Sleeping all the way until noon, Song Xia finally emerged from her room rubbing her eyes.
“You’re awake?” Just as she stepped out of her room, she happened to run into Shen Huaijing coming out of the kitchen.
“Um, I cooked some food. Would you like a bit?” Shen Huaijing looked at Song Xia, who was still rubbing her eyes, hesitated for a moment, and asked.
Song Xia had not expected Shen Huaijing to know how to cook, so her interest was instantly piqued. No longer feeling sleepy, she looked at Shen Huaijing with great anticipation. “Sure!”
“Then I’ll go ladle some for you.” Hearing Song Xia’s response, Shen Huaijing felt a touch of happiness. He turned back into the kitchen and scooped up a brimful bowl of white porridge for Song Xia—so full it nearly overflowed.
The moment Song Xia received the bowl of white porridge, her brow twitched violently.
Why were there black specks in this white porridge?
Sniffing it again—well, as expected, it was burnt.
Song Xia looked up and saw that Shen Huaijing had not walked far. He was sitting at the doorway of the central hall, appearing as if he were casually admiring the courtyard scenery. However, his eyes, which kept stealing glances in her direction, betrayed him; he wanted to hear Song Xia’s evaluation of this bowl of porridge.
Song Xia pressed her throbbing temples and offered herself some mental preparation, thinking: Burnt food is still edible! After all, this is Young Master Shen’s first time cooking; I should at least give him some face!
With that thought, she took a sip from the bowl. But the instant the porridge entered her mouth, her entire face twisted together.
The food wasn’t fully cooked!
The half-raw rice grains were both salty and bitter, and the porridge even had a strange sweetness, combined with that unique odor of a burnt pot!
Song Xia felt as though her tongue had perished on the spot.
“How is it?” Shen Huaijing had been paying close attention to her reaction all along. Seeing her expression, his heart leaped, and he hurriedly handed over a cup of water. His defined brows knitted together, his face filled with worry and embarrassment.
“Is it that terrible?” For some reason, there was a barely perceptible trace of grievance in Shen Huaijing’s voice.
“Did… did you taste it yourself?” Song Xia desperately wanted to spit out the mouthful of food, but she couldn’t bear to waste grain, nor could she bear to dampen Shen Huaijing’s enthusiasm for cooking. So she forced herself to swallow it down, drank a large cup of water to rinse her mouth, and asked him rather weakly.
“I ate it, and I thought… it was fine…” Shen Huaijing’s tone grew weaker and weaker alongside the changes in Song Xia’s expression.
“If it’s truly that unpalatable, then don’t eat it. I can reheat it and eat it myself tonight. You can go eat some pastries with Ah Ming.”
“No, you thought it was fine?” Song Xia was incredulous. Was his sense of taste broken?!
“Mm.”
“What about Ah Ming? Did Ah Ming eat it?” Song Xia began to doubt whether her own sense of taste had malfunctioned after waking up.
“Ah Ming didn’t eat it. He ran away as soon as he saw the food.” Shen Huaijing spread his hands helplessly.
Song Xia let out a sigh of relief. Alright, it seemed her sense of taste hadn’t failed; Shen Chunming must have smelled the burnt food and bolted!
That meant something was wrong with Shen Huaijing!
At this thought, Song Xia became worried about Shen Huaijing instead. Cooking poorly was no big deal—after all, not everyone was good at it—but being able to eat such terrible food was definitely not normal.
“What did you put in the porridge?” Song Xia couldn’t help asking.
“Just those things on your kitchen counter. Some of the white powder and some of the brown powder. Oh, right, I didn’t put in that black liquid.” Shen Huaijing recalled briefly and spoke with certainty.
Song Xia pressed her hand to her forehead. That meant he had added both salt and sugar—no wonder it was both salty and sweet! Thank goodness he hadn’t added vinegar!
“Then when you ate this porridge, what did it taste like to you?” Song Xia pressed.
Shen Huaijing lowered his head in thought for a moment, then said expressionlessly, “Everything was very faint, without much flavor.”
Upon hearing this, Song Xia’s expression instantly grew serious. After thinking it over, she stood up, went into the room, and scooped a small spoon of cane sugar and a small spoon of salt.
“Here, taste this.” Song Xia handed the sugar to Shen Huaijing.
