Lin Jingwan began preparing the badger!
She took out a kitchen knife and precisely aimed it at the neck. The blade moved swiftly, and after only a few clean strokes, the entire badger hide was neatly peeled off.
When Li Zhaoye came in and saw her precise knife work, he didn’t think much of it.
Lin Jingwan’s grandmother was a descendant of imperial chefs, and the culinary skills had been passed down through generations. Her knife skills and cooking abilities were naturally bound to be impressive.
Sure enough, Lin Jingwan quickly bled the animal, removed the connective tissue, divided the meat into portions, and completed the entire process in one smooth sequence. Before long, the meat was ready.
A hint of approval flashed through Li Zhaoye’s eyes.
“Jingwan, do you need any help?”
“No, you just finished working, so go wash up. Luoluo and I can handle this.”
“Alright.”
Li Zhaoye was actually looking forward to tasting this supposedly inherited culinary skill.
“Luoluo, come and tend the fire,” Lin Jingwan instructed.
“Okay, Sis!”
Children in the countryside learned to take responsibility from a young age. Tending the fire, cooking rice, and making porridge were all things little Luoluo knew how to do.
After cleaning the pot, Lin Jingwan simply dumped a basinful of raw meat into the iron pot.
She added a ladleful of water, covered the pot, and put the lid on.
Luoluo, who had been adding firewood, suddenly froze.
“Sis… you’re cooking the meat directly in plain water?”
“Mm. As long as it gets cooked.”
Luoluo suddenly had a bad feeling.
Because she watched as her sister began rummaging through the jars.
Then Lin Jingwan scooped up two heaping spoonfuls of coarse salt and tossed them straight into the pot. She stirred the salt into the raw meat, then covered the pot again.
Luoluo: “……Sis, shouldn’t salt be added at the very end, after the food is cooked?”
Lin Jingwan didn’t seem to care.
“It’s all the same. It’ll dissolve while it cooks anyway.
“Luoluo, keep a good eye on the fire and don’t let it go out. I’m going outside to find some vegetables. I’ll toss them in later and stew them together with the meat.”
With that, she walked straight out of the kitchen.
Luoluo watched her sister leave, then looked at the pot.
After hesitating for a long time, the little girl eventually added two more spoonfuls of water. The water level just barely covered the meat at the bottom of the pot.
Otherwise, with too little water, the meat would dry out and the pot might burn and then it wouldn’t taste good.
After thinking for a moment, she pulled out a green onion and tossed it into the pot along with two cloves of garlic.
The meat needed something to get rid of the gamey smell!!!
She felt that her sister had changed.
Ever since the night she had been forced to marry Gao Jinniu, she had become different.
She had become braver and more decisive, and she seemed to radiate a completely different kind of light.
But her cooking skills…
It seemed like she had forgotten them.
Hmm… perhaps her sister had simply been too tired these past few days.
Forgetting was fine. After all, she was still her sister the person who would always be closest to her and Hanhan.
Oh, right. She might as well add some soy sauce. That would make the meat taste better.
Meanwhile, Lin Jingwan went straight to the cellar at Lin Laosan’s house next door.
It was practically empty, with only a few potatoes left!
Without saying a word, she took them all, planning to stew them together with the meat.
As she approached the kitchen, she immediately smelled an enticing aroma.
She nodded in satisfaction.
Cooking wasn’t difficult after all!
During the apocalypse, supplies had been scarce. Everyone had been satisfied as long as they could fill their stomachs, and she had never had the opportunity to cook herself.
Now that she was giving it a try, it seemed pretty good!
Lin Jingwan thought she must have inherited some of the imperial chef’s culinary genes.
She lifted the lid of the pot, and the aroma became even stronger!
She nodded in satisfaction again.
“Luoluo, keep watching the fire. The meat needs to simmer for a while longer so we don’t get sick from eating it.”
“I know, Sis!”
After arranging everything, Lin Jingwan turned and left the kitchen.
She had to hurry to the Gao family’s house.
That’s right the Gao family!
She still hadn’t gotten revenge for the grudge of being bought as a bride!
They had probably returned from the hospital by now.
Lin Jingwan quietly made her way to Gao Jinniu’s house, and sure enough, she could hear angry cursing from inside.
“I don’t know which bastard stole from our house!
“Good grief! So much of our medicine is gone! What kind of disaster is this?!”
Gao Jinniu looked at his mother, who was baring her teeth and still had enough energy to curse, and comforted her.
“Mom, stop cursing and save your strength. Hurry up and make some food.”
“Fine. Go to the cellar and find a sweet potato. I’ll start making the porridge.”
“Erniu, help Grandma tend the fire. Your grandma is still a little weak.”
“Okay, Dad.”
