Chapter 11

“Father taught me before. ” Da Bao explained in a small voice.  

Yin Xiaoman nodded, not feeling particularly surprised.  

She had always known that Shen Qingyun, Da Bao’s father, had been selected by the Military Unit to attend a military academy. He was an educated man.  

It was no surprise that he had taught Da Bao how to read.  

“And what about Erniu?” she asked.  

“I don’t know them. ” Erniu answered quickly before Da Bao had a chance to respond.  

“Alright.”  

Yin Xiaoman reached out to pat Erniu’s head, but her gaze shifted to Da Bao. “Teach your little sister. ” she said firmly.  

After a brief pause, she added: “Just three characters a day.”  

Erniu was still young, so there was no need for her to overwork herself.  

After assigning the task, Yin Xiaoman didn’t pay attention to how shocked Da Bao might be or how delighted Erniu seemed. Instead, she turned her focus back to the booklet.  

She flipped to the next page, pointed to the characters on it, glanced at Da Bao, and commanded: “Read.”  

“足 (foot).”  

“目 (eye).”  

“手 (hand).”  

…  

It wasn’t until the booklet was flipped more than halfway through that Da Bao finally stumbled upon a character he didn’t recognize—“毅.”  

Yin Xiaoman took note of the unfamiliar character and wrote it down in a notebook that still had blank pages. She didn’t write much, just five characters in total.  

After going over each character several times with Da Bao, she handed the brush to him and instructed in a calm voice: “Write each character ten times. Teach your sister today’s lesson.”  

Having said that, she left the two children to their task and went to attend to her own matters.  

As he watched her retreating figure, Da Bao found himself momentarily dazed.  

It felt as if time had folded over itself, bringing him back to when his father was still alive.  

He unconsciously gripped the brush tightly, forcing down the tears that had risen to his nose. With a reverence he hadn’t felt in a long time, he carefully traced the first stroke onto the paper.  

As a former Head Maid, Yin Xiaoman maintained her habit of delegating tasks and not micromanaging them. Leaving the two children behind, she headed to the outer room.  

She had far too many things to do at the moment.  

That morning, when she had given that piece of rabbit hide to Zhang Jinfeng, it had suddenly occurred to her that she might need a set of knee pads like those as well. Meanwhile, the two children would each need a pair of fur-lined hand muffs.  

Others might not understand, but Yin Xiaoman, having grown up by the sea, knew just how bone-chilling the water could be in winter.  

Even though Shen Qingyun’s location was reportedly much warmer than here, it was always better to be prepared when going out to sea.  

At the very least, it could help prevent the cold dampness from seeping into one’s bones.  

This time, Yin Xiaoman didn’t dare to enter the room directly as she had that morning. Instead, she sat in the main hall, half-closing her eyes and relying on her mental focus to search the house.  

Yin Xiaoman rummaged through her stash of belongings, and the findings left her quite satisfied.  

She found a piece of snow-white rabbit fur, without a single blemish, as well as a thick and dense raccoon fur.  

The rabbit fur seemed sizable enough; with a bit of cotton stuffing, it would suffice to make a hand warmer for each of the two children.  

However, the quality of the raccoon fur was exceptionally fine, almost too luxurious for an ordinary family to afford.  

Yin Xiaoman hesitated for a moment before deciding to turn the fur side inward and wrap the exterior with coarse cloth.  

After all, it was for her own use, and no one would go out of their way to inspect it.  

Time flew by quickly.  

Over the past days, Yin Xiaoman had spent her time at home sewing clothes, cooking, and supervising the two children as they studied and learned to read.  

Apart from going out with Da Bao a few times to gather firewood and sending some unremarkable yet delicious food to the elderly couple of the Shen family, she hardly left the house.  

So much so that she didn’t even notice when the end of the year approached and the villagers began slaughtering pigs and dividing the meat.  

It was another early morning, before the sun had risen, when Zhang Jinfeng once again knocked on the courtyard gate and delivered a hefty piece of pork fat weighing a full pound.  

Looking at the chunk of meat, Yin Xiaoman felt a mix of emotions.  

“Mom, you should take this meat back. We’ll be leaving in a few days after tidying up, so we won’t need it.”  

A couple of days ago, Gao Chong had made a special trip to inform Yin Xiaoman that he had already contacted their company commander by phone. The paperwork for joining the military family had been submitted, and once approved in the next few days, he would help them purchase train tickets.  

Yin Xiaoman had already begun packing their belongings.  

When Zhang Jinfeng heard her second daughter-in-law mention the matter of joining the military unit, her heart wavered unexpectedly.  

It was hard to say whether she felt more reluctant or more joyful.  

Her second son had been working hard in the military unit all on his own. Not only was it exhausting, but there was also no one by his side to care for or comfort him.  

As parents, how could they not feel distressed?  

After finally getting married, he hadn’t even had the chance to spend his wedding night before returning to the military unit.  

For the elderly couple, this was a knot in their hearts, something they couldn’t get over. They had always been worried, fearing some mishap might arise because of it.  

When they learned that their second daughter-in-law was willing to bring the two children and join the military unit with him, the two elders were overjoyed, as if a heavy stone had finally been lifted from their hearts.  

They didn’t know how to express their excitement, going so far as to clash with their eldest daughter-in-law, ignoring her complaints and laments, and sending every good thing they could think of or find into this courtyard.  

