The Jin Family

The sound of children chattering filled the air.

Of course, these weren’t the children of Jin’s relatives, but rather the children of Lei Qiu, who had recently traveled to the south with Jia Bingyang’s filming crew.

They had returned to Linjiang just before the Spring Festival.

After discussing the main storyline of the documentary, Lei Qiu suggested filming the Jin family’s New Year’s Eve dinner.

Both Jin Father and Jin Mother had no objections.

Promoting Mingde was a good thing. Jin Yaotiao didn’t mind either; as long as she could spend the New Year with her family at home, a few more mouths didn’t matter—it would make the house livelier.

Since Aunt Cen and others had gone home for the holiday, preparing the New Year’s Eve dinner was quite a big task, and with Lei Qiu and her crew coming over, they could lend a helping hand.

Lei Qiu had brought her child along voluntarily.

Lei Qiu had divorced, and the child was granted to her.

The child was still young, around five or six years old. Perhaps due to family changes, the child was incredibly well-behaved, unusually quiet for their age, not causing trouble but instead sitting quietly at the table shelling soybeans for the New Year’s Eve dinner.

Lei Qiu helped Jin Yaotiao move the juicer and blender out.

As she passed by her son, she looked down at him. Jia Bingyang, the lead director of the project, was sitting cross-legged next to the boy, also shelling soybeans together.

A pair of large hands and small hands—when the small hands couldn’t manage, they handed the task over to the large hands. They seemed in perfect harmony.

Lei Qiu rolled her eyes.

Jin Yaotiao put the toasted black sesame into the blender, and the fragrance of the sesame filled the room. She asked Lei Qiu, “At first, I thought you were only going to be in the crew for a few days, but then you became a regular. What happened?”

Lei Qiu replied, “There’s not much important work here in Linjiang. After my promotion, I can delegate things to my subordinates. I’m actually quite interested in documentaries, so I’ve been learning by following along.”

Jin Yaotiao smiled, “Director Jia is quite talented. It’s good for you to learn from him.”

“Don’t mention it,” Lei Qiu sighed, “I admit his skills are good, but his temper is too stubborn. We fight every other day—if it weren’t for the fact that he’s younger than me, I’d have beaten him by now.”

Once the sesame paste was ready, she opened the lid, and the room was filled with a delightful aroma.

Lei Qiu asked, “What are you making?”

“Eight Treasure Rice Cake. It’s a tradition in our family during the New Year,” Jin Yaotiao explained.

The sesame paste was mixed with various fillings: dates, sesame paste, red bean paste, green bean paste, peanut paste, brown sugar filling, meat filling, and vegetable fillings.

They made dozens of rice cakes, each plump and cute, dusted with flour and placed in the oven for low-temperature baking.

The fragrance spread, and the child and adult shelling soybeans became distracted, slowing down their pace.

Just then, Jin Father entered with guests.

“Yaotiao,” Jin Father casually introduced the members of the filming crew before calling her over to meet the guests, “These are my junior brothers from the Shang family. You can just call them uncles.”

The uncles, after setting down their gifts, smiled warmly at her.

When they heard Jin Father mention the “Shang family,” there was a hint of guilt in their smiles.

Jin Yaotiao nodded in greeting, and Jin Father sniffed the air and laughed, “I’ll go to the study with them and talk. I’ll come down to help you later.”

He then led the guests upstairs.

Jin Yaotiao returned to the kitchen, thoughtfully placing the fish her father had brought into water and adding wine to remove the fishy smell.

The people from the Shang family had arrived?

Her father had brought a grouper, perfect for steaming.

There was also a yellow croaker at home, which could be braised.

In addition, there were several creek fish, freshly delivered by Master Tu, who had specially brought them after purchasing them from the countryside during his holiday.

These fish were small, had no market value, and were hard to find, but they were pure, delicate in texture, and tasted just as good as many expensive fish species.

Master Tu had even come to deliver New Year’s gifts!

The same grumpy Master Tu!

When Jin Father had received the gift, he had been surprised, and Master Tu, as always, looked bashful, his wrinkled, dark face resembling the fish he had brought.

A few days ago, Jin Yaotiao had heard her junior apprentice Wang Sheng mention that he had bought a new house for his son and daughter-in-law in the city where he worked.

