. I can learn.”

Across the room, Qin Hui Yin went still. Tang Yi Xiao and Tang Lu Wu stared at the floor like it had suddenly become fascinating.

After the fermented rice dumplings were finished, Qin Hui Yin collected the bowls, washed them, and went to Tang Yi Chen’s room to see how Tang Yi Xiao and Tang Lu Wu were doing.

She hesitated in the doorway, then said carefully, “How about… I try?”

Tang Yi Chen looked up.

“For the next half month,” Qin Hui Yin added, steadying her voice, “let them learn with me. After that, you can take over again.”

Rote memorization alone was clearly crushing them. If ordinary methods weren’t working, then she’d use her own.