THE GAME OF LIFE

Chapter 744: Chapter 743 Goodbye (Part 3)

The Jiang Family’s house was quite small. Although it too was a quadrangle courtyard, it might even be less than 1/10 the size of the Li Mansion, not to mention the fact that there were many children. When Jiang Chengde led his three sons into the living room, which also served as the dining room, the space, already not large, became even more cramped and crowded.

“Brother, you’re finally back. If you hadn’t come back soon, the dumplings would have been ready,” Jiang Huiqin complained as she led her four nephews in dumpling making at the small table. She pointed to the long row of dumplings of various sizes and shapes on the side, clearly the work of several hands, plump and round.

Jiang Feng leaned over to take a look and discovered there were three fillings: pork with green onions, sauerkraut, and chive with egg. On regular days it would have been considered a feast, but it seemed rather shoddy for a New Year’s Eve dinner.

“That’s just perfect. I can eat fresh ones when I get home,” Jiang Chengde said with a smile.

The child who appeared the youngest and was leaning on the table, wearing a cotton-padded jacket made from red cloth that obviously belonged to Sir, held up a round dumpling that would have been unrecognizable as such without its edges, proudly showing it off.

“Dad, look how much better my dumplings look compared to 5th and 6th brothers!” Jiang Weiguo said with pride.

“What’s there to look good? You almost burst the skin with stuffing. To the unaware, it would seem like you made a meat pie, bun, or even a sweet dumpling. Put less filling,” Jiang Chengde, certainly not a parent who knew how to encourage children with his instruction, pointed to the lunch box. “Huiqin, take the vegetables from inside and steam them in the kitchen. I’ll stir-fry some cabbage. When you get the ginkgo peeled, bring it to the kitchen, too. In about the time it takes to burn two sticks of incense, we’ll have our New Year’s Eve dinner.”

Jiang Huiqin, who was just about to start working with the dough in her hands, put it down, brushed off the flour, took the lunch box, and walked towards the kitchen with Jiang Chengde.

The kitchen was in the corner, with a bedroom and a woodshed separating it from the main hall. Jiang Feng was surprised to see that the kitchen was almost as big as the main hall. Though it seemed a bit crowded with various sundries, the space was indeed quite large.

Jiang Chengde lit a few kerosene lamps, making the kitchen much brighter. The light from the kerosene lamps was definitely not as good as electric lights, a bit dim, and it smoked up the eyes, so they couldn’t be placed too close.

But this dimness was only felt by Jiang Feng. Jiang Chengde and Jiang Huiqin were very accustomed to this kind of light. Although Jiang Chengde said he was going to cook, he didn’t immediately reach for the basket of cabbage in the corner, which didn’t look particularly fresh. Instead, he bent down behind the stove to take a look inside, poking around with a fire tool.

Jiang Feng noticed that when the fire tool stirred, sparks flew inside, not very noticeable, lighting up briefly before going out, indicating the fire had just been extinguished not long before.

“The fire’s gone out,” Jiang Chengde said.

Jiang Huiqin had just placed the lunch box on the table and was about to open it to see what vegetables were inside. Hearing what Jiang Chengde said, she panicked, smacking her forehead with annoyance, “Aiya, I got so caught up wrapping dumplings that I forgot about the work in the kitchen.”

“It’s all because of Seventh; he’s the most troublesome.”

“Now you’re blaming Weiguo,” Jiang Chengde shook his head helplessly, took advantage of the lingering warmth in the stove by stuffing in a handful of straw to reignite the fire and added a few pieces of wood. “It just went out, no worries.”

Jiang Huiqin stuck out her tongue, obviously trying but failing to make a face, and opened the lunch box. “Brother, you scared me for a moment. I thought… Wow, brother, did you strike it rich?”

The lunch box that Jiang Huiqin opened was the one sent by Mr. Lu.

“Braised shark’s fin, two-color shrimp, Ten Thousand Fortune Meat — aren’t all these dishes from Yonghe House? If I’m not mistaken, just the Braised Shark’s Fin alone sells for six silver dollars at Yonghe House, and they usually don’t offer home delivery!” Jiang Huiqin exclaimed in surprise.

“You’re pretty familiar with the prices, aren’t you? These were sent over by Mr. Lu,” Jiang Chengde said, chopping up two heads of cabbage, peeling off the outer leaves completely and leaving only the tender hearts in the middle.

