Chapter 39 – Slaughter Dish

If you have an idea, you must act on it.

While Old Madam Su and Li Sumei were discussing matters, little Su Huan caught a whiff of food from the kitchen. She tugged at Liu Yingying’s sleeve and pointed toward the kitchen. “Yiya~”

Liu Yingying immediately understood what her little niece meant. She quietly set down the curtain divider and carried Su Huan to the kitchen to see what Zhang Xiaolan was cooking.

Second Uncle Su and his wife Wu Chunhe were skilled with knives. They had just finished cleaning the pig offal. One was slicing the liver, the other the kidney. Wu Chunhe even took the time to carve a beautiful diamond pattern on the kidney slices—it looked quite exquisite.

The oil smoke floated straight up the chimney, and the air was filled with the fragrance of hot oil, ginger, and garlic.

Third Uncle Su was washing the vegetables. But aside from a few bunches of chives, the only vegetables left from the last market trip were some cabbage and vermicelli noodles.

With such limited ingredients, no matter how clever Third Aunt was, she wouldn’t be able to make the slaughter dish taste great tonight.

Little Su Huan glanced around. Seeing that the adults were happily discussing what dishes to make—what to stir-fry with shredded pork, how to prepare pork belly, and which ingredients to pair with the pig offal—it seemed no one was paying attention to her.

So, she quietly reached toward the stove and took out a jar of pickled chili from her mustard seed space. She grabbed four or five pounds of green peppers, and large handfuls of chili, garlic sprouts, scallions, ginger, garlic, star anise, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaves, Sichuan peppercorns, fennel, and other spices—two large packets of each. She also retrieved two jars of yellow cooking wine to remove odors, soy sauce to enhance flavor, five or six stalks of celtuce, a bag of wood ear mushrooms, ten carrots, ten large potatoes, and a basket full of eggs.

Unknowingly, a corner of the five-meter-long, one-meter-wide stove countertop became filled with all these ingredients.

Fortunately, the courtyard was large, and the kitchen was spacious too. The blue-brick stove now packed with these new items didn’t look too out of place.

Zhang Xiaolan had just finished slicing the cabbage and glanced over at the stove, momentarily stunned when she spotted the new ingredients.

Su Huan grew slightly worried, wondering if Third Aunt might become suspicious. But to her relief, Third Aunt simply rubbed her eyes, confirmed she wasn’t hallucinating, and immediately set to work—soaking the wood ear mushrooms, slicing the celtuce, twisting its leafy tops in two, then cutting carrots, potatoes, and green peppers into thin strips. She moved on to smashing garlic, slicing ginger, scallions, and garlic sprouts, seasoning with salt and starch, then pouring yellow wine over the pig liver, lungs, kidneys, and stomach to eliminate the odors. Without the slightest doubt, she used all of Su Huan’s ingredients!

Su Huan finally relaxed and felt completely at ease.

After Zhang Xiaolan finished prepping the ingredients, she looked up and saw Su Huan, drawn by the delicious aroma, entering the kitchen again. She quickly picked up a freshly boiled chestnut from a steaming bamboo colander, peeled it, and placed the still-warm nut in Su Huan’s hand, coaxing lovingly, “Good girl Wuyā, the kitchen smells oily. Don’t get your clothes all greasy. Quick, go back to the room with your Fourth Aunt and warm up by the fire. When dinner’s ready, I’ll call you!”

“Yiya~”

Su Huan nodded obediently. She gave her Third Aunt a happy kiss on the cheek, then contentedly carried the soft, sticky-but-not-messy chestnut, almost the size of her tiny palm, and left the kitchen with her Fourth Aunt.

It was a pity her body was still too small—she could only retrieve a limited amount from the mustard seed space. Otherwise, she would’ve harvested rice, wheat, and millet from the fields, used magic to shell and grind them into rice, flour, or millet powder, and then sneak them into the meal prep while her Third Aunt cooked, increasing the family’s staple food supply.

Once she grew a bit bigger, she’d be able to handle this kind of thing easily.