She had congratulated him and reminded him not to forget to share wedding candy when they moved in.

Master Tu had come shyly, left shyly, but the fish he brought were excellent.

Now, Jin Yaotiao was making a rich soup from them, which turned out thick and milky without much effort, even more fragrant and smooth than carp soup.

There was another pot of soup simmering on the stove.

This one was much clearer and had been cooking all morning.

Jin Yaotiao sniffed the aroma from behind the lid and knew it was nearly done.

---

Upstairs, Jin Father was talking with his long-lost junior brothers.

Though they hadn’t met in many years, they weren’t strangers.

Each of them had participated in public events over the years.

Even though they didn’t keep in touch, they still quietly followed each other’s news.

Looking at his junior brothers, Jin Father felt a deep sense of pride. “I watched your performance in the last domestic Heavenly Chef competition. Very good. You didn’t let down our master’s reputation.”

The juniors, however, looked somewhat sad upon hearing this. “Senior Brother, we competed under the name of the Shang family,” the leading junior brother said.

Jin Father shook his head. “It should be this way.”

He made them tea and asked, “Why are you all here in Linjiang during the New Year? Aren’t you going back to celebrate with your families?”

“We’re leaving soon,” the leading junior brother replied, “but we wanted to come and explain something.”

Jin Father was surprised. “Explain what?”

The leading junior brother thought about the incident where Shang Rong had sent Xia Ren to cause trouble for the Mingde company.

He couldn’t bring himself to speak, so he hesitated and said, “We didn’t agree with what Shang Rong and the Xia family did.”

Jin Father was stunned.

What happened?

He suddenly recalled the complications he had encountered while handling some paperwork, and he immediately understood. “I knew it. It was him.”

He waved his hand, “It’s just a small issue. How could I blame you for that? I haven’t taken it to heart.”

It was just a few days’ delay.

After the company began operating, everything would go smoothly.

Not take it to heart?

They had caused trouble for the company—how could he not care?

The senior brother was just trying to comfort himself.

If the senior brother had expressed his anger openly, it would have been easier for them to accept.

But his quiet restraint, while trying to comfort them, made them feel even worse.

---

When Jin Father escorted the guests downstairs, the Eight Treasure Rice Cakes were done.

Jin Yaotiao was stuffing soft meat filling into sliced eggplant, covering them with starch, and deep-frying them.

She heard movement and turned around, only to be surprised to find her father’s guests looking as if they were about to cry.

What happened?

Did they have a fight?

There hadn’t been any noise downstairs.

Jin Father was equally confused.

His younger brothers kept apologizing non-stop throughout the entire time.

The more he tried to comfort them, the guiltier they looked.

By the end, he was too afraid to comfort them anymore, worried that these grown men might actually start crying.

He was a bit uneasy.

As his younger brothers were about to leave, he turned around and searched the kitchen, found a few freshly baked rice cakes, and handed them over to them. “Alright, stop looking so miserable. The Shang family didn’t cause me any major trouble, just some small issues. I’m not taking it to heart.”

The youngest brother sniffed, “Big Brother, you don’t need to comfort us. We understand.”

Jin Father: “???”

What happened to just some minor formalities, and why did it get so serious?

Jin Father didn’t know what to say and could only pat them. “Alright, alright.”

As they left Jin’s home, a gust of cold wind hit, and their chests tightened with the weight of it.

The eldest, the second brother, squeezed his eyes shut.

He had come to vent his frustration at his senior, but in the end, it was Jin Father who comforted them.

The whole time, Jin Father kept telling them that Mingde was fine, there was no major trouble, everything was going well, and the Mingde branch company was also doing well.

However, he was all too aware that after the Xia family had made some arrangements in Deep City, it would be impossible for Mingde’s branch to go smoothly.

Not to mention the difficulties, things weren’t looking great either.

How could his senior… be so naive, not telling them about the difficulties?

It was because these younger brothers had been so closely connected with the Shang family over the years that Jin Father didn’t want to make things harder for them.

Suddenly, he remembered a long time ago, when the senior made a mistake, and their master was going to punish him, but the senior stepped up and said, “The younger brothers are still small, punish me instead.”

So many years had passed, but the scene was still vivid in his mind.

The senior was over fifty now, yet he was still that same senior.

