07

Lin You didn’t care about all the chaos. After planting a few types of seeds, she turned her attention to the village’s eggs.

Unlike the chickens raised in farms, most of the village chickens were free-range, eating insects from the woods. They were all healthy and active, and when it came time to eat, their meat was naturally firm. The warm eggs taken straight from the nests, cracked into a bowl, revealed bright yellow yolks, which tasted completely different from eggs laid by feed-raised chickens.

In the village, there was an elderly woman living alone, known as Hong Po. She was in her nineties, with poor eyesight, and aside from receiving a small monthly allowance from the village, she raised a dozen or so chickens. From time to time, she would have Yao Jiu take them into town to sell.

When spring came, Hong Po kept a few eggs to hatch chicks, not for sale but for the villagers. She was old, and while she couldn’t help with many things, she raised the best chickens in the village, ranking among the top.

Lin You wore a pair of rubber shoes and went to Hong Po’s house to catch some chicks. The little chicks were chirping and running around, fluffy and scurrying about. Lin You chatted with Hong Po while skillfully grabbing the chicks.

Hong Po leaned on her cane, sitting on a polished high-back chair, her voice loud and clear for someone over ninety years old. “When I was young, I was great at raising chickens! Back then, the commune even made me a chicken expert. I got an extra ten work points a month!”

Older people often enjoyed reminiscing, but Lin You didn’t mind at all.

“Really? You’re amazing!” Lin You responded.

“I can tell these chickens are raised well. Look at that rooster, its tail feathers are so high. In a few days, when they fall out, save a few for me.”

“Why?” Lin You asked.

“I’ll make a feather shuttlecock!” Hong Po laughed.

Lin You proudly shared, “I’m really good at playing shuttlecock! I even won first place in our elementary school’s competition!”

It wasn’t just shuttlecock that Lin You was good at. She used to run wild across the mountains, playing all sorts of games like hopscotch, catching sheep hooks, and tossing sandbags!

Hong Po chuckled, “Alright, when the rooster molts, I’ll save all the feathers for you.”

After leaving Hong Po’s house, Lin You returned home with eight fluffy, light yellow chicks.

Each chick had tiny, black bean-sized eyes and a round body. When scattered in the yard, they seemed even smaller.

Mengmeng, the cow from the barn, came out to join the fun, sniffed around with its head down, and mooed a few times.

“Alright, stop being spoiled. You’ll have your share of these chicks in the yard, so make sure to look after them.”

Mengmeng stamped its hooves on the ground and made a long sound, as if trying to pick a fight. Lin You, being a soft-hearted owner, had once said she would deduct two days of milk when Mengmeng ate the kitchen’s food, but in the end, she only symbolically deducted one day. Since then, Mengmeng had grown bolder. Whenever things didn’t go its way, it would argue with Lin You.

Lin You could only whisper a few words in Mengmeng’s ear.

This time, Mengmeng stopped mooing and walked carefully, afraid of stepping on the newly arrived chicks.

And it had reason to be careful. These little ones were future ingredients for dishes like braised chicken chunks, spicy stir-fried chicken, big plate chicken, chicken soup, and scallion oil-braised chicken…

Lin You had started raising chickens and set up a chicken coop in one corner of the yard. The yard was already large, and she left some space to plant two rows of spring onions and two rows of chili peppers and vegetables. After a few days, they had already grown quite a bit, and the chicks quickly adapted to their new environment.

Now, she had cows and chickens.

Lin You lay on the deck chair in the yard, feeling a sense of wealth, as if she were an ancient landowner.

However, this illusion didn’t last long, as she soon heard Yao Jiu calling from outside.

Yao Jiu, having finished her own chores, came to help Lin You with the live stream. However, after planting seeds yesterday, everything else was still in the seedling stage, so there was no need to go to the fields today.

Yao Jiu came in carrying a bucket of milk and a bag of eggs, looking confused. “Why did you buy all this? Aren’t we live streaming today?”

Lin You took the items and said, “We’re still live streaming, why wouldn’t we?”

She had spent the whole day in the fields yesterday, so today, she needed something else to broadcast.

Lin You slowly gathered half a bag of flour and some peanut oil from the house.

Then, with a grunt, Lin You dragged a few iron objects out from the storage room in her house.

Yao Jiu, even more confused, asked, “Aren’t these your grandmother’s things? What are you doing with them?”

Lin You’s grandmother used to make egg cakes in the town many years ago. Back then, Lin You’s parents were still alive, and the family had a small stall in Fangping Town. Lin You’s parents helped, and her grandmother was in charge of the cooking. Life was pretty good back then. But when the town opened fancy cake shops, the business for egg cakes plummeted, and their life slowly started to worsen.

It was also because of this that Lin You’s parents decided to go work outside the town, and eventually, they died in a car accident.

While her grandmother was still alive, she would occasionally make egg cakes for the villagers. People would bring their own ingredients, and she would cook them on the stove.

Lin You had been cleaning the house recently and came across this memory from her grandmother. After a brief thought, she decided to make some egg cakes.

“Making egg cakes, huh?”

Lin You washed her hands and started preparing, casually asking Yao Jiu, “I’m planning to make two flavors: one with milk and the other with honey. Which one do you prefer?”

Yao Jiu was uninterested. “Desserts? I’m fine with anything.”

She didn’t really like sweet things, just a few bites would be enough for her.

Lin You set up the stove, and for baking the egg cakes, she used the old oven left behind by her grandmother. She tried it out, and it still worked, so she plugged it in.