Shen Huaijing obediently took the spoon and gently licked it.
“What flavor?” Song Xia asked immediately.
“A very faint trace of sweetness.”
Song Xia then handed him the spoon of salt.
“Taste this, what flavor?”
“A very faint trace of saltiness.”
Song Xia let out a sigh of relief. Fortunately, his sense of taste hadn’t completely degraded.
However, her brows furrowed tightly right after. Song Xia felt a headache coming on; she hadn’t expected Shen Huaijing’s illness to be so severe that he could barely taste anything anymore!
“Is there something wrong?” Shen Huaijing also sensed something was off and asked with a frown.
“Don’t you feel that you can’t taste anything when you eat?” Song Xia was quite worried. Had this man not realized it himself?
“Don’t you feel that there’s any difference between you and us?”
“The food over these past few days has been white porridge after all. Could there be any other flavor to it?” Shen Huaijing froze upon hearing her words. Was the food he had drunk over these past few days not ordinary white porridge?
“Of course! Over these past two days, I’ve made sweet porridge, savory porridge, and even fruit-flavored porridge!” Song Xia held her head in her hands. It turned out he hadn’t tasted a single bit of the varied porridges she had made every day.
This time, Shen Huaijing was truly stunned.
“Since when did you start feeling that food tasted bland?”
“Mm… about half a year ago, I suppose. I thought…” Shen Huaijing recalled with a frown.
“What did you think?”
Shen Huaijing paused, saying with some embarrassment, “I thought the people in the manor were intentionally making the food taste bad for me.”
Song Xia sighed. Food without a drop of flavor was indeed terrible!
Song Xia finally understood why Shen Huaijing showed so little interest in all kinds of food. The guy simply couldn’t taste anything at all.
“As for your illness, I’ll find a doctor to check on you again as soon as possible.” Song Xia made up her mind that she had to put getting a new prescription for Shen Huaijing on her schedule right away.
Shen Huaijing himself did not seem to care much, looking somewhat lost in thought.
“What are you thinking about?” Seeing his expression, Song Xia asked out of curiosity.
“Ah, nothing. I just feel that you know quite a lot.” The moment Shen Huaijing opened his mouth, Song Xia lost her desire to keep asking.
“Uh, it’s alright, just average…” Song Xia brushed it off casually and immediately changed the subject. “Hey! Ah Ming didn’t knock over the thing I put in the well yesterday, did he?”
“No, I was keeping an eye on it.” Shen Huaijing did not expose her clumsy topic change, a gentle smile appearing on his refined face.
“That’s good!” Song Xia bounced up like a rabbit and jogged off to retrieve her hawthorn cake.
As she ran, she called out, “Ah Ming! Come out! Sister-in-law made something delicious for you!”
Shen Chunming had been lying on the bed reading his picture book. Hearing Song Xia call him from the courtyard, he rolled over, sat up, and responded enthusiastically.
“Hey! I’m coming right out!”
Soon, the three of them gathered in the kitchen, six eyes staring together at the bowl in Song Xia’s hand.
“What is this thing?” Shen Chunming was the first to ask. He had eaten and seen many good things, but this was something he truly had never seen before.
A reddish-brown paste-like block that didn’t smell like much of anything—was this edible?
“It’s something delicious!” Song Xia was quite confident.
Having rested in the well for a whole night, the hawthorn cake had set perfectly. Song Xia turned out the solidified block of hawthorn cake and used a knife to slice it into mahjong-sized pieces, taking an offcut piece to taste first.
“Mmm~” Song Xia let out a long sigh of satisfaction. This was the exact taste! Sweet, sour, and ice-cold! Having a piece of this under the scorching midday sun was simply amazing!
“Sister-in-law! Sister-in-law!” Shen Chunming was behind Song Xia, held back by Shen Huaijing so he wouldn’t cause trouble. Seeing Song Xia take a bite, he shouted for her in sheer eagerness.
“How could I leave you out!” Song Xia laughed and scolded gently, handing a neatly cut, square piece of hawthorn cake to Shen Chunming. “Here, taste it and see if Sister-in-law lied to you.”
The sliced hawthorn cake looked translucent and exceptionally beautiful under the sunlight.
The moment Shen Chunming received it, he couldn’t wait to take a bite.