“Mr. Lu is rarely so generous,” Jiang Huiqin uncovered another lunch box. “Eh, brother, you also made Clear Soup with Lyrate Wash Plant? ”

“You said you wanted to eat it, but tonight was too busy, so I made it this afternoon. I left it on the stove to simmer and forgot about it. I guess the taste and texture might be off.”

“It’s okay, anything my brother makes is delicious,” Jiang Huiqin said cheerily, taking out a jar that had been stewing in the pot and then adding the dishes into it.

The jar was sealed with lotus leaves, and it looked somewhat like ‘Buddhas Jumping Over the Wall,’ but the size didn’t quite match what she would expect, leaving Jiang Feng at a loss for what it might contain.

The next second, Jiang Feng found out what was inside the jar as Jiang Chengde uncovered it and poured all the soup from the jar into the pot.

It was sea cucumber and abalone soup.

And it had been stewed until it was very tender.

Besides the large pieces of abalone and sea cucumber, Jiang Feng also saw shrimp and dried scallops among other seafood products. There were many ways to make sea cucumber and abalone soup, but Jiang Chengde’s method of using only seafood without any other ingredients was quite uncommon. What made Jiang Feng curious was that the soup wasn’t fragrant. At least, when the lid was lifted, he couldn’t smell anything, lacking the experience of other dishes where the aroma wafted through the air upon unveiling, invigorating and refreshing the senses.

It was only when he approached the pot after it was poured in that Jiang Feng could detect a faint unique scent from the seafood, and even a slight fishy smell.

At least by the smell, it didn’t seem like a tasty soup.

It didn’t look good either, lacking other ingredients as garnish. The color of the soup made purely from seafood was very monochromatic, and it didn’t look like it would taste good.

Not good-looking and not good-smelling—while nutritious and restorative, Jiang Feng felt that this soup was really not in Jiang Chengde’s style.

Then, Jiang Feng watched as Jiang Chengde took out three small bowls, picking out the sea cucumber, abalone, and other seafood from the soup into separate bowls and setting them aside, leaving only the broth and sediment in the pot.

Jiang Chengde covered the pot to let the broth boil, then tossed in cleaned tender bok choy, blanching them rapidly, scooping them out, pouring the soup over them, then rubbing a circle of lard over the pot and tossing the bok choy into it for a quick stir-fry, until the bok choy was succulent and tender upon leaving the pot.

Then, Jiang Chengde minced all the seafood that had been set aside in the bowls, combined it with the previously unused bok choy leaves also chopped up, seasoned them to make a dumpling filling with abalone and sea cucumber, and covered the filling with a cloth.

The dish Jiang Huiqin was preparing was also ready.

With the stir-fried bok choy included, there were only five dishes in total, fewer than the number of people, but four of them were expensive delicacies, which would be considered quite a feast even for an ordinary family’s New Year’s Eve dinner.

Seeing that Jiang Chengde had finished stir-frying the bok choy, Jiang Huiqin suggested, “Brother, there’s so much food today, how about we cook the dumplings later? Let’s have the dishes first so the bok choy doesn’t get cold. You came back too late today, Weiguo and Weiping kept saying they were hungry while they were making dumplings earlier, and Weiping even sneakily ate the pickled vegetables.”

“It was my fault for coming back too late. Those two kids can’t stand being hungry,” Jiang Chengde said as he picked up the bok choy, while Jiang Huiqin gathered the other dishes back into the food containers and lifted them.

“Let’s go, let’s have dinner first. We still have to stay up for the New Year’s Eve after dinner. Did you get all the bowls and chopsticks?”

“Got them, they were all on the table before, but I was afraid they might get knocked over, so I put them in the cupboard. Oh, I forgot to get my sister-in-law’s. Brother, could you hold a food container for me while I go get another set of bowls and chopsticks?” Jiang Huiqin handed the heavier food container to Jiang Chengde and then went to get another set of bowls and chopsticks.

Carrying the dishes, the siblings headed towards the main hall.

Before they even reached the main hall, Jiang Huiqin called out loudly, “Weize, Weijin, Weiming, Weian, Weiyou, Weiping, Weiguo, hurry up and set the table, it’s time to eat!”

Source: .com, updated on N𝘰vgo.co

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