Once everything was ready, Lin You made a hand gesture to signal that they could start.

“Hello, everyone, I’m Lin You.”

“Today, I’m not going to the fields. I’m staying at home to make some egg cakes for everyone.”

As soon as the live stream started, Lin You noticed something was wrong.

Compared to the lively atmosphere of yesterday’s broadcast, today’s live stream, although the viewer count quickly rose to 20,000, had an unusually “overactive” comment section.

【User47758: Get ^[1]“CZ” likely refers to “chā zuǐ” (插嘴), which translates to “interrupting” or “butting in.” It’s a common Chinese slang used derogatorily … Continue readingCZ out of the entertainment industry! Get CZ out of the entertainment industry! Get CZ out of the entertainment industry!】

【Long Wind 458: Lin You, get out of the entertainment industry! Lin You, get out of the entertainment industry! Lin You, get out of the entertainment industry!】

【Sour Sweet Cloud 3644: Go away, go away, go away!】

Even though there were a couple of normal comments, they were quickly scrolled away. Before long, the comment section was just filled with “go away” messages.

Yao Jiu quickly set “entertainment industry” and “go away” as banned words, but the people in the chat responded quickly, immediately replacing the words with abbreviations. Every time Yao Jiu banned one term, they would replace it with another.

The fast-paced scrolling continued as before.

It didn’t take a fool to see something was wrong. Just as Yao Jiu was about to type and ask Lin You if they should end the stream, she heard Lin You’s loud voice saying, “Today, we’re going to make traditional egg cakes.”

Lin You held up her phone, grabbed a pen, and a piece of white paper. She quickly wrote a few lines and then gestured for Yao Jiu to type the contents of the paper as a pinned comment.

“To thank everyone for your support, we’ll have a giveaway today. At the end of the stream, we’ll draw a winner who will receive a bag of traditional egg cakes!”

On the other side of the screen, the person controlling the internet trolls clicked his tongue and said to the person next to him, “Do you think this person is crazy? Just a bag of egg cakes, who would care about something like that?”

The minion next to him agreed, “Exactly. This stuff doesn’t even compare to what proper cake shops sell. It’s really pathetic.”

The person in charge sneered as he watched Lin You start cracking the eggs. He felt even more disdainful.

“She’s supposed to be a celebrity, yet she’s doing such low-tier stuff.”

“If you ask me, since she’s not afraid of being criticized, she might as well start a live stream selling products.”

Lackey: “Exactly, this little girl has no vision at all. She’s not bad-looking, and if she quits being a celebrity, just twist in front of the camera a few times, we can do some marketing, and just rely on selling products, she’d earn quite a lot.”

“That won’t work, no one watches this kind of stuff anymore, it’s too outdated.”

“She doesn’t even sell products, so the rewards are fewer. Compared to someone like… they can just sing a song on a live stream and get a bunch of carnivals.”

Dingling, the phone rang. The person in charge answered the call: “Brother Kai.”

Looking at the chaotic comments, he was confident: “Don’t worry, I guarantee no normal comments will make it through. If we keep this up for a few days, she definitely won’t be able to take it.”

After hanging up, the person in charge relaxed, leaned back in his chair, and complained to the lackey: “They say we have a black heart in this business, but look at the entertainment industry, their hearts are even blacker than ours.”

He targeted Lin You with fake reviews, but that was just business. It didn’t mean he really thought highly of Zhang Kai. When a person left the industry and found a new way to make a living, Zhang Kai went all out, which made the person in charge’s small remaining conscience shiver.

The lackey chuckled a few times, pointing at the pinned giveaway comment and asking, “Boss, are we participating in this giveaway?”

The person in charge waved his hand: “Who’s going to care about something like this? Besides, even if they win, can a few bags of egg cakes turn her reputation around? Forget it.”

Besides, they were using fake accounts, so it was too troublesome to get involved in that.

The person in charge, bored, stared at the screen for a while before excusing himself and leaving.

Once the boss left, the lackey casually threw his phone aside and started slacking off.

Anyway, the automated trolls didn’t need his attention.

On Lin You’s side, she wasn’t affected by the comments at all. She cracked eggs into a large bowl she had prepared. Since they were doing a giveaway, she quietly signaled to Yao Jiu to go get more eggs and milk.

She cracked dozens of golden eggs, plugged in the mixer, and it started stirring automatically.

The most important step in making traditional egg cakes was this: to beat the eggs until they became a light yellow, airy mousse-like texture. At this point, the flour was sifted and added gradually to the beaten eggs.

Lin You started with the milk-flavored batch, adding milk while beating the eggs.

Finally, she added a little peanut oil and mixed everything well to finish the batter.

She poured the batter into molds and placed several trays of prepared batter into the oven, setting the timer.

As the temperature gradually increased, the sweet aroma filled the entire yard.

Lin You sniffed, puzzled, and typed a question to Yao Jiu.

“Do you smell a really unusual fragrance?”

Yao Jiu couldn’t smell anything else, her nose was filled with the sweet scent of milk.

She was about to take back her words about not liking sweets—once the cakes were out of the oven, she was going to eat dozens of them!

“Nope.”

Lin You sniffed again, and it seemed like the strange smell had really disappeared.

She scratched her head, decided not to focus on it, and went to check the oven.

Then, she heard Yao Jiu shouting in a near-screaming voice.

“Lin You! Your cow… Mengmeng has gone crazy!”