Chapter 119: Chen Mingchuan’s Honesty

Li Xinyue genuinely believed that being thin wasn’t a bad thing.

She had gained a few pounds in the past few days, and her body had recovered greatly. She didn’t want to become fat and then have to lose weight again.

Since she couldn’t reason with this man, Li Xinyue decided to stop arguing.

She would decide how much to eat in the future.

She took out the green beans and placed them on the table, carefully selecting them.

After snapping the green beans into inch-long pieces, Li Xinyue peeled a few cloves of garlic, chose two green peppers, and then began to cut the meat.

After kneading the dough, she said to Chen Mingchuan, who was sweating profusely, “I’ll roll out the noodles, you take a break.”

What kind of small task needed a break?

Chen Mingchuan directly refused: “No need, I can roll out the noodles, you cut them.”

Alright then.

Although she didn’t know who this man belonged to in the future, he was hers for now, right?

Why not take advantage of it?

She had to admit that Chen Mingchuan was a true all-rounder, his rolled noodles were excellent, with even thickness.

After cutting the noodles and placing them in a basin, Chen Mingchuan sat by the stove to start the fire, while Li Xinyue began to stir-fry the ingredients.

She poured in oil, threw in a few Sichuan peppercorns and two rock sugar crystals, then added the chopped pork belly and slowly braised it.

When the pork belly had released all its fat, she added the green beans and stir-fried them until half-cooked, then added the chopped chili peppers and soy sauce.

After stir-frying them again, she added an appropriate amount of water.

She brought the mixture to a boil over high heat and then ladled out a large bowl of the original broth.

This broth would be used later for steaming the noodles.

The ingredients were ready, and the noodles only needed ten minutes to steam.

Li Xinyue flipped through the noodles in the basin: “When will Xiao Nan come over?”

Chen Mingchuan glanced at the time: “It’s 5:30, he should be here soon, he said he would come over after class.”

In the military, except for the headquarters, all units at the battalion and company level called coming to work “class” and leaving work “after class.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Xiao Nan’s cheerful voice came from the door: “Uncle Xiao!”

“Hmm.”

When it came to being taciturn, Xiao Nan was even better than Chen Mingchuan.

From the moment he entered to when he finished eating, he only spoke one word.

After finishing the noodles, he put down his chopsticks with a sense of satisfaction.

Finally, he spoke a second sentence: “I’ll come here to eat on my days off, both lunch and dinner will be noodles.”

As soon as he said this, Li Xinyue felt like the sky was falling: “I… I…”

But before she could finish her “I”, Xiao Nan said a third sentence: “Ten kilograms of flour, three kilograms of meat, two kilograms of oil, one kilogram of sugar, and ten yuan per month.”

After saying that, he got up and left.

Li Xinyue burst into tears: I don’t want your things, I just don’t want to be a cook…

This expression directly amused Chen Mingchuan!

He couldn’t help but twitch his lips: This woman is so interesting!

Having such a playful little woman in the house in the future, life would definitely be full of fun!

Chen Mingchuan found that he was increasingly liking Li Xinyue’s personality.

When she was calm, she was smart and witty.

When her childish side came out, she was like his son: innocent and adorable!

From childhood to adulthood, Chen Mingchuan had grown up relying on himself. He was truly the kind of person who was a “poor kid.”

Poor kids grow up early, he had become his own master earlier than others.

After joining the army, he lived with a bunch of men, he really didn’t understand women at all.

He liked Li Xinyue’s personality entirely based on his gut instinct.

His heart softened and became tender in an instant.

“Don’t worry, I’ll do the work, you just hold the spatula!”

“These noodles you made are really delicious!”

“This is the first time in my life that I know steamed noodles can be so delicious.”

“Xiao Nan is the kind of person who can eat noodles three meals a day without getting tired of it.”

Li Xinyue was a very casual person.

She loved to eat.

But she would only cook when she was interested and in the mood.

Once she started, she would make something exquisite.

Without this prerequisite, she could eat fast food and instant noodles for a month.

Imagine, a doctoral supervisor, being reduced to a cook, her mood was really not good.

But the things Xiao Nan gave were indeed tempting.

Tickets, everything needed tickets in this era, this stuff was really attractive!

“So it’s settled, I’ll only be the chef, I won’t do any kitchen chores!”

Chen Mingchuan nodded vigorously: “No problem! I’m good at this! Washing, chopping, mincing, selecting, kneading, it’s all mine.”

For the sake of the tickets, Li Xinyue decided to reluctantly agree.

“Chen Mingchuan, you’re really amazing, you can do everything.”

Did he?

Chen Mingchuan smiled awkwardly: “I’m not as amazing as you say, aren’t these just simple tasks?”

Li Xinyue nodded very seriously: “You are!”

“Although kitchen work isn’t complicated, you’re a big man.”

“How many big men nowadays go into the kitchen?”

Yes, men work outside, women work inside.

Especially in rural areas, men work full-time in the production team every day.

Women are only half-time workers, and the work they do is not as heavy as men’s, so rural men never go into the kitchen.

But Chen Mingchuan didn’t have such good fortune.

“When I arrived at the Chen family at the age of five, I was responsible for all the courtyard cleaning, washing dishes, feeding chickens and ducks, etc.”

“From the age of six, I cooked pig food, chopped firewood, weeded and watered the vegetable fields, those were all my responsibilities.”

“But even doing all that, I had a fixed amount of food for breakfast and lunch, and basically nothing for dinner.”

“To avoid going hungry, I had to search for food everywhere, and when I found food, I had to cook it. I learned to cook by doing it.”

“You might not believe it, but I only ate pork, chicken, and duck when I joined the army.”

“If it weren’t for my uncle, I wouldn’t even have had the chance to go to school.”

“After finishing elementary school, they resolutely refused to let me go to middle school, because I was a full-time worker.”

“They said they wouldn’t raise someone who just ate for free, that I gave up the opportunity to eat at the Chen family in exchange for the chance to study.”

Give up eating?

Li Xinyue was dumbfounded!

“Then what did you eat during those two years of middle school?”

Chen Mingchuan smiled: “I ate everything, sometimes my aunt would let me go over to eat.”

“But their family wasn’t well off either, so I didn’t go there often.”

“Actually, there are many edible things on the mountain, I even found a place deep in the mountains and planted corn and buckwheat.”

“Later, I accidentally dug up a kind of edible tree root on the mountain, it’s a bit like a sweet potato.”

“Let me tell you, that tree root is delicious.”

“It’s soft and powdery when roasted, I even took Da Hu and Er Ya to dig a lot of it home.”

“But it has to be roasted before you can eat it, otherwise it will make your stomach ache.”

“One time, I probably didn’t roast it thoroughly enough, and it hurt so much after eating it that I rolled on the ground.”

Tree roots, powdery, and unripe will cause poisoning?

Could it be cassava?

Li Xinyue looked up at Chen Mingchuan, and saw him talking about the past calmly, and suddenly felt a little sorry for him.

“Are the leaves palm-shaped? When I dug them out, there were a bunch of them?”

“Yes, you’ve eaten them too?”

Li Xinyue: “…”

Do I need to eat these again?

Although the orphanage was not rich, she was born in a good era and the country cared a lot for orphans.

Not only did they have enough food to eat, but they also had new clothes to wear all year round, and the country freed tuition until college.

“You are really lucky!”

“It’s called cassava, an upright shrub, 1.5-3 meters tall, with cylindrical tubers.”

“It is edible, but the tubers contain cyanate toxins and must be soaked and heated at high temperature before they can be eaten.”

“To be honest, you are really lucky. Its toxicity is not light.”