There were many ways to cook, but Shen Qing didn’t intend to make everything in one meal.

Life still had to go on, and she couldn’t just fill up her stomach all at once.

Today, she bought eight jin of pig lard.

After rendering the lard, she would have over a jin of lard scraps, which was great for adding oil and flavor to dishes.

So, she left two jin of pork belly to make red-braised pork, and used the remaining four jin to make smoked meat.

She planned to make a few jin of it every so often and stockpile it until June, which would give her plenty.

Shen Qing also boiled a dozen or so eggs. After they were boiled, she soaked them in cold water.

When the rich, red-braised pork was finished, she peeled the eggs and scored them with a knife before putting them into the pot.

The eggs absorbed the rich, flavorful red-braised pork broth and tasted amazing.

Red-braised pork with eggs had to be eaten with rice, especially the egg yolk soaked in the sauce.

When mixed with the warm rice and topped with a spoonful of the broth—wow~

She couldn’t think about it anymore; her mouth watered just imagining it.

She turned her mind to other side dishes, planning to stir-fry some yellow eel, sauté some purslane, and balance the meal with meat, eggs, vegetables, and river fresh fish. Dinner was now set.

She transferred the red-braised pork and eggs into a clay pot and started cooking them slowly over a low flame.

Next, she began preparing the most important dish of the day.

She took out five jin of pork tenderloin, first cutting it into large chunks, then into smaller pieces, and finally into strips the size of a finger.

After all the pork tenderloin was cut, it filled half a basin.

She added the pre-soaked ginger and garlic water, soy sauce, salt, two raw eggs, and flour, and mixed everything together, ensuring each piece was coated with the seasoning.

She set the marinated meat aside to absorb the flavors.

She then cleaned the small fish in the bucket, marinated them with the same seasonings and methods as the pork, and prepared them the same way.

After thoroughly washing the large iron wok, she dried it, added rapeseed oil, and lit the fire.

When the oil was heated to the right temperature, she used her special long chopsticks to pick up the marinated pork strips one by one and dropped them into the hot oil.

In no time, the golden pork strips floated to the top.

She quickly removed the first batch from the oil and added the next.

Once all the pork strips had been fried, she refried them for a second time.

After the pork strips were done, she started frying the small fish.

The aroma from the frying oil was overpowering, and even though the kitchen door was shut tightly, the smell couldn’t be contained.

Jiang Xiangnan had already come running several times, each time repeating, “It smells so good.”

“It smells so good.”

Shen Qing couldn’t help but laugh.

Originally, she had only planned to save the small fish for their meal, but she had to change her mind at the last minute and decided to leave a big bowl of crispy pork as well.

Well, even though there was red-braised pork for dinner, crispy pork and red-braised pork had completely different flavors, so it would be a nice treat for the children.

However, even after leaving a large bowl of crispy pork, the remaining pork tenderloin with eggs and flour filled six large bowls to the brim!

Each bowl was piled high, a very generous offering for others.

Yes, she bought the lard, pork belly, pig’s trotters, and ribs, but the lean meat wasn’t for her family. It was meant to be given as a gift.

She had already thought about it—whether it was for the future escape route, where it would be necessary to build good relationships for the next two or three months, or to have people help when facing jealousy, difficulties, and challenges due to earning silver close at hand, some social interactions were essential.

The fastest and most effective way to build relationships in social interactions was to offer food.

Small fish were readily available to the people of Qili Village, so if she were to offer something, she would choose fried crispy meat.

It obviously looked much more valuable than small fish, and the small fish would be reserved for her own family, as they were delicious and economical.

Shen Qing packed six bowls of crispy meat into a large bamboo basket, covered it with a cloth, and left the house.

She was planning to go to the village head’s house first.

The village head, Jiang Yang, was the father of Jiang Ying and her nominal second uncle.

The Jiang family had settled in Qili Village for generations, and they had five sons and several daughters.