He glanced at the things his senior had given him before leaving, still warm and steaming in the cold winter air.

He couldn’t resist taking a small bite.

It was a rice cake.

The rice cake was rather soft, almost like glutinous rice cakes, sticky and chewy.

With each bite, strings of rice stretched out.

It wasn’t particularly surprising.

What was surprising was the filling inside, which had been baked.

The brown sugar had melted, turning into a thick syrup that flowed out from the crack he made with his bite.

He quickly spread the cake apart to catch the hot syrup.

The sugar wasn’t too sweet, but it was fragrant, and the red syrup inside the cake mixed with the soft and sticky rice cake was unexpectedly delicious in the cold wind.

At his age, he wasn’t fond of sweets anymore, yet he couldn’t resist the sugary aroma drifting to his nose.

When he was little, food was scarce, and sometimes the senior would mysteriously find him and suddenly feed him something sweet.

He knew that was from their master’s private stash, but the senior always brought it to share with the younger ones.

When the senior left the Shang family, he was still helpless and could only secretly cry while clutching his fists.

But now it was different.

He had grown strong, won awards, and had become one of the most influential chefs in the Shang family.

He suddenly lifted his head and spoke to his younger brothers behind him, “We can’t let Shang Rong keep troubling the senior. Mingde’s shop in Deep City will open after the New Year, and we need to make our stance clear.”

The sixth younger brother, holding a rice cake with a vegetable filling, sighed in displeasure. “That Xia Ren, he lies without blinking, saying the senior had someone beat him up. But look at this! We’ve been here for so long, and the senior hasn’t complained once. He keeps pretending everything is fine.”

The fifth younger brother stuffed a peanut butter-filled rice cake into his mouth, grumbling, “Let’s go back to Deep City and settle things with Shang Rong.”

---

Jin Father went into the kitchen to help, and Jin Yaotiao asked him, “What’s going on with them?”

Jin Father was also a bit confused, “I don’t know. They said Mingde’s been wronged and that things aren’t easy for him in Deep City. They told me to bear with it and that they’d figure something out.”

“Mingde has been wronged?” Jin Yaotiao scooped out some broth made with yellow eel and snails and started preparing vegetables. “I just got a notification from the Deep City branch before I left. It said that we might be able to get the park’s tax incentive policy next year.”

Father and daughter exchanged confused looks.

“Forget it, at least they’re not bad guests.”

The sound of the clock striking announced the arrival of the New Year.

Leiqiu and others hesitated a bit but were eventually invited to sit down.

The smell of food filled the spacious Jin family dining room. Jin Yaotiao brought out the last two fish of the evening, placing them in the center of the table.

The steamed grouper was hot and fragrant, while the braised yellow fish was rich with sauce.

The TV played sounds of a gala, even though no one was watching, it somehow made the atmosphere livelier.

In Linjiang, the New Year’s custom was to eat noodles, with a broth made from creek fish poured over thin noodles, topped with a piece of black-red marinated meat from the Jin family’s special marinade.

There wasn’t much food, just enough to enjoy the festive mood, yet it tasted so delicious that no one could stop eating.

Leiqiu’s young son, just five or six years old, took a sip of the soup and widened his eyes, eating carefully on his own without needing anyone to feed him.

He peeled several edamame beans, which Jin Yaotiao used to cook rice.

Jin’s carefully selected matsutake mushrooms were sliced and mixed with meat juices and edamame to cook with rice.

When the rice was done, it was drenched in the meat juices, glistening and fragrant, with layers of wild mushroom aromas mixing with the meat flavor.

Winter vegetables were half stir-fried and half cooked in the rich eel and snail broth, with the stir-fried ones crisp and the soup-dipped ones soft, juicy, and flavorful.

Jin Father, who was skilled in cooking, made his famous “bare butter” to top the noodles and rice, enhancing the flavor even more.

The filming crew, including Jia Bingyang, had tasted a lot of good food recently for their program, but even they were amazed by the taste of this New Year’s Eve dinner.

The host on the television had already begun the countdown, and the sound of it added to the festive atmosphere.

Xu Wan was eating, and suddenly, she wanted to laugh.

No matter what, this was still a family reunion.

Is this the feeling of the New Year? No wonder everyone looks forward to it—it’s really wonderful.