“Mm! Delicious!” Though Shen Chunming had shouted excitedly, his way of eating was quite refined. Taking just a small bite, his eyes widened in surprise as he exclaimed!
Seeing that Shen Chunming loved it, Song Xia smiled with a touch of pride. “Of course!”
Saying that, she handed a piece to Shen Huaijing as well. “Here, you try it too.”
Shen Huaijing intended to decline; he couldn’t taste flavors anyway, and this item looked quite difficult to make. Song Xia had spent almost an entire night making it yesterday; it would be a waste if he ate it, so it was better not to ruin good food.
Seeing Shen Huaijing hesitate, Song Xia pulled him over directly and placed a large piece into his hand.
“It’s fine, food is made to be eaten. Give it a taste.”
Song Xia’s almond eyes were large and bright, filled with laughter as she looked at Shen Huaijing.
Shen Huaijing only felt dazzled by the warm sunlight beaming behind Song Xia.
He tried putting the hawthorn cake into his mouth and bit off a small piece. Soon, his eyes also widened slightly in surprise.
It had been a long time since he had felt anything capable of stimulating his taste buds.
“Mm, sour?” Shen Huaijing had never expected this flavor; this unremarkable little pastry actually carried a sweet and sour taste.
Nowadays when he ate, any taste he could perceive was faint, but eating this gave him a fresh sense of stimulation, as if something was tingling on his tongue.
“Sister-in-law! What did you make this out of?” Shen Chunming quickly finished the piece in his hand and wanted to grab another.
Song Xia handed him two pieces and then put the bowl away. “You can’t eat too much of this, or it’ll make your teeth sensitive!”
Remembering how his teeth had ached from eating sugar in the past, Shen Chunming shuddered all over, as if his back molars had started aching again.
He could only watch longingly as Song Xia put the bowl away, slowly savoring the two pieces in his hand.
“This treat is called sour cake. It’s made from those red berries we picked on the mountain a while ago.” Song Xia gave the hawthorn cake a different name; otherwise, once people heard the original name, they would easily guess what it was made of.
“Red berries? Those things are terribly astringent! They aren’t edible at all!” Shen Chunming was somewhat surprised. He had eaten those red berries before—they were sour and astringent, very hard to swallow.
“That’s right, so I made a slight improvement, and then it became delicious~” Song Xia smiled, then instructed Shen Chunming.
“Ah Ming, we have to keep this a secret for now. Next time we go to the county town, let’s see if we can sell this sour cake. If everyone finds out what it’s made of, we won’t be able to sell it.”
“I understand!” Shen Chunming puffed out his chest. “We definitely won’t tell them about our stuff! We can’t let them snatch it!”
Song Xia burst into laughter. “In short, let’s not tell anyone for now. Our family still needs money. Once our family’s finances get back on track, we can tell everyone and let them have another way to earn a living—that would be nice too.”
Upon hearing this, Shen Chunming pouted instead. “No way, this belongs to our family!”
Song Xia hadn’t expected this boy to be such a miser. She coaxed him gently again, “By then, Sister-in-law will surely have made other, even better things. So wouldn’t it be great if we tell Sister-in-law Xing’er and the others about this and let everyone earn money together?”
Hearing Song Xia put it this way, Shen Chunming lowered his head and thought about it. Feeling that Sister-in-law Xing’er was quite decent to their family, he nodded somewhat stingily. “Only Sister-in-law Xing’er.”
Song Xia shook her head with a smile, rendered somewhat speechless. Shen Chunming had clearly never suffered hardship or poverty before, yet why was he so keen on money? Who knew Ah Ming was actually a little money-grubber!
It was already late autumn now, and the weather had cooled down significantly, so the sour cake wouldn’t spoil easily once made.
Ever since Shen Chunming learned what the sour cake was made of, he dragged Song Xia up the mountain every day to pick red berries. After picking them, he covered them with a cloth like a thief, terrified that someone else might catch a glimpse.
At night, he watched Song Xia make the sour cake, carefully wrapping up the discarded hawthorns and removed seeds, either throwing them onto the mountain the next day or burying them in their own courtyard.
And so, over the next few days, under Shen Chunming’s supervision, Song Xia used up most of her cane sugar in one breath, making a whole small basket of sour cake.
Just in time, a week had passed, and her agricultural tools should be finished by now.