After the daughters married into other villages, they lost contact.

Of the sons, the eldest was the father of the original owner, who had few descendants—only one son and one daughter, the daughter had married, but Shen Qing did not remember her.

The son was the original owner’s husband, and the original owner had a high status in the Jiang family, because she had given birth to five sons for this only child!

This made the original owner’s position extremely high in both her small family and the larger Jiang family.

After her husband’s death, the Jiang family members did everything they could to take care of her, giving her preferential treatment.

However, the original owner did not appreciate this preferential treatment and care.

She always felt that the other members of the Jiang family should treat her like this, which repeatedly made them feel frustrated.

But no matter how much the original owner caused trouble, until the time of the escape, the Jiang family members always took extra care of her unconditionally!

Shen Qing understood how important it was to be favored and looked after in a farming society.

It was something others could never even hope for.

Of course, she needed to cultivate these relationships.

“Father, I ran into people from Shili Village today. They said that my cousin Xiaoyu is having a really tough time living with the Liu family.”

“Not just tough! She’s living worse than a beast! I heard that Liu Sheng, that scoundrel, is now involved with his widowed cousin, and it seems he got her pregnant. Now, he’s forcing Xiaoyu at home, demanding she agree to serve him!”

“Tsk! Liu Sheng is shameless! Don’t you care about this, Father?”

…

Shen Qing hesitated as her hand stopped at the gate.

She couldn’t decide whether to go in.

It seemed like they were discussing private matters.

It wouldn’t be appropriate to enter, maybe she should go back and come again later.

An elderly voice sighed deeply from inside: “How can I manage this? If Shen Qingqing doesn’t agree, how will she come back? Moreover, where will she live when she comes back? What will she eat? She’s a woman who’s been married, how can she live with her brother-in-law, nephews, nieces, and the whole family?”

Shen Qing paused, her foot half-turned to leave.

Shen Qingqing…

That was the original owner’s name, and it was also her name now.

Was the Jiang family talking about her family matters?

Xiaoyu, Jiang Yu, was her sister-in-law.

The dowry money for engagements in Xingcheng was generally around six to seven taels, but Jiang Yu’s dowry had ten taels because Liu Sheng was married for the second time.

His first wife had no children for three years and eventually hanged herself. Before she died, she was often beaten, and her body showed many bruises and injuries.

The village gossiped, and Liu Sheng’s reputation was ruined, so no one wanted to marry their daughters to him.

Later, he kept increasing the dowry, and when it reached ten taels, the original owner was moved.

At that time, her in-laws had passed away, and both she and her husband were tempted by the ten-tael dowry.

However, they didn’t want to risk the bad reputation of selling the younger sister into a miserable marriage, so it was the original owner who stepped forward to marry Jiang Yu.

Jiang Yu was the daughter born to the parents in their old age.

Though she was her sister-in-law, she was only a year or two older than Jiang Xiangdong.

After her parents died, she lived with her older brother and his wife, and when they wanted her to marry, she had no choice but to comply.

Shen Qing suddenly thought that there was no sign of Jiang Yu on the escape route.

Before the escape, the original owner had attended a funeral and just said it was bad luck, returning before the coffin was even buried.

Could it be that Jiang Yu hadn’t survived the flood?

Shen Qing’s heart skipped a beat!

No wonder the Jiang family was so patient with her, even though the original owner had caused so much trouble.

After that funeral, no one smiled at her anymore, and on the escape route, aside from Jiang Erye, the village head, who showed her some care, the other Jiang family members would have rather seen her dead.

The main reason was not the hardships of the journey or the lack of food and shelter, but that they had given up hope on her, blaming her for Jiang Yu’s death.

At that moment, Jiang Yu was likely being repeatedly pressured and abused by her husband in the Liu family, living without dignity.

Unable to stay in her husband’s house and unable to return to her parents’ home, what kind of despair would a twenty-one or twenty-two-year-old girl feel…