However, as the departure day drew nearer, the initial joy began to fade little by little.  

In recent days, the thought of the mother and her two children leaving, and not knowing when they would meet again, made Grandma Zhang’s nose tingle uncontrollably with sadness.  

Perhaps she was getting older and more sentimental, unable to handle emotional matters as well.  

Or maybe the time spent together recently had made her realize even more how good her second daughter-in-law was.  

She might seem aloof and distant, not close to anyone, but she was sincere and genuine.  

Not only had the two children grown healthier under her care, with some flesh returning to their cheeks, but even the elderly couple, who were nearing the end of their days, had benefited greatly.  

Setting aside the various delicious foods she made, even the fur and thick fabrics they received were things they had never had the chance to use in all their years of living.  

The more Zhang Jinfeng thought about it, the more reluctant she felt.  

“So just because you’re leaving, you won’t eat the meat?” she asked.  

Zhang Jinfeng suppressed the slight sourness in her heart and gave Yin Xiaoman a playful glare.  

“Can’t you salt it and pack it for the road? The journey will take days and nights. If you don’t prepare some food and drink, what will you do? Without an adult accompanying you, tell me, how can I possibly be at ease?”  

The veins at Yin Xiaoman’s temples throbbed slightly.  

She resisted the urge to rub them.  

She felt that perhaps she had been spending a bit too much time with the elderly couple recently. Somehow, this had given Grandma the mistaken impression that they were exceptionally close.  

Not only had the old woman become much more open in front of her, but she would occasionally take on the demeanor of a mother-in-law when speaking or acting.  

This left Yin Xiaoman, who was never one to open her heart to others, feeling quite uncomfortable.  

She understood that the old woman meant no harm. It was precisely because she had developed a fondness for her that she behaved this way.  

So, no matter how awkward it felt, Yin Xiaoman could only grit her teeth and reluctantly accept this goodwill.  

Yet, when alone, she couldn’t help but feel troubled—  

How was she ever going to repay this growing debt of gratitude that seemed to pile up endlessly?  

Perhaps she could take down the bed curtains in her room and sew them into a satin quilt for the old woman?  

But as soon as she thought of the floral branches and birds she had painstakingly embroidered on the bed curtains, Yin Xiaoman dismissed the idea.  

Even if she could bear parting with them, she couldn’t risk leaving the elderly couple with a potential source of trouble.  

In the end, she decided once more, and quite seriously, that she would try to keep her distance from them in the future.  

Perhaps it was a case of “what you think about during the day, you dream about at night.”  

Since she had been preoccupied with how to repay the elderly couple’s kindness while awake, Yin Xiaoman found herself dreaming again that night.  

In her dream, she returned to the Imperial Kitchen, a place she had long yearned to revisit.  

But unfortunately, it wasn’t the grand main kitchen she had hoped for. Instead, it was merely the small storeroom located closest to the entrance of the Imperial Kitchen.  

This storeroom had been built as a temporary storage space for ingredients not often used.  

It was, in fact, a structure that Yin Xiaoman had once suggested adding.  

The reason for its construction was to prevent situations where the palace masters might suddenly request uncommon dishes, which would require too much time to fetch ingredients from the main warehouse, potentially displeasing the masters and bringing trouble to the Imperial Kitchen.  

The storeroom contained mostly dried goods, spices, and other rarely used ingredients—items like millet, sticky rice flour, or preserved vegetables, which the masters would occasionally want for a change in flavor.  

The quantities stored there weren’t large, just enough for a few meals.  

Yin Xiaoman reached out and picked up a handful of sun-dried bamboo shoots from the shelf. She couldn’t resist gripping them tightly.  

Inexplicably, an image of a steaming basket filled with fragrant, thin-skinned, generously stuffed bamboo shoot and pork buns appeared in her mind.  

Even though she knew it was merely her imagination, she couldn’t help but swallow hard.  

Before her mind’s eye, she could already see the two little ones holding the buns, their faces lit up with surprise and delight as they savored each bite.  

Yin Xiaoman let out a sigh.  

But in that instant, she suddenly sensed that something was amiss!  

The bamboo shoots, which she had been tightly gripping in her hand, suddenly vanished before her very eyes!  

Yin Xiaoman blinked in disbelief and even moved her fingers deliberately, but the bamboo shoots seemed to have dissolved into thin air, leaving no trace behind.  

Her heart thumped heavily a few times, and an inconceivable thought sprang to mind.  

Could it be—  

She wasn’t dreaming after all? Were those things actually real?  

Suppressing the frantic beating of her heart, she repeatedly murmured to herself, over and over: “Get out, I need to go back!”  

Then, that familiar sense of disorientation swept over her again. She struggled to open her eyes.  

But alas, all she saw was pitch black.  

She was still lying on the kang, and the steady breathing of the two children beside her reached her ears.  

Yin Xiaoman lay motionless, disappointment flickering in her eyes.  

She let out a self-deprecating laugh.  

What was she thinking? Where in the world would such good fortune exist?  

No matter how much she wished for it, it was still just a dream.  

Yin Xiaoman closed her eyes again, resigning herself to reality, and turned over, ready to fall back asleep.  

Yet, at that very moment, a sharp pain suddenly pricked her cheek, as if she had been jabbed by something.  

She reached up to touch her face, and her breath caught. She froze, then reopened her eyes in disbelief.  

In an instant, she sat bolt upright on the kang.