Back to the 70s: My Wife is Both Fierce and Crazy

Chapter 5: Chicken Dinner, Mother and Daughter Eating Chicken

She didn't have a tool to tell time at home, but since her house was halfway up a mountain, she knew from seeing the people working in the fields that it was still early before they finished work.

Bai Jing boiled water to remove the feathers, then stewed the chicken before going to the cellar, which was in the corner of the kitchen, accessible from the ground level by a wooden ladder.

The cellar was large, at least a dozen square meters, but it was empty. Apart from a half-basket of sweet potatoes in a basket, there was nothing else inside.

This shows how poor this family was.

To match the meat, Bai Jing planned to take out five sweet potatoes as the main food and make a pot of firmer sweet potato porridge with wild vegetables.

The autumn harvest is just around the corner. If her mother doesn't eat more substantial food, she might be half dead by the end of the harvest.

It's only because her house is located halfway up the mountain that the aroma of the stewed chicken could bewitch all the neighbors.

Bai Jing was busy and only realized it was lunchtime when she heard the horn.

My younger brother and sister-in-law don't come home for lunch. The school is quite far from home, and there's simply not enough time for them to make the round trip.

Memories churned deep within her mind, and Bai Jing recalled the things her younger siblings brought to school: wild vegetable dumplings. These were simply cooked wild vegetables shaped into dumplings, and aside from a bit of saltiness, all that remained was the bitterness of the wild vegetables.

This stuff has absolutely no nutritional value except to keep people from starving. She acted impulsively today and shouldn't have stewed both chickens. She should have waited until her younger siblings came back to eat before stewing them.

It's too late to regret it now that it's already been cooked.

Bai Jing planned to bring chicken to her younger siblings at school after her mother had lunch.

Luo Chunhua walked home, exhausted and hungry.

The closer she got to home, the more tempting the aroma of meat became.

Looking up at the mountains on both sides, she sniffed and realized that the smell was coming from the mountains near her own home. She was puzzled, as her family didn't have the means to eat meat; they were lucky to have meat once every two or three years.

But it's not a holiday or festival, so why is there a smell of meat coming from her house?

So she quickened her pace to get home.

It wasn't until she reached her own yard that she dared to believe that the aroma of the meat truly belonged to her family.

"Jing'er, Jing'er!" she called out loudly, as if she had just remembered something.

Bai Jing had just ladled out the sweet potato porridge when she heard her mother calling her from outside, "Mom, I'm home, what's wrong?" She put down the bowl and quickly went out of the kitchen.

Just then, she bumped into her mother, who was hurrying towards the kitchen. "Mom, what are you doing? Who's chasing you?" She looked behind her mother but didn't see anyone following her.

"What are you doing at home? Why does it smell like meat?" She was puzzled, but when she got closer to her daughter, she was even more certain that the meat smell was from her own house.

Hearing her mother mention this, Bai Jing's sallow face lit up with a smile. "Mother, I was lucky today. I found two injured pheasants in the back mountain. I was just planning to gather some firewood, but I didn't expect to have this good fortune. Mother, come inside quickly, I've already prepared everything."

After saying that, she pulled her mother into the kitchen. "Mom, look, this is the chicken soup I made. Doesn't it smell good?" She had already put the chicken soup in a bowl and let it cool down, thinking that she would eat it when her mother came back.

She picked up a bowl of chicken soup and brought it to her mother, blowing on it twice. "Mom, it's not hot anymore. Try it! I put some wild scallions in it. It smells so good. I was drooling over it while it was cooking."

Before Luo Chunhua could even speak, her eldest daughter shoved a bowl of chicken soup into her mouth.

The aroma was so enticing that she couldn't resist taking a sip.

This is terrible, it just won't stop.

Having not eaten meat for a long time, Luo Chunhua's stomach was naturally lacking in oil and fat. When people are hungry, they can't resist anything.

So she took the bowl and sat down at the small table in the kitchen.

Seeing her mother enjoying her meal, Bai Jing stopped dawdling and started eating right away. Although it was a wild pheasant, it was cunning and roamed all over the mountains. Now that it was harvest season, its flesh was naturally plump and well-fed.

The two chickens were stewed in a large iron pot, and the pot was almost full.

My family was poor; we only had one pot.

It's what we use for cooking, boiling water, and feeding us.

After finishing a bowl of meat, Luo Chunhua finally slowed down her eating.

"You went deep into the mountains?" She held a bowl in one hand and chopsticks in the other, her eyes fixed sharply on her eldest daughter sitting beside her.

Bai Jing naturally knew what her mother was worried about. "No, we didn't even leave the back mountain of our house." She dared not go deep into the mountains.

"There can be something like this in the back mountain?" Luo Chunhua looked incredulous. "Don't lie to me. I know better than you what's in the back mountain." Afraid that her daughter wouldn't believe it, she added.

Bai Jing looked helpless. "Mom, I really didn't lie to you. I'll take you to see where I found the pheasant later, okay?" She knew her mother was worried about her.

She remembered that incident, and even after her rebirth, she dared not forget it.

There was a family in the village who ran out of food during a year of great famine, and the surrounding forests had been completely ravaged. With no other option, the father took his son into the deep mountains behind the village.

Once they went in, they never came out again.

When the village chief led people to search, they found a head and some bones; the rest had been gnawed clean by wild animals.

His son has also disappeared without a trace.

Why did she remember? Because she saw that head that had been gnawed and was unrecognizable.

She was so frightened by this that she lost her mind. Her mother said that it took a month of calling her soul back to her, otherwise she would have become an idiot.

She understood even better what her mother was worried about: that she might end up in the belly of a wild beast in her quest for food.

Seeing how confident she was, Luo Chunhua looked away. "Although I have three daughters, they are all flesh and blood of my flesh. I don't want anything to happen to any of you." After saying that, she started eating again.

Bai Jing was very observant and noticed the sob and fear in her mother's voice.

"Mother, I promise you, I will never go into the deep mountains. I haven't even properly taken care of you yet, how could I possibly go and kill myself?" Bai Jing said with a smile, putting a piece of meat from her bowl into her mother's bowl.

Luo Chunhua gave her a reproachful look, "You eat it yourself, there's some in your mother's bowl."

After the mother and daughter finished a bowl of meat, Bai Jing served her mother a bowl of sweet potato porridge, saying, "Mom, eat something hard, otherwise you won't be able to handle it."

Seeing the sweet potato porridge in the bowl, Luo Chunhua immediately flew into a rage, "You brat, how much did you cook? The little bit of food in the cellar is enough for our family to eat until the end of the month, and it's only the beginning of the month now. How are we going to survive after you've wasted so much?"

Seeing the bowl full of sweet potatoes, Luo Chunhua felt a pang of heartache. She added more water, and this bowl would be enough for her family to have a meal.

Seeing her mother so worried about this little bit of food, Bai Jing couldn't help but tear up. "Mother, don't worry, I'll go for a walk in the back mountain this afternoon. The wild taro is ripe at this time of year, I'll go dig some up."

Wild taro can fill your stomach, but it's really hard to dig up, so families with better conditions don't bother with it.

Not only is it small, but it's also very spicy; if you touch it too much, your hands will be burned by the spiciness.

But for those who had no food at home, it was a lifesaver; what did hardship matter?

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(End of this chapter)