In the main room, Jin Yuegui and her son Su Yanjia sat silently, with nothing to say.

But being left alone with her son like this made her feel uneasy.

Although Su Yanjia didn’t look like her—more like that short-lived Su Renli—he was still the child she carried in her womb for ten months and gave birth to.

Back when he was the only child in the Su family, everyone pampered him. Jin Yuegui also benefited from the favoritism he received.

Later, perhaps because Yanjia’s behavior and mannerisms grew more and more like Su Renli’s, Jin Yuegui’s affection for him began to fade.

Seeing Yanjia now taller and thinner than before, Jin Yuegui finally coughed awkwardly and said, “Don’t worry. Once I’m doing well, I’ll come back to find you. I’m not that heartless. Even if I signed the severance papers, we’re still mother and son, right?”

Yanjia slowly raised his head in silence. After what just happened, he now understood exactly how much he meant to his mother. At this moment, he no longer dared to hope for any motherly love. His voice hoarse, he replied, “For money, you severed not only our legal relationship but also the emotional bond we’ve shared all these years. From now on, don’t call yourself my mother. I won’t claim to be your son, either. Don’t worry—whatever happens to you in the future, whether you remarry or do something else, I won’t get in your way.”

Jin Yuegui had only meant to comfort him with that one line. Seeing he didn’t appreciate the gesture and wouldn’t let things go, she couldn’t be bothered anymore. “You’ll understand me once you’re older. You’re still too young—I won’t hold it against you.”

Just as she finished speaking, Liu Yingying entered the main room holding the baby. “Sister-in-law, what were you saying to the child?”

Su Huan noticed that her big brother’s expression had grown darker, as if something was changing in the air. Alarmed, she was about to reach out and unravel Yanjia’s karmic threads to investigate, but suddenly, Yanjia turned and smiled gently at her. He picked her up and softly asked, “Did little sister get something tasty from Third Aunt again? Want to share it with big brother?”

He seemed to have returned to his usual gentle self.

“Yiya~”

Su Huan beamed happily when she saw he was still the same. She generously held out the chestnut to him and pointed to half of it, then to him, then to herself—indicating that they should split the chestnut and eat it together.

As the two of them interacted warmly, Jin Yuegui responded to Liu Yingying, “Nothing. Is dinner ready? I’m starving!”

Looking at her state, Liu Yingying couldn’t help but pinch her nose and say, “Should I take you to wash up? If you sit down to dinner like this, how are we supposed to eat?”

“Fine. You heat the water.”

Jin Yuegui didn’t stand on ceremony. She followed Liu Yingying to the bathhouse to clean up, scratching as she walked, causing swarms of lice to fall off her. Su Huan jumped in fright and hastily cast a spell to exterminate them.

An hour after sunset, Zhang Xiaolan organized the food and brought out a large plate of stir-fried shredded pork with green peppers, a plate of spicy stir-fried liver and kidney with sour shredded potatoes, a plate of fresh and light wood ear mushrooms with shredded pork, and a plate of cabbage and pig blood stew with vermicelli. There was also a clay pot of glossy, fragrant braised pork with chestnuts and another pot of refreshing, cleansing soup with pig lungs, pig stomach, celtuce, and chestnuts.

Once the bowls and chopsticks were set, Fifth Uncle Su brought out a steaming tray of white steamed buns from the kitchen. The buns were perfectly risen—each one thick, full, and heavy, serving as their staple food for the night.

The rich aroma of the slaughter dish and steamed buns was carried straight into the horse stable by the strong night wind.

There, locked up, were Li Ergou and the others.

Afei and Daozi chewed on the dry rations sent by Zhang Laoda under Zhang Lishi’s orders. Stuffing some snow in their mouths to help swallow the tough food, they couldn’t help but drool at the scent wafting from the Su family’s dinner table.

Daozi rasped to Li Ergou, “Ergou-ge, when’s your sister coming to bail us out?”

They wanted to go home too—and eat slaughter dish!