Gao Jinniu picked up a bag and turned toward the cellar.
Lin Jingwan quietly followed him, carrying a burlap sack in her hand.
The cellar was dimly lit. Just as Gao Jinniu bent down to search for sweet potatoes, he suddenly sensed someone behind him.
He stiffened in shock and was just about to turn around when everything in front of him went black.
Someone had pulled the burlap sack over his head!
Immediately afterward, a heavy punch slammed into the back of his head.
“Bang! Bang!”
Lin Jingwan struck hard and accurately, throwing punch after punch, deliberately targeting his head!
Before long, the struggling inside the sack grew weaker and weaker until he finally passed out.
Lin Jingwan calmly returned, closed the cellar door, and opened the sack.
She pulled out the hammer tucked at her waist and brought it down on Gao Jinniu’s kneecap.
“Crack!”
The sound of bone breaking rang out, and Gao Jinniu jolted awake from the pain.
“Ah!”
But before his agonized scream could even fully escape, pain shot through his neck, and he passed out again.
Expressionless, Lin Jingwan smashed his other kneecap as well.
Gao Jinniu was no good man!
He had colluded with Old Madam Lin to buy her as his daughter-in-law and had even drugged her. Did he really think paying a hundred yuan in compensation would settle everything?
Not a chance!!
That man had a rotten heart!
Under the guise of being a veterinarian, he had secretly resold all kinds of drugs not to mention the fertility drugs meant to make pigs conceive faster.
Those powerful veterinary drugs… who knew how many young women he had secretly harmed with them?
He had even followed her mother before!
If she didn’t cripple a man like this, was she supposed to keep him around for the New Year?
He had even followed her mother before!!
If she didn’t cripple a man like this, was she supposed to keep him around for the New Year?
Thank goodness this society didn’t allow people to simply kill others; otherwise, he would have been a dead man!
After making sure both of his kneecaps were shattered, Lin Jingwan closed the cellar door and returned home.
Unexpectedly, she happened to run into Li Zhaoye, who had just finished washing up.
The man’s gaze was deep and unreadable. First, his eyes fell on the hammer in her hand, which was stained with traces of blood, then shifted to the burlap sack beside her.
After estimating how much time had passed, he ultimately said nothing more.
“Taken care of?”
“Mm-mm. Don’t worry. The sun will still rise tomorrow, and life will go on as usual.”
With that, Lin Jingwan smiled and smoothly changed the subject.
“Let’s eat, shall we? You can try my cooking and see how it tastes.”
“…Alright.”
Lin Jingwan secretly gave Li Zhaoye another point.
Who wouldn’t be happy with this kind of favoritism and indulgence?
Before long, steaming dishes were brought to the dining table.
The two adults and two children gathered around the table, and everyone’s eyes simultaneously landed on the large basin of glossy, fragrant stewed badger meat.
Li Zhaoye: This is the first time I’m trying Lin Jingwan’s cooking. I’m looking forward to it.
Lin Yihan: It’s wild game. It should taste pretty good, right?
Lin Luoluo: She added a little more garlic afterward. It should taste pretty good, right?
“Let’s eat.” Lin Jingwan was the first to pick up her chopsticks.
She picked up a piece of meat and put it into her mouth. Her brows instinctively knitted together slightly.
The meat was tough and dry, requiring quite a bit of chewing, and there was also a strong earthy, gamey smell.
This meat really couldn’t be considered tasty.
She silently swallowed it and made up her mind: she would never eat wild badger again.
Li Zhaoye also picked up a piece to taste.
The texture was somewhat like lean beef, except even tougher and more fibrous.
And that persistent gamey odor was impossible to get rid of. The flavor wasn’t particularly good.
But he had personally witnessed Lin Jingwan’s excellent knife skills steady, precise, clean, and practiced. He figured that the family simply didn’t have enough seasonings. Considering how limited their ingredients were, getting the meat cooked at all was already an achievement. Not all wild game was delicious.
(He had questioned every aspect of the wild game except Lin Jingwan’s cooking.)
Meanwhile, Hanhan picked up a piece of badger meat and put it into his mouth, chewing hard.
The meat was dry, tough, and incredibly chewy, with an unpleasant gamey flavor that lingered in his mouth.
His cheeks were practically sore from chewing, yet he still couldn’t break the meat down.
He instinctively turned his head toward Luoluo beside him. Sure enough, his little sister had the exact same disgusted expression.
Luoluo: This badger meat is way too awful! Even adding green onions and garlic couldn’t save it!
Ah! I’m never eating this again!
The siblings exchanged a knowing glance and silently picked out some potatoes instead.
In the end, all four of them tacitly agreed that the problem was simply that badger meat was naturally too tough and coarse.